Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Madison and Temple. Temple and Madison. BFFs for many years. Still going strong.

Just before I took this pic, Skywalker was standing guard on the edge of a little ridge, looking wonderfully handsome and marvelously picturesque. I didn’t think I’d have time to get my camera out of my pack before he moved … and as it turned out, I could barely get my *phone* out before he started moving. Luckily, Skywalker was still marvelously handsome and picturesque in the middle of the panoramic view!

Little bitty pretty muddy girl! Spirit always makes me smile at her sweet self … especially when she’s wearing some fancy new baubles in her forelock. 🙂

What a difference a year makes.

In spite of the snow-heavy winter we’ve had, the mustangs are absolutely thriving, and perhaps no mustang demonstrates this more significantly than almost-3-year-old Rowan, introduced to Spring Creek Basin from northwestern Colorado’s Sand Wash Basin with her mare mates Dundee (4 this year) and Aiyanna (also about to be 3) in the fall of 2021.

A year ago:

This photo, taken the end of March 2022, shows Rowan, in particular, looking a bit lean as a coming-2-year-old.

It’s rare that I have the opportunity of showing some growing contrasts, but I couldn’t be happier with her blossoming. She – and Dundee and Aiyanna – are without doubt wonderful additions to Spring Creek Basin, and I hope they’re happy in their new home (I’m pretty sure that if mustangs understand “happy” as a concept, they are). 🙂

Two Sundances are better than one. 🙂

I may have mentioned the wind has been fierce?! Who needs fake wind for fabulous portraits of a most-handsome mustang?

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Between the wind, the sunshine and temps in the 50s (practically tropical for us these late-winter days!), there was a bit of this yesterday:

That’s actual liquid water, flowing out of Spring Creek Basin and under a bridge along which runs the Disappointment Valley road along the southwestern/southern boundary of the basin. I call it the county-line drainage. You can see a bit of snow on the bank of the arroyo. A lot of smaller tributary arroyos feed into this one, including another large one (also fed by numerous smaller ones) that drains a large area farther to the east. These arroyos, in turn, drain to Disappointment Creek; from this point, the bridge on which I was standing when I took this pic, the creek isn’t too far down this arroyo behind me to the south(ish).

Water shapes our world in many ways here. This: a sign of spring on the way!

Hollywood’s band was recently in the most magnificent area to take advantage of this stunning background – made even more stunning by the divine blanket of pristine snow. Hollywood was warning elder Aspen that his proximity to the band was perhaps a little closer than fully appropriate, while a young bachelor napped at a very respectful distance.

Just … beauty.

For a period of time while I was with Maia and Houdini and their band, the world of Spring Creek Basin was completely, totally, absolutely still and silent – but for the movements of the horses. No birds. No planes. No wind. The silence was NOTICEABLE.

Then the wind picked up and the horses were browsing and moving and watching bachelors, and all was, well, normal. 🙂 And absolutely, totally, completely, utterly … gorgeous.

This isn’t a super current pic of our lovely elder lady Houdini. It was taken a couple of weeks ago after a then-fresh snowfall.

When I get into Spring Creek Basin next – hopefully today – the snow is going to be even deeper than in the above pic. As I type this Tuesday night, to schedule for what will be this morning, we are getting walloped with snow! A solid 6 inches total so far, maybe 7 … and surely more by morning, let alone the end of the day, when the winter storm warning expires.

Our world looks MUCH different again from the uniform brown we had just a couple of days ago. We are getting tremendous moisture out of this storm!

And just like that, it was time for the evening trek to water, which the horses found trickling sweetly though the bottom of an arroyo. The boys are always the last to know. 🙂

Winona soaks up the sunshine while the snow clouds linger over McKenna Peak and Temple Butte.

It felt much warmer than it looks!