I love this pic of our guys working together to push a water tank into a hole dug last week in Spring Creek Basin!
This was part of phase one of the first of two new water-catchment projects for the mustangs: digging holes for tanks, digging trenches for pipes, placing the tanks in the holes, placing and putting together the valves and pipes in the trenches (including down to the eventual trough). Next up: auguring holes and setting the supports for the roof over the tanks that will funnel rain and snow. (I really do have hopes of doing at least a brief post about phase one …!)
Left to right above: Mike Jensen, Garth Nelson, Daniel Chavez and Jim Cisco – excellent BLM’ers all!
Sego lilies are among my most favorite wildflowers that appear in the basin. (Like the horses, they’re really all my favorites, just by virtue of being here, surviving and thriving!) That such delicate lilies appear in this harsh, dry environment seems to be one of the most miraculous and simplest wonders of the desert.
They’re blooming in earnest now. According to Range Plants of Utah, “it thrives on rather dry, sandy soils.” I’ll say!
**********
Sue … I hope you return soon to wild places to find healing.
Before our little rain Friday (!), the greasewood was the greenest thing in the basin. Now Hollywood is going to have a lot more green to grace his grocery “aisles.”
(BLM rangeland management specialist Garth Nelson pushes dirt into a trench laid with pipe from the water tanks while herd manager Mike Jensen, range tech Daniel Chavez and seasonal weed-sprayer Jim Cisco shovel dirt into the trench along the “front” of the tanks to cover the pipe. A roof with a gutter will pipe rainwater/snow into the tanks, and the pipe in the trench directly in front of me as I take this pic will run water to the trough, which will be on a float.)
We’ve had some big doin’s out in Spring Creek Basin recently.
Remember when our BLM folks (herd manager Mike Jensen and Tres Rios Field Office Manager Connie Clementson) updated our herd management area plan last year? Remember the two new water catchments that were proposed (and approved) in that EA?
Our first tanks for the first of those water catchments are in the ground. 🙂 That’s phase one of the project; phase two is coming. It will take me a bit to consolidate several days of work into a nice little post to detail their work. That’s coming, too. But just in case you wondered what the heck our BLM guys are doing out in Spring Creek Basin these days … this is a bit of an answer. 🙂
And in best of all news, we actually got a decent drizzle of rain in Disappointment Valley yesterday! No, the catchment isn’t at the point of catching that rain, but soon. … Hopefully very, very soon … !
**********
If you’re in Norwood, Colorado, this evening, join us at The Livery (1555 Lucerne St.) for Kat Wilder’s first in-person reading to celebrate the publication of her memoir, “Desert Chrome”! Folks will start to gather around 6 p.m. Bring your own camp chair, picnic and beverage for an outdoor gathering. San Miguel County and Colorado state Covid protocols will be followed.
Though we got clouds a couple of nights ago, the clouds refused to leak. Pretty Gaia carried on with her greasewood grazing. I hope she knows something we don’t know … that it WILL rain again!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 