Knapweed spraying

5 10 2012

For two days this week, a Forest Service crew directed by BLM has sprayed Russian knapweed around all the ponds in Spring Creek Basin. In May, Four Corners Back Country Horsemen members and guests GPS’d several sites (including ponds) of weed infestation to help BLM identify sites for future spraying. This is all part of the Director’s Challenge grant, which was awarded to the Tres Rios Field Office based on its affiliation with Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners.

We happened to catch G, with the Forest Service, leaving the basin after his second day of spraying and got the scoop.

After visiting with Duke and Kreacher in the northwest “meadow,” we surveyed the northwest pond and spraying activity.

This was a fitting day to get the news about weed spraying; Pat Amthor, who, with her husband, Frank, has honcho’d 13 years worth of wild horse counts in Spring Creek Basin with Four Corners Back Country Horsemen, was visiting. From our vantage with the boys, it was Pat who spied water in the pond.

The vegetation around the pond is the particularly nasty Russian knapweed, noted in a previous post about the pond and it being dug out this summer (also with Director’s Challenge funds). If the green looks a little unnatural, that’s OK – that’s the chemical spray.

Note: Russian knapweed is toxic to horses if ingested in great enough quantity. The good thing is that horses rarely eat it if other forage is available. And we have plenty of other forage available, especially this year.

As we continued around the basin, we did note that all the ponds we saw showed signs of having been sprayed. Yay!

As a side note, we ended up seeing every single horse in Spring Creek Basin, including – again – the elusive Mr. Poco.


Comments : 2 Comments »

Categories : Advocacy, Director's Challenge, Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners, Four Corners Back Country Horsemen, Partnership, Ponds, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Water, Work projects

Water, blessed

1 09 2012

Oh, peeps. What a summer. No rain for months. Then rain. Ponds – three – dug out. Then no rain – again. Did I mention heat? Drying wind.

We got a big rain last week. I couldn’t wait to get back in the basin to check ponds. But I’ve been distracted – by Terra’s new baby, by checking Chipeta (no baby today). The day I found Terra’s baby boy, I got stopped at the first Spring Creek crossing by a big wash of rock, some still-not-dry mud (which kinda IS mud, eh) and a tall/deep “step” of dirt/mud at the far side. It wasn’t much changed today. It took one aborted attempt in regular four-wheel drive then four-wheel-low to get up and over it today.

But this stopped me:

The old washout, washed out again. But this time, it’s all the way across the road. I hate to think what mess the hunters will make trying to get past it.

Did I say it stopped me? Welllll. It stopped the Jeep. Bike to the rescue. I hit the road, to this destination:

Is this not a glorious sight?! This is the roadside pond, full to the brim! OK, maybe not quite to the brim – you can see how high the water got. The spillway is at back right, but it doesn’t look like much water went over there.

Back on the bike. Back to the Jeep. Back to check the northwest pond.

Did I say the other photo, of a brim-full pond, was a glorious sight? Nah. (Well, yeah.) But this, folks … this is what it’s all about. 🙂

Not full at all. In fact, just a puddle compared with roadside and trapsite (which also is full), but Hollywood’s band was there (Mona and Shane seen above). Comanche’s band was there. Duke was there. Bounce was there with Seven and Kreacher. The young misters Hayden, Tenaz and Apollo were there.

That is there. See it? The green stuff? Not in the foreground (BLM, that’s weeds again already, and not the good kind; good thing BLM is set to spray weeds this fall from the coordinates we GPS’d during the Four Corners Back Country Horsemen’s project this spring!). Where the horses are. Comanche’s closest; Hollywood’s a little farther and to the left. Duke was in there, too, I think.

That, my friends, is lovely, life-sustaining grass.

Oh, what a difference, rain.

Glorious rain. Valuable, wonderful rain. We had a little more last night. Despite the promising clouds, none tonight.

(Pond notes: The northwest, trapsite and roadside ponds all got dug out this year, courtesy of the Forest Service and Director’s Challenge money, which our Tres Rios Field Office was awarded based on partnership with our Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners. The east-pocket pond had gone dry, then had water again, then gone dry again. I wasn’t able to get back and check it, but based on roadside’s full status, I’d bet it has water again. All the other ponds have water. Grass is amazing. Horses are fabulous!)


