available for adoption
when you see this sign you know you have arrived at the Palomino Valley facility. The place is even easier to recognize coming from Pyramid Lake to the north because of the hundreds of horses in the numerous corrals which are part of Palomino Valley
Corral number 7, right next to the main gate, has numerous horses and the mountain backdrop for Palomino Valley can be seen in the distance
just north of Corral number 7 is the office building where one signs in as a visitor to the facility and can get more information about Palomino Valley and its wild horse and burro adoption programs
the sign reads "Bureau of Land Management, Rediscover Your Public Lands".
Along with info about the facility, the pleasant person inside reminded me that some of my tax dollars are going to support the worthwhile life forms (horses) which have been helping humans to travel and carry and haul throughout the history of the continent
at first the holding pens seem a jumble of horses and burros all milling about, hard to distinguish who's who and what's what
then things start to sort themselves out. Here a pair of cute young burros nuzzle
a tan horse with white sox
Wild horses are very sociable life forms who tend to stick together in herds
a dappled brown and white horse with possible parent breeds standing in the background
a long drink from the water trough is welcome. Palomino Valley needed to bring in many horses from areas stricken by drought in 2000-2003
a furry young burro, born of generations of pack animals who helped humans work the mines and tame the West
the Burro of Land Munchiment. It's "bureau" only when talking about people and this full grown life form munches rather than manages so she's the Burro of Land Munchiment :)
the markings on this horse reminded me of one of the horses ridden by the fabled "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" so for my own purposes only I called her "Apocalypse"
"Hay! how about talking about something important?" seemed to be this horse's question to me. She was waiting patiently in line for access to the feed trough, so I'm not making up her question, at least not altogether
well yes, hay is a very important part of keeping Palomino Valley together. Large stacks of bales of hay. Let's see, I count twelve bales high, by golly not sure how many rows deep, looks to be hundred pound bales. For sure that's a lot of hay
and it's not as if that big long stack just north of the office were the whole of it. There are also two huge hay sheds like this one still further north
and still more hay elsewhere
warehousemen's hoists like this one lift tons of the hay at a time from delivery trucks for stacking and then later onto feed wagons for delivery to the horses and burros
this is the basic design used for breaking up the bales and feeding the horses in most of the holding pens and corrals. Farm style conventional edge mounted feed troughs are also in use in some corrals
basic design of the watering troughs made available at least one to each corral or holding pen
view of the mountains to the west of Palomino Valley from the current Corral number 1 on the northwest side of the facility
the horse that I call "Apocalypse" standing at full show horse attention
the sociable nature of these life forms is such that they "generally" congregate in the herd rather than giving a photog a chance to see them as the unique individuals that each is
another pretty red haired horse
Wild horses, such as this one, are descendants of those belonging to Spanish explorers, ranchers, miners, the U.S. cavalry, and Native American tribes
The BLM brochure suggests their ancestors were all released or escaped from prior owners, but were not Native Americans riding horses to hunt buffalo many centuries before such later arrivals?
a paint pony with star on forehead, reminiscent of such horses prized by Native American tribesmen
several of the horses in Corral number 10 looking through the camera lens to find adoptive humans. The old photog just isn't all that interesting but the horses seemed to know what that camera thing was really all about
this grey horse managed to keep numerous other horses between the camera and himself most of the time. Only by patience and the attractions of the hay feeders to the right of the photo was I able to record his unusual coloring for this album
a nice light tan colored mare of the second most numerous breed to the brown with black mane variety
