Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Terra IS a golden girl!

Little Spirit is still summer-slick, but it won’t be long and she and the rest of the mustangs will be starting their winter coats. Meanwhile, we’re still enjoying the bounty of this summer.

When you can be picky about your grazing spot, you know there’s some good grass growing!

Juniper hunts for juuuuuuust the right blades of monsoon-green grama and galleta grass.

At farthest left, the skeleton of the dead pinon is proof that our drought is never far from our thoughts or reality.

Chipeta likes to help illustrate the yummy green grass. This particular area of Spring Creek Basin is thick with alkali sacatone/sand dropseed. I love the squeaks these particular types of grasses make as the horses graze. It’s the sound of *plenty*.

Just a couple of minutes after the photos from yesterday’s post and the day’s before were taken, the sun settled behind a cloud – or the cloud parked itself in front of sun – and the light softened. Crickets (?) and chirrups and the sigh of breeze and the warmth of an August evening became the most important things, and all was well with the world as the bands grazed and moseyed, enjoying that rich growth of rain-watered native grass.

Dundee has caught up to Rowan and Aiyanna, their interest caught by a nearby little band.

If you look closely, you can see the dapples in Rowan’s coat, a sign of glowing good health.

It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly a year since Rowan and Aiyanna (and Dundee) came to Spring Creek Basin from Sand Wash Basin. Without, great changes turn the world. Within, life goes on much as it always has.

Other than Rowan’s weirdly shortened tail and mane (no, I haven’t seen the other horses chewing on it, and no, I still don’t know what causes it, among any of the mustangs), the girls are looking as gorgeous as ever. … As is the basin itself. Home.