If you haven’t noticed, I love shooting toward the sun – all the better when a mustang comes between us!
Handsome baby Kwana glows in the last light of the day.
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Happy birthdays to my departed Fredy, to Ze (named for Fredy (registered name)), to my dad’s cousin Lois Ann and my mom’s Aunt Norma.
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No births yet in Spring Creek Basin. 🙂
Chrome snakes Terra to follow Kwana toward Winona, who was grazing a little distance away.
The story behind the story involves the dots behind these two in the distance. See them? Way back left of Chrome?
When I first saw those two dots, they were three dots: two grey, one dark (bay): Chrome and Kreacher and Duke. And yes, they’re really about as far away as they appear, so Chrome had left his girls and his boy to have a little man-to-man-to-man chat. I parked not far away and walked out on a trail, and I was sitting on said trail at the moment I pressed the shutter on this shot. I reached his girls and boy before he did.
Kreacher and Duke went on grazing as peacefully as Terra and Kwana and Winona, even after Chrome returned to reassert his “dominance.”
Puzzle galloping along the skyline during a meeting with David.
Copper caught in the light looking toward David.
Some bachelors, like Copper, attach themselves to bands (and he seems to float between Ty’s and Corazon’s now that they’ve split). Some bachelors stick together, like Duke and Kreacher and Aspen, Hayden, Tenaz and Apollo. And some bachelors, like David and Poco, seem to like being by themselves – or like it better than being on the edge?
Not long after the horses watched David walk to water, Copper trotted on down the hill. But when I saw David later, Copper wasn’t with him. And Ty’s band was down the hill in the other direction. Copper likes company, though, so I’m sure he returned to one band or another.
Maiku, well-framed by the unnamed promontory, one of Spring Creek Basin’s dominant landmarks.
He and the rest of the band were watching David walk to water in the distance. David is alone since losing Shadow and Puzzle to Seven, but he looks like he’s doing just fine.
Copper
Reya, S’aka and Corazon
Finally, some nice clouds. But still no moisture from sky to ground.
Corazon with Reya and S’aka in their high-desert home of Spring Creek Basin. Utah isn’t quite as close as the La Sals in this photo would have you believe, but it is fairly close.
Note the mud on Reya. The Round Top pond is holding a decent amount of water. Three ducks thought it quite fit the bill, too!
Seven’s ladies seem to be feeding him well. Puzzle is behind him, and you can just see Shadow at bottom right.
Grey/Traveler, center, drinks from a pond with his band, from left: Alegre, Maia, Mariah and Houdini. Water is the most precious resource of all in this high desert region.
When the students finished work on the fence Tuesday, I was so excited, I forgot to take pix of said finished fence! So yesterday, on a near-perfect spring day in Disappointment Valley, I straddled my mountain bike for the first day this year and pedaled up to the boundary. I haven’t figured out a decent way to carry my camera while biking (it’s not little), so I apologize in advance for the crappy quality of these cell-phone images. But I believe they show the excellent quality of our new, student-built fence!
I say, isn’t that a rockin’ mountain bike! Oh, wait, I mean, isn’t that a *tight* H-brace! This is at the road (the cattle guard is immediately to the left), and the brace was loose. Despite the poor image quality, I think you can see the shiny new wire. The sign says something about no motorized vehicle access (because it’s McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area).
This was shot from in front of my bike looking up the fence line. Does it rock or what?!
Compare the above shot – brand-new fence – with the one below, the original fence, photo taken the previous weekend when the crew cleared the greasewood and other brush from the fence line so the students could build:
This is from the other (west) side of the fence, looking back toward the road, but it’s the same section of fence.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE!
The shadows don’t allow for much detail in this shot, but this is the first H-brace the students built, using the tree as the anchor. Notice the extra “padding” around the tree.
Here’s a closer view. The staves protect the tree from wire biting into the bark – thank you (again), Tom Kelly, Forest Service fence-builder extraordinaire!
This is the brace just to the left of the tree and shows – I hope – the somewhat intricate weaving of the wrap, which holds it all together.
And here’s the fence continuing on up the hill.
Kudos again to the students for building this wildlife-friendly, mustang-protecting fence!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 