Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Well, I didn’t see everybody during my visit to the basin yesterday, but I did see enough to recognize Duke is “missing” from his usual group (Hook and Chrome, following Steeldust). Last April, he turned up alone and limping, and he stayed alone for nearly two months. I didn’t see him at all yesterday … I hope that’s all it is.

The forecast and weekend work duty gave me an excuse to head to the basin Friday (and given today’s 6 inches of snow and still falling, I’m glad I went). I didn’t go out last weekend; the mares should start foaling any week now, and I’ll be out there plenty for at least the next month of weekends.

Grey/Traveler and his band were out on the hill above the corrals southwest of Filly Peak when I first drove in. By the time I drove out later that afternoon, they were still on the hill but a bit farther south. Not close enough to see the mamas-to-be, but everyone was accounted for and looked content.

Poco, Roach and Bones

These horses were my next sighting (from near OR far), and they were right off the road in their usual territory (eastish, nearish the double ponds). Can you see the grey girl from here?

Bones with a belly

How ’bout now? And you can actually see her weird hip from his angle, too … Please, God, don’t rip her in half when that baby comes out into the world. I don’t mind saying I’m a little worried about the plucky girl.

Two windblown boys

Roach and Poco, enjoying some of the sunshine in the wind.

Bad dread day

The wind is tough when you have dreadlocks in your mane. It was deja vu from last Sunday and the Sunday before that. The wind was insane, and the dust was hanging in the sky before I even got to the basin in the morning. Thunderstorms were in the forecast, but that wind must have blown any thought of rain clear to Wyoming.

Swaying with the wind

Poor Bones was literally swaying on her feet as the wind pushed her. I was crossing an arroyo to get ahead of her for better light when I took this shot. You can see her big baby-belly and her protruding hip from this angle, too.

Bones and Poco

Poco had walked over to her, but she didn’t want any part of him.

Frisky Roach

Then big-boy Roach ambled over and nickered to her, but she wasn’t having any of him, either.

Poco to the rescue!

But that was more than Poco could take, so he chased away the interloper and saved the day, err, the mare.

At ease

A few seconds later: one little happy family (but note that Poco is between Roach and Bones). Brumley Point in the background.

Aspen and Co.

A few minutes later, I spied the breakaway band just as I was about to cross the “squishy” arroyo. Helpful, I know, but it’s the only one that’s even slightly wet anymore (except the first Spring Creek crossing), and it’s, well, squishy. At bottom left, left to right: Hollywood, Aspen and Piedra. At far right: Baylee. Up the hill: Hook (left) and Chrome. Duke usually hangs out with Chrome and Hook. The horses walked up and over that hill, and I wondered if Steeldust’s band was on the other side – and maybe Duke, too.

So I drove up onto roller-coaster ridge and pulled over where I could watch them – Steeldust’s band and Mouse and Comanche were, indeed, on the other side of the hill. In fact, I walked over that same hill a few weeks ago when I visited Poco, Bones and Roach on the south side and Bounce, Alegre and Gaia on the north. The horses were up against the hill, which comes down in  a couple of ridges, and I still couldn’t see Duke, but I thought he was just still out of sight. But then they all moved into the open, and he wasn’t with them. Where on Earth is he??

I hiked down the ridge and took some pix from across the arroyo that runs along the base.

Itchy

It’s a good thing the ponies are all still fuzzy, seeing as how winter follows spring this year (not that that’s a terribly unusual seasonal progression on the edge of the Rockies). Ember-girl is the oldest of last year’s babies and will be a year old in just a couple of weeks!

Ember with the boys

Possibly her brothers? Sundance in the middle and Butch at right. I don’t know if it’s very visible in this small pic, but see how the roots of Ember’s mane are grey? I had started to wonder lately if she was going to keep her red color and not turn grey, but seeing that grey-grey mane growing out, I do think she will eventually turn grey. Iya also was born bright sorrel – like Gaia and Storm – but she has gone so dark she looks black from a distance (sister Two Boots was born black and is now dark grey). Gaia will stay sorrel, I’m pretty sure, but I think Storm will eventually go grey, too.

Greasewood - breakfast of champions

Or lunch of hungry mamas-to-be. That’s heavy-pregnant Luna chowing on prickly winterized greasewood with Sundance, left, and Steeldust. Luna is Ember’s mama.

Focus on the belly

Just as Mahogany was walking along the opposite side of the arroyo, I hit the shutter … only to see later that she was trying to hide behind that weed covering her face. Drat. This girl still has a ways to go; she’s not due till May.

Lovely

Beautiful Alpha-lady, with Ember behind her.

Sleepy Storm

After lunch, little Storm-chaser was a tired boy, napping here with the wind in his face. He’s a little older than 8 months old now and still nursing from mama Alpha, who still looks good, if a little ribby. The good news is that she doesn’t look pregnant (PZP at work).

Seeing rose

Mahogany, left, and Kestrel grazing … crazy dust in the background, looking northwest (roller-coaster ridge is to the left). Pretty Kestrel looks a little bulky, but I think she’s just an easy keeper like her mama (Luna) and maybe a little bit of long-lens compression.

Mouse doing the snake

How do lieutenant stallions know what to do? Is bachelorhood sort of like ROTC or OTS, and now he’s commissioned, and he has his orders? He walked a little farther, turned his tail to the wind, cocked a hip and tried to act like he was napping. Most of the other horses did the same; Steeldust was on the opposite side of the band.

