Farewell to the Cowboying Couple

Farewell to my friends and ranching neighbors Chris & Diana Elwood who have been a cowboying together for over thirty five years. Things will not be the same without this hard working, salt of the earth, cowboying couple in the area. After 16 years on the nearby old Double X Ranch - starting as hands at the Pines Camp then moving up to excellent managers of the Double X & 7 Cross, they will be hitting the trail back to Montana. Nothing lasts forever, I know, but sometimes you sure wish it would. Words and photos cannot express friendships formed on horseback while cowboying together and all the gorgeous rides on the Old Double X.  I will miss working together and helping each other out - they were a big part of the crew south of Belvidere, South Dakota. I feel lucky to have got in on some of the years while they were here. Thanks for keeping the Double X a true cowboy ranch and for all your help over the years and of course friendship and laughs. I know I speak for many when I say - you will be missed.

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU ...

©JEAN LAUGHTON 

Gathering Porcupine Pasture - Badure Ranch

 Woke up to the sound of a pack of nearby coyotes. Put on my 'costume' for the day and stepped out of my Scotty camper ready for the day's cowboying ... Headed out on horseback just before sunrise on the Badure Ranch next door ... The Crew: Baxter Badure, Al Badure, Brianna Badure, Colter Carlson, Joe Pavlis, Chris Elwood, Bob Fortune, Charlie Fortune, Kenny Fox, Wade Fox, Lyle O'Bryan and Me ... Watched the sun come up over the yucca covered hills as we rode towards the back of the cowboy movie set of a pasture ...  camera-ready silhouetted cowboys riding the ridges above me ... multi colored cows and calves trailing down the draws... riders decked out in full cowboy gear spread out for miles across a large pasture trailing several hundred head in from all directions ... like an endless reel of iconic cowboy movie scenes come to life one after another ... my mind absorbs the day in a series of 'storyboard' images ... I know this isn't a movie but it sure feels like a celluloid day dream ... Once gathered, we worked the heifers east and the steers west in a dance of cow and calf, horse and rider ... cutting pairs out one at a time while holding the rest back ...with a little chasing now and then making for some great action scenes ... a few cowboys trailed the heifers to Horseshoe Butte and the rest pushed the steers across to Black Pipe ...  Back to a house packed full of vintage beaded gauntlet gloves, antique guns, and old time saddles for lunch in a museum-like setting ... One of the best times of the year- Fall ... one of the best parts of my job - helping the neighbors and riding with the crew from south of Belvidere, South Dakota.
©JEAN LAUGHTON

Sale Barn - Philip, South Dakota

Paul Wearing Fancy Gloves

Paul Scherf looking a little "William S. Hart"
©JEAN LAUGHTON 

Baxter and Paint

Baxter Badure and Paint a few years back ... ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Lyle and Flaxy

Lyle and Flaxy stopping for a minute so I could take a quick snapshot - we were heading out to gather a big herd on the Badure Ranch next door - Monday August 15th. ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Custom Made by BAXTER BADURE

My Ranching Life portfolio - made by the ever talented cowboy / artist Baxter Badure. We are doing a chick version next. By the time I get finished here I am going to need fifty of them to fill with ranching photos and stories ... Coming next, the autobiographical custom saddle - planning on over the top design with every inch of leather tooled and carved ... sort of the Nudie suit of saddles ... stay tuned. ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Another Fall Ranching Season Begins

And so begins another Fall season of cattle work - one of the best times of the year. Awoke at 4:30 AM to a million watt moon that lit my way to the old log barn. Henry was finishing up his oats when I walked into his 'dressing room' backstage to get him saddled up. Loaded Flaxy and Henry into the trailer and Lyle drove us to the 'location' for the day's scene. Beautiful drive as the sun was thinking of rising to our left while the enormous moon was glowing pink and setting to our right. It all felt scripted as if the sun and moon had rehearsed their timing. I felt keenly aware of soaking up every minute of it all as we arrived at the Pines Corral on the old Double X Ranch to join the rest of the 'cast' and crew to begin our day.

A small crew of cowboys headed out on a sunrise ride - Chris Elwood, Baxter Badure, Al Badure, Lyle O'Bryan, Charlie Fortune, Joe Pavlis, Colter Carlson and myself. We trotted a few miles through tall lush green grasses (a rare sight in November) to a distant pasture. Cowboys spread out to the back of the pasture to gather several hundred red cows. Baxter, Charlie, and I stopped at the edge of the pasture and looked down and out across an adjoining Badlands pasture - making for a grand view from the saddle. Once gathered, we strung the pairs through a gate and trailed them back to the corrals under an endless sky - all the while feeling like I was riding in a John Ford movie scene - being followed by a cameraman on a dolly. My mind wanders from the cinematic daydream to the reality of the work I am doing as I ride along side the herd pushing them onward.

