And then the sun broke through and brought color to life.
Addition of light
13 08 2023Comments : 14 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
Greys
12 08 2023
We might be getting closer to a bit of rain. We’ve had clouds overhead and virga on the horizons.
On this particular day, Flash and the sky and hills were all a shade of grey until the sun broke once again through the clouds.
We’re hoping we’re closer to a bit of rain. Surely any day now.
Comments : 12 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
Light drama
7 08 2023
Do you blame me for having no words to express my appreciation?
Subtle. Gorgeous.
Comments : 14 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
Essential ingredients
4 08 2023
The most subtle light … Kestrel’s sandstone color … that beloved horizon. … Love.
Comments : 14 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
Before the lightning
1 08 2023
Didn’t I say it was super cool?
The almost-supermoon (technically rising today, Aug. 1) would have risen slightly out of frame to the left; you can see how there was no way it was going to be visible through that heavy rain-cloud layer.
There never was a fully-arched rainbow, and the intensity varied depending on sunshine/clouds from the west (the above is looking southeast), but it wasn’t till late in the show when the faint second arc appeared.
The lesson is clear: Mustangs are always the gold. 🙂
Comments : 15 Comments »
Categories : Brumley Point, Disappointment Valley, McKenna Peak, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
Promising
29 07 2023The upper atmosphere is trying to gear up to potentially, eventually, maybe – at some point – give us some rain. Soon (we hope).
The evening was punctuated with a few small, very faint rainbows, catching some elusive liquid suspended in the air. The above – do you see it? – was not only the biggest I saw, it was the first of the evening.
Long-maned Sundance, napping, which is to say, perhaps, waiting impatiently for the sun to set, relieving us all with a bit of … if not coolness, at least a cessation of boiling heat. The background was so gorgeously beautiful, but I had to use my phone (as opposed to my camera with its long lens) for the wide view.
Post-sunset in Spring Creek Basin’s wildcat valley, bands were peacefully grazing while rain fell (or seemed to fall) over the Glade to the south.
And as I left them to their evening repast, I found this guy:
Hollywood alone, within sight of the horses in the image above.
Just another low-key evening in Spring Creek Basin. 🙂 The moon is about half-full. Who’s ready for the full, super sturgeon moon?!
Comments : 11 Comments »
Categories : Brumley Point, Disappointment Valley, McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
Happy belly
27 07 2023
Stout Sundance isn’t missing any meals. Looking gorgeous in the lovely light.
**********
The powers that be have finally cottoned to the news the rest of us in western Colorado have known for a while now: It’s really dry out there: “Colorado’s drought is back after only a short reprieve.”
The U.S. Drought Monitor also agrees that it’s at least “abnormally dry” here now.
Also:
Versions of these signs are up all over our public lands currently. Despite the handy illustrations, some people still can’t seem to understand the restrictions (don’t ask). On a town errand yesterday, I ran into some Forest Service and BLM fire folks out of Norwood (about an hour-ish north of Disappointment Valley/Spring Creek Basin). They’d knocked down at least four lightning-started fires in the area the day before, one of them told me. (No rain for Spring Creek Basin … but thankfully, no lightning, either.)
No joke: It is DRY out there, it’s super hot (OK, not Phoenix- or Texas-hot … we’ve had only a few days up to at least 101F), and the wind is bellowing like a furnace day after day. Depending on the source, we have some possible rains (“t-storms”) coming next week. I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re beyond ready and hopeful.
Comments : 12 Comments »
Categories : Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Wildfire
Bringin’ the sky-magic
12 07 2023For the last very long – days and days and days and weeks and days and weeks – we’ve had solid blue skies. Every. Single. Day.
We finally got some clouds. And when Disappointment Valley does clouds, boy, does it do spectacular clouds.
In order of appearance from around 5:30 or close to 6 p.m. to after sunset:
Looking west.
Mustangs grazing and napping under the relief of clouds.
Silver linings.
Do you see the rainbow?
Rain – or at least virga – to the west.
More mustangs. More napping.
When I left the bands pictured above, I thought I might have a chance at any late surprise light with the bands pictured higher above. But they had moved quite a bit, and the clouds were heavy, and sunset was imminent. But as I left Spring Creek Basin, rain was drifting eastish along the southern ridges of Disappointment Valley. Then I dropped below the rimrocks (the basin’s western boundary), and holy rainbow! You’ll have to take my word for it that it was SUPER intense, and the photo above doesn’t do it justice.
By the time I got to the main road, that “surprise” light was glowing, and the rain had moved away from the southern ridges.
Meanwhile, to the west … this!
Bit closer view of the mountains.
Back to the southeastish, rain was actually falling over the southern/southeastern part of Spring Creek Basin.
And THIS happened. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so glad and grateful to have a cell phone that doubles as a very wide-angle camera.
We ended the day with some post-sunset magic.
And 0.01 inch of rain. 🙂 Enough to make part of the road … actually … WET!
Comments : 16 Comments »
Categories : Brumley Point, Colorado, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Spring Creek canyon, Temple Butte, Utah
Traipsing
20 06 2023
Buckeye tiptoes through the tulips … err … moseys through the prince’s plume and larkspur. 🙂
Comments : 8 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Wild flowers
All the pretty colors
8 06 2023
Despite the promising sky and definite rain *around*, we got just a brief drizzle – the day featured above and below, which was a couple of days ago. …
** I had to update this post: We got rain yesterday! **
I had previously written after the first sentence: That’s good, but we always like/want *better*. Buckeye and his ladies and baby don’t mind waiting … it’s the humans who stress out!
We DO stress out … and we’re infinitely grateful when the rain finally falls!
All those little white bits on the ground are sego lilies.
Aren’t they spectacular? I posted another pic of sego lilies recently … taken with my camera, as compared with this one, taken with my phone. I’m not tall enough to give my long lens room to focus on the interior of these little beauties, but my phone does a pretty good job.
The prickly pear cacti are blooming now, too. Most blooms are shades of yellow and peach-ish:
But I found these blooms – PINK – just about 10 yards away from the yellow cluster above:
How wonderful are these colors?! And the flowers are pretty, too. 🙂
All the blooms and all the green – and the horses and other wildlife and humans, too, – are grateful.
Comments : 12 Comments »
Categories : McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Wild flowers
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 