This is what the original interpretive sign looked like (I know you were wondering!), courtesy of Kathe Hayes, who retired a few years ago after working many years for San Juan Mountains Association as the volunteer coordinator. Long-time readers will remember Kathe’s name associated especially with the alternative spring break program, which brought in college students from the University of Missouri every year to work on various projects in Spring Creek Basin and other public lands (both BLM and U.S. Forest Service) around Southwest Colorado.
When Kathe read about the new kiosk installation, she sent me a text and some emails about the history of the FIRST sign installation at the west basin boundary:
“Excited to see that Laura [Heaton] was involved in the installation of the new sign in Spring Creek Basin. As you know as a child, she was involved in the installation of the first sign along with a group of college students from the University of Missouri and Ranger Rick from BLM. I remember Laura and I climbing up the side of the hill and rolling large rocks down so that we could surround the sign so cars would not drive over the sign. A lot of hard work and dedication went into the original sign, and I was sad to see that it had disintegrated. But I am grateful for the new sign and the information it portrays about the wonderful Spring Creek Basin. Thanks for your help in this, TJ.”
Also:
“I was really excited to read about the installation of the new sign. I believe the old one was installed around 2008. It prompted me to resurrect a photo of the original. Laura was involved in the installation of the original sign, as a young kid working alongside the University of Missouri students and Ranger Rick Ryan (BLM). Wow, such good memories for me.
“Attached is the original sign photo. It was a lot of work back then, getting that sign created and approved.”
Not much has changed in that respect. 😉 I asked Kathe if I could share the image of the original sign and her words about the history of it.
“I remember this about installing the original sign. Rick Ryan (Ranger Rick) had been mixing cement in a wheelbarrow and then pouring it into the hole to secure the base of the sign as we all watched curiously as to how this was all going to work. Laura said that that’s not how my dad would do it [Laura’s dad is well-known rancher Al Heaton; their family is well respected in the entire region of Southwest Colorado. She is, quite literally, a local!] and I just laughed. Laura‘s family was instrumental in the success of the Alternative Spring break program. I doubt I would have continued without their support. And Laura was my little shadow since she was about 6 years old. Her parents let me drag her all over the place. She loved being with the college students who loved playing games especially spoons.”
Wild and crazy how things come back around full circle, eh? 🙂
Thanks so much for the history, Kathe! We miss the alternative spring break program (I think it lasted almost 20 years with Kathe’s guidance?), but we sure loved each year’s crop of students and all the work they did for us in Spring Creek Basin! And we now have Laura as one of our BLM range team members, carrying on that good work!
[Nate West, Brian Yaquinto, Jon Whitehead, Laura Heaton, Anton Rambur, Ryan Schroeder, TJ Holmes]
I cannot begin to tell you all how much I *LOVE* this new information/map sign kiosk JUST installed at the western entrance/boundary of Spring Creek Basin.
It has been in the works for at least the last year. On April Fool’s Day, rangeland management specialists Ryan Schroeder and Anton Rambur came out to augur and dig out the holes for the three posts for the kiosk (in the snow and greasy-muddy road, I might add). The day after April Fool’s Day (gorgeous but nippy), we were joined by Laura Heaton (range tech), Nate West (wildlife biologist), Brian Yaquinto (archaeologist) and Jon Whitehead (recreation) to put the whole thing together and set it upright in the holes (shout-out to my awesome little Kubota tractor!) and cement it in place.
Let me also mention that this was Ryan’s third day back to work. I never anticipated that I’d be RE-introducing him when I introduced our new range team, but there it is, and here they are. 🙂 I’m so stoked to be working now – again – with all three of them.
A couple of (OK, several) images of the construction and installation of our brand-spanking-new, kick-ass kiosk in Spring Creek Basin:
Actually, let’s start with the old interpretive sign, familiar to anyone who has driven into Spring Creek Basin. You might think the sign looks white because of glare or overexposure by the camera. …
But no. It really is that blank. The high-elevation, Southwest Colorado sunshine will do a number on just about anything. … Hence the new sign. 🙂 (Note the scratches at the top and (at least) left side. What made those scratches, you ask? Horse teeth, I tell you.)
Laura and Ryan check out the new map and info signs. OMG! They are SOOO COOL!
