Maia stands pretty as a picture with the south wall of Spring Creek canyon visible in the background.
The snow is melting fast, but in a week, we have a week’s worth of rain (!) chances in the forecast.
Lovely
29 01 2019Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Snow white
28 01 2019
Pure as the driven snow, Miss Piedra. 🙂
**********
Out here, government employees aren’t nameless and faceless, one or more of the 800,000 workers adversely affected by the government shutdown. They’re our partners, they’re members of our communities. They visit our local farmers markets, and their kids and our kids are classmates. We work together for common goals.
Yesterday, as I was driving out of Spring Creek Basin, our lead BLM law-enforcement ranger, Tyler, was headed into the basin, in uniform and driving his BLM vehicle. He and his law-enforcement fellows have been required to be on the job – without pay – but I know him and others like him well enough to know that it is at least moral duty, not simply required duty. It’s a duty to protect the resources of our local community, which, in our case (as in most across the West), is large, wide and sprawling, not easily connected.
And yet, on the Sunday before government resumes operations, Tyler was in Disappointment Valley, headed toward Spring Creek Basin, checking on our mustangs and the range that sustains them.
We ARE connected. And we’re grateful for our neighbors. We hope the (temporary) return to business is for the good of all our government-employed neighbors.
Comments : 5 Comments »
Categories : Partnership, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Squinty
27 01 2019
All the horses have been a little narrow-eyed lately with the bright sunlight on the pristine snow. Even humans keep the shades on during these bright winter days!
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Two good girls
26 01 2019
In the great white winter expanse, these two girls are beautiful girls. 🙂
Comments : 1 Comment »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Hill with a view
25 01 2019
Mariah has quite a view from the north hills of Spring Creek Basin.
Comments : 3 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Snoozy in the sunshine
24 01 2019
Piedra and Kestrel relax in sunshine and snow on a cold day in Spring Creek Basin. The light reflecting off the snow made it very comfortable for a snooze, despite the air temperature.
NOT comfortable was hearing the baying of hounds to the north. Around here, hunters find the tracks of mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes in the snow, then send dogs after them. I don’t believe the dogs were in the basin, but the baying sent at least one band trotting away, and at the same time, a group of at least 50 elk went streaming south out of the trees on the north hills, running from human-induced pressure during a season when they should be conserving energy, not wasting it. … Imagine the animals that cannot escape that pressure.
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Always a good time for snow
22 01 2019
The region got some more snow. Not as much as pictured above, with Puzzle, from a few weeks ago, but it’s always nice to get moisture. 🙂
Comments : 4 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Diggin’ it
21 01 2019
Lower Disappointment Valley has melted into basic brown again, for the most part. High temps melt snow, which creates mud, which leads to undriveable roads.
Naturally, we’re craving colder temps and more snow. 🙂
As I type this Sunday evening, we’re hoping Monday’s forecast for snow proves accurate, even down here in the “low lands.”
Above, Killian was digging through the (fairly) new snow to get to the grass beneath. They’re working a bit harder for their grub this winter (!), but they take it all as it comes. They’re WILD, after all! 🙂
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Disappointment Valley, McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
On the move
20 01 2019
Handsome little Maiku is on a mission … known only to him. The band he’s with was to the left, and he went trotting away from them. Ah, the mysteries of mustangs.
Comments : 1 Comment »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Aware
19 01 2019
Today’s inspiration comes from an email from a local environmental group that is as profound to that audience, dedicated to protecting high-elevation Colorado, as it is to us, protecting Colorado’s high-desert mustangs:
And finally, just a snippet from the poem “Sometimes” by late poet Mary Oliver.
4.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
(Thank you to a former journalism co-worker who introduced me to the poetry of Mary Oliver. :))
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
