Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Hollywood walks with Alegre while the band follows another band. There’s actually a road just beyond them, but you can’t see it for the greenery.

We’re amazingly blessed this year.

Skywalker the fabulous was walking across this open area, starting from fairly close to my left and angling away because of the band (and stallion) he’s looking at in the pic above. I thought I’d catch him walking in a good stride between McKenna Peak (right) and Temple Butte but was lamenting the fact that he was basically walking away.

And then he stopped.

And looked – posed, if you will.

RIGHT. IN. PERFECT. SYMMETRY!

Skywalker really is a Jedi with mind powers. 🙂

… and still they come back.

Hollywood demonstrates the postures of gnat season:

And back to grazing …

It’s (nearly) summer in the basin. 🙂

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In yesterday’s post, I said that I hadn’t found or heard of a bug spray that works against these (infamous) gnats. Veterinarian Gigi Gaulin notified me about a family-owned company in Georgia that makes an all-natural bug spray: https://www.nonatz.com/

Many of the questions I get about visiting the basin and the mustangs this time of year center around this question: Are the gnats out yet?

They’re a thing, people. Well, lots and lots of little things. They’re no joke!

Moisture + warm weather + spring in Disappointment Valley = the dreaded gnats are out. The wind helps … some. When the wind drops at the end of the day, well, then it doesn’t help at all (!).

If you’re a wild horse, that means you go for a mud bath. I’m not sure it helps much, by the near-continuous head shaking and tail swishing.

If you’re a human, may I recommend a head net? If you can stand the buzzing and watching the buggers crawl across the netting – and the impaired vision – it’s worth it. I haven’t found or heard of any bug spray that works against the gnats.

Green and water and Storm.

All loved. 🙂

Happy June!

The Denver news last night shared that this is the first time since 2000 that Colorado has not, in any part of the state, been in any kind of abnormally dry conditions. Our region in southwestern Colorado records a whopping snowpack 713 percent of normal.

Now, Disappointment Valley doesn’t get a lot of snowpack-melting benefit other than what flows down Disappointment Creek. The great majority of our landscape relies on moisture that falls directly on it.

But if the pic above, showing lovely Madison, looks green, it’s because we HAVE gotten a fair amount of moisture that has fallen directly on the land – including just an hour or so earlier on the day that pic was taken. 🙂

Hayden the amazingly red enjoys a nap in the spring sunshine. How is it that the ponies always have the most fashionable, perfectly tousled do’s … and we humans are just wind-blasted?

Need to start your day with a chuckle?

You’re welcome. 🙂

Sorry, other herds, THESE two gorgeous grey girls are THE most gorgeous grey girls in the whole wide, wild world. 🙂

Need proof? Seriously? See above!

This weekend, we have celebrated the holiday that has the somber tones of memories of those who fought for this country and did not return home to families and loved ones.

These days, almost everyone knows someone who serves or has served in the military. That means we probably know someone who didn’t come home, or we know someone who knows someone – or even many someones.

The best way we can honor them is to remember.