Latest / The Touch of a Mustang / After Losing His Job He Found Wild Horses with Tim West | Episode 42

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After Losing His Job He Found Wild Horses with Tim West | Episode 42 · The Touch of a Mustang

0:00
That picture is incredible to me because you can just see the
0:04
marks of their life. Yeah, you know, that's something
0:08
that I really love. I've only photographed maybe 2
0:11
domestic horses and people will ask me and I'll do it.
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I mean, you know, I don't mind, but my passion is the scars.
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We, we spend so much time covering our scars and looking
0:24
pretty and looking perfect and not being vulnerable.
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And I love the fact that these horses, the beauty in them is
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their scars in their life. Yeah.
0:34
So their authenticity like they, they can't hide, they don't know
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how to hide. It's just.
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It is what it is. There are healers on this planet
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with the power to soften the suffering of mankind, yet they
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have remained in the recesses of the world, abused, discarded and
0:49
labeled as trash. This is the touch of a Mustang.
0:53
I am your host, Shalise Clough, and I'm here to tell the story
0:57
of wild horses, Mustangs and the humans who are discovering and
1:01
sharing their gifts while working to protect their
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well-being and preserve their spirit so this divine power
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won't be lost. Join us on this quest with the
1:12
Wild Mustang. Tim, thanks so much for being
1:21
here today. Well.
1:21
Thanks for having me, good to be here.
1:23
I'm excited about this. I had to tell you my daughter
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saw you on TikTok and she was like, mom, you need to interview
1:29
him. So it was really fun when I was
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able to reach out and and here we are doing an interview.
1:34
So that's. Awesome.
1:35
Thank you. Let's start by you just
1:37
introducing yourself and how you came to be part of the Mustang
1:42
world. Well, thank you, You know, it's
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it's quite a story because I don't know anything about
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horses. I really don't as a did I, I
1:50
loved them. I would watch Roy Rogers and
1:52
Trigger and, you know, just always admired horses but was
1:55
never around them. And now here I am a wild horse
1:58
photographer, go out and follow them around and photograph them.
2:01
It's really become a a huge passion late in life and I, I
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always worked in the corporate world and very gainfully
2:09
employed and through a series of events stumbled into photography
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and then also then into the wild horse photography.
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It's been a, a life changing experience.
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Grew my hair out and my beard and.
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Yeah, I know. I feel like we need a before and
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after picture, before the wild horses and after.
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Yeah, I've, I've got a few, but yeah, it's just, it's just, it's
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just a fun, it's a passion. It's something that I really
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love. You know, it's interesting that
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you started off saying that your, your daughter, you know,
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one of the reasons that I started TikTok was to reach
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younger people. You know, I really, there are
2:45
several sides and different angles to the whole Mustang
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situation. And I was someone that even
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believe it or not, before my first encounter, I had no idea
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that there were Mustangs out in the wild.
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I just, I didn't know, I didn't care.
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I didn't ever come across it. And when I, when I found out
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about it, it just, it just blew me away.
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And you know, it's funny as on TikTok people will say
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sometimes, well, everyone knows about there's wild, everyone
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knows and no people comment to me all the time.
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I had no idea. And I think it's so vitally
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important in the horse community to educate and get young people
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involved. I mean, there's so many in the
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cities, the inner cities, even in the suburbs that just don't
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have a clue. They know all about pop culture,
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but they don't know about, you know, our history and the
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history of the horses and the beauty and how amazing they are.
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So that's kind of where I came from and and where I am now and
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why I'm doing what I'm doing. Yeah, I think you're right that
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there are people out there that don't know.
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Before I got my first Mustang, like I had heard the term
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Mustang, but I never really dove into what all that entailed.
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And so even me coming from a horse background, it was still a
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whole new world that opened up once I started learning about it
4:00
and exploring it a little bit more.
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Yeah, yeah. You know, when I I have an Etsy
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store and you're always looking for the right words that, you
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know different things and you can only use wild horses so
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much. So one day I plugged in Mustang
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and there were a million responses that came up and they
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were all cars. That's what.
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You think about. Are Mustang races and shows and
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Mustangs and yeah. So it's been an eye opening, fun
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experience for me. Yeah, that is really
4:27
interesting. I was just reading Wild Horse
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Country and I was talking about how the Mustang car was named
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after the wild Mustang horses. And so it's interesting that
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now, yes, almost everybody would know what a Mustang car is, a
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Ford Mustang. And not everybody understands
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that there's still wild horses roaming around the US still
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today. Yeah.
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So tell us a little bit about your journey from being in the
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corporate world to this new world of a wild horse
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photographer. Those are pretty extreme
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differences between the two. It really is.
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You know, we, I took up photography maybe 15 years ago.
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I live just north of Nashville and I worked in the music
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industry for a little bit during that and the business side of
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it. And my wife is a speaker.
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She speaks at conferences, corporate things, and she was
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traveling constantly and I needed a hobby.
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I just, she, she was gone four or five nights a week.
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And so I just bought my first camera and started learning on
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YouTube, YouTube how to take pictures.
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And I loved, you know, anyone can go outside and take a
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picture of something. And I'm not belittling that at
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all. I mean, even you look at the
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iPhones, it's amazing the quality that people get.
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But I was really, really drawn to the studio, you know, strobes
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and people. I remember friends saying, look
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at that tree, you should photograph that tree.
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I'm like that tree. I don't care about that tree.
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I want to, I want to capture someone's eyes, eyes and their
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smile in there and do things. So I, I really got into studio
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photography where you can control the light.
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It's all about lighting. That's what they say about
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photography and it's so very true.
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And so I learned to control the light and work in the studio and
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then doing head shots and portraits, just something that I
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love. And I'd left the music industry
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and went into a corporate kind of a travelling position back
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into an industry I'd worked in years ago.
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And, you know, it kind of hit all of us in different ways.
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But when COVID hit my job and my wife said we, we flew out of the
6:22
airport every Monday and came home every Thursday or Friday.
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And that stopped. We had nothing.
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I was furloughed. All of her business, all of her
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bookings were, were just just froze.
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It just nothing happened. And there we were in the house
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together, you know, like what? Well, what are we going to do?
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And I, I lived for a couple, I think 2, maybe a year and a
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half, two years in Bozeman, Mt And I, I love the WI, love
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Colorado, Montana, Wyoming. And I told her, I said, let's
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just pack up the car. We don't have jobs right now.
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Let's just go, let's just go to out to Yellowstone and maybe we
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can find some bears. I'll find something to take a
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picture of. And we were driving in, it was
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two days from where we are. It's two full days.
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We drove into Cody, WY and she was on her phone, you know,
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she's looking things to do in Cody and we pulling into our
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hotel and she, she looked at me. She goes, do you know there's
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wild horses out here? And I was like no idea, had no
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idea. And so we checked into our
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hotel. We went out to McCulloch Peaks
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and there we are. I didn't have a clue what I was
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doing. Thank goodness I rented a really
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long zoom lens And so I had that and we spent 4 hours couldn't
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find a thing, couldn't. I mean, it's 120,000 acres out
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there. You just, you know, I thought it
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was like a zoo. You just go out right and all
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and, and sometimes it is like a zoo.
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Sometimes they're right there by the highway.
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But for us it didn't work. So I'm no dummy.
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We got into town and I found a little little shack in downtown
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off one of the main roads and it said wild horse tours.
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And so I called them and made an appointment for the next day to
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go out on a wild horse toot. Now it was, it was COVID so it
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was this big van and just me and my wife and the guide and there
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was no one else. And he took us out and it, it
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took him a good hour to find any horses at all.
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But we were, we, we finally found some and I don't shoot
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with a tripod anymore, but at that time I did, I was concerned
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about the length of the lens. And I had the tripod set up and
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there were these 3 stallions. And the guide began to tell us,
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he said, you know, these, these stallions, as they get in the,
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as they're in the wild, as they get older, they have to fight to
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stay in the herd and eventually they get kicked out of the herd
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and they have to live as bachelors.
