Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Who needs more peace? (Spoiler: That’s a trick question, of course. :))

Aspen moseys on ahead of the band. I love that green on the hills and ridges in the background. Some in the nearer background (there’s a big arroyo in the lower part/mid-ground of the pic) is greasewood and shadscale and four-wing saltbush (salt desert shrubs), but much of the green in the background is grass: grama, galleta, sand dropseed, alkali sacatone, etc. It’s a bountiful summer (thank goodness for even our sporadic monsoon rains!).

Yummy, green, squeaky, delicious (that’s just an observation by a human who watches wild horses graze) sand dropseed. Shane and Hollywood and the rest of the band were blissfully happy. 🙂

Not too old for a full dunk in a pond, our lady Houdini knows how to keep the buggies at bay.

Southwest Colorado’s Spring Creek Basin is a looooooonnnngggg way from any tall-grass prairies … but in some places currently in the basin, it sure looks lush. Our favorite (and only) grey-pinto boy Flash models the knee-high galleta handsomely.

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If you’re in the area, please join me and Kathryn Wilder from 5:30 to 6:30 this evening at Wilkinson Public Library in Telluride for her reading and talk about “Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horse in the West.” We’d love to see any local mustang lovers!

Aspen had a brief fling following Hollywood’s band recently, and it allowed me to get some pix of him closer than I usually see him. Always good to spend some time with this elder gentleman.

The heat is back, the flying insects are bugging horses and humans alike, and we – including, I imagine, Cassidy Rain – are anticipating the cooler, crisper days of autumn.