Merry Christmas to you all, and may the light and joy and peace of the season be with you now and throughout the coming year.
From our herd to yours, may many wild blessings shine on you and your families!
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Update:
This – THIS – was Christmas morning sunrise over Disappointment Valley! 🙂
Pretty glorious on the day of Christmas magic. Blessings to you all!
Miss Kestrel is a bright, beautiful spot in a bright, beautiful, snowy world.
Merry Christmas Eve!
Cassidy Rain seems to skip through the snow as she follows her band away from a little water hole. It wasn’t snowing on us there, but it was still snowing lightly far to the east. I love that no matter how wintry cold the landscape looks (and it was chilly), the mustangs always look so perfectly warm (especially as I’m practically waddling in all my Michelin-Man layers!).
The winter solstice was yesterday. The shortest day of the year saw temps plunge 30 degrees in 15 minutes at Denver International Airport – from 42 degrees to just 13, according to a Denver Post headline that came through my email.
Over here in the southwestern corner of the state (note to news source that said the temps would be “shockingly cold pretty much everywhere in Colorado“: we’re actually in Colorado, thanks), we started *warming* a little bit today. I saw 34 degrees, but it may have gotten a bit warmer. 🙂
Quite a start to winter. Stay warm out there, wherever you live!
Waves in Sundance’s mane; waves of erosion folds on the far ridge, accentuated by snow.
Love it all. 🙂
When I was visiting with Sundance’s band recently, he suddenly became very interested in the little pinon-juniper forest nearby, which alerted me to a fairly big group of mule deer does and fawns. By the time I saw them, at least half were slipping silently into the trees. I was happy to get this group portrait of several of the girls looking toward me and the horses, alert but not upset.
Behind me, Sundance was watchful, but his mares had already settled into nap mode under the ever-so-lightly falling snow.
Corazon. We *heart* him! 🙂
Pretty Piedra is practically camouflaged in her snow-white surroundings.
The power of water, all in one image, illustrated by the lovely Terra!
Frozen water in the form of snow. Over eons and eons, it has fallen and settled on that boulder, and the freezing and thawing, thawing and freezing, has cracked it all the way through.
Not much of a mystery, really, but awe-inspiring.
Are you awed?
Me, too. 🙂
It snowed yesterday morning!
And it kept snowing!
And as the sun set, the snow was still coming down!
There were some breaks during the day – and depending on location – but the day ended as it started – with snow falling lightly, gently.
What made it surprising – at least to me, who looks fairly obsessively at forecasts this time of year, hoping to see snow icons that warrant further, detailed investigation – is that this wasn’t really in the forecast. There were some minor mentions of “a flurry or two,” but chances were low, which *didn’t* warrant those further, more detailed looks.
Another surprise is that here in Colorado, snow waves usually give way to our typical bluebird, clear-sky, bright-snow days. Today, the snow just sort of kept on coming!
The mustangs were tucked into sheltered places again, apparently, because I saw a couple of lone bachelors and only two bands. Fortunately, one of those bands was Sundance’s, and he’s always up for a bit of modeling work. 🙂 That said, it’s hard to tell the story of falling snow with a grey mustang! If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you might be able to zoom in and see the tiny little snowflakes that show a bit better against the far northeast east-pocket ridge.
What a beautiful day in the neighborhood. 🙂
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 