The day started with plentiful sunshine, then the clouds moved in for most of the day.
At the very END of the day, a sliver of clear sky above the horizon allowed a glorious wave of light to light up our whole world … including Mariah, napping in view of a dramatic background. Crazy how that happens at just the right moment. 🙂
Light from the very low sun at the top of the basin’s western rimrocks highlights one of Temple’s gorgeous eyes at the approach of another night on winter solstice.
The days may be short, but we’ve had no shortage of blue Colorado skies the last couple of weeks. Some snow may be heading our way next week … in time for Christmas?! Santa may need his sled after all and not his (light-on-the-land) off-road tires. 😉
Chipeta, looking very fuzzy and wonderfully wuzzy a couple of weeks ago when the ridges still had snow.
Dear Santa: We’d like some snow for Christmas. Thank you very much! 🙂
Happy winter solstice, folks!
The view from the hill, up out of the arroyo, was pretty grand. And the mountains aren’t a bad backdrop. 😉
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Happy big 7-0 to friend, fellow mustang advocate and writer extraordinaire, Kathryn Wilder!
She is, as many of you may know, the author of “Desert Chrome: Water, A Woman, and Wild Horses in the West,” and her new book, “The Last Cows: On Ranching, Wonder, and a Woman’s Heart,” will be out next fall.
Read more of her writing at https://katwilderwriter.com/
Temple took the high road across a deep arroyo, and I took the low road in the deep arroyo. 🙂
Eventually, I did have to climb the steep hillside up out of it. Though she looks like she’s ignoring me, as I came huffing and puffing up on the hill with them, the horses looked like they wondered what the heck I’d been doing down there anyway!
It was still pretty muddy in the area where I took this pic of Maiku, and the horses were moving slowly.
It may make the going harder, but we’ll be glad of that moisture in the ground when the warm temperatures roll around again.
Juniper walked down this ridge and then stopped to pose beneath Temple Butte, named for one of our original amazing advocates, Pati Temple. Lovely ladies, both.
The quieter, calmer, more peaceful side of handsome mustang-with-a-heart, Corazon. 🙂
Snow incoming, but it never quite reached us – Buckeye’s band.
Handsome Tenaz with one of his young mares, seen over the back of a closer horse that was grazing. On that particular day (before the snow), it was trying to spit rain, and a rainbow, which had been spectacular and long-lasting and that faded and came back at least a couple of times, was stubbornly (!) NOT appearing while I was in the basin in the presence of horses – even though the clouds were opening to the sunshine and closing like a camera’s shutter.
If you look closely, you can see the sprinkles.
I never did get a pic of the rainbow with the horses, but it was a beautiful visit with the band nonetheless.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 