My absolute favorite line from Opus Moon’s “Wild Horse Anthology” is from “Illusion”: “No one knows … where they go … as they slip into the shadows of the earth.”
That’s like saying any one mustang is my favorite. 🙂
Aspen, walking into the twilight shadows at the end of the day under the La Sals, epitomizes that line for me.
This music … every line is a favorite. If you don’t have this CD, get it. Period.
Oh these boys!
Duke and Kreacher were right near the road during a recent visit, and they and I could see Hayden, Tenaz, Apollo and Killian out on the flats not far away. (Yep, the young boys are back together; Aspen was alone and way to the east.) I took some pix of Duke and Kreacher for documentary purposes – they’re looking very hale and hearty – but didn’t think I’d walk out to youngsters.
They had other ideas! They galloped over to greet Duke and Kreacher!
Hayden, the oldest of the young, stopped to chat with Duke and Kreacher. There was a great deal of squealing and striking and rearing and biting and head waving and pooping of and sniffing of poop (heh). The younger three youngsters walked on by, then stopped to hang out with me!
That Tenaz, 3, is the spitting image of his daddy Hollywood. I can so see him as a future band stallion. He has a wise look, doesn’t he? (That’s him at left.) Apollo is just 2 this year (sired by Kreacher), and Killian, looking small and young beside them, also is 2 (they will be, in May).
When Hayden and the elder boys had concluded their discussions, Hayden walked (he might have strutted) over to the boys and tried to get someone else to play with him. Mostly unsuccessfully.
Look out girls. These handsome misters are growing up!
Mariah
Houdini and Alegre
Maia
Grey/Traveler
Sunset.
Speechless.
Tesora framed by “auntie” Puzzle (no actual relation that I’m aware of).
Shadow and her baby girl, Tesora – treasure.
Is it just me, or does her star look like a horse head?
Although I surprised Seven’s band – THEY surprised ME – around a bend and over a slight rise, they didn’t move away (which also surprised me). Within a few seconds of this photo, Tesora turned around to nurse – and Shadow let her. If mamas aren’t comfortable, they walk away and won’t let their babies nurse until they are comfortable. I took a few photos and moved on, before they got uncomfortable.
Sweet baby girl. Isn’t she beautiful?
Time to choose: Cheesecake or fence work.
Dessert in the office or working off the cheesecake you could have had.
Lucky for us – the mustangs – a six-man, one-woman Forest Service crew and one BLM’er voluntarily gave up cheesecake to build fence with the Forest Service’s Tom Kelly and San Juan Mountains Association’s Kathe Hayes on Spring Creek Basin’s southeastern boundary fence.
Sound familiar? It should. This section is north of the section of southeastern boundary fence the University of Missouri students rebuilt when they were here on alternative spring break at the end of March. We had hoped to knock it all out while they were here, but while we rebuilt a good section of fence, and built the H-braces for this last section, we didn’t have time then to remove the old wire, restring the new wire and insert staves in the last section Kathe had scouted.
So on a beautiful day in Disappointment Valley, that last bit was what this crew finished.
Let me introduce ya’ll to the cast of characters:
Front row from left: Sara, Dave, Kathe and Derrick. Back row from left: Tom, Kevin, Kevin, Paul and Sean. Derrick was the group’s lone BLM’er.
To get started (and thank you, Mizzou students, for building the braces a month ago!), the crew unstapled and unwired the old barbed wire strands, then rolled that wire. Perfect wreaths were insisted upon. No one wanted to be “that guy” with sloppy wreaths. Happily, we had a crew of perfect-wire-wreath-rolling-peeps!
Kathe perfects her wreath roll.
Paul demonstrates his on-the-ground roll technique while Derrick finishes a rolled wreath.
That was the un-building. Then the crew moved to re-building:
Tom, our fence-building guru, checked the straightness of the fence …
Derrick pounded re-aligned T-posts while Kevin, right, and Paul, left, looked on supervised and Kathe documented …
Sara and Dave walked with Sean and Kevin to unroll new wire for the fence …
Kathe and Paul used the miracle swizzler to attach wire strands to the T-posts …
Ahhh … two twists’ll tighten!
And …
Kevin, Kevin, Sean and Sara wired wooden staves between the T- and wooden posts.
Voila! What a crew!
Tom said the second-best part of the work day is lunch. One of the Kevins (Sara/h and Kevin: names of the month), naturally and without missing a beat, noted that the best part of the work day is – of course! – quitting time. I was too busy eating lunch to take pix of everyone eating lunch (the most interesting included cold pizza and a tuna salad avalanche with Doritos primer), so here are two pix of quitting time:
Photo suggestion by Tom to show the view looking southish toward the Glade. If you look closely, you can see the fire lookout tower – Benchmark Lookout. It’s on the farthest hill basically between Sean’s and Paul’s helmets (and yes, managers, we received the safety talk(s)). From left: Derrick, Kevin, Sean, Paul, Kevin, Tom, Kathe, Dave and Sara.
Then I made ’em all smile again – say mustang! – so I could take their pic looking southeastish and showing off the new fence. (Disclaimer: This actually is part of the section the students rebuilt, but there were more trees in the section these guys rebuilt, and this had the more open view!) The previous pic was taken just up the hill to the left looking out to the right.
Thanks for your marvelous work, guys and gals! It was a fun day, and hopefully it beat the cheesecake (though I hope your co-workers saved you some … or Kathe makes another one just for you all!).
Sundance. Grey on shadowed blue hills with a touch of green. Clouds at sunset.
A quote I saw and liked recently: “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.” ~ Konrad Adenauer
Hollywood leads Madison, Comanche and Kestrel (and the rest of the bands’ members) away from the roller-coaster ridge pond, where they drank at the end of the day.
This horizon from Spring Creek Basin: Unique and much loved. With mustangs in front of that horizon: Heaven under the sky.
Although the photo is slightly out of focus, I love the expression Comanche is giving here! He barely looked up from his grazing, but when he did, this was the look he gave me.
Lovely last light rimming his ears and the ends of his mane. Handsome. 🙂
Sundance and Kootenai.
This happened almost like the Disney dogs (“Lady and the Tramp”) eating spaghetti; Sundance and Kootenai grazed closer and closer till their faces were touching. It lasted about 1.5 seconds. Then Sundance grazed away, leaving Kootenai just there, with that same wide-eyed look … before she also turned away to continue grazing.
At this point, I’m pretty sure both mares are pregnant (and I don’t think Kootenai is due as long from now as August!?). Skywaker nursing a few weeks ago must have caught Raven in a generous mood. Although I have heard of mares nursing both their newborns and their yearlings, I haven’t seen it here (yet?).
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 