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They just kind of roam and try to find a mare or find a way to
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find a way back in. And this one particular picture,
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this one particular horse was looking at me and he just kept
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walking towards us. And I've only had that happen a
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few times where a horse kind of seems interested and keeps
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walking. Now, he was pretty far away and
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the guide kept telling us we got to back up.
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We got to back up. He's getting too close.
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We got to back up. He's I'm just looking at, I'm
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looking at this horse, an animal that I had no experience with
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whatsoever. No reason other than to admire,
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admire them. I'm looking through this long
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lens on my camera and I'm looking at this horse and I'm
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thinking, I've been beat up, I've got scars.
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My wife hasn't kicked me out of the herd yet, but that's all.
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I don't know what my future holds.
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I don't know so much I was at that point in life.
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I get a little choked up thinking.
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Yeah, a really uncertain time, like thinking you're just out
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there who we're all kind of wondering what's going on.
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No jobs, Yeah. Yeah, it was like what?
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And and I'm like, I, I don't like this word because it's used
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or misused or overused or something.
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But identifying. I mean, I'm identifying with
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this horse I'm feeling. Dude, I feel you.
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I yeah, I mean, but he was free and he was out there doing his
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own thing. And so I snapped a few pictures
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and it was just a moment and we spent another day there taking
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pictures of the horses and I've got, I got a bunch of shots, but
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it was going home and editing. I didn't know how to, I didn't
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know how to edit wildlife or a horse.
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And so I use, it's kind of funny.
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I use all my portrait techniques that I use on people.
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And I began editing and, and playing and I embellished the
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sky because it just, it just needed something more than what
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there was. And I came up with this picture.
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People fell in love with it. I started editing more.
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And ever since then we go out now I'll, I'll show share some
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more stories at least once, if not two or three times a year to
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try to capture more pictures. I think you have that picture
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there. So this is the first picture
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that you ever shot with that stallion coming towards you and
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you're just feeling the emotion of the shot like.
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And you can see he's. I'm with you.
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Looking right at me and, you know, the guy that even said,
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listen, I don't know anything about horses, OK, people.
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I think people mean well. And I think sometimes, you know,
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we attribute animals with human feelings and characteristics,
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which I don't know if it's true. I know it's true with my dog, my
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golden retriever. I mean, human, I love my dog
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charm. But the guide was saying, you
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know, he must smell something on you.
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You know, they can smell testosterone.
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They can eat. Because this horse just kept
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walking steadily towards us. And this was the picture that
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started it all again. I did embellish the sky.
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I want a Full disclosure. It was it was not nearly that
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magnificent, but that's that's the shot that started it all.
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Yeah, that's a great 1. And so where did that go from
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there, where you're doing this? Because basically, who knows
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what else to do? The world's shut down right now
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to where now you're sharing this consistently, doing it often.
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I started sharing it on Facebook and Instagram and, you know,
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just trying to figure out what the future would hold and the
12:07
time came around to the next year.
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If I can share that story of what happened the following year
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almost to the day. We we went back and, and that
12:20
year we decided we wanted to stay out.
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We didn't want to go into a hotel every night.
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My wife is a trooper. My wife is an amazing woman.
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Yeah, she must be pretty awesome and just be like, all right,
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let's go track wild horses. We've got a, we have a SUV, it's
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a Volkswagen Atlas and we bought a air mattress that was custom
12:40
fit for the back and we thought let's just stay out there.
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Actually the second trip, no, we didn't do that.
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That was that was later trips. We actually bought a tent, went
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to Walmart, bought a tent. We pitched a tent out on this
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flat. It was dirt area.
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This is the second time you guys went.
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Is this also in Wyoming? Yep, same place, same, different
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location within it, but same place in.
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And so we, we drove 2 days and we, we found this spot and we
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set up the tent and it was I was getting, I mean, when it gets
13:14
late there in the afternoon, it's like 7:00, you know your
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sun's because it's light for a long time out there in the
13:20
summer. So I don't really know what time
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it was, but I told my wife Tammy, I said, babe, let's just
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chill, Just relax. We've been driving for two days
13:29
straight and she's like, no, no, no, we got to go out and find
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horses. Let's go.
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So it's like, OK, so we jump back in the car and we took off
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and she spotted three horses again off in a distance.
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And it was the strangest thing. I'll show you the pictures here
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in just a minute. But we pulled over, parked,
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parked the vehicle and I grabbed my camera.
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We started walking up this, this hill to get closer.
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They were just a speck off in the distance.
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And as we, as we got closer and when I, when I mean close, I
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mean, they say you should stay 100 feet away from them.
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We were farther than that. I mean, we were farther and I, I
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started just zeroing in and, and taking some shots and my wife
14:14
was videoing on her iPhone and these, this, these three horses,
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they were on this hill and they're separate and they're
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just eating. You know, in the spring with
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these wild horses, when there's something to eat, they're going
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to eat. And it can make for a very
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boring time because they don't, as long as they feel safe,
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they're going to keep eating. This one horse raised his head
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and looked at us. And then the other two raised
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their heads and looked and they started kind of whinnying and
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they kind of came together. The three came together and they
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started. It was the weirdest thing I'm
14:51
telling you. They started, I don't want to
14:53
say running, but kind of trotting in our direction.
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It was really weird. And I remember thinking, what
15:00
are we going to do? I mean, they, they're not going
15:01
to come right up to us, but they literally came right by us and
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they stopped and they posed and they were, they were rubbing
15:10
their necks and kicking up dirt and whinnying.
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I mean, they just put on a little show of these, these
15:14
three and if you will show the next picture, people can see
15:20
this sometimes. That was one of the horses that
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we we came. This was the second trip.
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You can see it's getting dark, the sky.
15:29
Was turned out with. Purple and there were some
15:31
clouds and some other directions and I think it is really this
15:35
beautiful horse coming to greet us and the reality that I didn't
15:39
realize until later when I zoomed in on the pictures.
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If you go back to the previous picture, I'm sorry to have you
15:46
go. Back.
15:46
No, you're good. You're good.
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What makes this picture so or this horse so identifiable is
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he's got notches in his ears now.
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For the longest. For the longest time, I assumed
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must have been in a fight. I mean, because they're so
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scarred up from the fighting. There's so much fighting that
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happens. And I later learned, learned for
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someone who who knew quite well the area, they said no, it was
16:11
actually Frostbite. This horse's name on the range
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was Hickory. I named this piece the Warrior
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because to me I didn't know his name.
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It's just the warrior. So if you go to the the next
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picture again back to the other one, you can't zoom in there.
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But you can trust me. Go to my store or my website.
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Same exact notches on. That yeah, you can see the ears
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a little bit. It was the same horse one year
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later, Hickory again, the warrior looking at me and I'm
16:44
like, it was almost like he was saying, you know what, you made
16:48
it this year. And so did I And it was it was
16:52
an amazing experience. And so he just came down, just
16:56
started. You could show some of the other
16:57
pictures. This was this.
17:01
The horse on the left is his name.
17:03
His name was Medicine Hat. And unfortunately Medicine Hat
17:08
passed away a couple years ago. And then Hickory.
17:11
And then if you do the next one, another favorite of mine, that
17:15
is a choco in the front and Hickory in the back.
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I didn't know these names at the time.
17:19
I've learned the names over, but you can see how they were kind
17:22
of just posing for us. They were just comfortable and
17:25
got closer and we just had an amazing experience.
17:30
Yeah, I mean, that picture is incredible to me because you can
17:33
just see the marks of their life.
17:37
Yeah, You know, that's something that I really love.
17:41
I've only photographed maybe 2 domestic horses and people will
17:46
ask me and I'll do it. I mean, you know, I don't mind,
17:50
but my passion is the scars. We, we spend so much time
17:56
covering our scars and looking pretty and looking perfect and
18:00
not being vulnerable. And I love the fact that these
18:02
horses, the beauty in them is their scars in their life.
18:07
Yeah. So.
18:08
Their authenticity, like they they can't hide.
