The Cattle and the Pond

I am fairly certain that I am currently caught up with On Sooner Trails.  Now I need to go on some new adventures!  :-)


For now I thought I would discuss the wallpaper that you see on this blog.  The wallpaper is a modification of this:

This photo makes the picture look rather small.  This picture is probably about 24" x 24" or so without the frame.  It is the top portion of what used to be a big calendar - like the ones businesses would give away sometimes back in the day.  Now I know businesses still give away calendars (we have BEAUTIFUL ones here at the funeral home! :-)), but I mean the BIG ones.  I haven't seen those in a long time.  This was from a BIG one that Ferguson Motor Company gave away. 


No one seems to know when it is from.  Apparently Ferguson Motor Company did the calendars every year and always had Hereford Cattle, but probably not the same pic every year.  The best guess seems to place it sometime in the 70s or 80s, but they did calendars like that long before then as well. 


This particular one was framed and given as a gift to Charles Ferguson by somebody or other....yeah, the salient details slip right by me.  That isn't the important part, though it is muy interesante.  What is important is that I have become obsessed with this picture. 


When I started the blog I was going to use WordPress which is the platform for my other blog, Cannons, Beads and Raktajino.  I wanted a very specific look, something that screams 'Oklahoma' and I could not seem to find a template that allowed me to use a pic on the background as more than an accessory.  I needed it to SCREAM Oklahoma!  And so I checked out BlogSpot (or Blogger, whatever!).  This way I had much more freedom to customize. 


The next problem was what would SCREAM Oklahoma?!  I flipped through tons of pics online and on my computer and landed on one of the Hereford Cattle (not this particular photo of it).  What could say 'Oklahoma' better?  Cloudy skies, muddy pond, clumsy cattle, cowboy in the back and those hills in the background that say 'the Great Plains' in a way that people that aren't from around here could never understand.  Technically I don't know if this is meant to be Oklahoma or not.  My guess is that it is.   


I have been trying to figure out where this came from!  I have looked everywhere - on websites that offer stock photos for commercial calendars, stock photo websites, e-bay and more.  I even used TinEye reverse image search.  Nothing.  No joy.  The origins remain a mystery.


So that was August 8, 2011, it seems.  Start the blog, show everyone the wallpaper because I thought it was so cool, and then I don't think that much of it for months.  But I see that picture every day at work and the more I see it, the more I am fascinated.  It just SAYS Oklahoma!  And let's not forget that is coming from an Okie that wouldn't know that those are Hereford Cattle if it hadn't been for the Boss Man telling me that.


Are you getting my point?  Obsessed I've become.  With this picture.  It IS Oklahoma!  I don't know why I like it so much.  I don't decorate in Western (and wouldn't have it in my house! :-) ).  I have never been around farms or cattle or anything of the sort.  So WHY IS THIS OKLAHOMA TO ME, you ask?!  I don't know.  But it is.  I mean - look at it.  

And now I see it everywhere.  At work.  On my blog.  I even used PicsArt for the first time to take a picture of it - and now the wallpaper on my HTC EVO is the above edited version of the cattle!


So there you have it.  Now you don't have to wonder anymore about OST's wallpaper.  :-)