Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

What’s that feeling when you drive up the valley to see how muddy things are, find that they’re plenty muddy, still, decide that of COURSE you’re NOT going to hike out anywhere in the mud (again), unless you see horses, and you KNOW you won’t see horses because horses haven’t been visible from the road for WEEKS (months?), so you won’t have to go hiking through the mud … and then you see a bit of white that you think (you’re SURE) is (must be) salt on the wall of an arroyo … and you look closer, through the binoculars … and the salt-on-the-arroyo has a mane … ? That feeling? 🙂

So of course you take off hiking through mud that is very muddy, that accumulates on your boots and the hems of your pant legs. And, of course, you have the most wonderful visit with the horses within view of the road. And then, of course (because, of course!), a crazy backhoe comes wandering down the road because who doesn’t take a Saturday evening stroll down-valley in a backhoe? (If you know what I’m talking about, of course you know who I’m talking about.)

But that minor part was yet to come when I took the above pic of Chipeta among last season’s rabbitbrush (not actually reeds) where she looked so magical and lovely. The horses were mostly eating snow, and they’d also found some water in the quiet places, before they (we) moved up to high ground to graze and then wonder at the noise that preceded the backhoe, then the backhoe itself … watching as it lumbered its way on down the road. (*I* didn’t know what to make of such a thing; how to know what the heck the horses thought of such a thing!)

The prettier vision is Chipeta in her magical golden-glowing garden.