Saturday, September 10

Summer's Last Stand

Autumn is definitely in the air...we're still having nice, sunny weather in the high 70's to low 80's but it's supposed to come to an abrupt end Wed., dropping to the 60's. Autumn is very short-lived in S Dakota (sigh) before we start seeing s**w...last year we were real lucky, no white stuff until the very end of Oct. Well, not that we plan on being here for at least part of winter....

Anyway, we had company earlier this week, an ex-co-worker of hubby's and his wife were heading for Oklahoma and stopped in for a couple days. I did the tourist guide thing for them, including a drive thru the wildlife loop at Custer State Park...



It's that time of year...the bulls are checking out the females...we came upon two separate herds, both mainly females and calves, with a few bulls among them sizing up the gals for more procreating...


This bull is just chillin' with a female he seems to fancy...



...But this wiry red-haired calf isn't necessarily his offspring....junior was looking a bit nervous...I would too with a one ton hooved hunk of meat breathing down my neck...


Many of the "wild" (my ass, pardon the pun) burros have foals...they are cute but the traffic jam tourists cause due to burro gawking is slightly annoying...you can pet the burros, that's how wild they are...they block traffic looking for handouts...mom trains the foals in this fine art...


...Most of the buffalo calves have turned brown by now...



Life's rough on a sunny day in a state park...for now...little does he know, in about two weeks he'll be getting a hot iron brand pressed to his rump! The annual buffalo round-up is Sept. 26th this year.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, the bulls are so very large! Love the little ones. Terrific photographs! Thank you for taking your lucky blog readers along on your Custer State Park Tour. Fantastic!

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  2. We both seem to have a green and brown theme in our posts, Jann! The little burro is extremely pretty. It's been in the mid 60's here this past week, but warmer today and it will be in the 80's by Wednesday. We're exchanging weather I guess!

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  3. Those bulls are huge! The burro is cute. I can see why people want to feed them, but I'm sure it's a pain for the regulars. I'm not looking forward to winter either and ours won't be nearly as bad as there. Since last winter was horrid, I'm hoping for a milder one this year. Fingers crossed.

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