To all the great dads who protect their families and support their passions … and pass down their values and life lessons: happy Father’s Day!
Especially to my dad, for (also) passing down his love of horses and wide-open places, love of seeing new places and fresh-cut hay fields. 🙂
I love you, Dad!
P.S. I should have added that Buckeye was named by my mom, as she and Buckeye very nearly share the dates of their October birthdays. My mom and dad are originally from Ohio, the Buckeye State, and my dad is, in fact, an Ohio State Buckeye (he graduated with a degree in animal science before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army).
Something a little different today inspired by a recent introduction.
Pictured are three bands in what I call the east pocket of Spring Creek Basin. It’s hard to get to because of the current condition of the road, but it has always been one of my favorite places in the basin, and this season, some of the horses seem to agree.
A few weeks ago, I got a message from Rick Freimuth, who is a firewatcher based at Benchmark Lookout in the San Juan National Forest. He shared with me a glorious sunset pic he had posted recently from the tower and said that just a little outside the frame of the photo was Disappointment Valley – and Spring Creek Basin. As it turned out, I had recently taken a pic in which I included the ridgeline on which the lookout tower stands, so I sent it to him in turn.
Later, I specifically took these pix, from the east pocket looking southward toward the Glade and Benchmark Lookout to share with Rick and his wife, Linda.
See the tower? Highest ridge at upper right.
Benchmark Lookout stands tall, amid aspen and ponderosa forests and looks out over VAST country – all over southwestern Colorado and into Utah.
Rick and Linda have an amazing job, and this 2020 Cortez Journal article highlights the work they do to assist firefighters in the region. If their tower home looks like a lightning magnet, apparently it is! … But the VIEWS!
Years (and years) ago, I went up to Benchmark Lookout to do a story for the Dolores Star. Rick and Linda know Barbara Zinn, who was the lookout then. Words such as “incredible,” “marvelous,” “astounding,” “outstanding,” “amazing,” “fabulous,” “fantastic” … fall far short of the actual wonder of the view. From Spring Creek Basin, I often point out to visitors the tower standing guard over our cherished, local public lands.
Kudos to Rick and Linda and all the other firewatchers and protectors of Colorado’s (and America’s) public lands!
Some more photo-geekiness for you all: The horses were a LONG way away from me when I saw this scene unfolding. If the best camera is the one you have in your hand, the best composition is what you have in your viewfinder, at any distance.
Buckeye’s band watches a band led by Lieutenant Tenaz up a ridge. Buckeye’s had already been to water and had left, and Tenaz and family were on their way to water.
All the layers of canyon rimrocks and ridges of northern Disappointment Valley and all the way to Utah’s La Sal Mountains look compressed and so *right there* because of my long lens.
That’s a lotta-lotta country … the most magical, of course, the closest at hand. 🙂
As noted, it’s a good year for the prince’s plume, which continues to flourish. While it’s there to admire, giving color to our landscape and mustangs, I’ll continue to take photographic advantage of it.
Houdini and prince’s plume. It’s impossible to not take advantage of these sunny yellow plumes all over the place. And as noted previously, she’s doing very well this spring.
I’ve kept some news from Spring Creek Basin under wraps for the last month or so, meanwhile wondering how was I ever going to break the news, should it be negative (again, it’s not the worst). Usually, I don’t necessarily mention the deaths of our mustangs, preferring to let them go in peace … and as you know or should know from Ranger’s disappearance, I don’t really have the words to express my grief very well anyway. Also, because of their wild nature, it sometimes takes a while to determine whether a particular horse is MIA or KIA.
Again, Hollywood is OK – beat up, but OK.
Hollywood lost Houdini to a young stallion more than a month ago, and I’ve been keeping tabs on them. She’s fine and seems peaceful in her new situation. Hollywood was then rebuffing attention from another young stallion. At his age, I was hoping he might let (another) one of the mares go and continue on with the majority of his band. … But it wasn’t to be. A couple of weeks later, I lost track of Hollywood himself, and a young band stallion showed up with Alegre, Maia, Shane and baby Odin (and he still has them, and they’re all fine). At that point, only Spirit was missing. … I finally found her with a young stallion, but within the last week, he showed up – minus Spirit – back with his young bachelor pals.
I thought maybe Spirit had found and reunited with Houdini … but no, she’s with yet another young bachelor stallion, who had been on his own recently. She seems much happier with him than with the other youngster (go figure).
But I still hadn’t seen Hollywood.
Finally, a few days ago, in a setting that seemed somewhat miraculous (maybe because I was starting to lose hope of ever seeing him again), I watched Hollywood graze his way slowly across an edge of a “meadow” area. I was hugely relieved … but upon closer inspection, he’s obviously recovering from what must have been the fight of his life. In the pic above, he looks thin. What it doesn’t show (and I’m not going to show) is that he has a strip of hide hanging from one side of his hindquarters (the gash does seem to be healing, but it’s also still draining) … and his right eye, one of his pair of most-gorgeous eyes, is pretty well shut, and by his behavior, I think he has no sight in that eye.
The hopeful news is that he’s in an area of good grazing and one of two ponds in the basin that still has water. I’m hoping he continues to heal and put on some weight throughout the summer.
Because Hollywood is so known and so loved by so many, I thought it best to give this account of his status, even if it’s (likely) the end of his era as a band stallion. When I first started documenting the herd in 2007 and met him, he had a mare, likely his first mare. I named him Hollywood because he had that air of a star about him, in the very best ways.
He may be small, but he’s also mighty, and his mares adored him. That was always obvious.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 