Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Or: August = green!

Or: Holy grass!

Or: Monsoon madness!

This morning, when the sun broke through the cloud bank and turned the basin into a shimmering emerald jewel, I thought I’d been transported to Ireland. It is THAT green out there, people.

I had to fend off mosquitoes while photographing Chrome’s band, and mushrooms are growing in this crazy newly-wet beautiful Spring Creek Basin, not to mention one of the invasive types of “sunflowers.” Missing the paintbrush this spring? Not to worry, now they’re growing in bushes 2 feet tall with dozens of “flowers” on every “stalk”! I’m pretty sure they’re paintbrush, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it grow like that before, and certainly not in the basin.

I wish I could describe it in all the exquisite detail it deserves, but not even my photos come close to illustrating the green-tinged curves of hills, the grass in bunches the horses seem lazily content with – like it will last all the rest of the summer – the whole marvelous wonder of it all.

Looking south from the northwestish – Filly Peak at far right.

Looking up to the far northwest, near Klondike Basin.

From the northwest looking southeast: unnamed promontory and McKenna Peak (“pyramid”) at upper right.

Between the road and Filly Peak …

You know it’s crazy when I take pictures of actual grass!

Also a lot of this yuckiness adding to the greenness …

I think this is what someone told me will become tumbleweeds.

All of that, and two ponds are still dry. The kicker is that they’re not even on BLM’s list of ponds to dig out this year – hopefully, they can. The day’s miraculous forecast was for sunshine (been “thunderstorms likely” for three weeks now), and we’re in the middle of monsoon season, which happens every year in Colorado, and I had to leave the basin three times for rain – the third time finally kicked me out for good near the end of the day.

Here, although there’s not a horse in *sight,* they ARE there – out there! – it sums up my weekend:

Gorgeous with a touch of danger. That’s Filly Peak from the outside looking in when I had to leave for good in the evening – life-giving rain filling all the background, which is Spring Creek Basin to the faint ridge outline in the background – covered by a wildly vibrant rainbow (even with a polarizer hastily attached, the colors here aren’t nearly as magnificent as they were in person … or maybe it’s my “rose-colored glasses” … ;)). And do you see the lightning strike? Yes, OK, so it could strike a tree (or worse), but talk about lucky: That’s handheld. It’s not nearly as shocking (sorry) as it really was, either.

In addition to the shining green all around (I’ll tell ya, it makes my head spin), there are some surprises in the herd. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures (!) because I watched from a distance because a few bands had gotten together, and I didn’t want to add to the chaos. Cinch has Liberty, and Twister is with – drum roll, please! – Cuatro! They ended up playing with Ze and Sage for a little bit. Not sure why year-and-3-month-old Cuatro struck out on his own. Did he get kicked out already? His mama has a foal, and the other mare in his band (Jif) isn’t due for a month. Another dysfunctionality of our tiny herd. (I can’t explain why young Cuatro – and others as young – have left their mothers/bands and horses like Butch and Sundance – at least 4 now? – stayed with their bands.)

And because no post would be complete without the reason for this whole blog:

Two Boots and Rio.

More to come.