18:11
They don't know how to hide. It's just.
18:12
It is what it is. So we we shot these guys and I
18:17
mean that in the correct way, not in the hunting sort of a
18:19
way, but. We shot with a camera.
18:22
As long as we could have followed them back down, got in
18:24
our car, went, spent the night. Actually, I got some star
18:27
pictures at night, Stars, and just watched the sunset and just
18:31
kind of reflected on being in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming
18:35
from Tennessee. And we climbed into our tent,
18:38
went to sleep, and the next morning was a mind.
18:42
Another absolutely mind boggling experience.
18:46
Do you mind if I go right into that one?
18:47
Yeah, let's go. So we, we spent the night and I
18:50
remember I had to use the restroom.
18:53
It was about, I don't know, maybe 4:00 or 5:00 in the
18:55
morning. And I unzipped the tent.
18:58
The sky was just on fire. It was just red.
19:02
Those of you that live out there, you know what I'm talking
19:04
about. Those of us here in the South,
19:06
we don't have a clue what this We can't even.
19:08
See those sunsets on the open? Wide open land?
19:12
Yeah. So I went back in kind of
19:15
another maybe hour of sleep and got up and you know, we, when,
19:21
when we go out there, we eat dehydrated food bottle of water.
19:27
All we do is we boil water, put it into hydrated food we eat and
19:30
we're gone. I mean, we're talking business
19:32
and we had to have some coffee. So I unzipped the tent and I'm
19:37
walking towards our SUV and I open the back hatch.
19:40
And as I'm, as I'm doing that, I don't know if you've ever been
19:43
in a situation where you just feel a presence.
19:46
You just know you're not alone. I was, I was half asleep and I,
19:51
I look to my left and there's a horse not 30 feet away from me
19:57
and he's walking right by my vehicle.
20:01
And he just turned his head, looked at me and just kept right
20:05
on walking. And I looked behind him and
20:08
there was another horse. And I'm, I'm, I'm calling for my
20:11
wife. I'm like, babe, you got to get
20:13
out here. This is something's going on.
20:15
And then we noticed horses coming from another direction
20:20
and left the Hatch open. Grabbed my camera, she grabbed
20:25
her phone and we just followed these horses up over a hill.
20:29
And it really shows how stupid we were and and naive to the
20:33
whole thing. Never, never, never paid
20:35
attention that there were trails that the horses had had kind of
20:39
formed over time. Didn't even notice them, didn't
20:41
know to notice them. Didn't realize that we spent the
20:45
night and woke up right next to a watering hole just over this
20:50
little hill, not too awfully far again, maybe a hundred, 150
20:55
yards away. And when we got up on that hill,
20:58
there must have been 40 to 50 horses.
21:02
And we were just locked in. I mean, we were just, I was in
21:06
heaven. There were foals that were
21:09
sleeping in the morning sun. There were stallions fighting.
21:13
There were horses coming. You go ahead and show the the
21:16
next pictures. That's what the sky was like the
21:22
the sun, the morning's bright sun was coming and this is some
21:25
of the horses coming in. Go ahead.
21:26
You can show us. It was just just mind boggling
21:30
to me to experience and see them in the morning.
21:34
Maybe do another one. I I don't forget what this one.
21:37
This is a popular picture. Yeah, I see why.
21:40
Just just staring at me from a distance.
21:43
Again, I use a very big lens and then I crop in.
21:45
I shoot very high resolution and allows me to crop in.
21:49
But this was the morning that we spent, you know that again, the
21:53
unpreparedness, not knowing what to expect.
21:56
I just was taking pictures like a madman and used up my memory
22:03
card. So I had to swap the memory card
22:06
and I used up that memory card, not realizing I only had about
22:10
150 pictures left on these memory cards for the whole trip
22:15
that we had coming. So I'll, I'll maybe I'll share
22:19
some more how that ended up. But just had a great, great,
22:23
great time waking up next to a watering hole, not having a clue
22:28
that we were anywhere near 1. So that kind of capture these
22:31
shots. It sounds magical, you know, to
22:34
be going out and looking for wild horses and then you just
22:37
almost enter their world and their society and see them
22:41
interacting. You know, I'm not a big fantasy
22:45
magical person, believer. I do love, was it CS Lewis, The
22:50
Chronicles of Narnia. I love those stories.
22:52
Even as an adult. I, I, I've read those again and
22:55
again and you know, that's, that's really the experience.
22:58
It was magical. It was absolutely otherworldly
23:01
to be there with them in their setting.
23:04
Yeah, really. I mean, you entered into their
23:06
world it sounds like. Yeah, yeah.
23:11
Cool, do go on to the next picture, yeah?
23:16
I guess so, yeah. See what's next?
23:18
I hope I'm not boring everybody that's listening.
23:20
No, not at all. I I think it's so interesting to
23:23
see the pictures and then hear how you captured them because
23:28
you know, you see the pictures and it's just this moment in
23:32
time. But to kind of have that backed
23:35
by the experience and the emotions that came with them.
23:38
Yeah, this, this picture here was taken at Sand Wash Basin.
23:44
We've been able to go to a lot of places.
23:47
Sometimes we find horses, sometimes we don't.
23:50
We spent the better part of the day looking for them here.
23:53
And again, it started getting into the evening time.
23:57
We we were on one of the main roads, and I use the word roads
24:01
very loosely. They're just ruts.
24:04
We found one that took off onto a hill.
24:07
As we pulled up onto that hill, there were maybe six or seven
24:12
lone horses out on this plateau just grazing.
24:16
And so we stopped and started taking pictures of them, not
24:20
realizing again that down below, I don't know, maybe a quarter
24:25
mile away, there was a watering hole and the rest of the herds
24:29
were making their way up to the plateau.
24:32
And we're sitting there on the top of the plateau and all of a
24:34
sudden see a horse head come over the edge.
24:37
And then more horses and more horses.
24:39
And this was a little encounter, these two horses, the stallions
24:43
were just kind of, I guess it's a dominance thing with the.
24:47
Herd showboat in a little bit. Yeah, but I just love how the
24:51
wind was in their main and they were just looking.
24:54
So I call this piece face off because they're just they're
24:58
really going at it. They ended up kicking a little
25:01
bit and that was it and it was gone.
25:03
But that's that was a neat picture from that night.
25:05
I think I have more pictures from that evening also.
25:08
That's a great capture and I agree every time.
25:10
If I see my horses out there and the wind blows through their
25:13
mane, I can just picture them in the wild just so easily.
25:17
It brings back those feelings of of wildness and freedom.
25:21
Yeah. It sounds like you got super
25:23
lucky finding a lot of them. Have you learned now strategies
25:26
like to find the horse herds? This sounds like you stumbled on
25:30
some ideal places. You know, it's really just a
25:33
matter of, I mean, these areas are, like I said, McCulloch
25:36
peaks like 120. Thousand.
25:38
Yeah, they're pretty vast. But you, you do you kind of
25:41
instinctively. Just, you know, I'll drive.
25:44
We'll look if we see something. My wife pulls out the
25:46
binoculars. We've been in some places in
25:50
southern Idaho that you can't even get closer.
25:53
You'd need like a A4 like a side by side or something like that,
25:57
something really designed for off road to get out to them.
26:02
So there have been times we've had difficulties with access,
26:05
but I think that's why we stay with some of the ones that we
26:07
know kind of where they'll they'll be.
26:11
And you never know, There's never a guarantee.
26:13
So like I said, even a McCulloch piece, you'll find them right by
26:15
the highway sometimes. And other times you've got to
26:18
really hunt for them because they don't want to be found.
26:21
But I did learn a trick. I'll share with everybody.
26:23
It's amazing. You can, I'm not real bright,
26:25
but I would stumbled across this.
26:27
You know, you can go to like Google Earth and find these
26:30
places. And what you do is you just find
26:32
where the watering holes are. Oh yeah.
26:35
And then when the where the watering holes are, you can
26:37
generally have a, a good idea of, of where they're where
26:41
they're going to. And even sometimes you can even
26:43
pick up the trails that they've created.
