Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Beautiful girl Piedra has been enjoying a spa treatment in one of the basin’s ponds.

We had a chance of something wet falling last night, and those clouds seemed to hold some promise. But alas, the chance blew away on the stiff spring wind.

Caught-cha, big boy. 🙂 Corazon does his best to seem uninterested in anything beyond his band, but sometimes it’s possible to catch his curious gaze.

Below the grand promontory of Temple Butte, wild horses look quite at home in their magnificently wild home.

A slightly different angle shows the horses with McKenna Peak as their backdrop.

You’ll notice snow on the peaks and ridges and none in the basin. But the mud (from rain and melted snow) is divine.

They say you never forget your first. Whoever “they” are, they’re right. This boy is my very first wild love, and he did this crazy thing: He enlarged my heart more than I’d have thought possible so I could love every mustang that has come afterward. I called him Grey before I ever knew he had an “official” name – Traveler.

Yes, yes, they’re ALL my favorites, but he really is my very absolutest, mostest, bestest favorite. 🙂

There’s that sweet face. And a little slice of the La Sal Mountains.

Southwest Colorado finally has gotten a dose of drizzle (rain in places, snow in places) – very, very, very welcome moisture. The weather has been unseasonably March-like. We’d like to see some January-like weather, even as we’re about to flip the calendar into February. As long as it’s wet, we’ll take it! (Even the faraway Denver weather folks admit that we in the southwestern corner of the state are in dire need of moisture.)

Stretching low and bendy, Ty demonstrates unique technique to youngster Maiku.

All boys must rest after play time.

The rest of the story: Boys that play together also graze together.

Doesn’t yesterday’s pic and backstory make this peaceful pic even more meaningful? While I was with the boys, the girls were napping. Peace on the prairie (so to speak). 🙂

Long-time readers of this blog know that pix like this show up rarely on this blog, and they know why – because while photos of this typically provoke comments of oohs and ahhs, the actual behavior of this is, in reality, fairly rare. And this blog is all about slices of beautiful, calm, normal, wild life.

The coolest thing about this pic really is the backstory, which goes something like this: Maiku and Copper and Ty were feeling good on a beautiful day, and this was the wild-equine-boy equivalent of a game of pickup among human boys.

Sitting on the ground with the perfect 50-yard-line tickets to the show (did I just mix sports?), watching them nip and squeal and kick, I thought oh-so-happily to myself: “Oh, how cool – the boys are playing with the stunning, snow-covered La Sals in the background!” Um. See the sliver of the La Sals? Imagine how stunning are those snow-covered peaks while the boys photobomb them. Well, it’s only right that the boys steal the show! (Snow-covered Northeast, we’d also like to steal some of your snow.)

Note that no injuries were incurred during this slice-of-life play date. Tomorrow: the rest of the story. It’s ordinary, and that’s what’s so extraordinary about these moments with the wild.

P.S. See the white in the background behind Copper’s tail? That’s not snow. That’s the salt in our soil, brought up by the bitty bit of moisture we have had.