All checked

24 02 2024

Sunshine. Check.

Breeze ( a little strong). Check.

Warmth (near 60F). Check.

Perfect nap weather for Maia? Check.





Daylight moonglow

23 02 2024

Lovely Mariah walks atop a little ridge just as I noticed the moon rising above Knife Edge.





The sight to see

22 02 2024

In the space between napping and rousing and grazing, Seneca gives me her sweet look as if to ask if I also see the fabulous scenery. Yes, indeed, dear girl. I see you.





Looking for Hollywood

21 02 2024

The handsome fellow has been elusive for the last couple of months, and I hadn’t seen him either alone or with the other (mostly young) bachelors.

Finally a friend alerted me that she was “85 percent sure” she’d seen him from Disappointment Road on the southern side of Spring Creek Basin. … I looked for him in that area on a couple of drives but didn’t spot him (or any other horses). From interior, with another band, when they turned as one to look at *something*, I did, too, and there he was, glowing orangey-dun on a drab taupe hillside. 🙂 The decision to hike out to him was MUCH faster than the actual hike.

He’s still pretty lean, bordering on downright thin, but he’s OK. His hip gouge has healed, and his right eye is open but squinty.

He couldn’t have made it more plain that he didn’t want to be bothered by an overly-happy-to-see-him human, so I didn’t visit with him long. I really was very happy to see him.





Frisky

20 02 2024

Sometimes the mares (Piedra in this case) get a wild hair and try to outrun their stallion. In this case, her band and the band that moseys with her band had gotten a little separated when they chose different sections of an arroyo to drink in.

Her stallion followed along, and maybe she just needed a little gallop because he fairly easily and quickly collected her – and she let herself be collected.

Oh, those wild shenanigans!





Wanted: Snow

19 02 2024

Mountain areas – Utah’s La Sals above – have lovely snow, but we don’t. And there’s a lot of brown expanse between here and there.

It’s an easy winter for the wild ones (so far?!), but it’s gonna be a tough summer (unless something changes PDQ).





Who goes there

18 02 2024

If a rival stallion is within view, he’s worth taking notice of. Buckeye not only noticed the stallion (and his band), he actually walked halfway toward him (a distance of maybe half a mile). Only after those horses had dropped out of sight over a ridge did Buckeye return to his family. Potential crisis apparently averted. All well in Buckeye’s world.





Pure magic

17 02 2024

No, it didn’t stick, or make the ground wet, or even white.

Yes, the sun was shining through low clouds while flakes wafted from high clouds.

Oh my gosh, yes, it was magical with Mariah and her bandmates so peacefully grazing all around.

The blessing is that this magic is not rare with the mustangs in Spring Creek Basin.





Looky loo

16 02 2024

Otherwise known as Rowan. 🙂





That one moment

15 02 2024

When photographing Corazon, one has to be ready for the one moment when he looks up from grazing, ears pricked with interest and eye(s) glowing – the one moment in many long moments of otherwise peaceful, quiet wandering – to hit the shutter and capture his handsome self.