This photo of Tenaz does a better job of illustrating the windy conditions than it does convincing viewers that the greyer-than-usual haze in the background is SNOW and not just our usual Mancos shale ridge slopes. …
But it is.
Snow, that is.
Happy late April, almost May?! 🙂 Welcome to Colorado!
Can we do any better than to give them these wild-and-free lives, that they were born to live? It’s the least and absolute best we can do. I’m so glad we can do it in Spring Creek Basin.
April’s full moon is known as the “pink moon” for pink flowers in the phlox variety that bloom in April. It’s also the first full moon after the start of spring, which was March 20, which makes it the paschal full moon, which is the full moon before Easter Sunday.
Phlox (I don’t know the exact kind) is usually the first tiny wildflower that blooms in Spring Creek Basin. I haven’t seen any yet, but with the warm temps and the winter moisture, it can’t be long. Phlox here is usually white, but it also sometimes takes on a pale pink blush. … Pink moon, indeed. 🙂
Maybe instead of having April Fool’s Day in Colorado, we could have April-Snow-in-Colorado Day! Instead of being reliably on April 1 every year, it can be just whatever day in April it happens to snow, because, you know, it almost always DOES snow in April in Colorado. 🙂
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! Hee, hee, hee … ?!
Seriously, though. As we count down to April, it really is time for spring to … well, spring. Ma Nature, can’t you rein in Ol’ Man Winter … just a little bit?!
This was the view yesterday morning until about noonish when most of the lower-elevation snow melted off under the Colorado sunshine. Temps were still in the 30s (the day started around 13, so I guess that reflected a warming trend!).
We may see a high of 58 (!!!!!) this week before another wave of snow (or rain?) late in the week. This most definitely is not the year to complain about moisture! 🙂
Madison and Temple. Temple and Madison. BFFs for many years. Still going strong.
Just before I took this pic, Skywalker was standing guard on the edge of a little ridge, looking wonderfully handsome and marvelously picturesque. I didn’t think I’d have time to get my camera out of my pack before he moved … and as it turned out, I could barely get my *phone* out before he started moving. Luckily, Skywalker was still marvelously handsome and picturesque in the middle of the panoramic view!
Little bitty pretty muddy girl! Spirit always makes me smile at her sweet self … especially when she’s wearing some fancy new baubles in her forelock. 🙂
What a difference a year makes.
In spite of the snow-heavy winter we’ve had, the mustangs are absolutely thriving, and perhaps no mustang demonstrates this more significantly than almost-3-year-old Rowan, introduced to Spring Creek Basin from northwestern Colorado’s Sand Wash Basin with her mare mates Dundee (4 this year) and Aiyanna (also about to be 3) in the fall of 2021.
A year ago:
This photo, taken the end of March 2022, shows Rowan, in particular, looking a bit lean as a coming-2-year-old.
It’s rare that I have the opportunity of showing some growing contrasts, but I couldn’t be happier with her blossoming. She – and Dundee and Aiyanna – are without doubt wonderful additions to Spring Creek Basin, and I hope they’re happy in their new home (I’m pretty sure that if mustangs understand “happy” as a concept, they are). 🙂
Two Sundances are better than one. 🙂
I may have mentioned the wind has been fierce?! Who needs fake wind for fabulous portraits of a most-handsome mustang?
******
Between the wind, the sunshine and temps in the 50s (practically tropical for us these late-winter days!), there was a bit of this yesterday:
That’s actual liquid water, flowing out of Spring Creek Basin and under a bridge along which runs the Disappointment Valley road along the southwestern/southern boundary of the basin. I call it the county-line drainage. You can see a bit of snow on the bank of the arroyo. A lot of smaller tributary arroyos feed into this one, including another large one (also fed by numerous smaller ones) that drains a large area farther to the east. These arroyos, in turn, drain to Disappointment Creek; from this point, the bridge on which I was standing when I took this pic, the creek isn’t too far down this arroyo behind me to the south(ish).
Water shapes our world in many ways here. This: a sign of spring on the way!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 