Today is the deadline to call the Dolores Public Lands Office at (970) 882-6800 *to request placement on the mailing list* to be sent the scoping letter for the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area roundup this fall. The scoping letter then should be coming out very soon.
The scoping letter also will be online, and I’ll post that link when it’s ready. The deadline for comments will be in that letter.
Monday, March 28, is the deadline to call the Dolores Public Lands Office at (970) 882-6800 *to request placement on the mailing list* to be sent the scoping letter for the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area roundup this fall. The scoping letter then should be coming out very soon. The scoping letter also will be online, and I’ll post that link when it’s ready. The deadline for comments will be in that letter.
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Hollywood’s band was *right* off the road when I was making my way out of the basin, all hope of sunset light disappearing behind clouds. He made quite a striking figure standing sentry with some low hills, still spotted with snow, behind him (beyond the basin).
Though the golden end-o-day light didn’t break through as I had hoped, there’s something really lovely and soft about the last diffused light we did get – especially on Holls’ gorgeous dun coat.
Hollywood
Hollywood’s girls – and one of his boys: Baylee (left) will be 4; Iya will be 3 in late April; Sage, his son, will be 2 in late April; and mama Piedra is likely at least 5 this year.
BFFs Baylee and Iya. Has anyone else seen the news that the Oxford English Dictionary added that “word” recently? Like, OMG, I LOL at the ridiculousness – IMHO, of course. 🙂 I (heart) Spring Creek Basin mustangs! I’d try to get *meep* in the discussion – you know, like the roadrunner “says” in the Wile E. Coyote cartoons? – but I just can’t come up with a basin meep. I’ve heard marmots meep but no mustang meeping. Heh. (Wait, is that a word?)
Tenaz seems to be floating above Spring Creek canyon, which is really quite a distance away. That tiny glow of pink in the sky is all the color we got at the close of another wonderful day.
Monday, March 28 is the deadline to call the Dolores Public Lands Office at (970) 882-6800 *to request placement on the mailing list* to be sent the scoping letter for the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area roundup this fall. The scoping letter then should be coming out very soon. The scoping letter also will be online, and I’ll post that link when it’s ready. The deadline for comments will be in that letter.
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Most of their interaction involved nuzzling and biting each other’s cheeks. Bounce would strike every so often, but he and/or Whisper seemed to know just how far his legs would reach, and he never came close to actually hitting Whisper (in fact, it seems to me that strikes aren’t intended to connect but to serve as either a warning or a defense of self). Whisper didn’t do any striking. Hasn’t learned it yet? No need to “defend” himself from daddy Bounce? Was it, in Bounce’s case, habit from long use?
Time, time runs away from me. For now, I tease you with slices of their lives. 🙂
Monday, March 28 is the deadline to call the Dolores Public Lands Office at (970) 882-6800 *to request placement on the mailing list* to be sent the scoping letter for the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area roundup this fall. The scoping letter then should be coming out very soon. The scoping letter also will be online, and I’ll post that link when it’s ready. The deadline for comments will be in that letter.
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A little entertainment to get you in the mood for the weekend.
A lone deer had bounded out behind the horses, which caught their attention and put them on the alert. A much bigger group had been grazing earlier nearby, so I’m not sure why that gal was lagging. Seemingly to lighten the mood, Whisper started playing with Bounce. He indulged, and they nuzzled and “chewed” on each other around the face, etc. But Bounce kept turning his back on Whisper to face me. He’d back into Whisper and raise one hind leg then the other in a clear signal to get Whisper to back off … but not only did Whisper not back off, he finally grabbed daddy’s tail, which – of course – had the effect of getting daddy to turn around and play with him again! This is the second time Whisper did it. 🙂
Horses with a sense of humor? Of course!
This will be at the top of posts until the deadline – Monday, March 28 – to call the Dolores Public Lands Office at (970) 882-6800 to request placement on the mailing list to be sent the scoping letter for the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area roundup this fall. That should be coming out very soon.
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The following are photos from my visit with Hollywood’s, Comanche’s and Mahogany’s bands last week. They were once all part of Steeldust’s large band (except the youngsters and Iya) – though not for a couple of years now. 🙂 Mahogany leaving with Sundance and bachelor Aspen is the most recent development.
Full brothers Tenaz, almost a yearling, left, and Sage, almost 2, right.
Here’s the rest of that story:
“Reading” stud pile messages. Iya in the background.
Mahogany (bay) and Sudance. SunD stays close to her to ward off Aspen. Mahogany is in much better shape this year after a year’s rest from raising a foal.
