The water trough at the main/original water catchment is full again. The tank has about 3 feet of water. It has been mostly dry with a poor winter and without much rain.
Post-rain grass growth! If you live east of the Rockies and in places where it, you know, rains, this might look sparse. … To us, it looks lush and divine! And I will tell you, the mustangs are going after it with gusto!
Do you see the pillar of light? The clouds were heavy the last part of the day (and they and the breeze dropped the mercury comfortably), but then, at THE very end of the day, the sun found a window, and it lit up the basin.
Did you think I was exaggerating? 🙂 As usual, the pic doesn’t do justice to the colors of reality.
I couldn’t decide between the really long, wide view or the slightly zoomed-in view, so you get both. 🙂
Just another glorious day in Spring Creek Basin. I promise, pix of ponies are on the way.
I think – I hope – that these pix truly are worth 1,000 (or more!) words … but I’m going to give you a few more anyway. 🙂
This is the east-pocket pond, aptly named as it’s located in Spring Creek Basin’s east pocket. This isn’t the only pond that suddenly has water after Thursday’s tremendous downpour, but it’s the only one of which I have a “before” pic.
“Before” was a little after noon on June 27, a few hours before the four-hour deluge. “After” was about 26 hours later on June 28.
Maybe, if you look closely, you can see a band of greys at far distant left in the pond-now-full pic. Fortunately, the horses have multiple sources of water now. It’s amazing how quickly things change (for the better, in this case!).
When you get only a bit more than half an inch in almost three months, then you get enough rain in two consecutive days to push that above an inch … THEN you get 1.66 inches of rain in four hours … the toads start thrumming their joy. Sure, sure, it’s mating season (dependent on water?!), but I’m pretty sure they’re happy to finally have some water.
*I’M* happy to have water, for the toads and the mustangs and all of the critters who depend on water in the desert.
Readers of this blog know that I/we have enjoyed a particularly good partnership with our BLM folks for the last nearly decade, in huge part because of rangeland management specialist and Spring Creek Basin herd manager Mike Jensen.
Our PZP program was implemented during the 2011 roundup, before Mike returned to herd manager duties (he was herd manager here first in the early 2000s), but Mike has been an absolutely staunch supporter of the program. It was under Mike’s leadership that we were able to get bait trapping solidified as the capture method of choice (when the time comes), and because of Mike’s dedication to vegetation monitoring, for the 2020 herd management area plan update, we had the data necessary to allow the increase in AML (appropriate management level) from 35 to 65 adult horses to 50 to 80 adult horses. That, combined with the very successful PZP program, has meant an astounding 13 years to date since the last roundup and removal of any Spring Creek Basin mustangs.
Mike is the BLM partner every advocate wishes for and we have been so very fortunate to have.
Under Mike’s leadership, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area is a model that other BLM managers and advocates can aspire to. (That’s not arrogance; that’s pure gratitude.)
As I described in yesterday’s post, last week, Mike and Tres Rios Field Office Manager Derek Padilla came to Spring Creek Basin for the field trip with Colorado Wild Horse Working Group members. I take every opportunity offered to describe Mike’s work ethic, partnership and support of our mustangs to anyone who will listen, but this was the first opportunity for group members and our Colorado advocates to see him in action as he talked about the history of Spring Creek Basin as a herd management area and our accomplishments in both herd management and the projects we’ve completed for the benefit of the mustangs. Naturally, everyone wants a Mike clone for their areas. 🙂
By the time we reached the day’s end goal and turnaround spot – the northwest-valley water catchment we built in 2022 – we were down to our local advocates and a Jeep-full of advocates from the other herds.
And because Mike retires Friday from a long (30 years) career with the Bureau of Land Management, we local advocates wanted to take advantage of the last opportunity we’d likely have Mike in Spring Creek Basin to mark the occasion, wish him well and give him a token of our appreciation.
Left to right: Mike Jensen, Frank Amthor, Tif Rodriguez, Pat Amthor and yours truly.
Thank you, Mike, for being such a champion for wild horse management here in Spring Creek Basin, for being a true partner, for being one of the people I respect most in this world. We wish you well in retirement! Don’t be a stranger. 🙂
This targeted downpour over southeastern Spring Creek Basin and upper-ish Disappointment Valley was by no means the only rain we got in the last couple of days. And it probably wasn’t even the most dramatic. But it sure was cool. 🙂
Depending on the part of the valley, we got anywhere from half an inch to probably at least an inch of rain between Thursday afternoon and Friday evening. Every drop is so very welcome.
If you’re afraid of heights, you’d have had a hard time hiking with me to this spot … because I had to crawl, on hands and knees, hoping the wind wasn’t stronger than my body weight (no chance of that –ha!) because the width of the finger of shale I crawled up on to get to where I’m sitting on the ground to take this pic (below what you can see) was not much wider than my four-square hands and knees. Let’s just say that I didn’t take in the view – or the drop to either side – until I got to this point and shimmied around onto my derrière!
What. A. VIEW!
If I say that frequently about Spring Creek Basin, who could blame me – or argue? 🙂
Bonus: It’s starting to look a little green, eh? … Just a little?!
Bonus No. 2:
I knew I was going to find Sundance’s and Storm’s band up top (you think I did a death-defying hands-and-knees crawl for my health!?), but I also found Mr. Hollywood! This pic can’t begin to do justice to this view: It’s still a ridge, though it’s (much) wider than where I crawled up. The horses had already moseyed to the far end by the time I crawled and walked up to this point, which is just above and behind my spot in the first pic. You might have to zoom in to see them.
The horses take me to all the very BEST places! 🙂 There will be pix of them to come in future posts.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that although the horses didn’t follow my route UP (!!!!), they had been DOWN that little ridge – at least to the end – by the existence of desiccated manure. (Really, you find it in the craziest places!)
It MUST be spring – the prince’s plume is flowering. 🙂
And the bees also are very happy about that:
And … drum roll, please … WE GOT RAIN LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The first actual rain – and yes, the ground got more-than-damp wet – since April 6. It will put some water in the catchments and give the vegetation a nice, lovely drink of moisture.
The mustangs weren’t in cooperative locations for catching the rising moon, so I tried a bit different place. I still caught it a bit later than I’d hoped, but with Temple Butte on the left and Brumley Point on the right, Groundhog Mountain in the background and part of Spring Creek Basin in the middle ground … it worked out all right. 🙂
That’s part of Disappointment Road at lower right.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 