To all of America’s veterans, thank you for your service – of any length, in every branch of the military, in times of war or peace, recently or decades ago. Whatever your personal reasons for giving an oath to service, you put your country ahead of yourself, you sacrificed time with your families for a greater cause, you saw the value in serving something greater than yourself.
As a daughter, granddaughter and cousin of veterans, I know a sliver of your sacrifices and your patriotism, and I thank you all.
Beautiful Alegre, showing off her chic braid again in all the wide ocean of snow.
******
I want to be clear that Spring Creek Basin – indeed, Disappointment Valley – no longer looks like this, covered in a few to several inches of snow. 🙂 We’re back to brown, but it’s that kind of *wet* brown that’s perfectly good (if hard to drive through).
Odin and Piedra browse while Kestrel looks back at a following bachelor (I didn’t know it when I took this pic, but there was another band farther away and out of sight over a hill; they showed up later).
This pic (and for at least a few days to come, though our snow is melting *rapidly* as I type this Friday) was taken the day after the big snowfall. I was amazed that there was still so much snow covering the ground and shadscale and sage and four-wing saltbush and snake weed and grasses!
Muddy, muddy, muddy underneath the snow. North-facing sides of arroyos were still snow-covered; south-facing sides were muddy ski slopes (vertical or almost nearly so)! Good luck getting up the sides unless you had a bit of an erosion channel to use as steps or enough snow to jam a foot in sideways – and get it to hold just long enough to step up with your other foot!
Fabulous, wonderful moisture. I hope this is a sign of a good winter to come.
* The snow wasn’t actually very fluffy; it was really rather wet. But the alliteration worked for the post title. 🙂
This was before the big snow, but the light was so gorgeous, and I managed to not take many pix of the snow while it was snowing (very low/short distance visibility), so visualize that ALL covered in snow (to the tune of 4-plus inches, give or take), and that’s what it looked like (minus the clouds socking in the valley). 🙂
The above pic is from Disappointment Road looking eastish; readers will recognize the Temple Butte promontory and the snow-covered pyramid that is McKenna Peak. The rain-dark mid-ground is Spring Creek Basin.
From much farther up-valley, looking slightly eastish of northish (!), from left to right: Brumley Point, McKenna Peak and Temple Butte across the very southern part of Spring Creek Basin.
And a closer view of Temple Butte and the buttes beyond/eastish of it (those farther promontories aren’t visible from Spring Creek Basin proper, though the near foreground is part of Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area).
It’s hard to believe because our snow usually melts by at least midday, if not mid-morning, but there’s still snow on the ground today, two days after the snowfall. And of course, muddy, muddy goodness underneath. That mud does make it hard to get around (and all the hunter traffic – already – depresses and demotivates me; third rifle season (aka crazy-town season) starts Saturday), but hopefully I’ll get out and about and get some new pony pix soon. If not with snow, I’ll still have plenty to share from pre-snow days (and will make that clear in the text of each post).
Seneca … so gorgeous in evening hues of light and bronze.
******
We got SNOW yesterday! LOTS and lots of snow. On top of lots of rainy mud. To say it’s *soggy* in Disappointment Valley right now is the hugest of huge understatements. 🙂 Once again, I went into the basin to try to find ponies, but the snow was constant, and the visibility was extremely limited, so I returned without any snowy pony pix (or even pronghorns this time).
This moisture is extremely beneficial for our vegetation, the ponds and the water-storing catchments. After a long run of very warm and very dry weather, it’s nice to be in the mud again.
Not much bothers Kestrel, but she does like to keep her eyes on the goings-on around her family. I like to keep my eyes on HER because sometimes she’ll give me a great, direct look!
It’s hard to choose a *bad* place to nap in Spring Creek Basin. I had about 2.5 minutes with them after I walked out with that lovely last bit of light … and then night’s shadow overtook our part of the world.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 