Mahogany is the dam of Baylee (almost 4), Pinon (almost 3) and Sable (almost 2). Bayles is with Hollywood; Pinon and Sable are with Hook. She should be due in May.
Aspen with Round Top in the background. See the road? It ends just above the curve you can see. That’s where I parked the day before and walked around the west side (to the right) and came back to the Jeep from the east side (left). Seven’s and Bruiser were “behind” it on the leftish side – basically southeastish.
I’m positive Iya is pregnant.
Baylee sure doesn’t look pregnant …
Watching me carefully while she rubs an itch using that greasewood! (Check out her lip!)
What do YOU think?
Straight-on of Baylee …
Straight-on of Iya.
Hang in there, mama Piedra. Only about another month for you.
If she’s as consistent as she was with Sage and Tenaz, she’s due around the end of April.
Sundance – check out that groovy, wavy mane.
Camouflage, naturally. (Did anyone see him in one of the pix above of Baylee?)
As he grows up, he reminds me more of Chrome in his carriage.
Comanche
I had been photographing Sage and Tenaz playing over the stud pile when I noticed ‘Nona moseying in our direction. Hollywood’s had spread out grazing, but Tenaz was lingering even after Sage had wandered off. Oh, sly boy, I wonder why? 🙂
Winona walking down into the shallow arroyo. Sure-footed and beautiful.
Earlier, Tenaz sticking to big brother.
Big trot …
Do you see the future? Mr. Tenaz guarding his family? Brother Sage and auntie Iya in the background.
Watching daddy Hollywood, who hadn’t yet crossed the arroyo. Don’t you see Hollywood in this boy?
Curious George, err, I mean Tenaz. 🙂
I went on up the hill to watch them, and Mahogany and SunD came up and past me again … Lack of golden sunshine didn’t diminish the beauty of the basin.
Someone in Telluride asked me (basically): Of all the wonderful places in the West that are loved and cherished and protected and should be protected, what’s so special about Spring Creek Basin?
An innocent question (I think … I hope) … one whose answers completely undid me.
“It’s magic,” I finally managed. I can’t remember what else I said through my tear-choked throat.
Is magic enough? To protect this place that most would see as empty, desolate, scrubby and lonesome and well off anyone’s definition of a beaten track?
I think I tried to say that I write a blog to try to tell people just what’s so special about it … Mostly, my attempts fall short.
The wind, howling the day before, howling overnight, was still at dawn and for a couple of hours … until it returned seemingly out of nowhere about midmorning. I got up to head back down the hill, and saw that Winona had laid down for a nap not far below me.
Ordinary? She’s watching a pair of noisy (mating?) ravens flying across the hill that had been with us all morning. Maybe, to her, alert to the goings-on of her world. Extraordinary.
Loved the soft light illuminating her mane, the dark eastern ridges rising above her, complementing her buckskin gold.
Head. So. Heavy.
What’s so special?
Really?
Do words even exist??
Yesterday at about 5 p.m. on the highway I use to commute from Mancos to Durango, a horrific wreck killed three people and sent two others by helicopter to hospitals. One vehicle apparently crossed the center line and slammed head-on into a vehicle carrying a mom and dad and two children. Killed were the driver of the one vehicle, and the dad and one of the children in the other vehicle. Both vehicles caught fire. That anyone survived must be a miracle.
I work in a newsroom. I can’t imagine being a first-responder, law-enforcement, emergency medical personnel … Listening to details emerge through the static of the scanner was horrifying. (Thank God for those people who give of themselves to respond to tragedies such as these.)
The survivors – the mom and one of the boys – were originally flown to hospitals in Durango and in Farmington. Now they’ve apparently been sent to Albuquerque and to Salt Lake City. Only in the last few hours were they identified. The single driver apparently has not yet been identified.
http://durangoherald.com/article/20110323/NEWS01/703229912/Hwy–160-crash-kills-3
A tragedy that hits close to home … Please offer your prayers for these families. I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I finally decided to share some of the grief I feel about this wreck and these people I don’t even know. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, terrible things happen. Please be careful on all your journeys.
Howdy, readers.
Just a quick update to let you all know that the scoping letter ahead of the EA for the Spring Creek Basin roundup (and, hopefully, fertility control program) will be coming out shortly. If you want to get on the mailing list to have a letter sent directly to you, please call the Dolores Public Lands Office in Dolores, Colo., at (970) 882-6800 by Monday, March 28.
I’ve been told the scoping letter and EA will be here when it comes out if you don’t want to call (you’ll have to provide contact information with your comment):
www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/sjplc.html
By the time of the roundup, we’ll likely have 90-95 horses. If a roundup is not held this year, we’ll have ~128 next year. The appropriate management level is 35 to 65. When 110-120 horses lived in the basin at the time of the 2007 roundup, the horses were very lean; after the roundup, with less pressure on scarce resources, the condition of the 43 remaining horses improved rapidly.
