A lot of the horses, I see a lot of the time when I visit Spring Creek Basin. Some of the horses, I see some of the time, and a couple of bands, I see rarely. This year, with the new catchments, and horses having found both and using/drinking at both, I do now see a lot of the horses a lot of the time!
But until recently, a couple-few of the bands had become a little elusive, even bands that I had otherwise seen literally every single time I went out. It occurred to me that those bands had found and were using the catchment in the northwest valley – last year’s new catchment – but I rarely drive into that part of the basin (the road is pretty rough), and every time I glassed that area, I saw neither hide nor hair of them.
That changed recently.
I decided to just drive back there and have a look around. At the least, thought I, I’d see hoofprints around the trough.
Oh, ho! From a distance, with the binoculars, I finally saw them up in the northwest valley … and when I arrived, sure enough, there were the “elusive” ones, all there to greet me.
When they decided it was drink time (it was, in fact, well after 5 o’clock there …!), I followed along as they all moseyed to the trough, then waited with them while one band drank, then another … and another … followed by the low-pony bachelors.
These two little sweethearts are youngsters, and though they initially got chased away when, with all the innocence of youth, they preceded their band and tried to drink while another band was at the trough, they did very soon after that get their fill of the lovely clear, clean water.
And mama Winona, too.
I took pix with my phone and texted Mike (Jensen, our herd manager) and told him (again) how sincerely grateful I am to him for having the foresight to take these water catchments from vision to reality. He replied with a characteristically low-key thumbs-up emoji. 🙂
These water catchments (we have four now in the basin, with storage capacity of 50,500 gallons) are game-changers for us. They are the absolute difference between our horses sipping from muddy seeps (only one pond still has water currently) and being able to actually slake their thirst during 90-plus-degree days with humidity in the single digits.
Grateful????? Multiply that by a gajillion, and that’s still not enough. Super, super grateful. 🙂
In case you missed the posts about our water-catchment-building projects the last two years, check out these posts (wow, I didn’t realize I’d done so many until I listed them here (please excuse the randomness of changing styles?!)) … but the *WORK* was, has been and continues to be amazing, for which we are eternally grateful!):
Wildcat valley, 2021
Water catchment: phase 1, day 1
Water catchment: phase 1, day 2
Water catchment: phase 1, day 3
Water catchment: phase 1, day 4
Water catchment: phase 2, day 1
Water catchment: phase 2, day 2
Water catchment: phase 3 (teaser)
Northwest valley, 2022:
Wind and smoke and dust and … road work
Water catchment 2: Phase 1, day 2
Water catchment 2: Phase 1, day 3
Water catchment 2: Phase 1, day 4
Water catchment 2 – phase 2, day 1
Water catchment 2 – phase 2, day 2
Water catchment 2 – phase 2, day 2 (more)
Water catchment 2 – phase 2, day 3
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 