26:45
The resolution is so good. It's a lot of work.
26:49
It's research, it's memory and and just experience, but it's.
26:54
Yeah, it's really cool. Let's see the next one.
26:58
This the boy. Can I share my heart about this?
27:01
One Oh yeah, look at those face markings.
27:03
How? How unique and gorgeous.
27:06
This is back at McCulloch Peaks, our third or fourth trip.
27:10
I didn't know at the time this horse's name, but I was captured
27:13
by the markings on the face. This horse's name is Miley.
27:18
People, people around there give them names, you know, on
27:21
Facebook and social media, they kind of identify and I, I don't
27:26
know how exactly how it works, but this particular horse.
27:28
I'm just going to ask you who gets who gets the final say.
27:31
You know, in some places I think like the first person to find a
27:34
colt or a. Full I.
27:36
Don't know what the right word is, colt or full, but find that
27:38
little horse they get to name it night.
27:40
They generally I don't know who they I don't know how it works.
27:43
I just, I don't. Yeah.
27:45
It becomes known somehow though, when people are spotting a
27:48
particular horse. But this, this horse, his name
27:53
is Miley and Miley, this particular piece on TikTok, you
27:59
know, I have, I have hundreds of pictures and I can't name them
28:02
all. I'm just not that bright.
28:03
So on TikTok, I'll have a contest.
28:06
Hey, whoever comes up with the name, I'll give you a free
28:08
print. Oh, yeah.
28:09
It's fun because people get on and they start, you know, I tell
28:13
the story, but I want to tell you about Miley.
28:15
The thing about this, and I love this picture.
28:17
I don't know about you. We're talking about how we tend
28:20
to hide our scars and our imperfections.
28:23
I'm incredibly socially awkward. I just with people, I can't do
28:28
small talk and I will always, always, always if you meet me in
28:32
person I will say a something inappropriate.
28:35
We're we're like that here too in our house.
28:38
Like why did I say that? That was weird.
28:40
Yes, but it's So what makes me maybe sometimes doubt myself or
28:45
feel a little bit insecure. I can identify with this because
28:50
this is the thing about a friend of mine on Facebook, Amy Wright.
28:54
She's a she knows so much about these horses, but she made a
28:57
post about this picture and I didn't even realize this.
29:01
Miley these markings are kind of unique.
29:05
Yeah, I've never seen markings like that before where it's
29:08
almost a blaze outside of the blaze.
29:10
Yeah, I think she called it a badger markings or something
29:14
like that. And she Miley, late last year, I
29:20
think it was maybe 23, I don't remember exactly it was, but in
29:24
McCulloch Peaks, they had their first roundup in many, many
29:29
years. And McCulloch Peaks is very
29:30
active. The people there are very active
29:32
with the PZP program where they give the mayors a birth control
29:37
to keep the populations down. And it was time to do a roundup.
29:40
And So what they did, they didn't use helicopters.
29:42
They just used a corral and they used, they call it bait.
29:46
They I guess hay or something trapped the horses in there.
29:49
It was still tragic. One young foal got scared and
29:55
ran into a fence and killed, actually killed that foal.
29:59
And there were other things that that had happened, but they
30:01
would, they would capture the horses and what they did.
30:04
I think that goal, I don't know what they something like 20
30:07
horses they needed to take off the range for adoption and Miley
30:12
went into the trap and she she was there.
30:15
And when the BLM guy showed up, one of the things that they try
30:19
to do is pull out horses that have unique markings or
30:25
something that that can go back into the herd.
30:29
And because of Miley's odd different markings, it actually
30:35
saved her from the roundup. They let her go.
30:38
Wow. You know, and I think about
30:40
that, I think sometimes with us also how our oddities or the
30:45
things that make us different or weird or we think is weird so
30:48
many times can be the thing that really gives us strength and
30:51
sets us apart. And we just got to learn to
30:53
embrace that. So I have a real special
30:56
attachment to this picture. But this one, someone on TikTok
30:59
called named this. This piece is called Meeting
31:02
Miley. Just look at her right at me.
31:05
Yeah, in a drink from a watering hole and looked up at me and you
31:09
could see the little water drops on her whiskers.
31:11
Oh yeah, yeah. My the same thing used to happen
31:15
to my my mother-in-law before she passed away.
31:18
She would get water on her whiskers.
31:21
I'm. Sorry, yeah, I love that one.
31:24
And I love that analogy, how it is the things that are weird or
31:28
different about us that make something worth knowing, worth
31:32
pursuing. It's something my husband pushes
31:35
a lot with my kids like it. You don't want to fit in.
31:37
You don't want to be average. Like you want to be doing
31:40
something different from everybody else because that
31:43
really is what makes life beautiful and unique and really
31:48
where we can give our contribution.
31:49
So I love that. What a great reminder of that.
31:52
I just want to hang all these pictures all over my house now.
31:55
Right. Heavens, this is a story.
31:58
It's a gorgeous one. Well, thank you.
32:00
This was just last year in McCulloch Peaks.
32:03
Again, we, we live in Nashville, just north of Nashville.
32:08
And so for us to go out West is great expense.
32:13
I would give my pictures away if I could, but the sale of the
32:17
pictures and canvases is what pays for us.
32:20
Out again, life does cost money. Horses cost money whether you're
32:23
going to see them or owning them.
32:25
Yes. So, but we decided on this
32:28
particular trip, we were going to stay in Powell.
32:30
We got a really inexpensive hotel.
32:33
We're kind of getting too old to be sleeping in a tent on the
32:35
Prairie. Yeah, that's intense.
32:37
You know, so we drove all the way out there the last couple
32:43
years. I don't mean to complain, but
32:44
the last couple years we've really battled the weather, the
32:48
roads out there. And you know this from where you
32:51
are, when it rains, it's it's silt.
32:54
It's not with mud, it is you slide, you have no traction.
32:58
And so we've gone out and spent five days and just spent it in
33:02
Cody waiting for the things to dry out and then more storms
33:06
would come off of the Rockies and wet things again.
33:09
So it's been very lean pickings the last few years.
33:12
So this particular year, the weather was in our favor.
33:15
We we went out, stumbled across the herd.
33:17
It was the sun was not getting too low again, like from 4:00,
33:22
you still got 5-6 hours of sunlight, it seems like.
33:26
And we came across this herd, there must have been seventy
33:28
horses. And we just kept our distance.
33:34
I just observed them. You know, when people, I think
33:36
when people approach them, they don't like that and they move
33:38
on. They were comfortable.
33:40
We were just hanging out in this particular picture.
33:42
And I'll tell you more of the other pictures who like this.
33:45
But this was just a captured evening with the sun and the
33:48
clouds. And you know, the clouds are
33:49
always moving. The sun is lowering and the
33:52
lighting is changing. The tragic thing about this
33:55
picture is this was like our second hour on the range driving
34:01
all the way from Nashville. After we took all these shots
34:04
and the sun went down, we went to the hotel room and I had my
34:09
camera backpack. I keep my camera lens in and the
34:13
camera and the large lens. Probably a total of 7 lbs fell
34:19
out of my bag right onto the asphalt and broke my camera.
34:24
No, that's all we had. We drove all the way out there
34:27
for about two to three hours of shooting.
34:29
So, but thank goodness I got some great shots while we were
34:32
there. So anyway, just a little bit
34:35
that this made this one kind of very exclusive.
34:38
You can go ahead and go on to it.
34:39
Next one, same same evening that was earlier in the day and you
34:43
can kind of see I, I try to, I think of these as portraits.
34:47
These are horse portraits. Yeah, I mean, I love the colors
34:51
and the way you mesh the colors to give it a certain feel.
34:55
Well, I really do. Each one is individually edited
34:58
to maximize the feel that I felt at the time.
35:02
But you can go ahead and keep going through if you want.
35:06
This guy, another scarred up horse?
35:10
Yeah. Really battle torn.
35:12
You can tell. Just been trucking through life.