Who took the images for the signs? I’m so glad you asked. 🙂 I am BEYOND proud! (While all of the BLM folks were gathered around to look at the signs, I ID’d for them all the mustangs in the pix. Above: Hollywood, Shane, Houdini, Alegre and Maia. I’m also hugely grateful that our dearly retired herd manager, Mike Jensen, and the BLM’er who put the signs together, Jason Byrd, allowed me to dust off my copy-editing skills in service of both the info panel and the map. I realize now that I didn’t take a close-up pic, but Temple Butte is noted on the map, the first time I’ve seen the name on any map since we got it officially named by USGS in late 2018.)
While Ryan digs out the edges of the middle post hole just a little bit more, Brian, Nate and Anton started attaching the posts to the roof structure, resting on the forks of the tractor.
With all the vertical posts attached to the roof structure and the cross pieces (to which the sign boards would bolt), Jon arrived with the Qwikcrete and water to mix into a slurry in the post holes to help support the posts for a very long time to come.
And up she goes! OK, this doesn’t really show the tractor doing the heavy lifting, but it did. 🙂 Thanks, Ryan, for taking the camera while I worked the tractor!
In go the bolts for the first sign panel! (Yes, we did joke about how many BLM’ers it takes to screw bolts into a sign. 🙂 You almost can’t see him, but Jon is holding the sign behind Brian while he and Ryan thread the first bolts and Anton holds the left side of the sign.)
Anton holds the second panel while Jon (left) and Brian insert bolts to attach the sign to the frame.
Eagle-eyed readers will note that the sign very correctly welcomes visitors to Spring Creek *Basin*!
I want to express my enthusiastic gratitude to our particularly awesome BLM’ers for making this new info/map kiosk come to life in Spring Creek Basin. It has been, I think, a little more than a year from conception to standing tall at the west basin boundary to greet visitors to Spring Creek Basin, magical home of our mustangs. Pictured, left to right: Nate West, Brian Yaquinto, Jon Whitehead, Laura Heaton, Anton Rambur, Ryan Schroeder and yours truly (I actually brought my tripod so I could be part of the picture record!).
Huge gratitude also to Mike Jensen (retired but never forgotten), who offered me the opportunity to share some of my favorite images of the mustangs and my copy-editing skills (and texted this in reply to telling him about the new sign: “Wow awesome that looks great. See no worries I left you in good hands.” :)); Doug Vilsack, Colorado BLM director, who agreed that we needed a new sign when he first visited Spring Creek Basin in 2023; Derek Padilla, Tres Rios Field Office manager, who has been super supportive of Spring Creek Basin from the get-go; Joe Manning, TRFO assistant manager, also incredibly supportive and who agreed that it was a project worthy of funding; and Jason Byrd, recreation specialist (?) at TRFO who designed the signs with my images and all my edits and made the most gorgeous informative panels in all of BLM-dom.
Thank you, ALL! And now, when any of you visit Spring Creek Basin, you know the story of how our fabulous mustang kiosk came to be!
I am giddy with excitement and anticipation. 🙂 First of all, we have our full BLM range team back together again! As of Monday, rangeland management specialist Ryan Schroeder is fully reinstated and back to work with range specialist Anton Rambur and range tech Laura Heaton at Tres Rios Field Office. And he got to get his hands dirty – literally – with Anton (Laura was under the weather) out in Spring Creek Basin yesterday to …
…uh … just what the heck WERE these guys doing?!
A hint is in the background. 🙂
Leave a guess in the comments and let me know just what the heck you think these funny guys were doing!
All will be revealed soon, and it’s going to be awesome!
A young bull elk and a cow elk check me out from right above Disappointment Creek, which still is not running yet this year. They still look awfully fuzzy don’t they? The temp was at least 67F in the valley yesterday. Spring is here.
On Wednesday, BLM rangeland management specialist Ryan Schroeder texted that he had been reinstated at his job at Tres Rios Field Office in Dolores, Colorado!!!!!!
On Friday, rallies to support public lands and federal employees were held at Tres Rios Field Office (also known as Dolores Public Lands Office; BLM and U.S. Forest Service), Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum (national monument), and at Mesa Verde National Park. Those rallies were followed by a combined rally at the intersection of U.S. Highway 160 and Colorado Highway 184 in Mancos.
I’d call that excellent timing. 🙂
Folks gathering and collecting their signs in the parking lot of TRFO/DPLO.
