Update about Sage, Cuatro, Hannah and Briosa. They look like they’re settling in and doing very well!
Don’t they all look great? And even some nice fall color from our corner of Colorado.
Photos by Alice (who is going to adopt Liberty). Neighbor Dana adopted these four beauties.
Trying to pull out some photos to share … busy time.
Here are a couple of darling Aurora (daughter of Alegre and Bounce) and her big brother, Whisper. These two are so much fun. I see in them Gaia and Whisper from a couple of years ago.
Aurora
Big brother Whisper is 2.
I’m going to try to post more pix of them together.
Isn’t she a beauty?
One more, not related … but leads to a change …
Looking at us is Briosa. Harder to recognize from this view is Juniper. Briosa is in Hollywood’s band (his daughter, and Piedra’s), and Juniper is Comanche’s and Kestrel’s daughter. The bands have been hanging out together for weeks now, and I almost saw some interaction between these two a coupla-few weeks ago … but this is the first time I’d actually seen it. The horses were closer than I’d ever seen them, actually intermixing at times with Piedra and Mahogany closer to Comanche than to Hollywood. All calm.
Someone was missing … and it nearly gave me a heart attack … until I found her again. Can’t say I’m surprised about who she’s with … though the timing leaves something to be desired …
Can’t resist these faces!
Curious Briosa – from my visit with Hollywood’s band.
Comanche’s were nearby, as they have been lately. While I was photographing Holls’ band, Comanche’s grazed their way around behind me, and when I looked back, Juniper had laid down.
That’s Comanche in the foreground, and wow, does Juni look more and more like him.
Bri ambled – really, there’s no other word for it – over toward them, and I practically held my breath, thinking I was going to see some adorable interaction between Juni and Bri … but it never materialized because Bri never made it all the way to Juni.
Briosa walking over … notice the rain on the far western hills (outside the herd area). Thunder boomers were rumbling nearly the entire time I visited the bands, but the rain moved straight down along the hills and didn’t come over the basin. In fact, once the rain passed by yonder, sunshine came out over the whole area!
Eliana stayed behind – that’s Piedra in the background. She doesn’t seem to be as outgoing as Briosa. You might think (despite the mud) that Briosa and Eliana are sisters, but you’d be wrong. However, it’s very possible that Eliana is Briosa’s aunt (half-sister to Piedra, who might be a daughter of Eliana’s mama, Mahogany).
But as I was saying … Briosa got a little distracted.
Bri gives Comanche a sniff-er-oo while he watches Hollywood’s band. He practically ignored her, though, and made a circuit on farther out, then back to Kestrel and Winona, who were to the left and slightly behind Juniper.
Juniper was not phased in the least.
I wish more of her face was visible, but I love her legs tucked up so tight while she rolled. 🙂 She’d roll and right herself … roll and right herself … laid there for a while longer … then lurched to her feet and burst into a gallop to and past mama, where she stopped and looked back as if to say, “Didja see me? Huh? Didja?”
Yes, baby girl, I saw you! 🙂
The northwest “meadow” is the new east pocket.
There’s grass. There’s water.
Horses are there.
Four beautiful bands … and Kreacher’s – and Duke – were just to my left.
Beautiful day. How could I have thought he wouldn’t still be there?
I realize that by the time I publish this, I’ve already published my “education” post, that you’ll read it – if you wade through it at all – after you look through these. Nonetheless, I’m calling this post “return” because hopefully it marks a return to photos of the horses and place I’m so passionate about.
Without further ado … These are from the day of the tour.
Bounce’s band, early morning before anyone else arrived, just west of the east pocket.
The helicopter. I never even took pix Grey’s band, just hung out while they napped.
Later in the day, after the tour … before I knew about Twister:
Comanche’s band was very near Hollywood’s – still – and had done a bit of traveling during the day (though I can’t comment definitively on the particular cause). Earlier in the day, we could see them north of Spring Creek Canyon; here, they were just off the road above the dugout (east of their earlier location).
Hollywood’s band
Piedra and Briosa. Comanche’s were just up the hill to the right. This was taken from just off the road.
Briosa. Isn’t she a stout big girl?
Eliana, Spring Creek Canyon in the background.
Comanche
Winona
Eliana
I so enjoyed visiting with them, taking these pix of the horses against the Colorado sky with the favorable clouds we’ve seen so little of this year. I didn’t want to leave, though I was headed to check on Twister. I wasn’t aware yet of what I would find with him.
After I’d finally gotten in touch with BLM about Twister, I couldn’t stay in the basin (I didn’t leave the area so I could lead BLM to Twister in the morning). Almost didn’t even stop to greet David’s band when I found them, just inside the fence along the Disappointment Road.