35:15
I feel like yeah, it's just so significant how much that
35:18
relates to us. Like living in the wild is not
35:21
easy, and neither is life sometimes.
35:23
Like you just keep going and. Well, you know, I, I've watched
35:26
some of your, some of your podcasts and you people talk
35:30
about, I mean, they talk about the, the rehabilitation, the,
35:34
the therapy. And I think what's different, I,
35:41
I, I did a show last year, I think it was the Wild Mustang,
35:45
Mustang Heritage Foundation or something.
35:47
They have a little thing in just South of Nashville and Franklin.
35:51
And it was a great experience for me.
35:54
I had my little booth with my pictures.
35:56
And here you have all these people that have adopted a
36:00
Mustang and they have 90 days to train them to get into this
36:04
competition. Fascinating to me.
36:07
I'm sitting there fascinated, thinking that these horses three
36:09
months ago were living somewhere out West.
36:13
And it is incredible. Yeah, they got a saddle and
36:16
they're they're working and they're doing things and these
36:21
people will come to my booth and see the pictures and it I don't
36:25
know that they really, some of them, it was like, oh, they
36:28
actually did live out in the wild like this.
36:30
They actually were scarred up like this.
36:32
There's yeah, it was interesting for them to see these horses
36:36
before they got them. Maybe not the exact same horse,
36:40
but again, a very moving experience.
36:42
So that's just, that's just what I think of is their life before
36:47
being adopted. Yeah, it really is interesting.
36:50
And such a huge switch from going just total freedom to, you
36:55
know, depending on where they end up, some just being
36:58
regulated and everything they do and still, you know, often being
37:03
OK with it and creating partnerships and stuff with
37:07
that. Well, you know, you don't want
37:08
to. I don't want to.
37:09
Again, I don't know a whole lot about horses, but you got your
37:12
thoroughbreds and your race horses and your quarter horses
37:14
and all of these working horses that are bred for specific
37:17
things. I don't take anything away from
37:19
that. I mean, that's, that's an art
37:20
and a science. That's, that's just crazy, but
37:23
it's, it's amazing how many people who have adopted these
37:26
Mustangs and they, and they say they're the best horse I've ever
37:29
owned. I mean, they've taken them out
37:31
of the wild and, and they're sure footed and they're, they're
37:34
strong and they're intuitive. I think there's something that
37:38
they've experienced in their short life in the wild that a
37:43
horse that's just domesticated may not, may not know.
37:46
It's just a whole nother level of.
37:48
Yeah. Experience.
37:51
Yeah, something I say or talk about a lot is it's just amazing
37:54
to me that like I will go out to my horses and it's like they
37:58
like to see me, they come to me, they want to be around me.
38:02
And that's incredible to me because of the lives that they
38:06
lived before. But there is something with them
38:08
where they really forge a relationship with you.
38:11
It I mean without a doubt there's a relationship that is
38:16
formed there that is not like I've ever experienced before.
38:20
Yeah, yeah, same evening. You see, the sun was getting
38:23
really low. Yeah, that's my happy place out
38:28
there with no one around, just a horse.
38:31
Yeah, I can see why. Are there any other pictures
38:35
we've missed that have really great stories that go with them?
38:39
You know, I think you've got really the the the biggest
38:41
stories there. Let me tell you a story about
38:45
this was a funny. This isn't so much horse
38:47
related, but we were that you remember the day I told you I
38:52
reused up my memory cards and we had still four days left.
38:56
We we left and packed up our tent took off into Cody to try
39:00
to find a memory card. But Cody is a resort town for
39:04
Yellowstone and there were no memory cards anywhere.
39:08
There was nothing. I was, I was determined to
39:10
simply just say, I'm going to have to be very selective, you
39:14
know, in what I photograph. And so we, we went out.
39:17
We didn't really find anything else.
39:19
We went back to our campsite, set up our tent and we were
39:22
sitting there waiting for the sun to set.
39:24
It's just a weird, weird, weird experience.
39:27
We were sitting out of the lawn chairs, you know, kind of
39:30
redneck camping in the West. I see, I see out in the middle
39:35
of nowhere. I see this little like Toyota
39:37
Corolla coming, coming over a hill, kind of bouncing, bouncing
39:43
down. The road on the ready, probably
39:45
not well maintained roads. No, it's like, what in the world
39:48
is going on here? There is nobody around.
39:52
And they just keep slowly driving closer and closer to us.
39:56
And my wife is like, you got to get rid of them.
39:58
You got to, you know, this is not good.
40:01
We she was concerned. There's no privacy out there.
40:05
I mean, we're almost everything for miles.
40:08
And someone coming in and this person finally got up and I was,
40:12
I was irritated. I was like, look, you got
40:14
120,000 acres to go find this. This little old man, probably 10
40:19
years older than me, got out of the car and instantly I'm like,
40:23
well, he's older. He's, he's got to be OK.
40:25
And he had to get a Minnesota license plate.
40:27
So he had to be a good guy. And he got out and he said, I, I
40:30
just, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm just curious if I've
40:33
heard I'm on my way to Yellowstone, if there are any
40:36
wild horses out here. And I was like, well, actually,
40:39
I said just over that berm, right there is a watering hole
40:42
and there's still some horses there.
40:44
So he, he, he took off and grabbed his tripod and, and I
40:49
said, what are you going to do this evening?
40:51
He's getting late. He said, well, I may go on into
40:53
Yellowstone or just may get a hotel in Cody.
40:56
I said, well, if you need to, if you need to stay here with us
40:59
tonight, you know, set up a tent.
41:01
Oh, my wife was mad. She's like, that is the exact
41:05
opposite of what I told you to do.
41:07
He was a nice guy. I felt bad.
41:09
You. Know, he said, well, I don't
41:11
know, I don't know. So he went over, he photographed
41:12
the the horses and came back over afterward.
41:15
My wife was giving me some strong words when he came back
41:19
over and he said, well, I think, I think I'm going to move on.
41:21
And he introduced himself. His name was Virgil and really
41:25
nice guy. And you know, photographers are
41:27
weird. Photographers are just strange
41:29
people anyway. They don't want to share their
41:31
secrets or or talk about certain things.
41:34
Yeah. But anyway, we were just
41:37
chatting and it dawned on me and I thought, Virgil, do you have
41:42
any memory cards with you that you could part with?
41:45
And he said, I think I do. And he went, he popped his trunk
41:49
open, he's rummaged around and he had two memory cards brand
41:54
new still in there. And I told him what had happened
41:58
and I said, listen, I'll buy them from you.
41:59
Do you have Venmo or Zelle or anything?
42:01
He say, no, I don't, I don't do any of that.
42:03
And so he was gracious enough to give them to me.
42:06
And then what he did, he said, I will send you a letter.
42:09
I loved it by letter. I'll send you a letter and tell
42:12
you how much they cost me and you can just reimburse me for
42:15
it. So I said, great.
42:17
So sure enough, two weeks later, I got a letter from Virgil and
42:20
he told me how much it was. So I sent him a check.
42:22
I rounded it up like $5, you know?
42:24
Just for the convenience, they were delivered right to your.
42:29
Better than Amazon. Yeah.
42:31
And so I sent that off and two weeks later, I got a letter back
42:35
from him with the change. He included the change.
42:39
I thought this I like this guy. I like this guy.
42:42
So I call him my Angel Virgil. He saved that trip because we we
42:46
went on from there into Green Mountain.
42:48
And you know, you spend that particular trip, I remember one
42:52
day it was 109 on our car temperature.
42:55
Gauge. Oh boy.
42:56
No showers. We were out there and just
42:59
sleeping in the in the elements. So we had to get to cooler area.
43:03
So we went on to Green Mountain Horse Management Area out by, I
43:08
think it's out by Lander, and got up in the Alpine tree level
43:11
and kind of set up our camp there and cooled down
43:14
tremendously. But yeah, without my Angel
43:15
Virgil, I don't know what I would have done on that trip.
43:18
Yeah. But.
