Attentive

7 12 2022

Sometimes, there’s just no impressing the girls, boys, no matter the energy you put into your greetings. 🙂





Glow of shade

6 12 2022

Rowan and Dundee have a faint glow of subdued light after the sun had set behind Filly Peak. They’re so pretty in any light!





Masterpiece

5 12 2022

Tenaz on an evening that looked like a masterpiece of color and shadow and light. (It was.)





Dream walking

4 12 2022

Big grey boy Skywalker grazes peacefully among summer’s grama grass, glowing in winter sunlight. Some days just have that indefinable sense that all is beautiful and right with the natural world.





Base of gold

3 12 2022

Enough late-season vegetation still covered the basin when I took this photo that it’s hard (impossible) to see that the snow at Terra’s hooves was still mostly unbroken by melting fairly early that morning.

The snow is mostly gone now – except on some slopes and shaded ridges and arroyo walls – but it’s so wonderful how a simple dusting of the frozen white stuff transforms any landscape!





Cold weather comfort

2 12 2022

It seems counterintuitive, but napping in the sunshine on a sharply cold day with fresh snow at one’s feet feels oddly comfortable. It’s best, of course, if one wears a wooly coat or otherwise insulating layers (!).

And it’s ever so much better with a friend. 🙂 Piedra and Kestrel are true BFFs!





Snow-white model

1 12 2022

For some reason, a pinto mustang pony always stands out beautifully in the snow-covered landscape. Miss Chipeta wasn’t really feeling her modeling session, but in keeping an eye on me, lounging in the snow, a beautiful model was she, indeed!





Skipping through the snow

30 11 2022

Because who doesn’t feel the urge to dash through new snow?!

It wasn’t a huge snowfall – maybe half to three-quarters of an inch – but it was enough to whiten our world for the first half of the day before much of it melted under the brilliant Colorado sunshine. 🙂 There’s still a nice little layer on slopes and ridges in the upper part of Spring Creek Basin and Disappointment Valley.

Already in the forecast, Friday and Sunday have chances for more white stuff. Winter is nigh!





Grey & white

29 11 2022

We got a surprise Sunday morning in the form of about half an inch of snow! The forecast for at least the last week focused on snow Monday night into Tuesday afternoon, but this Sunday-night/early-Tuesday-morning snow was a pleasant little early gift!

It melted quickly, as usual, but the far slopes and ridges of McKenna Peak and Temple Butte show some lingering whiteness, which always looks great behind Miss Temple. (And yes, she’s wearing some mustang bling in her forelock in the form of a little burr, which are nature’s fall jewelry hereabouts!)





Walking into the night

28 11 2022

Rowan and her band make their way to the original water catchment in Spring Creek Basin on a recent soft evening.

We have had more than two weeks again of dry, dry weather (which has been helpful for things like finishing the new water-catchment project), but we have a very good chance tonight of SNOW into tomorrow. After those nice little rains/snows earlier this fall, our dirt is turning to dust again, so it will be good to see the land covered in the glittery white stuff, with moisture that seeps slowly into the thirsty soil. Even in the high deserts of Colorado, we look forward to winter’s life-giving snow!