We are proposing that the fertility control program – using native/annual PZP and trained volunteer darters – be implemented in conjunction with the roundup this fall. It’s my understanding that this scoping letter is precisely our opportunity to let BLM know what we want to happen with management of our Spring Creek Basin mustangs going forward. Fertility control – limiting the birth rate of the horses – will limit the population growth – will reduce the need for roundups, which is the goal we’re all after. Continuing to allow the horses to breed unchecked is status quo – which is what we’re all trying to change.
When it does come out, I’ll post the direct link as well as specific information about where to send comments and by what deadline. We’re going to resubmit the fertility control proposal I wrote last year, but I hope to put together some points to make when crafting your own comments and have them available here on the blog.
This marks a potentially huge step in the “best science” and most hands-off (reduction in roundups) management of our Spring Creek Basin mustangs, and you all have the chance to be part of it – just like you have with the recent Pryor Mountain and McCullough Peaks EAs. Little Book Cliffs has been darting annually uninterrupted for almost nine years (this year). Pryor Mountain has done it, has been stopped, is doing it again. McCullough Peaks most recently approved an annual PZP darting program.
Please help Spring Creek Basin join that list. I know the horses, I’m trained, I’m ready to go. The program just needs the green light from BLM – and to get that, apparently, we need YOU to tell BLM this is what we, the people, want of our government, for our mustangs.
By the time I got to Bruiser, at least, Seven’s had become aware of me, and they watched the watching. I decided to go back and see if they’d allow a little visit before I headed back around the hill.
Mona is looking a little poorly, but hopefully she’ll rebound quickly. Shane, seen between her and Seven, looks great. Ze at right.
Roja in view … You can see that Ze is definitely going to be grey.
Daddy Seven with son Ze, 2 in just 2.5 weeks, and stepdaughter Shane, who is right at 6 months.
He looks so big next to mama. Ze and his sister, Spring, were born in early April, but Seven breeding Roja in June last year should indicate a May baby this year.
How handsome is Mr. Seven? They weren’t too interested in a long visit, so I hit a pony trail that took me up onto a ridge below Round Top. When I looked back, they were back to grazing.
I ended up going all the way around Round Top! It’s not a very big hill, really, though it stands out in the basin as looking like a giant flying saucer from the interior accessible by road. I just like saying I walked all the way around the hill. 🙂 I don’t know where Chrome’s were then, but the next day, they were on the northeast side of Round Top, right near where I walked ’round.
Bruiser is readily identifiable from a distance – and more so now because he’s by himself. When I saw him, we were quite a distance apart, and he was on a hill. Sometimes the horses spread way out grazing, and you can’t always see all the horses in a particular band because of hills, arroyos, etc. I had walked out to check the Round Top pond post-winter (or at least mostly post-snow), and I decided to go on out to him.
Sometimes you can’t see all of any one horse – just backs above ridges. That’s how I spotted Seven and Mona, though I didn’t know for a few minutes whether it WAS Seven and Mona … or Chrome and Jif (very light grey and dun … very light grey and dun) – until I saw more of them.
The pond has water, but it’s by no means full. Two of the non-dug-out ponds are dry or down to mud; Flat Top pond hasn’t been dug out yet, but it and the other ponds are very shallow. The main double pond is so shallow I can see hoofprints through the water tracking across its bottom.
Unfortunately, something else I saw out there shouldn’t have been there: tire tracks from an ATV. The Round Top pond got dug out because it’s just outside the McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area boundary. Beyond the pond is WSA – no motorized/mechanized vehicles allowed (not even chain saws) – “recreation vehicle use off existing travel routes … are not allowed.” Unfortunately, those weren’t the only tracks I’d see in the WSA; even deeper into the WSA, way to the south, more tracks. In fact, all along the main roads through the basin, someone was driving off onto the sides, making big circles and arcs. Why? Why not park on the road (not a lot of traffic!) or just off – right alongside – and GET OUT AND WALK?! These were places where it looked like the driver drove to the edge of a hill or ridge to look beyond – from inside the vehicle. I saw tracks like that all around the loop and near Filly Peak – even off the road along some horse trails and up into arroyos that the road crosses.
The whole photo itself, nothing to write home about. But don’t you love that gorgeous, graceful swish of his multicolored tail?
Bruiser is not a big guy, but he’s very stout. Without a mare to protect, he was very relaxed – not worried about me at all.
