Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Piedra facing into the wind after the band’s water break. She’s also rocking that single braid. Must be a new basin fashion fad. 🙂

Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there! Especially, of course, mine. 🙂

If you’ve been following along for any time at all, you know my dad and my mom both are exclusively responsible for my before-birth addiction to horses. 🙂 They still have horses and work every day to keep them well. I’m so grateful to my dad for taking us on the journey around the world and through life, and for keeping horses at the center of it all. 🙂

I just heard a great song on the radio by band Lanco (LANCO? LanCo?) called “We Grew Up Together.”

It’s perfect for Father’s Day. Chorus:

“You learned to walk, I learned to walk in my faith
You learned to talk, I learned the things I shouldn’t say
You ain’t the only one who’s gonna make mistakes
God made you, you made me better
We both won’t stay young forever
You don’t know it now but one day you’ll find out
That we grew up together”

It makes me think of a family pic we have that shows me as a little redheaded bambino in a pink bunny suit, helping my dad build a stall (?). I think one arm holds me, and the other hand holds a level. We are both completely focused. It’s one of my very favorite pix of me and my dad.

Listen to it at the link above. Think about your dads. Give them a call if you can. If you can’t, remember them with more joy than sadness.

I love you, Dad!

Terra (and her stallion) circles the water trough while the “upper” members of the band drink first. They were impatient, but there was plenty for everyone.

Now we start to enter the truly hot days of summer, and water is at a premium. We’re grateful for the recent rains that put (more) water in the catchment tanks!

No hint of clouds this evening, but clouds and light made the most of the beautiful, simple act of a mustang (Buckeye) grazing among the grama.

Just one little braid. … She’s a fan of simplicity, our Winona. 🙂

Buckeye here is laser focused on a cow elk not far away on the west side of a hill on the western side of Spring Creek Basin. She was alone, as far as we (I) could tell. The mares watched her with brief interest and went back to grazing, but Buckeye was *intent*. That focus helped me spot her in the growing dark of the approaching storm (and yes, that rain did get to the basin!).

I was zoomed in on her, then swung the camera to him without changing focal length. … Intensity!

Buckeye’s mares were super bothered when I climbed a hill recently to find them in clearing fog/low clouds (gone *poof* by the time I puffed and huffed my way up to where they were), and I thought it might be because they weren’t used to seeing me in the mornings (most often, I’m out in the evenings, and they are most definitely creatures of habit (even others’, perhaps!)).

But when second and third cattle semis appeared, heading south waaaaaaaay off to the west, and the horses ALL focused their complete attention on those long silver moving rectangles, I realized that the first semi that had passed – within my view at the time but NOT within view, only sound, of the horses – was what had set them off.

BLM’s resource management plan for this area closed Spring Creek Basin to livestock grazing … gosh, has it been 10 years now? There haven’t been cattle grazing in the basin since the winter of 2010-11. This IS, however, the season of cattle moving from lower winter and spring grazing to the higher, cooler country of summer grazing on other BLM land (outside/beyond Spring Creek Basin) and San Juan National Forest.

The big semis do have a loud rumble as they motor up the gravel road heading up-Disappointment Valley alongside the basin’s southern boundary. … And crazily, those big moving boxes MOOOOO as they go! 🙂