Comments : 5 Comments »

Categories : Director's Challenge, Mona, Ponds, Rain, Shane, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Water, Work projects

Horses of different colors

30 07 2012

Mama Kestrel and her girls Madison, 2 1/2 months old, and Juniper, yearling. Her first daughter, Winona, is buckskin. Juni is going grey like her daddy, Comanche, and baby Madi is bay like … ? Her daddy also is Comanche; his background unknown.

Great news on the pond front: The trapsite pond has about 3 feet of water as of today! Thanks to C (and intern from South Carolina D) for the great news! The Forest Service dozer operator still was working on it some but had to abandon. J will finesse the spillways of the northwest and roadside ponds and then be done with those two. They look great – nice and deep. We had amazing rains yesterday and Saturday – particularly Saturday. Disappointment Creek started flowing again (not that it helps the horses because it doesn’t flow through the herd area, but it’s a marker for the overall valley).

The hills are green – for the first time this year really. So amazing to see what some good rain can do for this high desert environment!

This was taken at the northwest pond late last week looking northish. Sundance’s band is in the scene; can you spot them? Trick question. 🙂 They’re really not visible in this image, especially at this size. But they are there. See the promontory at the top of the image? Below that, on the open hill, the trees? The horses are near/under the leftmost of those trees. I kept looking up there, thinking I saw something … and telling myself “no way.” But I *have* seen horses up there before … and sure enough, when I finally went for the binocs, Sundance’s band. Those mountain goat-ponies. 🙂

But really, look at the foreground: grass! This area was seriously *burnt* as recently as a week or two ago (I hate it when people say/write “burnt” when they mean burned, but this area was seriously crispy, and there’s really just not another word for it).

This is looking northwestish from the middle-ish area of the basin. Duke is there.

Rain. Green. Love.


Comments : 1 Comment »

Categories : Juniper, Kestrel, Madison, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Water, Work projects

Advantage

20 07 2012

Chrome’s band is the only band that takes advantage of the water catchment. Not sure why this is, but I’m glad they know where the good water is!


Comments : 2 Comments »

Categories : Chrome, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Terra, Water, Water catchment, Winona

Northwest and done

20 07 2012

Three images stitched together in Photoshop. Ragged lines. Photoshop is not my forte!

Now we just need rain to fill it up!


Comments : 2 Comments »

Categories : Advocacy, Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners, Ponds, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Water

Not-so-big dig

18 07 2012

The Big Dig, it ain’t. But I’m still excited about it!

It represents potentially more water for the horses and increased grazing in an area the horses don’t use a lot because there’s not often water there. And it represents BLM keeping our mustangs’ welfare a priority, especially in this hot and dry year.

We went from this:

To this today:

It’s not done yet! This is looking from the “spillway” across the pond to the west – the same perspective as the photo above. Many thanks to C and J from the Forest Service who are honchoin’g the project and doing the dirt work!

C and J discussing the finer points of pond clean-out. C also was involved in coordinating the contractor hired to dig out the Round Top pond and the one double pond in 2009.

This is what I call simply the northwest pond, it being in the northwestern corner of Spring Creek Basin. This is looking southeastish across the basin. In the middle ground, you can see the twin buttes and part of Flat Top. Just left of the juniper tree in the foreground is the spillway from which I took the first two pix.

J pushing dirt.

There are basically two drainages that feed this pond, and he’s cleaning out in front of the smaller one, which you can see in front of the dozer. The other one is behind him, out of the picture.

Work should be finished on this pond tomorrow! I’ll post another pic or more later.

Also scheduled for dig-out is – at least – the trapsite pond, which is above Spring Creek Canyon (site of previous roundups). The roadside pond, which was about half dug out in 2010 (because it rained before it was completed), will get dug out if there’s time and/or it dries out more. The dirt of that pond, which went dry a month or so ago, is still damp about 4 inches down where the water dried up last. The Flat Top pond, which has been our priority to dig out since 2009, ends up holding some water when the monsoons kick in again. We’ll try to move that up to a June time-frame for next year; if the roadside pond doesn’t get dug out this year, there’s next year.