A law-enforcement ranger pulling in, greeted by a crowd of supporters. I believe this was a Forest Service ranger, but I’d like to give a shout out to our BLM law-enforcement rangers, who are absolutely the best. I’ve worked with a handful of different rangers, and absolutely every one of them has been stellar. At least one of them was just in Disappointment Valley this past week. Two BLM rangers have an enormous chunk of ground to cover – all of Southwest Colorado, something like five or six counties? – and they have told me they make it a point to patrol through Spring Creek Basin and Disappointment Valley as often as possible. Hats off to those guys!
Supporters crowded both sides of the entrance to the DPLO/TRFO, as well as across Highway 184. Lots of folks honked and waved in support of the public lands in Southwest Colorado and elsewhere. I don’t know the percentages, but this region IS public lands! Agriculture (cattle and sheep grazing), timber, oil and gas, hunting and fishing, wild horses, recreation – hiking, mountain biking, camping, backpacking, horseback riding, birding, kayaking, rafting, etc., etc. – all depend on BLM, Forest Service, national monument and national park lands. Jobs aren’t limited to federal employees; they are interconnected among a wide variety of livelihoods. And those folks are our friends, our neighbors; they are part of our communities.
I would hazard a guess that at least (at LEAST!) 95 percent of the people who drove by – whether they honked/waved in support or not – use public lands. We saw vehicles with mountain bikes on racks, sprinter vans, trucks hauling campers and stock trailers, dump trucks, utility trucks, big rigs (one driver from Los Angeles actually pulled his rig to the shoulder and asked what was going on … then gave the supporter who talked to him a bottle of Gatorade!). Vehicles with Colorado plates, Texas plates, California plates, New Mexico plates, Wyoming plates. To say we all use our public lands in these vast reaches of the West – let alone Southwest Colorado – is super simplification. We all have our own uses, and we all should value these lands set aside for us to enjoy and treasure.
Bonnie Candelaria (right) and friends Joy and Lisa (?) were supporters at the event. Bonnie runs the store and cabin rentals at Groundhog Reservoir between Disappointment Valley and Dolores. Every single person she talks to there is using public lands: San Juan National Forest (at least), which surrounds Groundhog.
It was wonderful to see such a great and HAPPY turnout of support for our public lands and federal lands employees. Ryan is the only one I know personally, but the Forest Service side at the Dolores Public Lands Office lost some employees to the rash of terminations, too. I hope those folks also get reinstated ASAP.
We counted at least 65 people – including some youngsters! – at this rally. Simultaneous rallies were being held yesterday morning at both Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum and at Mesa Verde National Park. Then, at noon, folks converged at the highway intersection in Mancos (it’s literally a one-stoplight town :)), and Ryan (who was at CANM for the morning rally) texted me later that an estimated 150 to 200 people were there to show their support!
Huge appreciation to the organizers (I’m not entirely sure if there was a main group, but I think League of Women Voters of Montezuma County, Great Old Broads for Wilderness and Dolores River Boating Advocates, at least, had a hand in it). It was fantastic to join like-minded people in our appreciation of the amazing treasure that is our public lands.
These and at least a couple (few?) hundred more were flocking (is that a thing?) hither, thither, over, around, past and settling around me and a band I was with the other day in Spring Creek Basin. The horses WATCHED them fly and flock and land and twitter (the correct and natural way) and flutter all around us. They were nearly always in motion, and all I could tell was that they were LBJs (little brown jobs). I knew they weren’t bluebirds, but I didn’t know what they were – and I still don’t.
If you happen to know what these beauties are – that *pink*!? – please, please let me know. I think both males and females must be together, as some are less pink (do you suppose it’s the males that are more pink?).
Spotlit by heaven’s sunshine is Temple Butte. You’re not used to seeing it from this vantage point, are you?
That’s because when I took this image, I was way up high among the ridges that form the southern boundary of Disappointment Valley, and I’m looking uppish-valley (!). Snow was still blowing through the region, and the sunlight was finding different and varied windows through the clouds … and
IT
WAS
SPECTACULAR!
Every time I’m up there, I’m reminded anew how absolutely gorgeous is this part of the world. Spring Creek Basin is back to the leftish, and with the clouds and sunlight and waves of snow … it was more painting than reality. But it WAS reality, and by gosh, it was gorgeous.
