Well, the ponies certainly put out the memo and made themselves available for summer solstice evening!
Heat, wind (“fire-weather (red-flag) warning/watch” and “wind advisory” – no joke), haze and dust aside, it was a gorgeous evening with four bands at the western boundary above Spring Creek canyon.
Winona and her band were the last left in the last light at the very top of the rimrocks, and she’s *always* a gorgeous model. Solstice night was no exception. 🙂 God and we love her.
Seneca and her band were just on the north side of Spring Creek canyon. You can see the continuation of some of that rimrock right behind her. It made a nice frame for her wild loveliness.
*****
We got TREMENDOUS rain this past week. For this old curmudgeon and pessimist (with regard to forecast rain that doesn’t actually end up falling; I’m actually mostly fairly optimistic), it was the loveliest of grey, soggy, rainy weeks (but this is Colorado, so you know we also had abundant sunshine throughout – and of course, at least one rainbow!). The total between Monday and Friday accrued to 1.15 inches of rain!!!!!!! Total since Dec. 1: 3.03. So that’s more than a THIRD of our entire moisture total (I’m talking about moisture from snow, too) since the beginning of the winter. Yes, we’re dry. Yes, we just got a wonderful, amazing, fabulous, marvelous, fan-freaking-tastic amount of moisture. 🙂
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Cassidy Rain, never one to get too close (or allow closeness) moseys downhill toward a little ridge, the better to hide behind. … But isn’t she soooo lovely. 🙂
Late golden light frames Chipeta perfectly on Earth Day evening.
I hope you all were able to spend some time outdoors, appreciating the life and wonder of this big, beautiful globe!
It’s been about a week and a half now since I took this (and many more) pic of Winona with a storm clearing and swirling above Utah’s La Sal Mountains on the northwestern horizon. The day was *gorgeous*.
It’s a good thing those mountains and Colorado’s have snow … but it’s not a lot. It’s less day by day. And none of that snow reaches Spring Creek Basin. Not even Disappointment Creek, which has had only sporadically running water so far this year, is doing very well (and it doesn’t run through Spring Creek Basin at all).
The view is gorgeous, but the outlook for this summer is grim.
Any way you slice (crop) it, Buckeye is one handsome fellow.
Actually, only the third one was cropped – at little off the left side. The first two are as taken, but with my long lens and the land rising behind me, I couldn’t quite get the fullness of the image. The third image is from my phone.
Love the way the two junipers arch directly over him. He chose the spot for the shade, but c’mon, maybe a little bit of artistry??
Sometimes the best images come right to your camera, just as you’re leaving Spring Creek Basin with no expectation of seeing horses right along the road in spectacular light. 🙂
Temple-the-gorgeous was at her most-gorgeous while walking along catching up to the band, all of whom had already dropped low while grazing.
This image of Winona is one of those that doesn’t begin to do justice to the sheer, stunning gorgeousity of the actual scene.
If you look closely, you’ll see snowflakes. 🙂 And yes, that’s sunlight in the distance of the western basin.
It was one of the several waves of rain(ish)/snow(ish)/graupel(for sure) that flew wind-driven over Spring Creek Basin and greater Disappointment Valley yesterday, looking amazingly amazing and not leaving a *lot* of moisture (? I couldn’t believe how not-muddy it was). As we know in Disappointment country, ANY moisture is good-and-welcome moisture, and we’ll take every hard-won flake and drop.
It. Was. Awesome. 🙂
Better late than never, and when I finally got my act together, I thought Valentine’s Day would be the best day for this rundown.
As usual, these are 12 (and a bonus) images from the last year that came from each month. This year, I think, most of these photos have been on the blog previously. A little reminiscence of the events surrounding each image will follow the photos. Sometimes it’s those emotions and memories that make a particular image special for the photographer, and these are no exception to that. Just being out with the mustangs, in Spring Creek Basin, no matter the weather, is the very best part of what is impossible to share.
Enjoy … and please consider this is my love letter to Spring Creek Basin and its mustangs from 2024. 🙂
January last year was at least somewhat snowy (this year was very much NOT snowy). Skywalker had been a bachelor with a couple of bands until sometime last year, and here he is with some horses from one of those bands. Completing the composition is part of the Spring Creek canyon rimrocks in the near background and Utah’s La Sal Mountains in the far background. (I wish they were that snowy this year.)