Director’s Challenge funds, awarded because of the Tres Rios Field Office’s partnership with Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners, are paying for this work!


Comments : 2 Comments »

Categories : Advocacy, Director's Challenge, Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners, Partnership, Ponds, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Water, Work projects

Rain: falling, filling

13 07 2012

Aspen against a rainy sky a few nights ago.

The recent rains DID, in fact, put water in some of the ponds. Some went from very shallow to quite a bit fuller. Some went from dry to this:

The Flat Top pond. It (likely) won’t get dug out this year, but it’s good to see it with water again.

The northwest pond, however, should get dug out next week – it’s still dry. Or was; the basin got rain again this afternoon after a dry spell of a few days.

The east-pocket pond has water again. The Sorrel Flats pond has way more water (it was getting pretty shallow). And those are just the ones I’ve looked at, being more concerned with pony doings. What can I say, I get distracted easily. 🙂

I should have – but didn’t – take pix of the first Spring Creek arroyo crossing. No more water flowing, but the rocks the water pushed along was awe-inspiring (as always). Water is a driving force in this “Disappointment Country” – and the lack of it just as much, if not more so.

And I’ll leave ya’ll with this pretty sunset over the La Sal Mountains (to the northwest of the basin, in Utah):

It’s good to have rain. 🙂


Comments : 2 Comments »

Categories : Advocacy, Aspen, Disappointment Valley, Ponds, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Water, Work projects

‘Female rain’

7 07 2012

It has been raining – softly and steadily – for about three hours now in Disappointment Valley. The rain ringed Spring Creek Basin all morning and afternoon, then hit the eastern side of the basin around 5:30 p.m.

Heavenly.

Divine.

Something so simple, so wonderful. So longed for. So grateful for.

“Female rain” is this very type of slow, gentle, nurturing rain. “Male rain” is heavy with lightning and thunder and bravado.

I can’t remember whether that’s attributable to the Navajo? But I’ve always loved it. Perfect.

Just think how Spring Creek must be flowing now! 🙂


Comments : 5 Comments »

Categories : Disappointment Valley, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Water

Spring Creek, Spring Creek Basin

6 07 2012

More rain in the basin this afternoon. In the northeastern part of the basin, against the northeastern ridges that form the boundary.

I drove in this evening with a friend, and we crossed Spring Creek – a little muddier/puddlier (yes, that’s a word; I just invented it!) than the pic I posted on the blog previously – a little after 7:30 p.m.

Before 9 p.m., we were heading back out of the basin … and saw this:

Looking upstream.

Looking downstream. At lower right are my tracks from earlier (driving left to right).

Looking all kind of silly dancing around praising the rain that fell earlier. 🙂

Spring Creek flows only during rain events – and it might take awhile for that rain water to get from there to here. In fact, we drove down to the canyon after this – and the water hadn’t made it that far yet!

Stoked, my friends. Simply stoked. 🙂


Comments : 3 Comments »

Categories : Rain, Spring Creek, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Water

(Rain) dancin’ for joy

4 07 2012

It was such a weird, seldom-seen sight, I almost saw it without SEEING it.

Peeps, that there’s rainwater, in a puddle. And the ground is dark because it’s still damp. Not splattered by raindrops you can count in the dust but actually DAMP. From rain.

RAIN!

I didn’t actually see the rain, but the puddles don’t lie.

Puddles in the first Spring Creek crossing.

Had a report that it rained – “poured” – for a couple of hours in Ridgway, home of at least five Spring Creek Basin mustangs. (Thanks, Alice!)

Can I also direct your attention to the amazing light in these photos? What, you ask? It’s grey. It’s dull. It’s flat.

Yeah. That’s cloud-a-riffic, my friends. 🙂 Gorgeous!

Thanks for the rain dances! It’s still mostly giving us spits and starts, but it’s coming. And we have storms in the forecast the next couple of days. Firefighters have a handle on all the region’s fires, including the 10,000-plus-acre Weber Fire south of Mancos. The last I saw, they had at least 85 percent containment.

Keep on dancin’!


Comments : 4 Comments »

Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Water

« Previous Entries Next Entries »