Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

The day of this pic of Cassidy Rain was warm(ish) and windy (can we skip the wind until actual spring?). I caught sight of a couple of band members on an isolated little ridge-mound between some open ground and a rising, tree-covered hillside behind. The rest of the band was in a semi-protected little cove between the ridge-mound and the main hillside. I found a rocky little drainage and perched on a series of rocks until I found a comfortable one. The horses watched me watching the horses, and we enjoyed the warmth. Based on the number of closed eyes in that series of photos, they were fighting the sleepies as much as I was in that comfortable little area!

Cassidy Rain was named by me. She shared her birthday with the then-2-year-old daughter of our then-herd manager, and I liked the name. And the day I found her, I was poking along the road back in the northeastern part of Spring Creek Basin, in the drizzle, wondering whether I was an idiot for continuing to drive … or whether I’d find horses just around any/every bend that kept appearing along the way.

Thus did Cassidy Rain become a two-name/combined-name mustang. 🙂

An additional note related to yesterday’s post of Maiku: She’s the same base color – dark bay – and she may be distantly related to him. Cassidy Rain’s sire was a dark-bay pinto named Cinch, for the white “girth”-like marking on his side. (Very sadly, he was the one on-site casualty of the 2011 roundup.) She got his color, but as you can see, only a couple of little bits of his white markings.

We need some of the second part of her name. Or snow. We’re not fussy, ever. (As of the publication of this post, the temps have dropped again, and ice has appeared on water sources overnight again. We’re hoping for snow this week!)

This portrait of handsome Maiku was taken a couple of weeks ago in the northwestern part of Spring Creek Basin. There are more trees in that area of the basin than many other parts, being a bit higher and getting more moisture. … I don’t spend a lot of time in that area because the horses aren’t there frequently, but it’s beautiful, and I love it when they ARE there.

While roaming around with them, I was kinda shocked at the sheer number of dead trees … like the one behind Maiku.

Not to belabor the point, but if we don’t get some winter soon (snow? please?!), we’re going to see a lot more trees succumb to drought. They’re kind of a big red flag.

Maiku’s name comes from the Ute language, as these are ancestral lands of the Ute people in addition to others such as the Navajo (Diné). I try to keep in mind that these lands have an extraordinarily long history intertwined with Native people, and hopefully we can protect at least some of them as much as possible and as their original stewards did and would.

On this website citing facts about Ute people, written mainly for school-age youngsters, I found this information about the Ute language: “maiku (pronounced similar to “my-kuh”) is a friendly greeting.” And I thought that was a great name for him as a uniquely patterned foal. I’ve since learned that it might be pronounced a bit closer to the name “Mike,” but I still pronounce it “my-kuh” when referring to our handsome little pinto stallion with the single white slash across his withers. 🙂 I wouldn’t say that he delivers especially friendly greetings to other bands – or visiting stallions! But he’s still very unique!

Sleepy Sundance enjoys a nap in the warm sunshine, with his band nearby, and I do mean warm. The temp has been in the 60s since about Sunday, I think. Terribly unseasonable. And very unreasonable for February in Colorado! I mean, it’s nice to see the ice melting on the ponds that have water and letting go of the water in the arroyos at the seeps … but it’s also too early, and what we really need is snow.

I read today that “Colorado is experiencing one of the driest winters of last 30 years” this winter.

Usually, articles about Colorado weather leave out Southwest Colorado entirely (hello, we ARE part of Colorado), but this one gives us a mention: “Southwest Colorado lags behind the typical snowpack for the date the most, at just 69 percent of what’s normal for February 4.” Ugh. When we’re finally mentioned, it would be nice if it was something positive.

Snow dances all welcome. 🙂

Oh, and Sundance’s name (it was a good suggestion, and I’m trying to keep up with it!): I named him and his “brother” (I’m not sure, but they seemed to be brothers) when I first starting documenting the Spring Creek Basin herd in 2007. They were very “pink” as youngsters (likely born sorrel, which is interesting because we don’t have many even actual sorrels anymore), and initially, I thought one or both of them might have been a filly or fillies because they were so *pretty*! Then I realized they were both colts/young stallions, maybe still with their family band, and I called them “the pink brothers” before I named them: Butch and Sundance. And I’m sure you all know the “wild bunch” outlaws behind those names. 🙂

The horses of a band rarely get far enough away from each other to be out of sight, so you’ll rarely hear them whinnying for each other.

But it so happened the other day that while Madison and her band were grazing, about half the band meandered away from the other half in search of water, and they ended up not only fairly far away from each other but out of sight of each other. As it turned out, the bachelor with them was upset about the separation, so he stood between them, where *he* could see each group, and started whinnying.

Eventually, Temple seemed to realize that she and two others were cut off from the others, and she couldn’t see them!

After a few calls back and forth (I’d love to be able to translate, but I imagine the conversation went something like this: “Where are you?” “We’re here!” “I don’t see you!” “I don’t see you, either!” “Come here!” “You come here!”), Temple and her pals (which included the band stallion) joined their lieutenant and followed him to the rest of the band, where I later found them (after I visited with another nearby band), all together and content. 🙂

Flash and his mares in the wind at last lovely light.

Days are getting noticeably longer. We could do without the ultra-drying wind.

Oh, and the temp when I took this, yesterday, was at least 61 degrees Fahrenheit. In January. In Colorado.

We could do with a lot more snow. 🙂