THE LITTLE FILLY THAT COULD

Aspen's Story..."LOOK AT ME GO!" Watercolor by MARoss

I love a good success story, don't you? This little wild mustang was a member of the local herd up in the Spring Mountains at Cold Creek. The herd has had a tough time of it in the last couple of years due to drought leading to decreased forage. Sadly, their popularity with humans has also taken its toll. When the wild one's are fed, they hang around waiting for more instead of going higher up in the mountains where there was more food. Well anyway, so many of the local herd was near starvation that the BLM* rounded a bunch of them up last August. A local wild horse advocate & photographer named Darcy Grizzle went out to observe and helped rescue this little one who could barely walk. I'll never forget those first photos of her that Darcy posted on Facebook, and how desolate,  thin and weak that little horse looked walking up the hill to the pond. You can see in the photos on the lower left how emaciated she was on Aug 30th when she was rescued. The photo on the lower right shows how robust she looked last week on December 29th. I asked Darcy if I could do some sketches of little Darcy Annie, now named Aspen, from the photos she took and she kindly said yes. So, the top image is my first piece of Aspen. I've tried to capture her spirit and the spirit of her story. - Michele

*BLM-Bureau of Land Management.
Note: All 3 photos credited to Darcy Grizzle.
Watercolor "LOOK AT ME GO!"  by Michele A Ross based on a photo by Darcy Grizzle