Our mule deer friends are back in the valley. 🙂 We’ve missed them. (Elk are back, too, most often visible very early and/or very late.)
This scene was photographed from Disappointment Valley Road in lower Disappointment Valley looking east-ish toward Spring Creek Basin. Pyramid-shaped McKenna Peak and prominent promontory Temple Butte are familiar in the background. The sort of mid-ground area is Spring Creek Basin.
Maia stands pretty as a picture with the south wall of Spring Creek canyon visible in the background.
The snow is melting fast, but in a week, we have a week’s worth of rain (!) chances in the forecast.
Pure as the driven snow, Miss Piedra. 🙂
**********
Out here, government employees aren’t nameless and faceless, one or more of the 800,000 workers adversely affected by the government shutdown. They’re our partners, they’re members of our communities. They visit our local farmers markets, and their kids and our kids are classmates. We work together for common goals.
Yesterday, as I was driving out of Spring Creek Basin, our lead BLM law-enforcement ranger, Tyler, was headed into the basin, in uniform and driving his BLM vehicle. He and his law-enforcement fellows have been required to be on the job – without pay – but I know him and others like him well enough to know that it is at least moral duty, not simply required duty. It’s a duty to protect the resources of our local community, which, in our case (as in most across the West), is large, wide and sprawling, not easily connected.
And yet, on the Sunday before government resumes operations, Tyler was in Disappointment Valley, headed toward Spring Creek Basin, checking on our mustangs and the range that sustains them.
We ARE connected. And we’re grateful for our neighbors. We hope the (temporary) return to business is for the good of all our government-employed neighbors.
All the horses have been a little narrow-eyed lately with the bright sunlight on the pristine snow. Even humans keep the shades on during these bright winter days!
In the great white winter expanse, these two girls are beautiful girls. 🙂
Mariah has quite a view from the north hills of Spring Creek Basin.
Piedra and Kestrel relax in sunshine and snow on a cold day in Spring Creek Basin. The light reflecting off the snow made it very comfortable for a snooze, despite the air temperature.
NOT comfortable was hearing the baying of hounds to the north. Around here, hunters find the tracks of mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes in the snow, then send dogs after them. I don’t believe the dogs were in the basin, but the baying sent at least one band trotting away, and at the same time, a group of at least 50 elk went streaming south out of the trees on the north hills, running from human-induced pressure during a season when they should be conserving energy, not wasting it. … Imagine the animals that cannot escape that pressure.
Because you can never see too much of this lovely pinto pony who thinks she blends in to her snowy environment. 🙂
Spring Creek Basin got 1 to 3 inches of snow Monday night. Then we had wind, which already scoured some places free or nearly free of snow. It’s very nice to have more moisture!
The region got some more snow. Not as much as pictured above, with Puzzle, from a few weeks ago, but it’s always nice to get moisture. 🙂
Lower Disappointment Valley has melted into basic brown again, for the most part. High temps melt snow, which creates mud, which leads to undriveable roads.
Naturally, we’re craving colder temps and more snow. 🙂
As I type this Sunday evening, we’re hoping Monday’s forecast for snow proves accurate, even down here in the “low lands.”
Above, Killian was digging through the (fairly) new snow to get to the grass beneath. They’re working a bit harder for their grub this winter (!), but they take it all as it comes. They’re WILD, after all! 🙂
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 