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Friday 22 July 2011

Vacation -Thematic Photography

The Vacation theme this week gave me something of a problem as I have already used many of my photos on earlier blog posts which mainly deal with wildlife.

Checkout these links to see what I took:
Michigan Wildlife
Birding in Michigan
When Rocky Met Bambi
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

However when were were packing to leave on the last morning of our vacation at my daughter's house in Michigan my wife called to us to look out of the window. No-one got excited as we expected to see a deer as they are regular visitors to the grounds.

I grabbed my camera and got this shot of the animal strolling by the front porch. A deer it was not!

Bullock 
My daughter wanted to know whether it was a cow. To my wife and I it obviously was not. When my son-in-law was roused confusion reigned over just what we had seen. By this time the bullock was out of sight.

In America the term bull is understood, but not bullock. We settled for American terminology in the end and the English bullock became a steer.

This meant that it was necessary to set up a 'steer(ing)' committee. First we had to find the steer. In the meantime my son-in-law had alerted the local sheriff that there was bull on the loose and had driven round the neighbourhood to check if one had been lost.

By searching the grounds I located the steer at the edge of the property by the swamp and near the boundary road.

Steer at bay.
 When the sheriff arrived this photo was vital evidence for him as he had expected to see the black bull that had gone walk about earlier in the week.

The final steer(ing) committee was soon complete - the sheriff, the attorney (my daughter), the photographer (me), my son-in-law, a farm hand and Halo, his dog. However the steer had moved on. It was to be Halo's job to flush him out. Halo was far more interested in the scent left by my daughter's dogs.

Halo, the St Bernard.
Halo did respond to a shout and a whistle from his owner who was now deep in the woods.

Halo to the rescue
Despite all the efforts the steer eluded everyone, Even although his exit to a nearby farm was found the steer was not. Perhaps he is wandering on still looking for his herd.

The steer(ing) committee disbanded and every one cooled down, the dogs in the lake.

Cooling off period.
An interesting end to a vacation; see more holiday snaps at Carmi's thematic photographic 154 Vacation

5 comments:

Alexia said...

Great story - I so enjoyed reading about this episode, Bob! Poor little steer - I hope he found his way home.
Gorgeous dogs; so glad they were so helpful ;)

Kavi said...

Interesting ! Alls well ends well, as they say ! So with steering committees too ! :)

shelly said...

Great pictures with a good story.

carmilevy said...

What a cool experience - and that steer had such a sweet face! Great capture - both photographically and of the story in general. Life's definitely made up of moments like these, and you seem to capture them with such grace!

Monika Borua said...

Great photo collection. Thanks!
Methods of Modern Farming