We might be getting closer to a bit of rain. We’ve had clouds overhead and virga on the horizons.
On this particular day, Flash and the sky and hills were all a shade of grey until the sun broke once again through the clouds.
We’re hoping we’re closer to a bit of rain. Surely any day now.
Do you blame me for having no words to express my appreciation?
Subtle. Gorgeous.
The most subtle light … Kestrel’s sandstone color … that beloved horizon. … Love.
Didn’t I say it was super cool?
The almost-supermoon (technically rising today, Aug. 1) would have risen slightly out of frame to the left; you can see how there was no way it was going to be visible through that heavy rain-cloud layer.
There never was a fully-arched rainbow, and the intensity varied depending on sunshine/clouds from the west (the above is looking southeast), but it wasn’t till late in the show when the faint second arc appeared.
The lesson is clear: Mustangs are always the gold. 🙂
The upper atmosphere is trying to gear up to potentially, eventually, maybe – at some point – give us some rain. Soon (we hope).
The evening was punctuated with a few small, very faint rainbows, catching some elusive liquid suspended in the air. The above – do you see it? – was not only the biggest I saw, it was the first of the evening.
Long-maned Sundance, napping, which is to say, perhaps, waiting impatiently for the sun to set, relieving us all with a bit of … if not coolness, at least a cessation of boiling heat. The background was so gorgeously beautiful, but I had to use my phone (as opposed to my camera with its long lens) for the wide view.
Post-sunset in Spring Creek Basin’s wildcat valley, bands were peacefully grazing while rain fell (or seemed to fall) over the Glade to the south.
And as I left them to their evening repast, I found this guy:
Hollywood alone, within sight of the horses in the image above.
Just another low-key evening in Spring Creek Basin. 🙂 The moon is about half-full. Who’s ready for the full, super sturgeon moon?!
For the last very long – days and days and days and weeks and days and weeks – we’ve had solid blue skies. Every. Single. Day.
We finally got some clouds. And when Disappointment Valley does clouds, boy, does it do spectacular clouds.
In order of appearance from around 5:30 or close to 6 p.m. to after sunset:
Looking west.
Mustangs grazing and napping under the relief of clouds.
Silver linings.
Do you see the rainbow?
Rain – or at least virga – to the west.
More mustangs. More napping.
When I left the bands pictured above, I thought I might have a chance at any late surprise light with the bands pictured higher above. But they had moved quite a bit, and the clouds were heavy, and sunset was imminent. But as I left Spring Creek Basin, rain was drifting eastish along the southern ridges of Disappointment Valley. Then I dropped below the rimrocks (the basin’s western boundary), and holy rainbow! You’ll have to take my word for it that it was SUPER intense, and the photo above doesn’t do it justice.
By the time I got to the main road, that “surprise” light was glowing, and the rain had moved away from the southern ridges.
Meanwhile, to the west … this!
Bit closer view of the mountains.
Back to the southeastish, rain was actually falling over the southern/southeastern part of Spring Creek Basin.
And THIS happened. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so glad and grateful to have a cell phone that doubles as a very wide-angle camera.
We ended the day with some post-sunset magic.
And 0.01 inch of rain. 🙂 Enough to make part of the road … actually … WET!
Buckeye tiptoes through the tulips … err … moseys through the prince’s plume and larkspur. 🙂
As noted, it’s a good year for the prince’s plume, which continues to flourish. While it’s there to admire, giving color to our landscape and mustangs, I’ll continue to take photographic advantage of it.
Spoiler alert: He’s OK. Beat up, but OK.
I’ve kept some news from Spring Creek Basin under wraps for the last month or so, meanwhile wondering how was I ever going to break the news, should it be negative (again, it’s not the worst). Usually, I don’t necessarily mention the deaths of our mustangs, preferring to let them go in peace … and as you know or should know from Ranger’s disappearance, I don’t really have the words to express my grief very well anyway. Also, because of their wild nature, it sometimes takes a while to determine whether a particular horse is MIA or KIA.
Again, Hollywood is OK – beat up, but OK.
Hollywood lost Houdini to a young stallion more than a month ago, and I’ve been keeping tabs on them. She’s fine and seems peaceful in her new situation. Hollywood was then rebuffing attention from another young stallion. At his age, I was hoping he might let (another) one of the mares go and continue on with the majority of his band. … But it wasn’t to be. A couple of weeks later, I lost track of Hollywood himself, and a young band stallion showed up with Alegre, Maia, Shane and baby Odin (and he still has them, and they’re all fine). At that point, only Spirit was missing. … I finally found her with a young stallion, but within the last week, he showed up – minus Spirit – back with his young bachelor pals.
I thought maybe Spirit had found and reunited with Houdini … but no, she’s with yet another young bachelor stallion, who had been on his own recently. She seems much happier with him than with the other youngster (go figure).
But I still hadn’t seen Hollywood.
Finally, a few days ago, in a setting that seemed somewhat miraculous (maybe because I was starting to lose hope of ever seeing him again), I watched Hollywood graze his way slowly across an edge of a “meadow” area. I was hugely relieved … but upon closer inspection, he’s obviously recovering from what must have been the fight of his life. In the pic above, he looks thin. What it doesn’t show (and I’m not going to show) is that he has a strip of hide hanging from one side of his hindquarters (the gash does seem to be healing, but it’s also still draining) … and his right eye, one of his pair of most-gorgeous eyes, is pretty well shut, and by his behavior, I think he has no sight in that eye.
The hopeful news is that he’s in an area of good grazing and one of two ponds in the basin that still has water. I’m hoping he continues to heal and put on some weight throughout the summer.
Because Hollywood is so known and so loved by so many, I thought it best to give this account of his status, even if it’s (likely) the end of his era as a band stallion. When I first started documenting the herd in 2007 and met him, he had a mare, likely his first mare. I named him Hollywood because he had that air of a star about him, in the very best ways.
He may be small, but he’s also mighty, and his mares adored him. That was always obvious.
Despite the promising sky and definite rain *around*, we got just a brief drizzle – the day featured above and below, which was a couple of days ago. …
** I had to update this post: We got rain yesterday! **
I had previously written after the first sentence: That’s good, but we always like/want *better*. Buckeye and his ladies and baby don’t mind waiting … it’s the humans who stress out!
We DO stress out … and we’re infinitely grateful when the rain finally falls!
All those little white bits on the ground are sego lilies.
Aren’t they spectacular? I posted another pic of sego lilies recently … taken with my camera, as compared with this one, taken with my phone. I’m not tall enough to give my long lens room to focus on the interior of these little beauties, but my phone does a pretty good job.
The prickly pear cacti are blooming now, too. Most blooms are shades of yellow and peach-ish:
But I found these blooms – PINK – just about 10 yards away from the yellow cluster above:
How wonderful are these colors?! And the flowers are pretty, too. 🙂
All the blooms and all the green – and the horses and other wildlife and humans, too, – are grateful.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 