(I even saw a band of mustangs from up there, but they were very far away and nearly impossible to see other than through binoculars. I think I did take a pic with them in it, but they’re not in this pic.)
** Update from Tuesday morning, after the so-called “meeting” in Dolores: Who showed up? Hundreds of people concerned about local, regional and national issues – including the firing of BLM, Forest Service and National Park Service employees (including our range specialist Ryan Schroeder). Who did NOT show up? Rep. Hurd’s representative, with whom the meeting was scheduled.
By now, I’m sure most readers of this blog have heard/seen/read about the mass firings of hundreds or thousands of federal employees with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (among other agencies).
Many of you probably even know some of those folks, who work hard for America’s public lands so that American citizens as well as visitors from other countries are able to enjoy these lands. America is the birthplace of this idea of protecting nature and natural resources for future generations. It’s not all dollar-driven extraction industries, though those play a part. But the great, far-seeing vision of the people who envisioned protected lands, available to all citizens, was to ensure that those lands belong to all of us and that we have a part in protecting and preserving them, in addition to enjoying them and all the natural wonders they offer.
Perhaps no collective group of people feel that mission more strongly than the employees who work for little pay, in harsh conditions (and I’m not talking about just rough country), for the love of the land and – !!! – for the very people who also love those lands.
Two days after I was able to speak to one of my BLM folks in person – asking her “are you all safe??” (her answer then was yes) – I learned that when she got back to the office, they were NOT. One of our two new range specialists had gotten the “you’re fired” letter that afternoon, citing as the “reason” that during his probationary period, he had “failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the Department’s current needs …”
In his own words and with his permission, I’m going to share here the letter Ryan Schroeder wrote that demonstrates that not only do his “subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities” FULLY meet the current needs of Tres Rios Field Office and that of BLM state- and nationwide, they FAR exceed those criteria … as only a bureaucrat in the nation’s Capitol could fail to understand at a glance.
Ryan Schroeder and Chispa (Spanish for “spark,” a fitting name because of Ryan’s previous work as a firefighter), his rescue pup from the Mora, New Mexico, area.
Hi TJ,
This is Ryan Schroeder, I am the (now) former Rangeland Management Specialist (GS-11) down here for the Bureau of Land Management Tres Rios Field Office and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in the Dolores, CO area. Thank you for wanting to share my story to say what happened to me on Tuesday Feb. 18, 2025 when I was terminated after less than 60 days on the job. I have written below the most concise way I can think to write about what has happened, and what it may mean for public lands and the people of this state that depend upon them.
A lot has happened in a little more than two months… I finished my PhD at the University of Montana on Dec. 13, 2024; moved nearly 800 miles south to SW Colorado where my Significant Other and I moved in together after being long-distance for over 4 years; started working at my dream job as a Rangeland Management Specialist with the Bureau of Land Management, working to promote and sustain healthy rangelands and habitats for all Americans; …and less than 60 days after being hired I was terminated for a “cause” that is a lie.
“The Department has determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the Department’s current needs…” (excerpt from my termination letter dated Feb. 18, 2025; I have attached my termination letter in full).
Rangeland Management Specialists such as myself review, renew, and update grazing permits for private ranchers and entities to graze their livestock on public rangelands, as well as work with our partners to manage Wild Horse Management Areas such as Spring Creek Basin in the Disappointment Valley south of Naturita. To do this, we are mandated by federal statute and regulation to conduct Land Health Assessments, go through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, and work not just with our permittees but all other resources (cultural, wildlife, hydrology, fuels, recreation, and minerals) and other interested publics as part of Interdisciplinary Teams to try and use science to balance grazing habitat use alongside other public land uses, minimize negative environmental impacts while producing food and fiber for America, and use grazing as a tool for habitat improvement.