43:20
That's really cool. That's neat how just worked out
43:23
the way it was meant to it sounds like.
43:25
Yeah, it really and you know, let me share one other story
43:28
with you that since you asked it, I I don't, I don't really
43:31
have one of the first three horses that we saw with Hickory
43:35
that that we started with. One of the other two horses that
43:38
was with Hickory was a horse. And I pronounced his name for so
43:41
long that I still pronounce it wrong even though people have
43:44
corrected me. His correct pronunciation is
43:46
Washakie. I called it Washakie.
43:50
It's Washakie. And Washakie was a beautiful
43:54
black and white stallion. I have several pictures of him
43:58
and Washakie. Hickory and Chaco would hang out
44:02
together all the time. I mean, it was like no matter
44:05
where you were with a herd, they would show up because they were
44:09
three stallions that were just out to have a good time.
44:11
You know, they were, it was comical, just different things
44:16
that we would observe them doing.
44:17
And, and Washakee would always cause problems with herds always
44:22
getting too close to the mares and he'd get run off and
44:25
constantly off. And he was getting older and he
44:28
wouldn't fight. He wouldn't fight.
44:30
He would just just trot off. He'd he'd just had nothing to
44:33
prove. Cause a little bit of trouble,
44:34
right? All things up a little bit.
44:36
And he, it was, it was a fascinating thing to see a horse
44:40
do this. But he finally, the last year, I
44:43
think it was in 2023, he finally found a mare with a with a foal.
44:48
And. He became kind of went from this
44:52
dirty old man to this amazing father figure to this foal and
44:58
would not leave their side, would not leave their sight.
45:01
And my last picture, sad to say, are not the best ones, but it
45:06
was with the herd and the three of them together and Washakie,
45:10
it kind of just settled down into a, you know, the
45:12
grandfather father type. And we just loved that, that
45:16
foal and that mirror and that winter was his last.
45:20
He he didn't survive beyond that, but it was neat to see
45:24
that he kind of, you know, just just the difference in their
45:27
their personalities and their ages and how and how they do
45:30
things. It was just really fascinating
45:31
to me, kind of like a little lesson in life that you're never
45:35
too old to, to do things, you know, settle down and kind of
45:38
you. Know do something now yeah so.
45:40
Yeah, but he was so much trouble.
45:43
In fact, there's a lady that lives out there and her name is
45:50
it's her name is slipped me. She's wonderful.
45:52
I met her out there. She's very involved in with the
45:55
BLM and she's had a huge part in naming a lot of the horses and
45:59
keeping track of which ones get the I'm so sorry I can't
46:02
remember her name. This is really embarrassing, but
46:05
I met her on the range once and we were talking about Washakie
46:08
and she said that early on she actually named him Rerun because
46:15
he was always anywhere there was horses, he was there.
46:18
He would show up as like we ran everywhere.
46:20
Everywhere she went, no matter where it was, he ended up there.
46:23
And it's just quite a character as a horse, so very energetic
46:27
and lively. Yeah, that's fun.
46:29
That's fascinating to just see the way you were able to observe
46:32
their personalities and the time you spent with them, which
46:36
relatively minimal compared to the time they spend out there
46:39
together. But to to see those interactions
46:42
and those family dynamics. They're so social with each
46:46
other. The family dynamics.
46:47
I, you know, my dad lives on in a house not far from us.
46:51
He's got 5 acres and everyone in the neighborhood has five acres.
46:53
And so someone, his next door neighbor's got a couple horses
46:57
and you know, those horses I gotta believe are bored to
46:59
death. They're out there, you know,
47:00
they got blankets in the winter and a barn and they got their
47:03
food and they've got their fenced off area and they, you
47:06
just never really see them do much of anything, even though I
47:08
know that's not true with all domestic horses.
47:10
But these in the wild, the family dynamics, the things that
47:14
go on, it's just just sit and observe.
47:16
It really is. It's fascinating.
47:18
You know, I think, again, I don't know a whole lot about
47:20
this stuff. I'm learning there.
47:22
There was a famous saying attributed to, I think Ben
47:25
Franklin, and it's probably been attributed to other people who
47:28
said that beer is God's proof that he loves us.
47:31
It's kind of a tongue in cheek kind of a thing, right?
47:34
But I'm telling you about all of the things, if you believe in
47:37
God, if you believe in, in all of that, which I do, I, I'm a
47:42
believer. But of all the things that God
47:45
has given mankind throughout history, I don't know if there's
47:49
anything other than his son. I don't know that there's
47:52
anything that has been more helpful and more important to
47:57
mankind than the horse. You look through mystery wars,
48:01
exploration, trade, commerce. Without the horse, what would we
48:06
have done as a human race? And it goes on for thousands of
48:09
years. So now I believe that horses are
48:12
proof that God loves us because. I love that.
48:15
He gave us. They're just absolutely amazing.
48:17
So anyway, I'm just rambling on as an old man, yeah.
48:20
No, I love that and I think it's true.
48:23
You know, I think you felt it out on the range.
48:24
I've talked to people where it just seems like there's no doubt
48:27
these horses were placed in people's lives to help them with
48:30
the struggles. That's certainly how I feel
48:33
about mine. I got my Mustang.
48:34
I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I had 6 little kids
48:38
when I got her and was just learning what a Mustang was and
48:42
about HMAS and how the BLM worked and all of that.
48:45
And now I really feel like she was just put there as an Angel
48:49
in my life to support me and help me.
48:51
And you know, you kind of talked about how different breeds have
48:54
different strengths and abilities.
48:57
And I really think that with the Mustangs, 1 of theirs is there.
49:01
And it probably does go back to that social aspect is that they
49:04
bring that into our lives. And it's like as you interact
49:07
with them, you suddenly get all these insights about yourself.
49:10
And like, even like you did just looking at them and observing
49:14
them. It's like I can fill this
49:16
resonate within me, the things that I'm seeing as I look at
49:20
you. So I love that.
49:22
I'm going to use that quote from now on because, yeah, I really
49:27
do think that they were here. That's a big part of what I want
49:30
to share, like just the programs that are using the Mustangs and
49:34
the stories I hear and just the feelings that they evoke in
49:38
people at times when they need it the most is just, I don't
49:42
know how else to explain it except it's something from the
49:45
divine, something from our creator who's like, I know
49:49
life's hard. I want to give you a little
49:50
little help here. And these, these horses do that
49:53
so good, I think. Yeah, absolutely.
49:56
So yeah. Yeah.
49:57
Tell us a little bit about what has it been like changing from
50:01
kind of living in the normal world, quote, UN quote, to
50:05
becoming, you know, where you're chasing wild horses and taking
50:09
pictures and sharing those on TikTok?
50:11
Why I used to be incredibly boring.
50:13
Yeah. I have some excitement in my
50:15
life. You know, we, we have our
50:17
little, a little house here in a subdivision, but to get out
50:21
there and and I put a hat on. I've never worn hats, but I have
50:24
a little like a Indiana Jones hat and I like to pretend I'm
50:28
him when I'm out there searching for.
50:30
Them. I mean, you gotta have them out
50:31
there. You're gonna get burnt if you
50:33
don't. Yes, it's especially up in here.
50:36
You gotta really be careful. But it's, it's, it's, it's just
50:40
weird. It's weird.
50:42
I, I think I told you when we talked by phone a few weeks ago
50:45
that I had a friend 1516 years ago and she had a, a horse and
50:50
she desperately wanted to get into equine therapy is what she
50:53
called it. And I remember she's a friend of
50:56
my wife's. I remember thinking, yeah,
50:58
you're just looking for a tax write off.
51:00
You're looking to talk by, you know, boarding this horse.
51:04
You're just, you're just, yeah, this is this is a bunch of
51:06
hooey. In fact, listen, I remember just
51:09
came to me, my granddaughter, my wife took my granddaughter out
51:12
there to ride the horse and see the horse.
51:14
I didn't even go. I didn't even care.