Doing the walk-on-by

Hook, left, and Chrome walk past Aspen and Co. (Hollywood at right, watching them). Knife Edge in the background. By this time, I knew Duke wasn’t around. Unhappy to not see him. I hope the boy is all right … It may sound weird, but I hope he’s “just” hurt (and just a little, enough to not keep up) and not worse. They were out on the other side of the big band, so I didn’t walk out to them. Piedra looks a little “thick” through the middle but not as pregnant as (I think) she should look. Best guess: She’s due this month (with Hollywood’s baby).

All in the family - except Duke

I stopped to take one more pic after I left them napping. It was nice right up on the ridge-side protected from the wind, but they were all out in the howling inferno across the arroyo. The arroyo looked (and felt) damp, but there was no water in that particular section). Notice a couple of things: Mahogany, left, Aspen, up in the “back,” and Comanche, single horse in the middle, are still grazing, and only one goofball – Hook – is facing the wind. Chrome is maybe a little hard to see, right behind him.

When I got back up to the Jeep, it was starting to sprinkle dust. When even the raindrops are dusty, you know it’s bad. Has anyone checked on Arizona lately? Is it still there, or has it been wiped from the map and deposited in Colorado? I’m not a lifelong resident of these parts, so maybe the fact that I’ve never seen it quite this bad in seven years (total, not consecutive) of living in Colorado doesn’t mean diddly, but I also think it’s visual, in-your-face proof of how dry it is. Arizona (and this bottom corner of Colorado) wouldn’t be blowing away if it was wet enough to stick to the map, err, ground, no matter what state we humans say it ought to be in. Pretty crazy.

Bounce and his lovely girls were by the arroyo by the west-side road, but I wasn’t taking any chances with potential rain (it was supposed to thunder and storm, remember), so I waved and drove on by. Cutest-girl Gaia watched me, as did dark-and-handsome Bounce, but Alegre pretty well ignored me (this from the girl who used to be like Duke in that any appearance of a vehicle sent her into get-away mode). Gaia will be 1 year old on Earth Day!

I looked and looked and looked for Kreacher and the girls but never saw hide nor hair of them. As already mentioned, I saw Grey/Traveler and his family again, still out on the far hill that’s basically above (east of) the corrals out on the county road. I did not see any cattle in the basin, but a group of mamas and babies (not the ones that had been in the basin until recently) were very disgruntled about having to give up the road when I first drove in that morning (on/near/next to the road just on the private side of the cattle guard going into the herd area). Sorry, ladies and babies. I did drive down to the trap site (pond dry). No sign of the ponies, but that section of Spring Creek, especially in the canyon, does have water, so I suspect they’re around somewhere amid the hills and swales and dales.

It was early yet, so I decided to drive down the county road to see if I could spy the spots like last time. No spots, unless you count rump patches …

Shadow and shadowy deer

Yay! David and Shadow, thought I from the Jeep on the county road just barely into Dolores County from San Miguel. But then I spied spots, and I thought, hmm, no, must be Mesa and Ty and the pintos. Then, no, I decided, David and Shadow and dusty muley rump spots! Ha. As you can see, it got much dustier (dustyer? much mo’ dusty?) – again, deja vu two weekends ago when I stopped in nearly the same spot on the county road to visit with the painted ponies and their solid suitors. David was just to the right, out of the frame of the above pic.

I drove on down to the valley of the pintos and what I am henceforth naming “dysfunction junction” in honor of the “dysfunctional” family make-up of the pinto girls and babies (well, young ladies) and one pinto boy and three solid boys, and the “junction” of my favorite hike-in spot, and the not-so-fondly named “malfunction junction” in the city where I once lived (bonus points to you if you know the city), which has since been “fixed” (but not really, according to some). Well, it made me laugh, and I liked it, and it will never show up on any official map, so there you are.

Point: No spotted – or otherwise – ponies were to be seen that day from the road (except the aforementioned David and Shadow).

So I turned around and parked the buggy and headed in to visit with David and his young lady, who will be 2 this year but hopefully not a mother until next year at least.

David the horse

Not to be confused with the three Davids who named him right before the roundup of ’07. David was on private property. The private property gate was opened, the contractors took down the herd-area-boundary fence across the county road, tied some saddle horses in the trees inside the herd area and used Shorty the Judas (and the helicopter) to lure young David back home. He tried to hook up with a band of sorrels almost immediately, but though those sorrels were rounded up and removed, our David never was. Last year when the southside boys ganged up on pinto former band stallion Bruiser  (still a pinto; no longer a band stallion), David lured away young Miss Shadow and stole away, leaving the other boys with the band. Cinch later decided he had better company with Bruiser (who may be his sire; they look an awful lot alike).

Blending into the dusty shadows

Shadow and David

Shadow

Shadow is black as jet. Black as night. Black as a … shadow. No markings. Her mother was the older, independent mare Ceal, who was sometimes with Bruiser and the pinto band and sometimes not. She was very thin in the fall of 2007 (and possibly had a hip injury) and died that winter. Shadow stayed with the pintos until the brouhaha when David claimed her.

Together

Closer

The end.

They followed the deer into the trees farther up the hill, and I headed back to the road and the Jeep and the highway and home. Woke up the next morning – this morning – to snow. Where/when have you heard that before? Good for the dust, good for the ground, hopefully good for the ponds that are dry, definitely good for the ponies (Ma Nature can’t fool them; they’re still wearing their winter coats!).

Unlike two weeks ago when the snow mostly stopped by mid-morning, this snow has been falling all day long. I hope the ponies are getting it, too! There’s only a little grass here and there yet, but that greasewood has to taste better with a little topping of whipped snow! 🙂