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Hello there!

September 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Cat and I have been on the road recently, driving back and forth to visit my family in Indiana. It was great to get to enjoy the cooler temperatures up north and it seems that we may have brought some of the pleasant weather back with us. You can thank me later :) I wish that we could have brought some rain, but maybe someone else can tackle that task.

I know that the iPhone is the demise of social interaction, and we have no put rules in to action about when we can use our iPhones and when they have to be put away. Without even knowing, we would be sitting in the living room or even at a restaurant and would be playing on our phones. We would not be engaging in conversation with one another, unless it was via text message. So now, we have schedule a part of each day where we get to “play” on our phone.

I think that our number one time waster on the iPhone is Instagram. It is BY FAR our favorite app. If you have an iPhone, but don’t have this app, you are really missing out. It is a fun photo sharing application that allows you to take a picture on your phone, apply one of numerous filters to kick it up a notch, and then post it to your profile for all your friends to see. You can also see what your friends are doing!

What I like the most about it is that it is very informal. If you want to take a picture of your cereal bowl and upload it you can! If you want to take a picture of your spouse sleeping and drool coming out their mouth you can do that too :) But you probably shouldn’t!

Here are a few “shots” from our recent travels. Also, if you do have an iPhone, and want to follow us you can, and we would love for you to! Our names are “catneumayr” and “lukeneumayr”.

Only four days until the weekend :)

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life, Pets

A short video…

August 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You may remember the pictures of one of our clients father while he was working cows. If you didn’t get a chance to look at them, click here.

After the cattle had all be sorted, some of the cowboys went to get their trailers backed up to the pens so they could start loading the cattle to take to various other pastures and the local auction barn.

While we were waiting for the loading process to begin, I got out my phone to try and capture some of the sounds that were all around us. It is just a short little video, but I think you can better understand how vocal these cattle were.

Click on the link below to view this video :)
IMG_0310

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life

Mr. Andrew “Pops” McClure :: Custom On-Location Photographer

July 8, 2011 By 3 Comments

I have been sitting here for about an hour trying to figure out how to write this particular blog. The thing is, I just cannot think of the right words to say. All I can say is that this was such a special event and I am honored that I was asked to be a part of it.

We were hired by a friend of ours, Kelli, who wanted us to follow around her dad and capture him in his element. Her dad is a total old school rancher and knows his way around the cow lot. It was very neat for me to be able to sit back and get this photos as the events unfolded during the morning cow working.

You will notice that the pictures are all in black and white. I have always wanted to do an entire session in black and white and this was the perfect opportunity.

I will leave it at that, and share the memories that I was able to capture.

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life, Portraits

Baby Beef

July 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have a very special post that I am working on that will go up later in the day.

But first, I wanted to share this little snapshot with you.

Hope this brightened up your morning!

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life

Our New Sign

June 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you have been to our house, you were probably given directions that included instructions look for the V8 sign at our driveway. When Catherine and I got her parents a big sign for the entrance to the ranch headquarters, we also got a smaller one for ourselves. Here is what ours looks like.

Our sign served as a great landmark to identify our house. However, it has also presented a few problems.

1) Our house and driveway sits before the big V8 sign, another landmark that is used to guide visitors to the ranch. What does this mean? We have had many of people stop at our house thinking that it was the headquarters for the ranch and wanted to look at cattle. Then we would have to say “Nope, keep going to the next driveway on the right. There is a BIG sign there.”

2) I think that it created a little bit of confusion when I was telling people how to get to Our Little Ranch, and then I would tell them to look for our V8 Ranch sign. If anyone is as directionally challenge as I (Luke) am, this could have been a big problem.

So what is the solution? A NEW SIGN BABY!

We were so happy with the service and talent of Noella from Sign-It Signs, that we knew exactly who we would get to make our new Our Little Ranch sign.

Noella, is one of the nicest ladies around! During our last project, she kept sending me updates and pictures as the sign was going through their design process. Noella lives in Canada, so we have not had the priveledge to meet, but I would love to be able to go to her shop. Our last project was during the fall and the colors of the trees around her place it nothing short of amazing! I wonder if I can find those pictures? I think that I can and I will show you them. Maybe we all can take a trip to visit her!

So far we are SUPER EXCITED with what we have seen from Noella for our new sign.

Here are a few snapshots Noella sent me.

I am dying to see more and share them with you!

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life Tagged With: , , ,

The Good Ole Days!

May 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Many many moons ago, when the paint was still fresh on the fences at Our Little Ranch, our only photo subjects were ourselves. Beans, Buttons, Wilma, Catherine, and myself all served as guinea pigs for new things we wanted to try.

Well, not too much has changed, because we still practice and perfect our skills on each other. We just do not get to experiment as much as we used to. Tonight, Catherine and I decided that we would take the girls (Wilma and Dolores) on a little excursion in the pasture behind the house. We got to trade the camera back and forth and “play” photographer with one another.

Here are two random pictures that we took. We each took one of them, so see if you can figure out who took which one!

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life, Pets

Jeepers Creepers!

April 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How many of you have a vehicle or have seen a vehicle with the side blind zone warning indicator thing in the mirror?

If you still have no clue what I am talking about, it looks like this.

It is a very handy technology that lets you know if a car (or something!) is in your blind zone. It turns yellow when a object is on either side of you and when you turn on your turn signal, if there is something beside you it blinks very quickly.

Like I said this is a great tool and I am sure it has prevented many accidents. The problem is I think that ours might have a glitch.

Why would I think that you ask?

Well, recently when we are driving around at night and when no one is around us the light comes on, indicating there is something in our blind zone.

Thinking that maybe someone is passing us that I didn’t notice coming up behind us, I look in the mirror only to see a black abyss. Nothing! No car, no moped, nada!

