I thought I was all done posting Dairy Show photos .. but there's more! (1) Spunky, (2) Spunky, (3) Sassy, (4) Buttercream.
1: Spunky practices the "Rita wild eye".
2. Serious face, unserious sawdust on her nose.
3. Detail of Sassy using Spunky as a headrest.
4. Buttercream's default resting pose, she will often turn sideways in the stall & take up 3x more space than allotted. Last year, we had to shift the whole line b/c of Buttercream's mom, Cocoa Puff.

#FarmPhotography #CowsOfMastodon

Final Dairy Show 2023 photos: 1: Ruby (L) and Sassy (R), almost the same age and in the same class. 2: location in WV, hotter (and humider? my word) than the hubs of Hades, but lovely. The barn is behind me. Betty the dry cow (3), and Ruby the littlest one curled up for a nap (4). All Ayrshires in these photos.
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Buttercream the Brown Swiss at a dairy show. She frequently kept an alert eye on what was going on from her stall 👀 .

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Betty the Ayrshire, with Buttercream the Brown Swiss and Helena the Holstein in the background. We showed Betty as a dry cow, she milked over 100lb.s a day at points during her first lactation. That's really good for an Ayrshire.
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Ruby the Ayrshire walks to her feed at Mom's.
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Sassy! The Ayrshire at Mom's. She is freshly clipped and ready to go to a show.
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A whitetail doe (female deer) taking off into a soybean field. I had disturbed her resting place and she was peeved. I'm not in love with this photo for a few reasons, but I was startled by the flies. They go with her!
#DeerOfMastodon #FarmPhotography

A flycatcher at the farm.
Nikon z6ii, 700mm, 1/1600s, ISO 1600, f/9, handheld.
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Buttercream the Brown Swiss, recently clipped for a show. "What?!"
She is getting very big and she knows it -- using her weight to push the humans around. Mom's catch pen system is very creative and effective.
Nikon z6ii, f/5.6, ISO 2000, 1/320s, 230mm.
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I got lucky capturing this Northern Mockingbird in flight. It previously had been perching on the brown weeds.
Nikon z6ii, 700mm, ISO 1000, 1/1000s, f/9.
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A deer at the farm, she was lying down in tall grass when I spotted her. And then she ran off into the soybeans, leaping through them.
Nikon z6ii, 700mm, f/9, 1/800s, ISO 640.
#DeerOfMastodon #FarmPhotography

Our pup in her best farm dog impersonation. We put her on a line while we worked with the dairy heifers, and she sat in one space smelling the air.
#DogsOfMastodon #MonDog #FarmPhotography

RITA the Ayrshire heifer, she of the wild eyes (this is her signature look). She is due to calve in November, but since she resembles a barrel and is bagging up, we think sooner.

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Buttercream is in the middle of the animal-bends-around-to-lick-themselves maneuver, like cats, but less elegant.

Nikon z6ii, 70mm, f/5.6, 1/400s, ISO 2000, handheld.
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Some of the bigger heifers at Mom's come in to sniff her and see if she has brought them feed. Mom's pose + the heifers' poses get me thinking that Mom is conducting them in some bovine business. L-R: Mom, Buttercream the Brown Swiss, Rachel and Rita the Ayrshires. Rita being classic Rita, see this thread for more
https://sigmoid.social/@at/110704294163263847
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"Hi, where's the feed, eh?"
Buttercream the Brown Swiss walks across the pasture at Mom's.
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Chicken in a box on a farm in Floyd, Virginia, USA #PhotoMonday #Chicken #Photography #OM1 #GetOlympus #FarmPhotography #ON1Pics #LoveVA

Ruby (L) and Sassy (R) as calf infants. Sassy was a twin but now is as big as Ruby. Ruby is quite long-suffering when it comes to her batchmate : ) 8/
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Rita! Being weird in the pasture -- likely she is preparing to swing her head around to lick her mid back area. Buttercream approaches in the background. 7/
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Back to Rita the Ayrshire! Here she is again as a calf infant, running around her pen. This was when I was just starting w/ photography in 2020ish, I remember spending a lot of time trying to get the focus and depth of field figured out. 5/
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