Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to a hot brand for large stock, though the term is now also used to refer to other alternative techniques such as freeze branding.

Some History: The act of marking livestock with fire-heated marks to identify ownership has origins in ancient times, with use dating back to the ancient Egyptians. Among the ancient Romans, the symbols used for brands were sometimes chosen as part of a magic spell aimed at protecting the animal from harm.

In English lexicon, the word brand originally meant anything hot or burning, such as a firebrand, a burning stick. By the European Middle Ages, it commonly identified the process of burning a mark into stock animals with thick hides, such as cattle, so as to identify ownership under animus revertendi. The practice became particularly widespread in nations with large cattle grazing regions, such as Spain.

These European customs were imported to the Americas and were further refined by the vaquero tradition in what today is the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. In the American West, a branding iron consisted of an iron rod with a simple symbol or mark, which cowboys heated in a fire. After the branding iron turned red-hot, the cowboy pressed the branding iron against the hide of the cow. The unique brand meant that cattle owned by multiple ranches could then graze freely together on the open range. Cowboys could then separate the cattle at round-up time for driving to market. Cattle rustlers using “running irons” were ingenious in changing brands. The most famous brand change involved the making of the X I T brand into a star with a cross inside. Brands became so numerous that it became necessary to record them in books that the ranchers could carry in their pockets. Laws were passed requiring the registration of brands and the inspection of cattle driven through various territories. Penalties were imposed on those who failed to obtain a bill of sale with a list of brands on the animals purchased.

From the Americas, many cattle branding traditions and techniques spread to Australia, where a distinct set of traditions and techniques developed. Livestock branding has been practiced in Australia since 1866, but it was not until 1897 that each owner had to register his brand. These fire and paint brands could not then be duplicated legally.

The Collegiate Peaks(or Collegiate Range) is a name given to a section of the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains located in central Colorado. The Collegiate Peaks include some of the highest mountains in the Rockies. The section is so named because several of the mountains are named for prominent universities.

Highest point: Mount Harvard @ 14,427 ft (4,397 m)
Length: 34 mi (55 km), W-E
Width: 30 mi (48 km), N-S
Area: 587 sq mi (1,520 km²)

The Taylor Park Reservoir is a body of water created by the Taylor Park Dam, which dams the Taylor River of Colorado, United States. The dam and reservoir, located about 35 miles northeast of Gunnison, are part of the Uncompahgre Project in Colorado. Recreation management at the reservoir is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service and offers camping and fishing. Available fish species in the reservoir include rainbow, brown, and cutthroat trout, mackinaw, kokanee, northern pike, and brook trout in the tributaries. The summit of Cottonwood Pass lies a few miles east of the reservoir and can be accessed via Gunnison County Road 209 during the summer months.

“T.L. Stormes of New York died on April 30, 1879, in Tin Cup Camp and has the distinction of being the first person buried in the Tin Cup Cemetery. At that time, the gold rush had just started with the discovery of the mother lode on Gold Hill. It was a violent era with short tempers, free flowing whiskey, and ready guns.”

IT’S THE CEMETERY of four knolls. Four distinct knolls, one each for the Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic religions, and a fourth knoll, Boot Hill, for nondenominational burials and violent deaths. It is the Tin Cup, Colorado, Cemetery, and well over a thousand people visit it each year from early June through late fall.

Tin Cup lies three miles due west of the continental divide in a high mountain valley called Taylor Park. As legend has it, the town’s name was born in 1859, when Ben Gray dipped his tin cup into a stream and caught a drink of water — full of gravel tinged with gold. One of Gray’s prospecting partners on that early-day foray was Jim Taylor, whose name lives on.

Tin Cup’s name, however, had a brief respite. By 1879, the town was unofficially known as Tin Cup Camp, but it was incorporated as Virginia City in 1880. Then the U.S. Post Office protested that designation — since there was too much confusion with the mails going to Virginia City, Nevada, Virginia City, Montana and Virginia City, Colorado. After two years of bitter quarreling and indecision, a meeting was called in 1882, and the town was reincorporated under the name “Tin Cup.”

By then, however, a lonely cluster of hills south of town had already been converted into burial knolls, and the cemetery was well established.

Read the rest of the story by Eleanor P. Harrington

Reprinted with permission from: Colorado Central Magazine

So put on your headphones, kick your feet up on your desk, close your eyes and just listen to the sounds of the plains.

The Eastern Plains are part of the High Plains, which are the westernmost portion of the Great Plains. The region is characterized mostly by rolling plains, divided by the South Platte River and Arkansas River valleys. There are also several deciduous forests and a few large natural lakes and rivers throughout the region. There are also scattered canyons, buttes, and mesas on the high plains, much different than the plains further east into the Midwest. The Eastern Plains rise from approximately 3,500 feet at the eastern border of Colorado with Kansas, where the Arkansas River leaves the state, to 6,000 feet east of the Denver Basin.

Great Horned Owls range in length from 18-25 inches (46–68 cm) and have a wingspan of 40-60.5 in (101–153 cm); Females are larger than males, an average adult being 22 in (55 cm) long with a 49 in (124 cm) wingspan and weighing about 3.1 lbs (1400 g).

Adults have large ear tufts, a reddish, brown or gray face and a white patch on the throat. The iris is yellow, except the amber-eyed South American Great Horned Owl (B. V. nacurutu). Its “horns” are neither ears nor horns, simply tufts of feathers. The underparts are light with brown barring; the upper parts are mottled brown. The legs and feet are covered in feathers up to the talons. There are individual and regional variations in color; birds from the sub-Arctic are a washed-out, light-buff color, while those from Central America can be a dark chocolate brown.

Their call is a low-pitched but loud ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo; sometimes it is only four syllables instead of five. The female’s call is higher and rises in pitch at the end of the call. Young owls make hissing or screeching sounds that are often confused with the calls of Barn Owls.

The Texas Longhorn is a breed of cattle known for its characteristic horns, which can extend to 7 feet (2.1 m) tip to tip for steers and exceptional cows, and 36 to 80 inches (0.91 to 2.0 m) tip to tip for bulls. Horns can have a slight upward turn at their tips or even triple twist. Texas Longhorns are known for their diverse coloring. Texas Longhorns with elite genetics can often fetch $40,000 or more at auction with the record of $170,000 in recent history for a cow. Due to their innate gentle disposition and intelligence, Texas Longhorns are increasingly being trained as riding steers.

Daily: May 21st, 2011
Title: Nursing Calf
Location: Searle Ranch
Geo: Ellicott, Colorado
Operator: Chris Sgaraglino
Camera: Sony NX5u
Post Processing: None