I have gone to school and worked for 11 years to be qualified for this position (resume attached), one of the most difficult positions to fill in Public Lands Management Agencies. I have gained experience, knowledge, and qualifications from Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico rangelands to rise to the tasks given to me; which, when I signed my performance plan 7 days prior to receiving my termination notice, seemed daunting but doable, and a way to grow in my career and be a steward of the amazing public resources we all own as Americans. If I am not “fit or qualified” for the needs of the Department [BLM], then it appears to me that the Mission of the Department [BLM] has fundamentally changed without the knowledge of the public and those who have been with the agency more than one year…
My position, a GS-11 Rangeland Management Specialist, in the Tres Rios Field Office had been vacant following the retirement of Mike Jensen, a Rangeland Management Specialist who had been with the Tres Rios F.O. for more than a decade, and who had developed great relationships with grazing permittees and other interested publics, and it took nearly a year to fill the position. In that short time, there became a backlog of statutorily required Land Health Assessments throughout the 600,000 acre Field Office and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument areas, as well as grazing permits that were soon to expire and be renewed. By law, the revised Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), the BLM is obligated to issue grazing permits and renew expired ones. Those expired grazing permits (often with a 10-year permit period) can either be renewed with a few clicks on a computer, without any modification or updates to the “Terms and Conditions” in the permit, or go through a “Fully Processed” update and renewal to incorporate the latest science, up-to-date on-the-ground Land Health conditions, and adaptive management strategies into new “Terms and Conditions” to not just manage livestock but manage the habitat for the benefit of all resources. My supervisor, Joe Manning (Assistant Field Manager for the Tres Rios F.O.), and Laria Lovec (Colorado State Range Program lead) had brought me on to help address that backlog and incorporate more science of rangeland ecology and ecological restoration into these grazing permit renewals; be an advocate for the rangeland resources when advising on other proposed actions (by private citizens/companies or the BLM) to occur on BLM Public Lands; and continue to steward and sustain positive relationships between the Agency, our partners, and the land.
I fear, that with my termination, effective Feb. 18th, 2025, after less than 60 days on the job, the planning we in the Range Program at the Tres Rios Field Office had done to start addressing the backlog of permit renewals, Land Health Assessments, and other projects requiring NEPA this year will not be able to be done, or not incorporate up-to-date science and on-the-ground data to help the agency and the private permittees adapt to challenges faced on the ground, and will be forced to renew most permits without any changes or adequate information. Many of the grazing permits that are up for renewal were originally written in the late 1980’s through the early 2000’s. Conditions on the ground throughout the Tres Rios F.O. and Canyons of the Ancients N.M. have changed since then, and it is not appropriate to renew grazing permits without understanding what changes in the resource base or resource potential have occurred, how they can be mitigated to sustain appropriate grazing use, and how to adaptively manage in response to unpredictable environmental conditions and to promote and sustain both big-game populations, horse herds, sensitive wildlife and plant species, and cultural resources that occur throughout our grazing allotments and Field Office. Thus, if the “new” Mission of the BLM has no need for science, knowledge, stewardship, and passion thereof, as indicated in my termination letter, I fear that public lands projects (not just grazing permits) will be rubber-stamped without careful consideration of on-the-ground conditions, science, lawfully-required public input, and adaptive management techniques due to continued short-staffing of the Field Office, and lead to degradation of Colorado’s public lands and resources and increased vulnerability to external factors such as drought, shifting market conditions, and altered public perception of our rangeland and habitat resources.
Further, I do not think that my termination, in addition to at least two other BLM Colorado employees (effective Feb. 18, 2025), are the last that the agency will experience given the on-going circumstances. I do not know who is on the chopping-block next, but I worry that the BLM and other Public Land Management Agencies will continue down a crisis of confidence, a crisis of leadership, and a crisis of adequate staffing to complete the Mission(s) as they have been known and mandated by Congress and the American people. Those who remain in the agency at the State, District, and Field Office (local) levels are being silenced (both actively and passively) from speaking up about what is occuring, in fear of losing their jobs next. I fear those losses will be inevitable if things do not change, whether they speak up or not, further degrading our Public Lands Management Agencies’ abilities and our public resources in the near term and in the future.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this important matter.
**********
Later this winter or early in the spring, I was hoping to introduce you all to our new team of Anton Rambur (rangeland management specialist), Laura Heaton (range tech who worked with Mike Jensen and replaced Daniel Chavez in that position) and Ryan Schroeder. Anton and Ryan stepped into their positions just last October and December, hired to fill the positions left vacant by Mike and by Garth Nelson. We’re getting a new interpretive sign at the western boundary/entrance to Spring Creek Basin, and I thought that happy event would be a great way to introduce you all to our new BLM’ers.
