December Monthly Highlights
Lynn Eley
This month’s volunteer highlight shines on Lynn Eley! Take it away Lynn:
I got involved with the wild horses through the Wild Horse Preservation League in 2017. Later that year I then became more actively involved through Willis Lamm with LRTC and TLAR. My favorite part of documenting and darting is hanging out with the horses. The wild horses are special to me because of their beauty, strength and their dignity. They love their families, they are filled with passion and expression. I am a retired Social Worker and am relieved to be working with the horses. It is a gift and a privilege to be able to help them.
Thank you so much, Lynn, for your dedication to the wild ones!
Windstorm of the mountains
Submitted by Deborah Sutherland
In the early morning light along the river, I finally got to meet a legend that I had only heard about, and only had seen a few pictures of, the stallion we call Windstorm. He is Prince’s (Steener’s) half-brother who lives high in the Nevada mountain ranges. These half brothers look almost identical, especially from afar. Windstorm and Prince have the same sire, our beloved Bodie, but different dams.
Windstorm’s dam, who we called Windsong, was one of Bodie’s mares back in 2010 along with her sister we called Momma Mia, Prince’s dam. Windsong was a gorgeous pinto and some called her Checkers because she had a white check mark on the left side of her rump!
Windsong was pregnant with Windstorm when one day the family band was found out on the highway! When the crew came to move them off the highway, most of Bodie and his family band went to the north side of Highway 50. Windsong and her yearling were scattered on the south side, where Big Blaze, another band stallion, snatched her up to be his mare. She was forever separated from Bodie’s band as well as her three year old daughter Aurora, who all ended up on the north side with the rest of Bodie’s band.
Not too long after that, Windsong gave birth to Windstorm (in 2011) and he was raised by Windsong and her new stallion Big Blaze on the south side of the highway. When Windstorm was about two years old, Big Blaze made him a bachelor. Since then he seemed to have disappeared. For almost ten years there were only a few sightings of him. Then one morning I saw him at the river, all grown up with a family band of his own.
Windstorm is about ten years old now, four years older than his half-brother, Prince. From afar they look so much alike, almost like twins, but if you look closely at their faces, Windstorm has a white snip on his nose, Prince only has two faint, white brush marks down the middle of his face and they both closely resemble their beautiful pinto dam, Windsong.
As I watched Windstorm and his family band of ten zig zag down the mountain that morning to the river bank to drink, I realized that Windstorm has always been here, keeping himself and his family band safe, living high in the mountains and only coming down for an occasional drink from the river. As soon as the band was done drinking, splashing and taking walks along the shore, Windstorm gathered up his beautiful family and quickly retreated to their secret home, safe high in the Nevada mountains.
Windstorm as a colt
Windstorm as a band stallion