Penned the pairs and started the choreographed work of sorting the cows off the calves - horses and cowboys working in a sort of rhythm - holding the calves back while funneling the cows out the gate. Ran the calves through the alley and gave them their fall shots along with pirate-like patches for a few with pink eye. Then ran the cows through and poured them and reunited them with their calves - (roll heart warming soundtrack).

Trailing the herd back was equally as picturesque with an epic view from the back of the herd. We counted the cows and calves through the final gate - turning them back out to graze. Rode the few miles back to the corrals listening to stories along the way along with the sound of jingling spurs, horses trotting and their hooves moving through the tall grasses. Ended with lunch on the prairie. (roll ending credits) ... Another long glorious take to add to the 'reel' of memories from my last eight years here.

(the photo is from the same work done on the same ranch back in 2005 - photographed from horseback with Noblex 120 (film) camera "Putting Pairs Back out to Pasture on the Old Double X"- from the series My Ranching Life - Archival Pigment Print 20" x 48") ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Lyle O'Bryan & Cody (2010)

Lyle and Cody by the old log barn on Lyle's Quarter Circle XL Ranch. Cody is one of the many horses Lyle has broke and trained in his lifetime, so far. I love to hear him and his cowboy friends tell stories from their early cowboying days, remembering each and every horse they rode by name. The respect and relationship between horse and cowboy. Lyle talks of his days working on the nearby Double X Ranch in his 20's and getting a horse started then jumping on him the next morning to wrangle horses and really getting him broke - he might buck and really run, of course, but Lyle has the reputation for staying on and says he just fell in behind the herd he was wrangling and rode it out. He also recalls 30 below zero mornings and heading out to ride the big circle on the Double X Ranch. Making the rounds to feed cattle from the cake shacks scattered throughout the rugged Badlands pasture. Riding alone on a bronc that was assigned to him and never completely sure that he would make it back alive on some days. You were given a string of horses to break and ride and you just did it. That is a different kind of tough - that is Lyle's cowboy life ... Cody was a colt in training when I showed up here and he has been one of my main horses the past few years and well broke, thanks to Lyle. ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Polaroid 665 "Relics"

2003 Polaroids : Cowboy / artist / snake loving Baxter Badure made these one of a kind, opulent, studded, over the top, magnificent, 'snake' chaps. They are quite a sight to behold as he goes galloping across the Great Plains - glamour and glitter amid sagebrush and Badlands. (L to R : Baxter / Chris Elwood / Baxter's Chaps) ©JEAN LAUGHTON

And Now For Our Feature Presentation:The Ever Alluring 'Baby'

Pony's Co Star - the "Veronica Lake" of the cattle world - the "Lillian Gish" of the Great Plains in her first 'talkie' ... she takes direction well and always hits her mark ... take it away "Baby" ...
©JEAN LAUGHTON

Cooling Thoughts on a Sizzling Day

On this 105 degree day, I reflect back to riding during blizzards at calving time. Here, Lyle and Foxy - along with Cody and me - are heading out to check on the newborn calves - Spring 2009. There is something fantastic about riding in a snowstorm - like being in a giant snow globe - in a private ranch world - very present in the moment and very aware of nature and it's power. Trotting along on my trusty Pony, making the first tracks in the fresh snow, feeling as if I have stepped into a dramatic movie scene with wind machines blowing fake snow until my imagination brings me back to full on reality with no camera crew, no fake props, no stand-in and no one yelling 'cut!'.
©JEAN LAUGHTON 

Pony - isms

"Diary" excerpts ...

"Sugar coated candied orange moon hanging so low over the Badlands I could almost reach up from atop the Badlands and take a bite out of it ... maybe if I stood on my Pony's back ..." November 10, 2010

"Pony standing in the glowing snow under a half moon lit sky ... on this Western soundstage - his mane blowing in the howling prairie wind - awaiting his next scene ..." January 23, 2010

"Rode home under a full moon ... quiet and beautiful ... my horse and I casting a shadow on the prairie ... my grey Pony was glowing in the moonlight waiting to greet me when I returned - good ol' Pony..." March 28, 2010

"Big moon - vast sky - Quiet night - Pony's sleepy sigh ..." May 25, 2010

"It is one silent night here with beautiful light snow falling like painted white cornflakes on a Capra movie set - the perfect set dressing for Pony's prairie 'stage' ..." December 20, 2010

