Can't say no to Novotny...

Karla Novotny stopped in real early to do her homework in advance.

Wanted to know our system... how all the processes worked... what the options were... and what was due and when.  Oh and... there was one other thing...

"Are you willing to travel?"

Am I willing to travel?!?!!?

PLEASE!  ;)

Turns out that her daughter, Amy, works on a dairy farm nursing baby calves.  So the question was whether I could travel to photograph Miss Amy with one of her "patients."

Most folks know that I've spared little expense to get to where I need to go to get the image that's requested, so I had to giggle a little when I found out where our destination was...

"About a mile south of town here."

As in... a mile south of Montour!

So there we were... on our long-distance escapade to a farm field a mile out of town and Amy's uncle Denny met us there with a young calf.

I've photographed seniors with steers and cows before... but never a calf like this... so I really had no idea of what to expect.

What we found was that it was a difficult proposition at best!  ;)    The idiot photographer was over there somehow trying to talk to the calf like it was a responsive dog or something... the calf was clearly not happy to be there in what turned out to be a very warm fall day in the 90s... and we were scramblin' trying to get a sellable image.   Amy had a halter-like device on the little calf to keep him from getting away... but the poor thing just look whupped in most everything we tried to do.

After tugging the calf around several times trying in vain to get the pose we wanted... and having him rear up and give Amy a decent smack to the chops even, Uncle Denny got desperate.

"Let's trying taking that lead off."

At the risk of letting the calf run free in the field... we did just that... and whaddya know... we got some better images... and our country girl got her mission completed.

We weren't done there, as Cowgirl Amy had boots planned in no less than 3 of her outfits... so there were grainbins, barns, haybales, and sheds aplenty for this gal.  In a year that has seemed to be dominated by 4-inch heels and jeans that run $150 at the Buckle... Amy was a breath of fresh air with her need for the open country side air...  

So, yes... I indeed did travel, just like Mrs. Novotny had hoped I would.   I'm not sure that it was really ever a much of a question, but with gas prices hovering around four bucks a gallon... my expense report thanks you for your travel request!  ;)