It had been several years since our family made the trip to Merced. Taking highway 99 the trip to Merced, from Modesto was fairly uneventful. It was a lovely day for a drive. What a bonus that we were able to spend the day with family.
The trip home was just the icing on the cake so to speak. The weather was perfect and the trip home was a real thrill. To be honest, I wasn't exactly excited to find that we would be taking highway 59 back home to Twain Harte. At first the road appeared to be miles of not much to look at, until we neared the town of Snelling.
![]() Merced Area Orchard |
![]() Snelling Area Sunset |
![]() Snelling Area Field |
I urged my husband to stop and allow me to take some lovely shots of a delightful orchard with the trees in full bloom. They appeared to go on forever in the distance. Little did I know this was just the beginning...
It wasn't long before I discovered what appeared to be a marshy swamp area that I thought would provide some perfect pictures to snap, so again I urged Shawn to stop. It was then that we caught our first glimpse of the Frontier Buffalo Farm on the side of the road. We were in for a real treat - we found much more than buffalo roaming these grasslands.
![]() Llama |
![]() Frontier Buffalo Ranch |
![]() Ostrich |
Picasa is a terrific program, offered free by Google. I use it practically every single day. This free software is versatile, efficient and fun to use. I am always a little leary of downloading free software but I have to tell you that next to Google Earth, this is one of the neatest programs I've ever used.
Picasa will automatically search your computer for all your photo's and import them for you automatically. Picasa offers loads of extras. You can get rid of red eye in a snap, share pictures with your friends quickly and easily. You can create slideshows and put up webpages in a snap. Picasa sorts your photo's and images into their own folder, to create a tidy display. My personal favorite is being able to rotate an image without losing quality, which is what happens with many other photo programs.
Unfortunately, Google killed off Picasa in favor of their Google Photos website.
I certainly didn't know what to think about the Highland cow, pictured here. Having never laid eyes on such an animal before, I of course came home and let my trusty computer fill in the blanks.
According to Cattle Today, Highland cattle were developed in the western Highlands of Scotland and the outlying islands. This breed has remained unchanged for the last 200 years. The Highland Cattle Breed Society was founded in 1884 with the first herd book animals registered in 1885.
Watusi are medium-sized animals, with long, large-diameter horns, they attract attention wherever they appear. These regal animals can easily trace their ancestry back more than 6,000 years and have often been referred to as "cattle of kings."
This is an Indo-Brazilian cow, its extremely long, large, pendulous ears make it easy to identify. This is a type of Zebu, which was developed in Brazil. It has the largest ears of any of the cattle breeds. The breed is white to dark gray (as shown here) to redish tan in color. The Indo-Brazilian are generally taller and lighter muscled than the Brahman. They are hardy, heat and insect tolerant cattle that do well in hot, humid areas, which is likely why they do well in the Merced area.
It was an incredible experience finding such a wide variety of animals, all in one place, living together, where we could stop and view them in such lovely surroundings. If you are ever out for a drive down highway 59 be sure to stop off to visit them.
I have recently learned that this incredible farm, "Oak Valley Dairy" is owned by Lloyd and Babette Pareira, along with their children. This family owned and operated farm offers organic butter, milk, eggs and roasting hens to area residents and even some local restaurants. For more information the Pareira Family can be reached at (209) 722-1149.
I hope you enjoy these pictures, just keep in mind that they are the highest quality images I could upload, the files are very large, in most cases at least 2 meg. So, be sure to save them to your computer before trying to view them. I will be adding more as time allows.
To view images of Twain Harte and a few Kennedy Meadows photos, visit TwainHarteTimes.com
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Updated February 10, 2009