Shadow and Coal
Yearling Wind wiggling between mama and baby brother. You can see the fence strands in the foreground – that’s how close they were.
Handsome baby Coal
Horrible day … and yet a good day, too. Seems to be a contradiction that settles over my entire mustang experience. Can’t explain it … and I guess, overall, I really wouldn’t change it. The “good” is really just that phenomenal.
Now for some girls. 🙂 From the same evening with Comanche’s and Hollywood’s band.
Briosa and Eliana with Eli’s mom and Bri’s (likely) grandma – Mahogany.
A little girl (Juniper) in a great big country. The hill in the middle distance is Flat Top.
Juni walking up to big sister Winona.
Later … I’m not entirely sure whether she was whinnying at Hollywood or Bri and Eli.
Briosa with mama Piedra
Eliana with mama Mahogany
Mama/grandma Mahogany with her girls …
… She seems to have a little more patience for both of them together. Piedra has less patience with Eliana … but watching Eliana and Briosa, it’s easier to tell which of the mares outrank which – Eliana, the little princess, is clearly the leader between her and Briosa – even though Bri is older and bigger.
But Bri is a bit more curious!
They do hang out quite a bit together now. 🙂
Besotted? Who, me?! 🙂
Some pix of Comanche and Hollywood from the other night. Their bands were close to each other in this beautiful little meadow at the top of the basin, on the northwest side. All was calm until curious Georgie – I mean, Winona – grazed her way close enough to Holls to not be able to contain that curiosity any longer! Comanche then strutted down to put an end to THAT nonsense. Ha! Later, Duke came whinnying out of the trees across the valley to the north, and that got the boys’ attention, too. Comanche did go racing off to greet him, but I had crossed an arroyo to seek shade and was blocked by trees. I wish this “boys” post included pix of him, but I pulled a dumb newbie mistake and didn’t have an empty memory card in my pocket like usual – and I had no idea I’d taken so many pix – until right after Eliana left the pond. I just sat and watched while the horses grazed into the overtaking shadows, but when I walked back to the Jeep past Duke, it was just to greet him and admire his sleek and shiny bayness – not to take any pix.
He had a little fit of pique when Juniper got “too close” to his own girls, and this is him encouraging her to return “home.”
Comanche with a most-recognizable backdrop – McKenna Peak and the unnamed promontory.
Watching Duke, but he didn’t leave his mares … which is interesting because I watched specifically to see if he would. But maybe he’s learning, and it seemed to me that he quite remembered Comanche stealing almost all his family earlier this year (not long after Cougar was born). He has lost Piedra at least twice before because of his penchant for running off to spar, leaving her unprotected.
So handsome. So wild. So awesome.
Holls
I love his walk!
Hollywood and his little girls – Briosa (back) is his daughter, and Eliana is Sundance’s daughter … but her mother is possibly Briosa’s mother’s mother, which makes Eliana Briosa’s aunt! And Mahogany – Eliana’s mama – Bri’s grandma!
Comanche with Kestrel and baby Juniper. Love that background!
It occurred to me that I wouldn’t get any of these posted if I tried to do them in some kind of order – the always way of it these days – so here are some pix of some horses … Beautiful, all.
Houdini and Deniz.
I’ve been expecting the usual migration westward as the forage and water grows scarce back in the east. One of the two ponds back there is holding pretty steady, though, so several bands are (still) taking advantage of it. Grey/Traveler’s band, however, had made the trip, and I found them at afternoon water in the Wildcat Spring area. There’s enough water there this year – interestingly – that there are some stagnant pockets of it along the wash. I heard the girls (Terra, Gemma and Corona) playing in one such puddle, though I couldn’t get a clear look at them because of the obscuring greasewood on the banks. Mama and baby and Grey were above the arroyo. Deniz is going grey fast, like sister Gemma. She’s a big tall girl, eh?
Baby girls Briosa, left, and Eliana, with Bri’s mama Piedra in the background. Eli’s mama Mahogany was grazing down to the right (a pic is with the “Oppose sterilization” post of a few days ago). I wanted my wide-angle lens for, well, not the first time, I guess, to try to capture some of the beautiful background of the basin “behind” the fillies as they napped.
There’s some of it behind Hollywood, who was, I think, watching Aspen and Sundance, close-ish again. In the near background is part of the north side of the east-west hill, and in the far-ish background (not all the way back) is part of what I call Lizard Mesa.
Eli gives Bri a little post-nap nuzzle. They’re now at the age to be interested in each other. Bri, not quite a month older than Eli, is considerably bigger and stouter.
Sunny little Eliana is just a beautiful little princess of a filly.
Piedra was closest, and after she got up, Bri walked right over for a snack. Eli lingered, though, taking her sweet time walking down the slope, stopping, looking at mama, at stepdaddy (Sundance is Eliana’s sire), at me, back at Bri … before finally going on down for her own lunch. Bri’s a stout little girl, eh? Takes after daddy.