"Orion's celestial accessory hanging vertically above the eastern horizon ...Millions of twinkling stars up above Pony so high ... like 'brilliant cut' diamonds in the sky ... If they should fall I wish they may I wish they might bejewel Pony's silver mane tonight ..." November 1, 2010

©JEAN LAUGHTON 

Gone West

The backdrop from my Go West series (1995-2003). A portraiture series I photographed during summers while traveling West from New York City in my Bronco loaded with backdrops and 4x5 - setting up behind the scenes at rodeos in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. A series that took me on a journey of sorts in search of photographic subjects, a cinematic form of reality, the past, my future, a new identity out West perhaps - and eventually led me to the Badlands and to the ranch where I now work and live my life "beyond the brushstrokes" of the painted backdrop - if you look real close you can see Pony and me riding around inside the Western scene. Or as my good friend Tom so eloquently put it ...

"I get the sense that where you live is beyond here or there. Maybe it's not in the place the photograph depicts...not really in the photograph either, since we rarely see you there. The backdrop and the film are your frontier and the real range you ride. Perhaps the camera lens, which pulls together inner and outer worlds, is where you are. You've fashioned a cocoon of scenic, romantic immensity within the reflective, ground-glass eclipse that somehow manages to avoid reflecting cliche, triviality or exploitation. You've manifested a suspended dreamtime that is more real for you than the physical scene. When details intrude, it shatters the reality of the magic. You are like Alice and the looking glass. Somehow you've gotten through the surface of the tintype and beyond the brush strokes on the backdrop. You've time-traveled through the yellowed wood pulp and fading black ink of old newspaper clippings. The dust and the trail you were riding became the silver nitrate and celluloid of a silent western and you and your pony have somehow sunk into it and remained whole. Your presence in the real physical scene is only an artifact of your true presence inside the surface. We know where your heart lies and why it lies there. We realize we can't get there. This is the ache of beauty and longing and why that ache sustains us. It is no accident that you've built the portal from whence you travel in a place called 'Interior'." (Tom Havran 2010)

©JEAN LAUGHTON 

The Supporting Cast

Heading out to cake the cows last winter - Buster Keaton Style.
©JEAN LAUGHTON 

Wade Fox in a 'Billy the Kid' Pose

Wade Fox, neighboring rancher and all around cowboy. Wade grew up on his family's ranch (Kenny & Roxie Fox) ranch just down the road and has been at it since he was a small kid. Wade is just one of the many of the 'cast of characters' I neighbor with who respect the cowboy heritage of the past and carry on its traditions with their cowboying and attire. One day Wade will be one of the old timer cowboys in the area with many a tale to tell of his days riding the range. Good to have some young blood in the crew for now - he can hustle and get the job done and also cracks a mean whip - yeehaw.
©JEAN LAUGHTON 

Ethel Thode Haying on the Ranch Back When

It has been one the wettest years in some time around here - so we have been stopping and starting haying for weeks - working around the rain. The mosquitoes are horrendous but the calves will be fat this fall and the cows will have plenty to eat with all the abundance of lush green grass. It seems the rain has been falling mainly on the plains - great plains that is. ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Interior Ranch Rodeo July 2, 2011

Craig McKenzie (Murdo, South Dakota) staying on during the wild horse race at the Interior Ranch Rodeo - real working cowboys from area ranches competing. The event consists of a team of four cowboys catching a bronc, saddling it, getting on and riding the bronc ride to other end of the arena. Best part of the rodeo by far. ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Chris Elwood - The Other Half of the Cowboying Couple

Anyone would have a hard time keeping up with Chris - he is one hardworking cowboy managing two ranches. Always on the go, on a good horse, which he broke and trained. Late in 2010, Chris experienced one of the risks of cowboying - his horse stepped in a hole and fell on him - breaking his pelvis badly. It was a tough time for him and his family, but I am happy to say he pulled through and was 'back in the saddle' several months later. You would never know he had been injured to watch him work and to see him cut a rug on the dance floor. ©JEAN LAUGHTON

Diana Elwood

Diana has been ranching most of her life. She and her husband Chris are the cowboying couple who manage both the old Double X and 7 Cross ranches just down the road (now Rapid Creek Ranches). Diana is the kind of cowboy that can handle what ever needs to be done: riding miles of pasture, working cattle, roping, calving, and also doing double duty cooking dinner for the crew. Don’t mistake her small stature - she is chocked full of heart, integrity and courage. ©JEAN LAUGHTON