Just for fun. 🙂
Sundance enjoyed a nice nap in the sunshine, then woke up with a biiiiiiiiiiig stretch!
Just for fun. 🙂
Sundance enjoyed a nice nap in the sunshine, then woke up with a biiiiiiiiiiig stretch!
The thrill of anticipation, surpassed only by the joy of arrival!
With a face like that, it can only be …
Raven’s little blackbird!
Baby and the family. They gifted me with the most gorgeous visit … I can’t begin to tell you how my heart sings just to sit with them in their world, on a hilltop surrounded by hills and valleys and open sky. It’s a place so full of magic, wild life, you can’t help but be touched by world’s grace.
One bit of distressing news: Apollo is missing from the band. I’m hoping he shows up with youngsters Hayden and Tenaz. I haven’t posted pix of them yet, but they’re together.
Sundance, baby’s stepdaddy, snoozing with the band. Kreacher is the colt’s sire; he lost the band to Sundance just before the roundup last fall. Apollo is baby’s full brother, and Mysterium is his half-sister.
One little teeny spot marks him a pinto like mama. I had wondered whether she would eventually pass on her spots … but I’m not sure baby will stay black like her. He’s sort of “faded” in the middle, and I’m guessing he will go grey like daddy.
Showing off more white, preparing to lie down near sister.
Speaking of Mysterium, isn’t she growing up gorgeous?
Do you not love that face?!
And the big mustang walk already. 🙂
Let’s hear it: Awwwwwww!
Welcome to your wild world, little one!
Where, oh where does it go?
Days are full. Days are getting longer – and starting earlier. Days are busy. Days are magic. Days are happy.
Note to family and friends: I am so thankful for each of you. That I’m totally and literally “carried away by wild horses,” you know and appreciate and support fully. How did I come to be so blessed?
This morning, what a morning. Not another human being for leagues. Surrounded by 48 horses – not just any horses, THE horses – and plants with names I know and don’t know and am learning, secret trails and not-so-secret byways, caressed by spring wind – still chilly at times – cushioned by solid earth, warmed by golden light – amazed. Awed. Inspired. One new little life. I knew him (!) as a big, round belly … and now here he is. Can you imagine the miracle?
Every day, somewhere, babies are born – human and otherwise – it happens in every time zone, on (almost?!) every continent. It happens with support and without, in conditions good and bad. Some little being takes a gulp of air, and the world heaves a sigh of happiness. Next? Oh, next comes … everything.
Normal? Taken for granted? Never. The magic of life, continuing, can be nothing less than celebrated as the miracle it always is.
Thank you all for sharing this journey. A strange post, maybe, but I’m still riding high the beauty of the day. I just needed to express the absolute joy I have in the horses, all they mean to me, that I may share with you who have come to love them. What an amazing journey it continues to be.
So many photos, so little time to get them posted!
But here’s a recent pic of Raven, in all her big-belly glory!
Raven and Mysterium. This picture doesn’t do Raven justice. The lady is very large.
Corona looking much less pregnant even than previously, and Gaia showing a bit of her growing middle. The girls are watching Sundance’s band.
Just a matter of waiting. Mama knows best!
All mamas need a little love this day!
Give your mama some love today. Tell her how much she means to you, how much she taught you, how much you love her.
Reya, not due till the end of the month or early June, has a baby boy! Our first of the season.
Reya and her darling boy.
Thanks to DG for alerting me to baby’s arrival in the world. He has named the baby S’aka. “It means strong, mighty. It is Lakota. It is pronounced ‘Sh-aka.’ One word with a stop between the first and second syllable.”
Baby was no match for the warm sunshine.
Baby catching up to mama, walking past Chipeta and Uncle Half-brother Maiku (Reya’s little brother by their mother, Kiowa, and baby’s brother by their sire, Copper).
If you have been to Spring Creek Basin in the spring, you have done battle with the gnats. They seem especially bad in the southern part of the basin. They’re not bad – yet – but they’re out. Baby was battling them. Isn’t he divine?
Reya is being a very good mama. Her first foal was born last year, and it died before I saw it. I wasn’t looking for her to have a foal before the end of the month.
Baby and his big half-sister Puzzle – same sire again. They inherited Copper’s red bay, while Maiku takes after dark mama Kiowa.
Just scrumptious!
Switching gears just a little: I saw David and Shadow, too. No baby, and I can’t say with certainty either way: that Shadow is or is not pregnant. I will say that, from a distance, she doesn’t really seem to be.
Raven – more specifically, Raven’s belly – is huge. Ginormous. Apollo was a big foal, so maybe this baby will be, too. She’s past due. Gaia looks to be making us wait a bit. Corona seems to have lost her foal. She no longer has even a “maybe baby” belly.
Duke is still hanging out with Kreacher, who has taken an interest in Aspen’s band, which includes a former mare of his: Mona. Storm also still is following the band, but Bounce gave up on them and is enjoying his own company.
Whew. It must be spring. 🙂
What won’t the boys do to impress the ladies? Duke in the background, Piedra at right, and Juniper, Kestrel and her newest daughter.
Comanche keeping Duke at bay.
Duke running one way …
Comanche trotting back to his girls!
Oh, handsome!
Thank you to the rain dancers among you! We got rain today. Not a lot, not much, drops you could count in the dry, dry dirt. But rain. Oh, the scent of rain-on-the-air. And more in the forecast. Dance away!
Mariah is still wearing her baby-red, but she’s grey – or will be! Just like mama Houdini and daddy Grey/Traveler.
Sundance’s band had just come over a rise, and the ponies were investigating. Interestingly, they don’t always run AWAY from things.
Raven was still HUGE the last time I saw her. So, so, so, SO close!