Speaking of daddies, here’s Varoujan with his daddy – Butch.
And with mama.
Kreacher’s band weren’t too far, and I waited for them, too, to mosey their way up to, across and off the road (it was like rush hour out there! 😉 ). This was a horizontally shot image I took through the passenger-side window and cropped into a vertical. I also took the image a post or so back of Apollo looking through his legs horizontally and cropped it vertically. I crop almost all my photos – some more than others.
Heading out of the basin for the evening: Hook’s band. I couldn’t decide between this one and …
… this one. Ponies gilded with light, those hills in the back! The near-ish hills are part of Spring Creek Basin, our northwest hills; the far-ish hills to the sky are outside the basin but still part of Disappointment Valley, basically, the far northeastern edge (the basin is tucked a little lower into the valley’s east-northeastern side). From left: black Sable and grey Twister, hanging with the band; almost yearling Fierro looking toward the camera and dark bay Pinon behind him; grey Ember, bay Hannah and Hook. Ember is due close to any time now.
I’m liking this change:
Briosa
Eliana
What do they have in common?
! 🙂
What else might they have in common?
Mahogany might be Piedra’s mother, which might make Eliana Piedra’s sister … Briosa’s aunt.
Mahogany and Eliana
Piedra and Briosa. The funniest thing about this photo is the backstory. Briosa had been nursing and must have slurped a bit too hard because mama delivered a swift reprimand in the form of a snap to her little heiney – which provoked a little kicking fit from both of them! “Don’t bite the udder that feeds you”?! Learned early! 🙂
Hollywood was working to keep his girls close … because Aspen showed up on a hill a short distance away.
To recap, Sundance had Mahogany for a bit more than a year, then two weeks ago, he finally lost Mahogany and Eliana to Aspen the day after I first met Eli. Sometime in the last two weeks, Hollywood managed to steal them from Aspen. To go a little farther back, the winter before this last, Hook briefly stole Piedra and Sage from Hollywood. He had them a shorter than the winter before, when Aspen stole them!
Shall we go even further back in time?
Mahogany and Piedra were originally part of Steeldust’s band. When I first started documenting the horses, Hollywood had Jif … and then they started hanging out with Steeldust’s … that was in the days when the Bachelor 7 were running around with them, too. Then Grey/Traveler stole Jif to add to Houdini and Two Boots and Twister, and Holls turned his attention to lovely Piedra. Bri is their third baby!
Bri is a month old, and Eli is about 2 weeks old – enough age difference that Bri is more independent than her aunt Eli (!), who still sticks pretty close to mama.
So here’s a question: Who is alpha? Piedra, who has been with Hollywood for a few years now, or Mahogany, who is older – and possibly Piedra’s dam – but newly come to the family?
Oh, the wild ways of the wild ones!
Can you stand the cuteness?
How amazing it will be to watch these red babies grow together!
Little beauties. How amazing they are! And together!? Look out! 🙂
A couple of “miscellaneous” and several from an evening.
Piedra and Briosa looking south … I think that vibrant green cottonwood makes the whole scene. 🙂
Ties of family are strong, blood or no. Liberty and her mother, Molly, spent time with Bounce’s band shortly before Molly died in the fall of 2009. Afterward, Liberty went back to the band … then ended up with Cinch in the fall of 2010. Gaia ended up with them over the winter (January 2011?). Gaia is 3 (Alegre’s daughter, Bounce’s stepdaughter), Liberty is 2 (Seven x Molly). It’s not a huge surprise these girls ended up back together. 🙂
Sundance and Hollywood in sync.
I ended up right on the road in a great position to watch some awesome dynamics playing out. From a distance, I had seen Sundance (recently separated from Mahogany, Eliana and Aspen) with Sage and Ze, two young (2 years old) bachelors. Hollywood’s were close – as were Hook’s band.
Hook
Hollywood
Double trouble on the bubble – Sage and Ze wisely kept their distance, but all the boys – and girls – were well aware of them.
Sisters Hannah (bay) and Ember
Part of the magnificent background of Spring Creek Basin – Knife Edge, McKenna Peak and the unnamed promontory …
Hook’s band – Brumley Point in the background …
Fierro, Hannah and Sable. Hollywood actually stole Hannah briefly when she was a yearling (by briefly, I mean around an hour or so). That was shortly before she followed sister Ember and half-brother Pinon to Hook’s band … followed shortly thereafter by Sable.
Hollywood about to greet Pinon …
Hollywood left Piedra and Briosa for quite a long while during this melee … He later chased Sundance far to the east, and Hook’s and Sage and Ze eventually followed, and Holls eventually went back to his girls.
What a day!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 