I passed below Seven’s band, grazing up a hill from the trail I walked out on (from the pond) – and as far as I know, they never saw me (this band, you know when they know). We were all right out in the open. I stopped a couple of times to let them see me … Seven was napping with his butt to me, Roja and Mona were grazing with their heads down, Shane and Ze were grazing, wandering, low behind a little “rise” between Seven and the girls. I decided to go on out to see Bruiser and discover if Spring was out of sight and also look over the hill he was on, which has a view down the drainage toward the Disappointment Road, hoping to spot the pintos.
Big Bruise, with the unnamed promontory behind him. The pyramid-shaped McKenna Peak – namesake of the WSA – is slightly to the left and back. Seven’s and Round Top are behind me.
I did walk on around, though his calm attitude from the beginning was the tipoff that Spring wasn’t around. He was almost out of sight when I got out to his hill – just his back visible as he grazed slightly on the “downside” of the hill. So I stopped and waited for him to graze his way into view. It’s a startling thing to look up from your peaceful grazing and see an intruder who has “snuck” up on you. And the wind was blowing from the south – toward me. He eventually looked up, kept chewing, and went back to grazing! Sometimes, they truly surprise me.
In past visits, I’ve driven slowly past a place along the Disappointment Road (which follows the boundary for a few miles on the southwest end) where the horses are sometimes visible – and which makes walking in to visit them quite a bit easier than walking in not knowing where in the WSA they could be – and haven’t seen the pintos – though I’ve seen David, Shadow and their Wind a couple of times. I was almost ready to turn back to Bruiser when I spotted something – down by the road. Sure enough, horses. I could identify Ty and part of a pinto and a couple of dark bays – Spring? But as I’ve already tipped off by my previous post, she wasn’t with them – must have been Mesa and/or Milagro and/or Maiku (the white marking over his neck above his withers is easier to see from one side). But I was hopeful at the time.
Oh, Bruiser. Where has our Spring gone?
The air this week was warmer, the wind just as stiff, the sun mostly losing its wager with the clouds. I forgot to apply sunscreen but managed to avoid sunburn despite some nice, long hikes and wonderful pony visits.
The biggest news of the “weekend” is that not only is Bruiser alone, Spring is MIA. Seven’s were very near Bruiser; not with them. I spotted the pintos and visited them later; not with them. David’s? Nope. Chrome’s? Nope. Luna’s? Hook’s? Those are the bands in the area or close to that frequented by Bruiser and Spring when I saw them together and Bruiser otherwise these last few months. Nope. Didn’t see Cinch’s or Poco and Roach this visit, but in the last two visits, I’ve seen everybody but Spring.
When I walked out to the pintos – very close to the road but in a place where I wouldn’t have seen them if I hadn’t known they were there (I saw them originally from above!) – Milagro was the first to see me … then bachelor Mesa. Neither of them raised an alarm but went on grazing, so I was able to watch the other horses for a while before the others started to become aware of me. When Puzzle saw me, she looked around for mama, who was a little distance away. She broke into this flamboyant little trot …
Then stopped again for a look!
Shortly after, she was reunited with mama Chipeta.
Chipeta wasn’t too worried …
Kiowa, even less so!
The light broke though the clouds just before sunset, but the horses were so relaxed, they weren’t even facing me, let alone looking at me! Oh the hardship! 🙂 (The next day, I’d take a pic of six horses – all facing me, all ears pricked! Oh, the joy!) It was nice just to visit with these guys; I hadn’t spent any time with them all winter.
Corazon and Ty had a minor disagreement over sniffing rights on a manure pile. It always amazes me how high they can strike.
Moments later:
🙂
I got my first close look at the pintos in quite a while – enough to be fairly sure that both Reya (foreground), almost 4, and Spook, almost 3, are pregnant. So we’re looking at the possibility of four foals in the pinto band this year (with Kiowa and Chipeta). For new readers, Reya and Spook are Kiowa’s daughters. Interestingly, all her foals (since 2007 – Reya was released with her after the last roundup) are still with her … No other mare in the basin holds that distinction. Then again, the pintos stay fairly well isolated from the other bands (and there are three bachelors plus the band stallion with the band), so it’s not that surprising.
Last gasp of sunlight … I loved how they are so softly illuminated – along with the hills in the background.
Not a chance of seeing the not-quite-full moon come up because it was so cloudy. Anyone going to watch the supermoon come up tonight? The official time of moonrise – in Durango, at least – is 7:49 p.m., according to our story. That never seems to account for the fact that we’re ringed by mountains – or at least high ridges – but there it is. Get out and enjoy it, coming up over land I hope you love.
