Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Is it just me, or does Buckeye look a little chunky this winter?

I do love a hefty mustang!

I nearly passed below Cassidy Rain and her family without seeing them before I happened to look up and, well, DID see them – on a ridge above the road. After a quick upward hike, I was rewarded with a dramatic background behind them.

Do you love her expression? It seems a bit like “well, since you’ve found us, now what are you going to do about it?”

Make sure all the folks at home see your lovely self, beauty girl. Just that. 🙂

Two doses of Sundance in two days!

We got a little dose of snow again – why are these first winter doses so small?! – and he kindly highlighted the remnants in eastern Spring Creek Basin. After a big forecast buildup, the snow was a mere *skiff*, but the moisture is, as always, appreciated. Sundance, also, is always appreciated. 🙂

Sundance, in addition to being (of course) uber handsome, has this really great way of serving to enhance and highlight the scenery of Spring Creek Basin. …

Partly, I think, it’s because he and his band are usually in the farther eastern reaches of the basin, which allows the opportunity to look out over some of the amazing scenery of the basin!

Partly, of course, it’s because he is Mr. Handsome, and he just DOES enhance any scenery he’s in. 🙂

P.S. Added bonus in the second pic: If you click on it to enlarge it, you might be able to see the new water catchment – in the basin’s northwest valley, in the very far distance – directly under Sundance’s lower lip. I didn’t even realize it when I took the pic; it wasn’t until I was processing the image that I saw it!

Sometimes, there’s just no impressing the girls, boys, no matter the energy you put into your greetings. 🙂

Rowan and Dundee have a faint glow of subdued light after the sun had set behind Filly Peak. They’re so pretty in any light!

Big grey boy Skywalker grazes peacefully among summer’s grama grass, glowing in winter sunlight. Some days just have that indefinable sense that all is beautiful and right with the natural world.

Enough late-season vegetation still covered the basin when I took this photo that it’s hard (impossible) to see that the snow at Terra’s hooves was still mostly unbroken by melting fairly early that morning.

The snow is mostly gone now – except on some slopes and shaded ridges and arroyo walls – but it’s so wonderful how a simple dusting of the frozen white stuff transforms any landscape!

It seems counterintuitive, but napping in the sunshine on a sharply cold day with fresh snow at one’s feet feels oddly comfortable. It’s best, of course, if one wears a wooly coat or otherwise insulating layers (!).

And it’s ever so much better with a friend. 🙂 Piedra and Kestrel are true BFFs!