It has been a pretty wild month. Lots of cold and we are going to have a white Christmas. Dec. 12 and 13 I was in Torrington for the Annual 2-Shot Goose Hunt. It is a great time to be had for all and one of my favorite shows to do. I have always sold well there and have won several Purchase Awards over the years but never the top purchase award. Sales were terrible through most of the show until the last night banquet when awards were handed out. I finally did it. I won the top purchase award. That kinda got the ball rolling. Will never understand how that happens but after winning an award it seems like your work is sudddenly in demand. Oh well. I'll go along with it. By nights end I had sold 2 major paintings and another midsize watercolor.
The show always has a quick draw on opening night and I along with my gallery pardner Tom Lucas, took top earnings with our respective 45 minute paintings. This photo is of me discussing my piece depicting a grove of sun struck Aspens to a potential bidder shortly after completing the Gouache watercolor painting.
The Banquet night also sports an auction of art that each artist is required to submit. We do receive 50% of the proceeds fromn that auction and again both Tom and I tied for top money. That all makes for a great show and again a great time. They sure treat you good there and the food is worth going for even if an artist never sold a thing.
We did pack out in a raging blizzard and half of the trip back home was not fun.
On the 14th I went into the Lander hospital for a hernia surgery and am just now getting back to some semblance of normal. All I can say about recuperating is it is very boring. Once this thing heals up pretty well I am looking at my last surgery from Cancer complications in Denver probably 2 months from now. It has been a long 3 1/2 years but the end is in sight.

Another opportunity for deer pictures included these nicely posed does. The lighting was perfect and they posed beautifully

This morning I went back up to Torrey Creek, home of the largest Bighorn Sheep herd in the world. I spotted a number of them high on a ridge well out of my time frame for reaching them this day. It is -9 degrees so pretty brisk temperature wise. The slopes of Whiskey Mountain are also full of Elk slowly retreating towards the timber to spend a day resting after grazing the cold slopes all night. There are many deer out and I spend a good portion of the early morning photographing them including this nice buck skylined against a cloudless blue sky. A little different from yesterday that found us with falling temperatures and nearly 5" of snow.

It was a very windy day and a high overcast sky lent itself to being almost dismal except for the sheep and many deer. Was surprised that I did not find any Bucks but probably 100 does and fawns scattered throughout the area.

This is the spetacular season when the Bighorn Rams battle and vie for position in the Bighorn Sheep world. I spent the other morning watching some of the posturing and behavioral patterns of these beautiful critters. This was by far the largest and oldest Ram in the bunch and there was no fighting going on as it was no question as far as how 3 other small rams matched up. It was interesting and fun though to watch how they all interzacted with one another. They and 8 ewes and lambs were on a natural salt lick south of Dubois[this is the largest Bighorn Sheep herd in the world] I shot a large number of photos which will work great for future paintings. After I left several friends of mine were in the area and hiked up on the rim where they encountered a large number of sheep and watched a lone wolf. Early in the morning I found a Doe Mule deer carcass being worked on by natures garbage detail[Ravens and Magpies]I speculated on just what might have happened and a wolf kill is an entirely plausable explanation.??