Now, when that happens, we’ll be missing a key member of our team – Ryan.
From the above letter, you know that Ryan is incredibly well educated and has a significant knowledge of his subject matter. From the additional information he sent me, let me share what he accomplished in the Tres Rios Field Office in less than 60 days:
U.S.D.I. – Bureau of Land Management, CO – Rangeland Management Specialist Dec. 29 2024 – Feb. 18 2025 ▪ Duty Station: Tres Rios Field Office & Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Dolores, CO ▪ Supervisor’s phone #: Joe Manning, A.F.M. 970-***-**** (Permission granted for reference check) ▪ Developed a prioritization plan to strategically address a two-year backlog of Land Health Assessments, grazing permit renewals, and grazing permit updates (requiring the NEPA process) to focus efforts in Gunnison Sage Grouse Habitat and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern within the Field Office area. ▪ Collaborated with grazing permitees to plan livestock grazing and land management actions on BLM lands ▪ Contributed to BLM Interdisciplinary Teams as the Field Office lead range program specialist for proposed actions on BLM lands requiring NEPA review, findings of potential impacts, and mitigation techniques ▪ Responded to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in a timely manner ▪ Worked with Agency partners including non-profits, local governments, tribal nations, and private citizens to respond to and advise on rangeland habitat, livestock, and Wild Horse Management Area issues ▪ Inspected and maintained range improvements within the Field Office and Canyons of the Ancients N.M.
**********
With all due respect (not much) to the bureaucrat(s) who took the time to type up (or more likely copy and paste) his termination letter and find him in Dolores, Colorado, does that sound like someone who doesn’t know their subject matter AND also doesn’t have the “skills and abilities” to meet the needs of the range department at Tres Rios Field Office for an area of Southwest Colorado covering 600,000 surface acres of incredibly diverse landscape between Silverton to the north, New Mexico to the south and Utah to the west?!
If you’re local to our area, please make time to attend a “town hall” with a representative of newly elected U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo) at 4 p.m. today at the Dolores Public Library.
BLM, as well as the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, is *chronically* understaffed and underfunded. We know from Mike and Garth and Daniel that when you have good people, you hate to see them go (to retirement and the USFS, respectively – that agency lured away two great guys!) … and when you get new people who have the promise to keep your level of partnership and quality of work at an excellent level, you want to hang on to them. Our elected officials need to know how important people like Ryan are to our public lands and our communities.
I’ve worked with Laura since she started with TRFO, and she’s already proved to be a great addition to our team (she’s been in the office about a year and a half and learned under Mike). I’ve met Anton a few times and gotten him into the basin to see the mustangs both with Laura, and with Laura and Ryan; he is a welcome addition to Spring Creek Basin’s herd management (he comes to us from Nevada, and we’re eager to show him how wild-horse management is successful!). Ryan impressed me the second time I met him (on that basin tour), especially when he was able to immediately identify a plant I’ve been wondering about for nearly 18 years (!). We look forward to *continuing* to work with Ryan just as soon as we can get him reinstated in his very necessary position.
Better late than never, and when I finally got my act together, I thought Valentine’s Day would be the best day for this rundown.
As usual, these are 12 (and a bonus) images from the last year that came from each month. This year, I think, most of these photos have been on the blog previously. A little reminiscence of the events surrounding each image will follow the photos. Sometimes it’s those emotions and memories that make a particular image special for the photographer, and these are no exception to that. Just being out with the mustangs, in Spring Creek Basin, no matter the weather, is the very best part of what is impossible to share.
Enjoy … and please consider this is my love letter to Spring Creek Basin and its mustangs from 2024. 🙂
January last year was at least somewhat snowy (this year was very much NOT snowy). Skywalker had been a bachelor with a couple of bands until sometime last year, and here he is with some horses from one of those bands. Completing the composition is part of the Spring Creek canyon rimrocks in the near background and Utah’s La Sal Mountains in the far background. (I wish they were that snowy this year.)
This was a magical February visit with Mariah and her band. The low-angle sunshine made each snowflake a visible bit of earthly magic, and when she looked back at somebody – shazam. Magic captured.
Couldn’t pass up this snowy March day in the basin with Temple! Clearly, she had been enjoying the moisture and excuse to roll in the mud. I love the sunshine on her and the falling snow blurring the background.
