Yellow Sunflowers and Delightful Cows

What a great cow in the pasture filled with yellow flowers! All of Oklahoma prairie country is not flat as it may seem. See the hills to the northwest?

Sunflowers are a spectacle in September. The bloom along fences and in ditches, low places and in fields.

The yellow wildflowers dominate the late summer days.

This youngster had his eye out. Maybe he had heard rumors about how I was once accused of cattle rustling. A few years ago, we bought a new cow and calf. After a storm, a disgruntled rancher claimed the two were his missing cattle. His claim was disproved, but you could say my good name was dragged through the pasture. Granny, a cattle rustler? Nah.

Like a dancer bowing at the end of a lovely performance.

Greeting passerby in the wind and the blue Oklahoma sky.

      Goldenrod and wild quinine bloom together in many fields and ditches.

Another unusual spotted cow in a sun-filled pasture.

This one wouldn't pose. He was busy munching grass.

The red barn on Liberty Road is one of my favorite sights. I also love to see old wooden fence posts and gate posts.

The spoked wheel of an antique hay rake is a cherished keepsake of a farmer from a generation gone before.

Ahhhh the lone sunflower catching some rays.

Sunflowers capture light where they grow up there a pasture fence and in every unmown field.

Rock Creek Buffalo Ranch

Little Church on the Prairie

The Wilson Chapel is located on highway 16 west of Muskogee Oklahoma.

The inscription on the buildings cornerstone says Wilson Chaple BPT CH (Baptist Church) was organized  August 21, 1906.

The Wilson Chapel Baptist Church still holds services.

An addition of cinder block?

This water well sits outside the front entrance. Hooks held the bucket ropes.

These windows were bricked in. I wondered why.

A vase of silk flowers decorate each window sill.

The little chapel on the prairie. There are many little white church building spread across the prairie. Some built of stone or bricks painted white, many of clapboard.

More Gates

Hidden Valley Farm Highway 16 near Beggs, Oklahoma

Ranch Country Gates

A cool front was moving in  across this hot sky. It built all afternoon and the next day the prairie got some water. Wildhorse Ranch...what an exciting name. This ranch is located on Highway 16 in eastern Oklahoma south of Tulsa, near Beggs, Oklahoma.

Trails End Ranch...another great gate sign. I don't know why these ranch gates intrigue me, but maybe they are an unnoticed and slowly vanishing part of the prairie lands.

The "W" hanging off the end is a fun touch, huh? I saw this one in the hills somewhere in Arkansas just across the hills from Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

No Man's Land sign had figures worked in

wrought iron and wagon wheels. I love the term 'wrought iron" almost as much as well as "barbed wire."

 Here is the last stanza of a poem I wrote about the pasture lands. It's called Of a Summer Morning:

Out in the pasture where cows gentle graze,

White egrets stalk silently through summer days.

Grasshoppers balance- on hot grasses sway,

To the melodies blackbirds and barbed wire play. 

A red-tailed hawk sat perched on the north end of the Longhorn cattle ranch gate. One click of my camera and he flew. What a sight.

My guess is that this ranch is owned by Mr. Barnhart. A cute sign but not an entrance gate.

Windmill for the cattle water well. Many ranches need one to bring up water in dry spells.

Hard to read against a bright blue sky, Tiwana Ranch, is on Highway 16 west of Beggs.

RICE?

The Dillingham ranch is located east of Okmulgee, Oklahoma. It was a huge working ranch for many years. Recently we have noticed the signs coming down.

 These ranches define the rolling prairies and the people who have raised beef cattle and horses in this region for many years. Fences and gates, pastures and ponds, grass, cows, egrets and dragonflies. I love it all!