This was a magical February visit with Mariah and her band. The low-angle sunshine made each snowflake a visible bit of earthly magic, and when she looked back at somebody – shazam. Magic captured.
Couldn’t pass up this snowy March day in the basin with Temple! Clearly, she had been enjoying the moisture and excuse to roll in the mud. I love the sunshine on her and the falling snow blurring the background.
I had so many opportunities with the mustangs in April, but this image of Hollywood was just *the one*. You all know exactly what I mean. (To update, I haven’t seen him again since the image I posted earlier this winter. It doesn’t mean anything other than I haven’t seen him. …)
When Spring Creek is running with rainwater, that is a time not to miss photographing it because it doesn’t happen often and water doesn’t run in the arroyo bed for very long. When Skywalker moseyed to the edge of the creek in May, just upstream of the canyon, the scene came alive with story: mustang drinking from an ephemeral stream in the desert.
In June, I was lucky to catch Sundance’s band near Odin’s band … and luckier still to see Sundance and Odin having a friendly little chat! Elder stallion and growing young stallion; what a moment. I’d love to know what wisdom Sundance was imparting to young Odin.
Terra’s stallion adores her. And I mean *adores* her. They travel with another band, but Venture has eyes only for Terra. This image is from July, when it’s hot and dry and the horses just like to doze.
Personally, this is one of my favorite images of the year because those are two of my favorite stallions: Storm and Buckeye. With their bands grazing nearby on this warm August evening, the boys greeted each other quietly and respectfully before returning to their mares.
Here’s your Valentine’s Day image, taken last September. 🙂 Buckeye and Rowan, especially, seem to have a special fondness for each other.
After Storm lost his band in October, the mares went through a couple of younger stallions that couldn’t seem to keep them. Flash ended up with Gaia … then also with Mysterium. And finally, as you know now, he gathered all of Storm’s girls (which, I think, probably was due more to them wanting to be together and evading the youngster that had them than to any particular skill Flash had at stealing them!). (I’ve seen Storm just once since he lost the band, way deep in the southeastern part of the basin.)
Last November, we had some great snow, and we were so optimistic for the winter to come! … And that was pretty much it. Here it is February, and we’re desperate for moisture of any kind while we watch the dirt turn to dust, to powder. But in November, Terra was a gorgeous girl in the sunlit snow, and life was good.
We had more lovely light in December – as seen glowing around lovely Winona – but not a heckuva lot of snow.
And as usual, a bonus:
Buckeye’s girls. 🙂 I don’t remember what caused them to run right past me, but I was stoked to capture this image of them nearly in a row, especially just as Bia was leaping a bit of sage or saltbush!
Thanks for following along, happy Valentine’s Day to you and your loved ones, and if we can have a bit of a love(ly) wish … more snow, please! 🙂
*** Update Friday morning: Disappointment Valley is getting RAIN! Not snow, RAIN. In February. In Colorado. Well, you know we’re in desperate need of moisture, so I’ll take it. (But 38F is hard on the wildlife under rain.)
Piedra is a couple of years older than Kestrel, and they have known each other literally all of Kestrel’s life. Even when they were in different bands, with different stallions, their bands were close to each other. They were two of the first to teach me why some bands travel together (it’s the mares).
It’s amazing to me to see that level of dedicated friendship.
Mustangs are amazing.
Piedra and Kestrel both were named by me at the beginning of my documentation of the herd. Piedra was young and the brown-grey of a young horse born brown or bay and turning grey. I don’t remember the exact steps of thoughts I went through, but I loved the name of the Piedra River that flows out of the San Juan Mountains near Pagosa Springs. She had a simple star on her forehead, and I found that “piedra” means stone in English (“for example, una piedra preciosa means ‘a precious stone'”). That was good enough for me, and precious Piedra was named. 🙂
Kestrel was a weanling filly, still with her mother, Luna, after the 2007 roundup, and I have a particular love for kestrels, fierce small falcons that are abundant in Disappointment Valley. Basically, I just wanted to name a mustang “Kestrel,” and she was beautiful and deserving, and it stuck!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 