I had so many opportunities with the mustangs in April, but this image of Hollywood was just *the one*. You all know exactly what I mean. (To update, I haven’t seen him again since the image I posted earlier this winter. It doesn’t mean anything other than I haven’t seen him. …)
When Spring Creek is running with rainwater, that is a time not to miss photographing it because it doesn’t happen often and water doesn’t run in the arroyo bed for very long. When Skywalker moseyed to the edge of the creek in May, just upstream of the canyon, the scene came alive with story: mustang drinking from an ephemeral stream in the desert.
In June, I was lucky to catch Sundance’s band near Odin’s band … and luckier still to see Sundance and Odin having a friendly little chat! Elder stallion and growing young stallion; what a moment. I’d love to know what wisdom Sundance was imparting to young Odin.
Terra’s stallion adores her. And I mean *adores* her. They travel with another band, but Venture has eyes only for Terra. This image is from July, when it’s hot and dry and the horses just like to doze.
Personally, this is one of my favorite images of the year because those are two of my favorite stallions: Storm and Buckeye. With their bands grazing nearby on this warm August evening, the boys greeted each other quietly and respectfully before returning to their mares.
Here’s your Valentine’s Day image, taken last September. 🙂 Buckeye and Rowan, especially, seem to have a special fondness for each other.
After Storm lost his band in October, the mares went through a couple of younger stallions that couldn’t seem to keep them. Flash ended up with Gaia … then also with Mysterium. And finally, as you know now, he gathered all of Storm’s girls (which, I think, probably was due more to them wanting to be together and evading the youngster that had them than to any particular skill Flash had at stealing them!). (I’ve seen Storm just once since he lost the band, way deep in the southeastern part of the basin.)
Last November, we had some great snow, and we were so optimistic for the winter to come! … And that was pretty much it. Here it is February, and we’re desperate for moisture of any kind while we watch the dirt turn to dust, to powder. But in November, Terra was a gorgeous girl in the sunlit snow, and life was good.
We had more lovely light in December – as seen glowing around lovely Winona – but not a heckuva lot of snow.
And as usual, a bonus:
Buckeye’s girls. 🙂 I don’t remember what caused them to run right past me, but I was stoked to capture this image of them nearly in a row, especially just as Bia was leaping a bit of sage or saltbush!
Thanks for following along, happy Valentine’s Day to you and your loved ones, and if we can have a bit of a love(ly) wish … more snow, please! 🙂
*** Update Friday morning: Disappointment Valley is getting RAIN! Not snow, RAIN. In February. In Colorado. Well, you know we’re in desperate need of moisture, so I’ll take it. (But 38F is hard on the wildlife under rain.)
(Remember what I said about not enough days? Not enough hours, too/either, and too many other things to do that don’t involve computers and the insides of walls. Apologies for the delay to the day – and the year (if only, eh?)!)
How about some inter-species getting-alongness to kick off the first day of the new year?
Dundee and the band were making their way westward along the base of a little hill/ridge when they encountered the pronghorns. The pronghorns (one of them, at least) gave a couple of little “barks” at one point (their warning sound), and I think that was because at least one of them finally realized there was something “not like the others” wandering along in the horses’ wake.
The main road into the basin is just down to the right, and the pronghorns eventually crossed it and continued to watch the horses, who stopped to graze where the ground leveled out a bit above the road.
It is anthropomorphic in the extreme to say that pronghorns LIKE to race and be raced (it’s that speed thing). … But if you’ve ever driven in pronghorn country, you know what I’m sayin’. And so, when they realized (!) that the horses had no intention whatever of racing anywhere, the pronghorns eventually moseyed (as much as pronghorns can be said to mosey) on to the high ground to the north, toward Spring Creek canyon, and out of sight.
No fuss, no muss, no warfare.
I won’t say there was a lot of conversation, either (aside from the brief warning – “hey, there’s a two-legged!”), but I’m sure no offense was either given or taken. Let’s all be so kind this year.
Happy, happy. 🙂
And a couple of bonus shots, for having to wait so long for today’s post:
From last night, driving through Norwood, Colorado:
Pretty spectacular for a little town! (But also, there was a lot of kabooming, which can’t have been peaceful for the four-leggeds.)
And this morning, first sunrise of 2025:
Pretty in pink. Alas, we have zero moisture in the immediate forecast.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 