Kestrel is just so beautiful. How much more needs to be said?!
A’glowing buckskin goddess
9 10 2022Comments : 16 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Just so
8 10 2022
Chipeta had finally deigned to look up from her grazing to pose with Utah’s La Sal Mountains in the background … but the shadow cast by the setting sun from her hip was right on her face at about eye level. I was hoping she’d lift her head just a fraction of a bitty bit, so I could at least see her eyes … when she turned her whole head to look at a band mate behind her.
Ahhhhh. Beautiful. Click. 🙂
Comments : 8 Comments »
Categories : La Sal Mountains, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
King of all he surveys
7 10 2022
Is it just me, or is Storm just glorious, even covered in old mud, hanging out, napping, watching his mares graze?
Yeah. I think not, too. 😉
Comments : 14 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Rainbow beauty
6 10 2022How beautiful is this old planet?
Anyone disagree?
I thought not. 🙂
(These images were taken from outside Spring Creek Basin, southwest of the western boundary. The first three pix are looking far to the southeast. The last two are looking northeastish; the rimrocks form the basin’s western boundary, and the middle-ground treed ridge(s) are in the northwestern region of Spring Creek Basin. After sunset and and faded rainbows, a curtain of rain swept through the basin and on across the northern hills of Disappointment Valley. All kinds of perfect!)
Comments : 11 Comments »
Categories : Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area
Giving thanks, early
5 10 2022
We have had a pretty amazing surge of rain this fall – contrary to the forecasts for a dryer-than-usual fall. Or maybe that was for Colorado in general, which doesn’t seem to remember sometimes that our southwestern corner IS, in fact, still within the Centennial State’s borders. (And although we’re still dry – we *are* high desert, after all – other parts of Colorado are in (much) more severe drought than we are now. The U.S. Drought Monitor has reduced us to “abnormally dry.”)
Lower Disappointment Valley (as the elevation changes – and it changes rather dramatically from upper to very lower – rainfall amounts vary wildly) has gotten at least 1.84 inches of rain just in October. … Are you paying attention? That’s just the last few days! To put that in perspective, we got just 2 inches of liquid moisture between last Dec. 1 and this April 1 (that’s liquid from snow). Wowza.
We’re kinda dancin’ a bit ’round here. 🙂
The pix in this post are of Temple Butte … different perspectives than normally seen from the interior of Spring Creek Basin. The top pic was taken from southeast of the southernmost basin boundary (Spring Creek Basin is basically on the *other* side of it from that perspective), and the one above was taken from below the last/southern/southeasternmost drainage in the basin – both from Disappointment Road.
Comments : 11 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Temple Butte, Wilderness
The light between
4 10 2022
Beauty, even in the shadows.
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
No distance at all
3 10 2022
A telephoto lens compresses landscapes; these landforms aren’t nearly as close in reality as they appear to be in the above photo. … But it sure is dramatic, adding to a beautiful view of a little band in the late evening sunlight.
**********
If you’re local, please join me and Kathryn Wilder, author of “Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West,” at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, at Cortez Public Library. Kat will read from “Desert Chrome,” and we’ll talk about the mustangs of Spring Creek Basin and our partnership with our Tres Rios BLM folks.
Comments : 11 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Doin’ the mosey
2 10 2022
Maiku was doing a little visiting the other day. Just checking out a couple of neighboring bands. He and two bachelors had a friendly chat, and then they all went back to the business of grazing – and drinking. In the background are the rimrocks above Spring Creek canyon, and Spring Creek was running that day after a rain.
We all love it when water is so convenient!
Comments : 12 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Spring Creek canyon
Prism of light
1 10 2022
Right place, right time to catch this young prince crowned by a faint rainbow after rain that fell only in the eastern/southeastern part of Spring Creek Basin.
Handsome Flash.
Comments : 16 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Tribute to a public-lands servant
30 09 2022
Connie Clementson, manager of Tres Rios Field Office in Dolores, is retiring after 37 years of public-lands service. For the last 11 years, she has been the head of BLM public lands in Southwest Colorado. We first met her at the 2011 Spring Creek Basin roundup when she was still with the Forest Service and served here as the then-acting district ranger for the Dolores District of San Juan National Forest. We’re glad she was able to finish her three-plus decades of service here in our corner of Colorado.
Our herd manager, Mike Jensen, gets a lot of the well-deserved credit for our recent management accomplishments in Spring Creek Basin, and we know that’s because he has had the support of the top boss – Connie – and her confidence that he was making best decisions for our herd.
Monday, Tif Rodriguez, long-time advocate for Spring Creek Basin mustangs as well as for protecting rights and rights-of-way for horsemen and horse (and other pack stock such as mules) use on public lands, and I went to Tres Rios Field Office, where Joe Manning, assistant field office manager (who also has a lot to do with our confidence-inspiring herd management), had scheduled us into a rare gap in Connie’s last-week schedule. Daniel Chavez, range tech who works with Mike (and Garth Nelson), joined us in Mike’s absence (he was returning from a trip with his daughter).
We presented Connie with a photo of Spring Creek Basin mustangs and a letter from our Disappointment Valley Mustangs group (which includes Pat and Frank Amthor, David and Nancy Holmes, and Kathryn Wilder, in addition to me and Tif) in appreciation for her years of service – specifically here and especially for our mustangs. While we chatted, she reminded us that she said 11 years ago at the roundup that she didn’t ever want to do that again in Spring Creek Basin. And because of her 100 percent support of the PZP fertility-control program in the basin, we haven’t.
In the photo above, from right to left: Joe Manning, Connie Clementson, yours truly, Tif Rodriguez and Daniel Chavez.
We’re so grateful for Connie’s leadership and partnership these many years, and we wish all the best to Connie (and her family) during her well-earned retirement!
Comments : 8 Comments »
Categories : Advocacy, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Education, Fertility control, McKenna Peak, Partnership, PZP, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Tres Rios Field Office, Water catchment, Work projects
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 