Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

This picture is not being posted because of its eye-catching qualities, there aren’t many. I am putting this up to show a quick look at what can be done in post processing. This is a compilation of two scans of 4X6 photos shot with a Nikon FE and a 35mm lens. Taken in ’94 on a ranch in Wyoming where we had stayed for 3 years. These were found while rooting through a box of memories and while each photo by itself doesn’t have nearly the look of the place, by stitching the two together the size of the ranch starts to become apparent. Something that wasn’t easily possible 25 years ago.
The images were stitched using Microsoft ‘ICE” but needed to be masked for exposure adjustments. The original sky was burned out. Bald. That was replaced after adjustments to exposure, contrast &etc. A bit of vignette was added to the bottom of the combined image to add some depth.
This is not a wall hanger by any stretch of the imagination however it does evoke memories for us. I hope this little demo will inspire some to go through their old files and that they will be able rework some to revive old memories. (and maybe they haven’t lost their negative files during a move )

Compilation

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Originals

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robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

A project to keep you busy and off the streets out of trouble.

PS: Those are funny looking cows. Were they born too close to Alamogordo?

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

Don't let them hear you say that!
Trucked in from Nev (Area 51)

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Many years ago when I was working for a big supermarket chain while in college and weekends as a new teacher the company signed a contract with a group of ranchers in the Dakotas who were raising Bison/Buffalo and "Beefalo". The healthy eating types were praising it to high heaven about how much healthier it was than beef.
In the area (Huntington Park, CA in LA county) we had a family of Lakota/Sioux. The Grandfather had moved to the LA area in the late 30s to work as an extra and consultant for western movies and later TV shows. He was a friendly guy and most of us had made friends with him. The first time he came in after we got some in the meat dept we told him and asked if he wanted to try it.
His answer: "No! When I was a kid my Dad and Uncles worked for the Rangers in the National Park next to the reservation. One of their jobs was to thin the herd when they started eating all the plants in the park. They and the Rangers got to have as much of the meat as they wanted. I ate so much of that stuff that if I never taste it again it will be too soon. Give me a well cured beef sirloin or pork roast any day. Maybe I will get some to feed to the Grandkids, they have never tasted it."

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

It works for me as you wished. Drew our some good stories, too.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

Sounds like me and chicken. I never ate too much buffalo so I still like it but beef is juicier. The buffalo is an interesting animal in its own right and way of life. If you're interested I try to find a link that tells more than the history.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

I'm glad Bob, hope you wound up with a smile on your face.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Don't trouble yourself, retired history teacher and I have researched and read about Bison in the past.
Now if you know where to get some of the giant "long horn" Bison from just before the last Ice Age????

This illustration is the 5 types known from history/fossils. The little guy on the right is our modern plains Bison. From my reading the Eastern Woods Bison sub-species was a little smaller.

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Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

I don't know about that "long horned" critter and I'm not sure I'd be in a big hurry to find it.
In my opinion the little guy on the right after having been known by hundreds of millions of people for three hundred or so years as a buffalo should be labeled, at the least, bison buffalo. Maybe with quotation marks around buffalo.
Do you know what a taraxacum is without looking it up? Hint, it sure as hell isn't a lion.
Anyway, I was referring to both the habits and physical abilities of the beast. For instance, when a cow is about to calf she will go off from the herd to be alone. She does this to not draw coyotes or wolves to the herd during the calving. At the same time several others will go off with her to act as guards. Like professional football players, just because they're big and hairy it doesn't mean they're stupid.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Nice job saving those old photos! Makes me think I should go back and see what some of my old Konica A3 and Canon A1 negatives look like.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

[quote=Rich1939]I don't know about that "long horned" critter and I'm not sure I'd be in a big hurry to find it.
In my opinion the little guy on the right after having been known by hundreds of millions of people for three hundred or so years as a buffalo should be labeled, at the least, bison buffalo. Maybe with quotation marks around buffalo.
Do you know what a taraxacum ?????? No speaka de latin. Had to look it up - California dandelion.
I did do a search for the origin of the name.
"The English name, dandelion, is a corruption of the French dent de lion meaning "lion's tooth", referring to the coarsely toothed leaves."
Oh, turns out the "taraxacum" is a corruption of a 12th century misspelling of the name as translated from Arabic.