Being somewhat of the scaredy-cat that I am, for some reason each time this happens I think of the movie Jeepers Creepers and I think that the Creeper is on top of the car. For those of you that have seen it the part where the Creeper jumps on the top of the bus, tears open the roof like a can of Spam, and plucks one of the riders out and sucks out their brains is the scene that comes to mind.

Haven’t seen the movie? Well, for your viewing pleasure and my horror, I found some pictures on the internet of this event! These are all images that race through my head.

The horror!

Just replace the character with Catherine and I, and I think that this could actually happen to us. For a moment or two when the side blind zone light goes off I think that my brains are about to be sucked out or that the Creeper is going to appear on our hood. This also carries over to when I take Wilma out at night and hear things off in the distance. I usually take a flashlight out with me to look for “eye-shines” to see if 1) the cows are close and 2) to make sure there isn’t a hoard of coyotes roaming the pastures at night. However, when I see a set of eyes way off in the distance I usually wish I didn’t see them and think that it could be the Creeper stalking me.

Once the eyes started running towards me and frozen with fear I just stood there. I was wanting desperately to scream and run for the porch and grab my machete, but for some reason my feet wouldn’t move. Turns out it was just one of the porch cats trying to find a late night snack out in the tall grass. Still it was scary!

In reality, I should not be worried about the Creeper, but instead the snakes that are starting to emerge and will begin to make me second guess every step I take. I hate snakes!

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life

Meet Clarence

March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The word on the street is that today is the first official full day of spring. I think that Mother Nature is messing with us down here along the gulf coast, because it has been in the 80′s and we have already had to mow the yard. Seems like spring has already sprung, but what do I know?!

Any hoo, this morning while taking Wilma out for her “morning ritual” of running across the pasture to do her “bid-ness”, we found this little guy.

The way that we stumbled across this green guy is Wilma usually roams around the yard and smells (yes, smells!) the flowers. She will stick her nose in the flower bushes and stand there and sniff. Then she will go over to the actual flowers and smell them too. I don’t know why she does it, but she does it anytime she is outside. She says she just enjoys the sights and smells of being outside and is trying to get her fill before the summer inferno begins and we fly to Antartica.

So, Wilma was smelling the flowers. Then she started to dash back and forth infront of one of the rose bushes. It was like she was playing tag with the stupid bush, she would run up to it, touch it with her nose, and then run in a circle. I walked over to see if I could get in on the action and that is when I noticed Clarence. (But at this time he was still nameless!) So told Wilma to keep her eye on him and I went and got the camera.

I came back out, took a picture, and we headed back in.

I just went out to see if I could see Clarence again, but he is MIA. He may be trying to hop out of Bean’s (our little porch cat assassin) stomach. Maybe he was just hiding deep in the bush and I couldn’t see him.

Some of you may be asking why I named the frog. Well, I will tell you. Since we live out here in the boonies, we don’t get to see our friends too often, or we have to make a special trip to get together. So, by creating our own little “Secret Garden” with named animals it makes our days of no human contact a little brighter. (Yes, after reading what I just wrote, I am thinking of committing myself to the looney bin!)

I won’t even get into the relationship that my cast iron skillet and I have. The two of us go WAY back!

In other news, we have now had our new 5D Mark II for about a week and we should have got this years ago. But, I will save all of those details for another post.

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life, Pets

Saturday Update

March 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How lame of a blog post title is that! I could not think of anything else to put, so “Saturday Update” is the name of this post.

Catherine and I have been very busy around these parts lately. Between sessions, consults, house guests, and a number of other things, we have not had the time to blog as much as we would like. I was just looking through my pictures and boy do I have a lot to share with y’all. So much it is almost overwhelming on where to start.

*** just a forewarning, the upcoming posts could have nothing to do with anything and make no sense. ***

While I am trying to compile the pictures to blog with, I wanted to leave you with something. On our recent “teaching” trip around the yard, one of us got this neat picture of some weeds. Yes, the weather is warm enough for weeds and the grass to grow. We have already mowed the yard once so far, and it was a very sad day. The cool temperatures of winter are almost a thing of the past and the inferno of summer is just around the corner.

Now that Catherine and I will both be taking pictures, it will be interesting to see if you guys will be able to tell who took what picture. I am not sure if our styles will be similar or totally different. I would guess they would be similar since I am the one that is teaching her, but once she perfects all the skills to run the camera and make it do what she wants, who knows what her pictures will look like.

Be sure to keep an eye out to see if you can spot who takes the pictures that we post. Maybe at the beginning we should put our names on them. Or would that take the fun out of it? Thoughts?

Hasta Mañana Amigos!

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life

First Snakes Of The Season

March 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

For those of you that have been regulars at Our Little Ranch, you will know that I am horrified (read: scream like a little girl when I see one) of snakes. Well, here along the gulf coast the temperatures are on the rise and the snakes are coming out in full force. In the past few days we have had more snake sightings that necessary and I am sure that I will have a close encounter with the “live” kind any day.

Check out these nasty buggers.

In other news, we have some friends staying with us for the next couple of days. Drew and Holli Hatmaker came all the way from Kentucky to visit OLRP and also go with us to the Houston Stock Show. Maybe they can help me battle the snakes? Maybe they could be the front line of the infantry? Maybe they can stay here during the summer when the snakes are crawling around and we can go to their house in Kentucky and stay there?

We are about to head out and tour around the ranch and see what all we can find. Holli recently bought a good camera and wants a few pointers on how to use her camera to its fullest potential, so I am going to try and teach her a thing or two. I figured that she could learn the same way I did, by just taking pictures of what is around her and since we have the whole ranch to roam around, that provides a great classroom.

Until next time friends!

Mr. Scaredy Pants

Filed Under: Around the Ranch, Our Life
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