Let me first say that the basin does NOT look like this currently/anymore. 🙂 This was a few mornings ago under about 3 inches of fresh snow. Much of it has melted, except on north-facing or other shadowed slopes and arroyo walls. So I hope you also don’t mind some more pix of snow-ponies because I took a great many that day!
This is Mariah, looking at another band from her location down in a little drainage between … not ridges, really, but places of higher ground. Clouds were still swirling, and the sun had yet not managed to clear them into the blue sky we’ve had since.
You know, it’s a crazy phenomenon: I could feel the cold – and it was *sharp* – on my walk out to the horses, but while I was WITH the horses – even before the sun made its appearance and I realized I hadn’t even thought about sunscreen with the shine so warm on my cheeks – I didn’t feel it at all. I was standing, sitting, stretched out on my belly – in 3 inches of snow!
I consciously noted how cold I was before I got to them.
I consciously noted how NOT-COLD I was when I was with them.
And it’s not the first time (and I know it won’t be the last). There is that weird (wonderful) bubble of … all-rightness? … that comes with being in their presence.
Do you ever lose track of how hot or cold or windy or still it is when you’re immersed in nature/something/somewhere you love? Do you *realize* you’ve lost track of any of that? Like an awareness you just can’t explain. Part of the magic, I guess. 🙂
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 
“Part of the magic” for sure, TJ. I’m not surprised that there is a warming affect in the presence of those mustangs. 🙂
I notice that a lot. When I’m with them, the little distractions – heat/cold, wind (OK, not the gnats) – melt away. They are perfect in-the-moment conductors!. 🙂
How gorgeous! Mustang and snow💗👍
Absolutely everything – except the mustangs, and they were still wet – was just coated in snow. It was stunningly beautiful. 🙂
This would be a really pretty Christmas card!
I’m pretty sure I DID take this year’s Christmas card that morning. 😉
GORGEOUS picture!!! Yes heat or cold suddenly not important in certain amazing outdoor experiences.
It’s amazing how that happens, eh? I learned a very long time ago that no matter what my brain was working and whirling with on my drive to the basin, as soon as I entered its boundaries and started looking for horses, I couldn’t have told you WHAT had me so bothered. … It was all/only about the horses. 🙂