51:16
It's like it's just a horse. And that's what that's what gets
51:21
me about this is I'm a believer. I've, I have seen this and
51:25
experienced it and I think if there was one thing that we
51:29
could do and, and listen, I, you know, I, I, I don't mean to
51:33
speak for anybody, but I wish there was a way that we could
51:36
educate non horse people. There's a great opportunity and,
51:41
and it's done. You get your horse magazines and
51:43
the communities, but there there are people that need to know
51:47
about this and I probably need to call that friend of my wife's
51:50
and apologize to her. Color.
51:53
I get it now, I know what you were talking about.
51:56
I get it and I and I want to encourage and and help anyone
51:59
that I can, but we got to get the word out.
52:01
People have to be educated. Otherwise it's just I'm
52:04
concerned it's going to just die out.
52:06
Yeah, no, I do too. I mean, there is kind of a fear,
52:11
like what if, what if we just never know what we have?
52:14
And so we don't take care of it the way that we should have.
52:18
Because I think they are, you know, I think they're a gift
52:20
from from God, from the creator. That's like, yes, you got to
52:23
work, you have the 9:00 to 5:00, you got to support families, all
52:27
those things. But there's another part of life
52:30
where it's like, you need to find yourself.
52:32
You need to, you know, find your soul and understand yourself a
52:37
little bit better to navigate this life.
52:39
And the horses are a really good guide to do that with.
52:43
Absolutely. And you kind of talk about
52:45
educating. That's what you're doing on
52:47
TikTok. You said you've come across a
52:49
lot of people that don't even realize that they're wild
52:52
horses. How has that experience been?
52:54
You know, it's, it's really been crazy because you know, I, I
52:57
don't even know how to, I just made my first TikTok video
53:00
today. My, my, I've been filming them
53:02
and then my daughter edits them and does all of that.
53:05
Oh nice, that's fun and it helps.
53:06
Me, but she's getting kind of tired of helping the old man.
53:09
I'm kind of having to learn how to do it.
53:11
I I didn't think anyone would be remotely interested.
53:15
And in three months I'm up to 20,000 followers.
53:20
That's awesome. Over 1,000,000 views.
53:22
You know, the best thing is it's really helped my sales because
53:28
those sales, you know, I, I shared this on a video.
53:31
I'll share it here now it's blew me away.
53:34
When you hit 10,000 followers on TikTok, you become eligible to
53:37
be paid for the views. So the tick the the video has to
53:41
be a minute long, a minimum long.
53:44
You make money by people saving it, sharing it, commenting
53:47
things like things I didn't know.
53:49
Well, I hit the 10,000 mark and I got the notification.
53:54
My dates may be a little bit off, but basically my first
53:56
month from TikTok, I made like $90.00 just from TikTok for two
54:02
months. I mean, I know that free money
54:04
goes, TikTok is going to pay me. I was blown away and I thought,
54:07
well, I mean that's really cool, but what am I going to do with
54:10
90 bucks? I mean, that's nice.
54:13
Yeah, doesn't pay very far for a trip to no the western states.
54:19
And you know, I sell my pictures very inexpensively.
54:21
I sell my 8 by 10s like for like, I don't know, $16.00.
54:25
I mean, they're just not expensive.
54:26
I other photographers charge outrageous my mind.
54:29
I, I want to get it in people's hands and on their homes, but I
54:34
rounded up to 100 bucks and I donated it to a wild horse
54:37
charity. That's awesome because what am I
54:40
going to do? What 90 It may do nothing for
54:42
me, but if it can, if it can help to control the birth of of
54:46
some mares, that's money well spent.
54:49
So I do try to my sales help. And so TikTok has helped
54:52
tremendously with that with my sales.
54:54
So I have been donating to Friends of a legacy.
54:58
It's a nonprofit in Cody and they work with the McCulloch
55:01
Peaks horses and they do some really good work.
55:04
As this grows, we can try to continue donating to some more
55:08
nonprofits. A portion.
55:10
Yeah. Everything.
55:12
Yeah, that's good. And I think that does make a
55:14
difference. Everybody who's kind of pitching
55:16
in and every different aspect, like that's what's going to keep
55:19
these horses with us and part of our culture and society.
55:24
I love that. Well, you know, if I can talk a
55:26
little bit, I hope I'm not keeping you too.
55:28
Long No, You're good. I'm good still.
55:31
My son here in town for the last, I don't know, 5-6, seven
55:35
years has a, he has three coffee shops in town and roasting
55:39
coffee beans and selling coffee beans.
55:41
All this being very, very popular.
55:42
He's built quite a little business up.
55:44
And so here in the family, you know, we're in the coffee
55:47
business. Not me directly, but he called
55:49
me couple weeks ago and he said, do you know, you could, you
55:53
could come up with your own coffee line and everyone has a
55:56
line of coffee these days. Just Google everyone.
55:59
And I thought, you know, that's true.
56:01
I could, I could call the light roast, the Palomino, the medium
56:05
or maybe a sorrel and black beauty for the dark.
56:07
And I already figured out for the decaf, I'm going to call it
56:10
all hat, no cattle, just because it's, you know, the, it's all
56:15
the flavor, but none of the caffeine.
56:17
So we're working towards doing that and I'm thinking we can
56:22
send the proceeds to the nonprofits to help the horses.
56:25
So always just trying to find a way to give back and make up for
56:29
the years that I was a knucklehead and didn't believe
56:31
in horses. So that's that's.
56:34
What we're trying, well, I love that.
56:35
And also an opportunity to just put that idea about horses in
56:40
another another area. Well, and you know what I
56:44
thought? Well, we'll include a 4 by 6
56:45
with every bag of coffee, you know, you get a little picture
56:48
of of a wild horse. I can, I can have mugs made with
56:51
the with my artwork on the mug. Anything we do to get it out so
56:54
people can wear Mustangs, that's.
56:56
I think it'd be cool too if you put a little rundown of the
56:59
story of the horses on the back or something if you if it's
57:02
feasible. I love that.
57:03
I loved hearing the stories of all the different horses and
57:06
your experience meeting them. And I love telling the stories
57:10
again, I guess I just getting old, but I love to just tell
57:13
stories and we have a ton of them from being out there.
57:15
Yeah, what a great experience. Do you guys have an area that's
57:18
your favorite? If you had to pick one that you
57:21
would go to, which one would you pick?
57:22
Sandwash Basin is incredibly beautiful.
57:26
Again, I said, I've lived in Bozeman.
57:27
I'm really a forest guy. I'm a family fisherman.
57:30
Put me on a mountainous stream with pine trees and I'm in
57:33
heaven. I've never looked at the high
57:35
desert and thought, oh, this is beautiful.
57:37
But there really, it really has become beautiful to me.
57:41
Sandwash Basin has some of the most beautiful horses and also,
57:45
but it's just so desolate and so remote.
57:47
The roads are really, really, really rough to get around on.
57:50
I love that. But I also, I will probably
57:52
always have a place in my heart for McCulloch Peaks.
57:57
We're going to actually call the coffee Whistle Creek Coffee
58:00
Company because Whistle Creek is one of the main roads that cuts
58:04
through the and it's where we saw our first, the first horses.
58:09
I love that. That's a great name too.
58:11
Yeah, it just it just kind of came together.
58:13
But McCulloch Peaks is such AI think what's great about it is a
58:17
family can go there, you know, and and as long as you don't
58:21
have to have 4 wheel drive, but you have to have some clearance.
58:24
Yeah, we're we're sandwashed basin.
58:26
Have you been out to that? I haven't.
58:28
I feel like a bit of a slacker because I've never actually seen
58:32
the wild horses in the wild. Is out by Craig, Colorado and
58:37
out out by Mabel and there's just nothing I mean we we did
58:41
spend one night in Sandwash Basin.
58:44
Our our air mattress is A2 chamber 2 sided air mattress and
58:47
my wife's side popped and Oh yeah she slept and it was 28°
58:52
that night in her office UV so she was not a happy camper.
58:56
I think that's what's. Not ideal camping conditions.
