Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Baby Bia has made a couple of appearances on the blog, but older baby Odin hasn’t, and he should because he’s growing into quite a striking colt. Usually, they’re back in the far reaches of Spring Creek Basin, but recently, they were right in the western region, supremely accessible for an evening photo shoot.

All but two of Hollywood’s mares are still together, and they seem to be getting along in their new band just fine (which probably is because the two bands would come together now and then previously). Mustangs are nothing if not adaptable, and Odin and mama Shane are taking it all in their stride.

We know we’re blessed. 🙂

Long live the beautiful, protective, bay mustang mares – in particular, our lovely Madison.

Handsome Flash is getting more grey and – if possible – more handsome.

He and a pal were grazing peacefully, far from chaos.

Dust in the air … we need some rain on the land again (though what it will do to our roaring creeks, I don’t know!).

With that thick fur coat, ferocious wind may tousle her mane, but it never ruffles Kestrel’s feathers! 😉

Let me be clear: Spring Creek Basin does NOT look like this currently. It DID look like this Thursday morning – for a couple of daylight hours after we woke up to a couple of inches of fresh snow, after the previous fresh snow melted (a few hours after we woke up to THAT snow).

So think of the basin and lower Disappointment Valley not as covered with snow but saturated with mud (damp to downright soupy) … and imagine, if it please you, spring green and a profusion of wildflower blooms. Especially if you’re still covered with inches to feet of snow, it should be a happy vision!

This image shows snow from the last big snowstorm. Oddly, though the rest of Southwest Colorado (well, all of western Colorado, apparently?) seems to be getting fairly hammered by snow, Disappointment Valley seems to be a bit sheltered from the storm – literally. It *has* snowed … but it seems to be coming from Utah and blowing on to Kansas! The wind has been strong and sharp, and it hasn’t allowed much snow to *fall* let alone settle.

We had a lot of melting of all that snow Corazon is standing in – with temps in the balmy-seeming 50s. Actual creeks (Spring and Disappointment) ran with melting snow-water and the melting made tiny (to not-so-tiny) creeks where arroyos or any other low channels existed.

The landscape IS white again, but maybe only an inch or so has actually settled out of the wind-blown flurries.

Jadi watches the horses around her – while well aware of me watching all of them – with the curve of the rimrocks above Spring Creek canyon arching across the background. Fluffy, fluffy!

We still have a few to several inches of snow on the ground. There’s some melting happening, but the temps aren’t rising as much as the forecasters are forecasting, so it’s slow and steady … which is fine and good.

The horses don’t seem to mind the snow too much. It’s not so much that they can’t get to the protruding vegetation. And when that sun shines full on us, it’s almost downright toasty! Nap time is peaceful time.