PS: they have skeletons of the long horned ones at the La Brea Tar Pits museum. The only thing in the place that makes them look small is the mounted "Imperial Mammoth" 13' at the shoulders without any flesh or skin, must have been about 14' in life. And the giant ground sloth is almost as big as the bison. Then there are the little animals - Dire wolves, they make the gray wolf look like a half grown puppy. Something back then made things grow bigger.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

[quote=robertjerl]

As is often the case, the 800-year-old reading, technically correct though interesting is in direct odds with an accepted modern interpretation. If we wish to beat this line to death, why is it correct to call a "Bubalus bubalis" aka "carabao" a water buffalo? Which colonizing English Lord eschewed the native's name for this animal (probably couldn't get his tongue wrapped around their word) and christened it according to his prejudices? Why is his use of the name correct and the lowly American colonists use of it wrong? If you review the etymology of buffalo you will find in ancient times it was used as a rather catch all name for a big, cloven hoofed, horned animal. Wet or dry.
Addendum. búfalo in Spanish translates to great, fantastic. I can see how this very easily went from describing the beast to becoming its colloquial name. A French word, Buffle can translate to mean any wild ox. There are similar words in the Germanic languages referring to oxen.
The Spanish, French and the Dutch were all running around North America long before the English, is it any wonder that the animal they found there became known as a buffalo? Europeans called similar animals a form of the word for centuries before Columbus took his Caribbean cruise.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

And since English is a composite language and American English with a ton more words from language(s) X, Y & Z... is even more of a composite (US English never met a word it wouldn't at least consider adopting, even if we already have a word or two for it) we can confuse non-English speakers even more. Heck, we can confuse English speakers from other countries or other parts of the US.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

When I first got the urge to see my country back in the 60s there were still places where conversation was really tough. The worst was a bit earlier. In 57-58 I was stationed in Chincoteague Virginia. Up until WWII when an airbase was constructed there, that was very remote and pretty much didn't have contact with the rest of Virginia let alone the US. When I got there some 12 years later, they still spoke a form of Elizabethan English which had been tempered some by contact with the world. But it was damned hard to understand what they were saying. Particularly if they were excited. When I started visiting other areas it wasn't as bad but it was sure interesting.
Today national TV networks with industry trained talking heads have gone a long way toward homogenizing the American experience. It can still be interesting but not as much fun as when there were very distinct dialects to "translate".

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

A few areas still have distinct speech patterns and vocabulary but today the main difference is the accent and even those are beginning to blend and smooth. In immigrant areas you still have unique things. 29 of my 35 years with Los Angeles Unified School District (one year was student teaching) I was in East Los Angeles where Spanglish was in several different forms dependent on the home country of the Spanish speaker transitioning to English. And the different forms of Spanish sometimes just created confusion but there was a lot of prejudice also. Once in a parent conference (kid was a wannabe gang member) the mother and father were agreeing with all the Vice Principal (he was translating, the mother had almost no English-she claimed) was saying and even making notes of the suggestions he and I were making to deal with their son's problems. Then something came up that the VP didn't know the Mexican Spanish for so he lapsed into his native Puerto Rican Spanish. The mother jerked upright with a very indignant look on her face and almost shouted (in perfect, non accented English) "You are Puerto Rican! You are prejudiced against our son because he is Mexican! This conference is over." She then jumped to her feet and stormed out. The husband gathered up her things she left on the table, looked and us shook his head and shrugged then followed her. the VP told me the husband called later and explained that when his wife got like that it was no use trying to talk to her. You just had to wait for her to get over it. She did and the problems were solved a few days later.

That was simple compared to a school I was at for 5 years in the Silver Lake area of LA between Griffith Park and downtown. A middle class immigrant area with people from all over the world. Over 40 languages at the time and my last homeroom before I transferred to East LA had 11 languages - the whole class was fluent enough in English to go to college in English but 11 home languages. Actually a few kids spoke at least 3 languages but were only allowed to list 1 besides English on the survey forms. One boy was college level fluent in 5 languages. The best thing about that school was they couldn't just hire bilingual Eng/Sp teachers for teaching English As A Second Language (ESL for short). They had to hire people who were really skilled ESL teachers. The counselors did try to keep the number of languages to 6 or less in anyone ESL class. They also tried to group related languages together. We had a brother and sister who were the only two students in LA who spoke their language. The brother at our HS and his sister at one of our feeder Jr Highs. The district hired one of their older cousins who was an education major at UCLA to do translating etc at the two schools.