I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! The weather was just beautiful here in Minnesota, and I took advantage of it by planting some flowers, photographing an interesting equine event (photos to come!) and just being out and about as much as possible.

Now, back to the wild horses!

Did you see Part 1? Alright, then you’re ready for Part 2!

Normally, on day 2 of this workshop, participants get up at the crack of dawn and spend the whole day on the horse range. We were all so tired after day 1, we decided to sleep in and go to the range for lunch and stay until dark. We spent the morning drinking coffee, eating a yummy breakfast, and looking at images from day 1.

Here’s the entrance to the Wild Horse Territory. It says “Harassing, Capturing or Harming Horses is a Federal Offense”.

We headed to the top of the range, where you can see clear into Colorado. It took quite awhile to get to the top, but the drive was worth it. This is a shot of where we had lunch!

Then we were off to find more horses! It actually took us over an hour to find more horses. I commented to Lynne that she is very patient. I realized how impatient I’ve become as I got antsy to see horses! I learned to relax and just enjoy the search. The funny part was, the longer it took to find the horses, the more exciting it became when we did come across a band. Horses are very sensitive animals, so I would have to take a deep breath and relax before getting out so that my excitement wouldn’t scare them off! :-)

We got to an area, still at the top of the range, that had beautiful meadows. We found at least four bands up there.

The sky was threatening rain, making a beautiful dark blue backdrop for the photos. This was one of the band stallions.

Oh yeah, the mountains made a nice backdrop as well. This one is going to be printed big and hung somewhere in my house!

Or this one.

I framed this one through pine trees.

Time to exit. The stallion stands there, making sure all the mares are safely past him. Stallions almost always bring up the rear. There is a lead mare who leads where the group goes.

Just before leaving with his band, he gave us a fantastic pose!

Suddenly, another band ran through the meadow!

After that, we headed back down to one of the areas where we had seen horses the day before. We came across this colorful group.

I thought the stallion was particularly handsome.

I love his markings.

A few minutes later, we found another band. This is the stallion.

This is the mare and foal.

The stallion again, running after the mare and foal.

On our way out, we found this cute little family again. It was fitting that they were both the first and last band we saw on this visit. It thought it was cute they were all in step!

These little guys just stood and watched us for a long time.

A family portrait.

Look for part 3 soon!