The sego lilies are blooming! Every spring, I eagerly await the blooming of these delicate desert bloomers, and every spring, I try to capture their particular beauty. Good thing there are numerous opportunities while following the mustangs!
I kid you not: This year, they started blooming on Memorial Day.
This area of Spring Creek Basin where I found Corazon and his family recently was booming with yellow prince’s plume blooms, but though I tried fairly hard for a little while, Corazon wasn’t terribly interested in posing with the golden glory. He and his band members were much too interested in seeking out and eating the yummy Indian ricegrass, a cool-season grass that’s growing like gangbusters right now. It must be sweet and tasty because all the horses love it!
This wasn’t my first welcome back to Spring Creek Basin after my return from Texas, but it was maybe the third. Pretty nice of Buckeye and his ladies and baby girl to greet me at the west boundary.
Today, Memorial Day, is more than a start-of-summer celebratory holiday and third day of the three-day weekend. It’s the day we as a nation remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defending America’s freedoms. A hope is that it can be also a day to put aside political and ideological differences and remember what unites us all: love of independence, freedom and family, our unique way of life. Our service men and women who died protecting the freedoms of this country, our diversity and pride in what makes us Americans, made their personal sacrifices so we can enjoy all of the above.
As we celebrate, don’t forget those sacrifices … and what unites these United States.
It’s taking me a bit to get back in the groove after a Mother’s Day/week visit to my folks’ place in Texas. When I got back, I was ASTOUNDED to see how green it was – after an absence of just a week! And the wildflowers, which certainly had started coming up a bit in places, are now somewhat profuse (all things are relative).
A bit of snow is still visible in the highest of high reaches visible from Spring Creek Basin, and if you can discern the greener-green on the very farthest ridges, that’s aspen, finally leafed out and fluttering in the spring breezes.
While these images highlight the prince’s plume and globemallow, a variety of wildflowers are providing a colorful palette currently … mostly requiring a bit closer look than these long-view pix.
Quite a welcome home. 🙂
Always great to see this beautiful spotted girl. 🙂 She and her band – and a few other bands – were in a beautiful area with a pond that still has water. Though it’s very green now, at least a couple of the ponds are already dry. We’re sure looking forward to hoped-for monsoon rains again this summer!
This little lark sparrow was fluttering around from sage to sage. It may have been admiring the mustangs … or the wildflowers … or another lark sparrow! I was admiring all of the above.
No, that’s not what we’re calling Skywalker these days. The blog post title today refers to the pops of color from the – in this image, scarlet globemallow – which is blooming like crazy all over the basin right now.
And not just those sunny little orange blossoms; we also have prince’s plume, larkspur, Indian paintbrush, still phlox, claret cup cacti blooms and numerous other colorful flowers!
Spring Creek Basin is GREEN with numerous spots of color all over. We had to wait a bit for our green and orange and yellow and purple and blue and red and pink … but it’s been worth it. 🙂
Handsome Storm was looking at another stallion and band with utmost concentration. He’s fully in his prime, and smart (and younger) stallions don’t mess with him! He doesn’t have the biggest band in the basin … but close.
Looks like the mustang fairies missed a couple of spots in Mariah’s mane during their nightly rituals. Maybe they just had a lot of mustangs to attend?! With a passing shower or two (or more), and attending winds, it’s a busy season for keeping mustangs looking their best (which likely could be said for all seasons … and yet, they always look marvelous!).
Mariah and her band were standing on the bank of a small pond, and I’m not sure what had caught her attention. There was another small band grazing some distance behind them, those horses having already been to the pond.
Sweet Winona … on the move from there to somewhere farther over there.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 