Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

The ground was still damp from earlier rain when I spent the evening with Skywalker and the band he follows; those smudges of dirt on his hip and cheek and elsewhere are fresh. 🙂 He always seems so quiet and self-contained. … He’s a pretty peaceful guy.

See all those light bits in the air? Gnats and bitty flies and other insecty buggers. The moisture has brought out clouds of them.

The moisture makes us all happy … two-legged, four-legged and wing-ed?! 🙂

The horses were happily grazing the newly green, GREEN grass of home when I decided to pack up and head out. While it looks pretty sunny and light still, the sun was very close to the western horizon (away to the far right), and I was hoping to see another band before shadows crept across them. As it turned out, sunset and clouds hastened the coming of night even sooner than I thought (and I’m never ready to leave the basin in any case). I did see that band – and another – and yesterday’s little pronghorn family.

But – of course – after I had my camera packed away in my backpack, Tenaz wandered over and parked himself in the middle of … well, The View. 🙂 My cell phone was much closer to hand … and the best camera, as they say, is the one you have in your hand.

While the quality isn’t up to my big gun, I think the mood and loveliness of the mustang and the evening is perfectly captured … don’t you? 🙂

(I’m also GIDDY to report that the ground under foot and hoof was DAMP, and at least three little arroyos in the northern part of the basin were actively flowing with water from rain over the northern and eastern parts of the basin. I know it rained in the east because Spring Creek also was flowing. I know it didn’t rain in the “southern” areas (basically south of Spring Creek) because the road and ground until I got to Spring Creek were dry. Wild. … And still well received. :))

Flash looks toward a small band downhill as he grazes with a young friend. A hint of the new green is visible in the foreground.

Himself with some of his ladies. 🙂

They were watching a small band some distance away, in the greasewood flats along Spring Creek in the western region of Spring Creek Basin. It doesn’t look so much in the above photo, but we’ve had some greening of the vegetation of the basin from recent rain events.

Madison took advantage of the band’s mosey-grazing through pinon-juniper woodland to satisfy some itches. Peek-a-boo!

Speaking of love. This guy. 🙂 Storm has had my heart since I first saw him at his mama’s side, bright copper-penny red with still-curled ears. What a handsome mister, even with his hard-won scars.

Isn’t she amazing? Think of all those wise eyes have seen during her wild life … the babies nurtured, the friends shared, the stallions led.

Houdini.

I just love her.

*****

Randomly, looking for something else among my files and files (both computerized and paper), I found the below that I apparently (I don’t remember it at all) composed for: March for Wild Horses, Girls Horse Club, March 19-26, 2010, interactive interview (according to my notes at the bottom of the page). I thought this post, about our remarkable, long-lived Houdini, fit the bill for bringing it (back?) to light.

“What inspires me most about mustangs is at once simple … and amazingly complex – just like the horses themselves. They are hardy. They are fragile. They are wonderfully complex in their social systems and bonds. They are refreshingly simple in their actions and reactions. They are adaptable. They are graceful. They are innocent. They carry the weight of their ancestors’ long history. They are curious and brave and easily frightened. They are bold and fearless and defensive of their families. They live in the harshest environments – to which man has committed them – and they thrive. They are independent. They are dependent (we have fenced them into these herd management areas and it is incumbent upon us that their basic needs of water and forage are met). In a perfect world, they could manage just fine without us (witness those few horses returned to the continent … the millions repopulating the continent … the devastation wrought upon them by generations of “mustangers” …). In many, many instances where they’ve been adopted, their adopters become so enamored of them as to say “I’ll never have but another mustang.” They are stunning. They are so much more.”