Koby’s happy place is without a doubt out in the arena when we are riding or roping. You can’t get him not to smile! While I’m leading horses out to ride, he will grab ahold of the lead ropes and pull the horses around. He’s a terrible cow dog, but he doesn’t know that. He’s good at scattering them more then he is herding them. But this his happy place, so we let him do what he wants for the most part. 

I never was much of a dog person before Koby. When my daughter rescued him from a neighbor who wasn’t taking very good care of a mom and her pups, I made her keep him in the barn because I struggle with animals in the house. That didn’t last for very long. Pretty soon, it was “Can he stay in for a while?” “Can he sleep in the house tonight? It’s too cold for him outside?” next thing I knew, he was inside living the spoiled dog life. Eating table scraps every meal, sleeping on the couch getting hair all over it, eating fancy dog food. I try and keep him outside with me as much as possible, but if we are not out in the arena and it’s naptime, he would just as soon be inside. 

I’m now a dog guy…

This is my son-in-law Mason hot shoeing a horse setting a toe clip with the smoke drifting away from it. We were in our shop with Chris Dickinson having some fun getting creative. It worked out pretty good for me; I got some images I liked, and I also got Mason to trim our horse’s feet this time around. I love the way the light caught the smoke drifting away from the shoe!

I want to thank everyone who has bought a print, followed me on social media, commented on a post, shared, or liked it in the last year. I appreciate the support! It means more to me than I will ever be able to put into words. There is nothing better than to post an image and connect with a total stranger and have them comment back their heart and soul and tell me what the image means to them. Often, they are better at telling me what the photos say than I am. Pretty humbling for me. I will forever be grateful for everyone in my Tribe! Not just social media either, all my close friends who have supported me from the beginning, I love you guys, and I’m excited to see what 2021 brings!

I think I would rather get a root canal than take a picture of myself. For some reason, I don’t mind seeing other people’s pictures they have taken of themselves, especially if they are done in a classy none narcissistic way. I like to see images of other photographers. It helps put a face to the pictures and helps tell their story. For whatever reason, when I think about posting a photo of myself, all I can think about is how much it feels like I am being narcissistic. It’s one of the traits in humans I am not very fond of. But! I am also a big believer in pushing yourself out of your comfort zones to grow and learn. So here I go pushing myself out of my comfort zone to try and tell my story to help people to know and understand who I am, and why I do what I do. 

I have always liked to learn. I think it’s essential to improve yourself and work on your craft. So when I go out to feed my horses at night, if I think there might be some good light, I’ll take my camera and practice. I’m far from the 10,000 hours of training. I’ve heard that it takes before, you are considered good at something. But after last night, I’m a couple of hours closer.