Last night, one of my friends-another equine artist- challenged me to get off the computer and paint something...can you imagine the nerve of her? :)

I took the challenge and painted these buckskins in the breeze.

Now, I'm in the mood to keep painting, but we have company coming...

Isn't that the way it goes?

Long story coming up....

Robert and I like to go into an area west of Augusta, Mt, called the Sun River Game Management Area.

To the exact north of that area, is the road to Gibson Dam.

One day we were headed for Gibson Dam and saw this herd of horses and mules that obviously belonged to a dude ranch.  We stopped to take photos of this herd and they entertained us royally.  The weather was cool and they were playing, you can see them on my photo blog.  

We stayed and "visited" with the herd for a while, they love to be petted and talked to!  We stayed outside the fence, didn't go into private land. 

A week later, we were in the Sun River Game Range, came around a corner and there in a coulee was our herd of horses and mules...When they saw us, they came running toward us.  They acted so happy to see us. 

As we visited with them, we could tell some of them were injured and others had porcupine quills in their noses.  I think a bear had run them through their pasture fence and into the game management area.

We came home that evening and began to make random phone calls to people in the Augusta phone book.  We kept making calls until we found someone who knew who the horses and mules belonged to. 

When we called the owners, they were so glad to know which area we'd seen the herd so they could immediately go and get them.

We called these people about a month after all this happened and they were so glad we'd found a way to contact them, when we first found the animals in the game range.  One of the horses had been injured so badly, it spent a month at the vet's office.  Others the owners were able to patch up themselves. 

The mules with the quills were heavily sedated and the quills removed before they festered and swelled, cutting off the mules air supply.You could say we might have saved their lives.  It made us feel good when we learned all the horses and mules were healthy and strong again.The painting above is one I did of the mules playing.  It was fun to paint because of our attachement to this herd.

Donna