First snø

 

Woke up this week to the first snows of the fall...heavy, wet snow.  About eight inches...lots of fallen tree limbs since many leaves were still on their respective branches.  The branches could not support the weight.

 

But the following morning, the snow had dried out with the evening freeze.  My cross-country skis got their first tour through the park, around the pond, and out into the broad lawns all covered with eight inches of white powder.  A mist had formed above the park land....the morning air heated by the rising sun and the frozen ground created a fog through which the trees could be barely seen.  

 

And, then, it was over.  The sun rose still higher.  The mist burned off.  The snow softened and  the snow began to melt.  Wet snow began to adhere to my skis.  Just a few hours on a silent morning....a good start to winter.  

 

Bob's cabin

Their cabin is located on the slopes of Long's peak, up a steep drive and up further a steep hike.  The cabin was originally built about 100 years ago...now it has electricity and even a telephone, but no running water, no bath, no heat except for an Franklin stove insert into the massive fireplace.  Bob and Roz have had it in their family since the 1930s. 

We came up to cut down some trees, logpoles infected with pine beetle.  The beetles moved into this area some years before, killing huge swaths of trees.  Better to take the trees down than to wait for them to fall....better to clear out the underbrush and slash than have them feed a forest fire.  Bob uses a new chainsaw, a present from one of his sons, to see how well it works.  Better for us to come up to the cabin, get in a day's of work, move around in the forest, collect brush, than to lift dumbbells in the gym in town.   We add a few pieces of firewood to the rows he has built up over the past months. 

Afterwards we sit on the porch, talk, drink beer.  I take small breaks from the conversation to examine the plants that at 9,500 feet have established themselves in the silver plume granite that forms the bedrock of these plant, animal and human communities.  A friend, Patrick, has gotten me interested in the way that these "natural" configurations provide inspiration for planting on my rock gardens at home.  I am most impressed by the lichen and grasses which begin the initial breakdown of these boulders into small packets of soil.

But then looking up from these small packets of life, I see the tall shafts of Long's Peak some 5,000 feet above us...turning color as the daylight shifts.  It's all a question of scale, I guess, the forming of tiny botanical life forms on the boulders, the uplifting of 1.2 billion year old granite from miles under the earth, the cabin in the woods providing families with shelter and a "home."

But we get a sense of these scales of time and elements from the perspective of our own brief existence.  for me, these tree cutting days, this examination of plants and mountain peaks, this sitting on the porch are reflections of my membership in the human community, in a web of friendships and relations of which Bob provides the access point.  There is a kind of wholeness in such days...linkages to rock, plants, trees, and other people...all part of a web of life, our lives. 

Clouds

Clouds form an infinite variety of shape and color to the west as the sun settles beyond the Cochetopa Hills.  A small group stands on the back porch of Oak House watching the slow transformations, the unfolding of patterns.  Some, like me, have cameras...catching the moments, trying to somehow freeze and possess the spectacle.  Others only watch..someone has forgotten her camera...a good thing she says since she must now concentrate on each movement...like listening to a symphony instead of taking pictures of the orchestra.

 Sometimes, though, you have to pull back and take in more of the sky, more of the land.  The San Luis Valley here is about 30 miles across from the western foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountais to the early eastern slopes of the San Juans.  The sagging boards of the back porch are attached to those eastern foothills...we think of ourselves as being high above the valley floor but behind us the snow covered peaks rise another 6,000 feet.  Keeping perspective is not easy.

 And then the final drama...the final rays of the sun spread red, gold across the sky.  Behind us these bands of color reflect off the high mountain snows, hence the name for the range as "the blood of Christ."  Ahhh...those early Spanish explorers were so tormented.  And how, in turn, they tormented the those who had been living here prior.  Yet the earth continues its daily spin...spinning the cloud formations as it turns.  Turning us on the back porch away from the sun...moving us into the darkness of the night sky.