Goshen County Photography: Open Season

It’s Open Season for this Goshen County Photographer for fall sessions, pheasant stocking and general family craziness.

Our lives are inextricably linked with the life cycle of the pheasants here at the bird farm.  While we enjoy the seasons of the year, our free time and family schedule is often dictated by wings and feathers and needy birds.

Fall is no exception.  Beginning around mid-October, my husband is consumed with releasing the pheasants.  He rises, does chores and feeds birds in the morning, loads birds right after lunch and stocks birds on the Springer Wildlife Habitat Management Unit at 4 p.m. each evening.  Every day, for almost a month, it’s the same schedule, weekdays and weekends.  In his words, rather, rinse, repeat.

Once the general pheasant season starts, it gets even crazier.  Not only are they stocking Springer several days a week, they are stocking walk-in areas in Goshen, Platte and Laramie counties and hauling birds to Glendo for release.

It all gets a bit…tiresome.  There are no days off, no weekends hunting elk or deer in the Big Horns.  Just pheasants.  Add in my crazy photography schedule and…well…chaos ensues.  I’m going one way, Outdoor Guy is going the other and some nights we both fall asleep on the couch before the late news.

So yesterday, I made it a point to keep my schedule open so I could ride-along with him as he stocked pheasants.  We bounced along the release route together, laughing at inside jokes and enjoying the view.  He even let me break out the camera and my new GoPro and tolerated my photographer shenanigans.

I did snag a few great shots of the pheasants being released.  But better than that, I snagged a few minutes with my husband.  It reminds me of his work ethic and helps me appreciate how much work he does for our family.

And it reminds me why I fell in love with him in the first place.  The release season is a grind.  But regardless of how much work it is for him, how tired he is, he’s continued to support me and my crazy dream of running a photography business.  I know he’d rather have me at home with him and our daughter.  Let’s face it…there were a lot more pies on the table at night when I wasn’t shooting professionally.  But he supports my love of photography and knows something inside of me needs to be creating,  He doesn’t always understand it, but he supports it.

And that’s what makes our marriage work…understanding that loving someone means giving them roots and wings.

–Teresa