This copy of a picture was in my files - hope someone has the original. It is a picture of Daddy with his friend, Dwight Tabler (whom brother Dwight was named after). Wasn't he the one whose father helped Dad make connections with Elsie and Dewey? Sorry you can't enlarge this picture well - the pixels just break up. Nevertheless, the dress, which was everyday school dress for Denver schools, seems quite formal. If we could see the whole picture, I think these were short pants, with knee socks. This is one of the few pictures we have of Dad in this period of his life.
We do think of our father, Russell Marion Blood, as a cowboy, but in truth, he lived on his aunt Elsie and uncle Dewey Riddle's ranch from the age of 16 until he married our mother. While the ranch was a working ranch, it profited from the rage of the Eastern dudes (and dudenes), from the East, who came to live the make-believe Western life for a short time. Dad always loved his Stetson hats, and one would last forever, being gradually demoted from a "town" hat to the hat he wore to irrigate, drive the tractor, etc., only traded for a straw hat in the middle of summer. The conch (the round piece above) is from his conch belt, which he wore proudly for many years. I think that when it disintegrated, the conchs were distributed to me and my siblings. Do you have yours? The bucking horse was made into a pin, which school teachers and others proudly wore. Later, they were transformed into refrigerator magnets. The picture of Mother and Dad and baby Louise to the right, shows Dad dressed in the well-worn, practical clothes of a ranch hand. We usually celebrated Dad's birthday with a cake and the table set appropriately. He would come in from milking and comment that it must be somebody's birthday because of the way the table was set.
This was taken sometime in the early 1940's. The original picture includes the old car, and Judy - I think.
This was taken during the summer of 1980, when Dad found solace from Mother's cancer diagnosis and surgery by making two big marquetry pictures that summer.
Russell Marion Blood, photo taken when he was one year old. The other picture is the classic on his mother's lap.
I have often teased about the experiences some of us had in the beet field. For some of us (Judy and me) it was short lived - shorter for me than Judy. For others (Dwight and Elizabeth) there were days or weeks spent doing that tedious work. Tucked in a journal Dad had started at one time, copies of which are in the works, there was this card regarding the sugar beet crop. All of a sudden (ok, so I am a slow learner) the time spent in the fields took on a whole new meaning. I thought you might enjoy the science behind the field work.
I came across a series of portrait like pictures of Dad, the one posted yesterday at 3 months, the one posted previously at 3 1/2 years (if I remember correctly) and then this one, with no age indicated, but was taken in Fort Collins. Again, I don't remember this being posted before. The style of clothing is the same in this photo as the one taken at 3 1/2 years. Is it any wonder Dad loved his "cowboy clothes"?
In one of Aunt Elsie's letters to Dad, she comments that Dr. Dominick, who purchased their ranch, preserved the original structure and style of the home and cabins. Compare these photos from Mother's album taken during her Sunlight days, with the current photo in an early post with the link to the ranch website. 
There is more to the story. When I moved to Powell to teach school in 1970, I moved into a house on South Bent Street across from Feusner's Dairy. Dad said that this was where Bernice Bruce lived. He was a little sweet on her - said she had black hair and rosy cheeks. Of course, she ended up being the mother to Bobby Bruce, whom Dwight used to tease me about - sorry, but he was not a very nice person. And the difference between the quality of our mother and Bernice became apparent in later years - glad things transpired as they did.