58:59
Yeah, but you just, it's just a long, you know, if you stay out
59:02
till the sun's down and then you've got to drive an hour,
59:04
hour and a half to get to a hotel and then you're not there
59:07
in the mornings. But both of those places are my
59:10
favorite. We've we've been able to go to a
59:11
few places in Idaho. I want to go all over but it's
59:15
all related to money. Right.
59:17
Money. Time, Yeah.
59:19
And you know, you as an artist, on one hand, you want to sell
59:22
and expose people and sell your stuff because that's how you
59:24
live. And that's, that's you want to
59:26
raise money for your cause, but you got to be careful because
59:29
you don't want to sound just like a salesperson, you know,
59:31
someone with an infomercial, but it, it's kind of got to go both
59:35
ways, you know? Yeah, yeah, it is hard.
59:39
I mean, the reality is, yeah, money and all those things are
59:42
just a part of life that we have to have to consider, whether
59:45
we're rescuing horses or visiting horses or having our
59:49
own horses. Do you have advice for other
59:51
people who might want to do what you're doing?
59:53
Is it something that, and I guess just maybe a broad answer,
59:58
are you able to live off of it now?
1:00:00
Is it difficult? Is it something you have to have
1:00:03
a passion for? It's not going to work.
1:00:05
Tell me more about that. Well, frankly, COVID really
1:00:08
caught us by surprise financially.
1:00:10
How about yeah? When you're making money and you
1:00:14
think it's always going to be there, as much as I wish I had
1:00:18
been more responsible, just never foresaw anything like
1:00:21
that. And it, it, it was, it was a
1:00:24
challenge. My wifes career has continued
1:00:27
and we've recovered from a lot of that.
1:00:29
But thank goodness she's still working.
1:00:31
You know, I, I do headshots, I do portraits and I, I do some
1:00:37
other photography to kind of pay the bills.
1:00:40
The. Horses are really just just a
1:00:42
passion. It's kind of a wash.
1:00:44
I would love to buy a brand new more.
1:00:46
I still use the old style cameras, the DSLRs, Everything
1:00:49
is going now to a mirrorless type of camera and it's crisper
1:00:53
and sharper and lighter and they've been out for 6-7 years
1:00:57
now and I would like to upgrade. But it's just, I just, I would
1:01:01
have to sell a lot more product. Yeah.
1:01:03
So we're getting by. It's.
1:01:05
But, you know, you have to do it.
1:01:07
I mean, if you have a passion, you want to do it.
1:01:08
It's incredibly simple. And I've actually thought about
1:01:12
doing some courses for photographers to kind of just,
1:01:16
you know, I'm a guy that shoots in the studio with strobes.
1:01:18
So light is very important to me.
1:01:20
How do you get that light at 12:00 in the afternoon with the
1:01:24
sun blazing down on this? Because you you can't wait for
1:01:27
the light to be perfect. You have to shoot them when
1:01:29
they're there. You have to photograph.
1:01:31
Right. They may or may not that get be
1:01:33
there when the light's there. Yeah, so and so learning to edit
1:01:36
to make them look like the portraits and make them.
1:01:39
I've thought about doing that. But again, it's it's it's
1:01:41
something you got to charge for. And then am I just simply a
1:01:45
televangelist selling some sort of thing on TV that, you know,
1:01:50
I, I struggle with? That yeah, no, I'm, I'm there
1:01:52
with you. I still do it all for free.
1:01:54
And I'm like, this would be great to make it more
1:01:56
sustainable and, you know, and not keep the other side jobs.
1:01:59
But yeah, it's tricky. It's tricky to navigate.
1:02:02
But I think you make a good point.
1:02:04
If it's something you want to do, you can find a way to do it.
1:02:08
That might be as a side job. You might be able to funnel that
1:02:11
into a really profitable opportunity as well.
1:02:14
You know, it's, it's funny how a lot of photographers in that
1:02:17
type of photography are older, just older people that got into
1:02:20
it that have a, a nice retirement and you know, they
1:02:23
money is so much an issue for them.
1:02:26
Unfortunately, I'm I'm not there, but other than the older
1:02:29
part, but it's it's but I would gosh, even if someone doesn't
1:02:36
know how to take them, you go out with your iPhone, just go
1:02:38
out and see these horses and just watch them for a while and
1:02:41
get away from your cell phone and the traffic and things and
1:02:44
just just live out there for a little bit is just even for a
1:02:48
few hours is amazing. Yeah, it really is amazing.
1:02:51
It's just a different wildness than we experienced most other
1:02:55
places in the country. Yeah.
1:02:58
Yeah, well, tell everybody where they can find you, how they can
1:03:02
connect with you, where they can find your art, all those good
1:03:04
things. Well, my website is Tim W
1:03:07
photography.com and if you go there, you'll again, keep in
1:03:11
mind I'm a, I'm a headshot and a portrait photographer.
1:03:14
So there's a lot of people on my website.
1:03:17
But there is a section, I think fine art or, or wild horse
1:03:20
section. You can click on that and and
1:03:22
look at the pictures. I have an Etsy store and it's
1:03:25
probably Tim W Photography. You would have to search for it.
1:03:28
We'll link everything too, so if people want it you can look at
1:03:31
the episode notes, but maybe someone's just listening.
1:03:35
And then TikTok is I have a Tim W photographic art on Facebook
1:03:39
and then my TikTok is Tim W photography and there are a lot
1:03:43
of Tim W out there. I actually have a imposter right
1:03:45
now on TikTok. I mean, you've made it then.
1:03:48
That's that's what my wife said, yeah.
1:03:51
And then? Not the best part of making it.
1:03:53
There's nothing you can do about it, really.
1:03:55
I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm still pursuing some things.
1:03:58
You just have to really. But mine is just Tim W
1:04:01
photography. There is another one that's Tim
1:04:03
W photography, one that is not information.
1:04:07
Yeah, yeah, that is unfortunate. That's frustrating, all that
1:04:11
work and effort. But thank you for letting me
1:04:13
share that information with people.
1:04:15
Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to thank you for
1:04:18
coming on here and for spreading the word of wild horses.
1:04:22
I know that you're reaching audiences in new and exciting
1:04:26
ways, and I love that you're kind of targeting the younger
1:04:29
audience. I know I was also like, do I
1:04:31
want to be on TikTok? But it's a little bit of a
1:04:34
different audience. It is.
1:04:36
And, you know, I know that the young people, when they see
1:04:38
this, you know, an old guy with a beard, they're just going to
1:04:41
keep scrolling. That's not what they're into.
1:04:43
And so hopefully one day I'll find a way to reach more of the
1:04:46
young. You know, I mean, they seem to
1:04:48
like it. You're getting getting followers
1:04:51
over there and so, yeah. It's growing.
1:04:53
Yeah, I think it's something that our world needs for sure is
1:04:57
to reconnect with the natural world and to definitely to see
1:05:00
like look at the incredible things you can do when you put
1:05:03
your phone down and go do something, go find something, go
1:05:07
chase that passion. And I just love your story that
1:05:09
it's, you know, you just took that opportunity to go down the
1:05:14
path that it seems like life was pointing you towards, pushing
1:05:17
you a little bit, encouraging you to follow and, and that
1:05:20
you're now sharing that with everybody else.
1:05:22
So, yeah, I highly encourage people to check out your art.
1:05:25
It's very cool. You definitely get a feel for
1:05:28
for the wildness of these horses and the beauty of them.
1:05:31
Well. Thank you.
1:05:32
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us and
1:05:35
learning about Horses that Heal and the humans who help them.
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We hope you'll continue with us on this journey.
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We'd love for you to subscribe on your favorite platform and
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follow the touch of a Mustang on any of the major social media
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outlets. Please share with your friends
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anyone who loves horses or anyone who might be struggling
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and could benefit from this message.
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If you have felt the healing power of horses or help them in
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their divinely appointed mission, please reach out.
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We want to hear your. Story As we say goodbye, always
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remember that the horse is always there to help you heal.