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Springtime in the Rockies

Apr5

Wren and I walked between campgrounds at the state park the other day. It’s been too blustery for comfort a lot of the past week, and it was windy that day. But we enjoyed this remarkable recreational resource nonetheless. The first of three bridges we crossed was this one over Iron Creek as it flows toward the reservoir. I was reminded once again, with gratitude, of my neighbor who orchestrated this trail so many years ago, a true legacy.

We’ve now walked almost the entire trail… but not all at once.
I’m grateful for sharing recipes with friends. Mel mentioned this sheet-pan mushroom parmigiana, and it was so simple, so delicious.
Wren enjoyed her second playdate with the new community terrier, whose mother described him just this morning as “a clown stuck in a puppy dog suit.”

When big dogs lived here there was no tulip predation. But the past couple of springs have wrought havoc on my bulbs, because the deer have decimated the leaves as they grow, diminishing flowering; and then nipped the flowers if they even had a chance to open. So I’ve bought cages for some of them, and while it looks silly at least I get to enjoy the gorgeous colors as the rest of the yarden gradually greens up.

The first European pasqueflowers bloomed in the south border this week, and also the little yellow naturalizing tulips.

Last night I was grateful for a virtual cocktail with a new friend across the mountains. She suggested the Sierra Madre, a bourbon drink I hadn’t heard of and thoroughly enjoyed, with honey simple syrup and fresh lemon juice, capped with a float of red wine. The orange ice cube made it that much more elegant. I’m grateful for everything new about this happy hour, including my new habit of stopping at one small drink on the rare evenings anymore that I do imbibe alcohol.

My heart lifted today when the apricot burst into bloom, literally between morning and afternoon, and then evening light offered this exquisite image. I’m grateful for springtime in the Rockies.

Singular Impermanence

Mar13

I’m grateful for a small garden success. Seeds I planted around New Year’s Day are sprouting in one covered bed. In the other, just a few sprouts so far, but they had a setback in that big wind storm when their cover got blowed away. Finally found it though, the other day, out in the woods. Grateful it’s now back over them, and hoping they didn’t get killed in the cold nights the cover was missing.

I’m grateful for the Urbikany tomato in the sunroom that keeps on giving! I harvested two small ripe fruits the other day for a magnificent cheese sandwich, as three more ripen, even more grow green, and flowers bloom. Amazing! I will definitely play with more of these this summer.

I’m grateful for my fast little girl, who comes when called. I knew she was out there this time, because I was too; but today she disappeared while I was sitting outside on the phone, and was nowhere to be seen when I was ready to go in. I called just a couple of times and she came flying around the bend again, panting, racing to me. It was impossible to scold her for slipping through the gate when she came so promptly and eagerly.

I’m grateful for another successful Teddy Roosevelt’s Clove Cake. I’ve almost got it down! Cooked just a couple of minutes too long this time so it was a little dry, but the rise and crust were perfect. I was looking forward to sharing some of this with a friend who was supposed to stop by yesterday but he didn’t show. It wasn’t like him to not text, so I figured something urgent had come up. But I was staggered to learn that evening just how urgent: he had suffered a heart attack on his way, and undergone emergency surgery. I’m grateful that he survived, that he was able to get the rescue and medical attention that he needed, and that last I heard he was doing well and expected to recover fully. It brought home like a slap in the face the exact fragility and transience of our fleeting lives that I wrote about last time.

I’m grateful, at the end of the bread, for a thick slice of buttered toast with Havarti alongside the last of the frozen carrot-ginger soup, with a dash of yogurt and a squeeze of lime. So simple, so delicious.

All these quotidian gratitudes pale in comparison to the gratitude of someone surviving a heart attack; and so best not to compare. Best to savor the flavors of every day, humble or grand; each success, delight, or genuine connection made all the more meaningful through awareness of its singular impermanence.

Leftovers

Nov24

Topaz is finally becoming a semi-sociable cat. I still grieve the untimely death of her brother three years ago: He was so connected to me from the beginning, while she was always aloof in the way of so many female cats, the hunters, the providers. But she’s eight and a half now, and she’s finally accepted Wren, and she wants to be more involved in our lives. To the unfortunate point of exploring places she doesn’t belong. I’m grateful for her attention, and that she’s graceful enough that she didn’t crash through the open top of the light stand.

I’m grateful for the freedom of non-attachment that gardening cultivates. I had some leftover seeds from the past couple of years that I planted this afternoon in soil I’d kept soft and warm(ish) under cover for the past few weeks. In anticipation of this weekend’s snow, I planted a bunch of rows and left them to receive the moisture. At bedtime, there’s a light dusting of snow glowing under the overcast, waxing moon. I’ll figure out the cover strategy after the storm dumps all it’s going to and skies clear again. Will I cover then until spring? Or will I cover and uncover until the deep freeze and then leave the beds exposed to collect all the winter’s moisture… and then cover to begin warming in earliest spring? Or, will I think of something else somewhere along the way? Not attached to whether these seeds germinate, but enjoying experimenting, knowing that no matter what I do now I don’t know what will happen later. Grateful to be alive, comfortable with uncertainty.

I’m grateful today for leftovers, but not the usual Thanksgiving spread. Just another chickpea-mushroom burger and homemade bun from the freezer. I’m grateful to have sufficient food that I can frequently save some for the next day, or the next month; and that I have the appliances to do so safely; and that I have electric power from the sun to run the fridge and freezer. I’m grateful for these things every single day.

A Happy Outcome

Oct24

Garden season is winding down, the roller coaster crawling toward a full stop. Before the first freeze next week, I got in another couple of types of garlic, with gratitude to Ellie for sharing some local organic bulbs of two hardneck red varieties, Russian and Vietnamese. I now have two full beds planted with garlic, and I can tell the softnecks I planted a few weeks ago have rooted because they are sending up little green shoots. Between Friday and Monday nights upcoming, low temps are forecast to drop from 40 to 21℉. That will put an end to the remaining scarlet salvias, zinnias, and calendulas still blooming. I’m grateful they’ve held on for so long. And grateful to get the last garlic and some more tulips in the ground today.

Go figure: I transplanted these cauliflowers back in the spring and they stayed tiny for months before finally starting to grow good leaves, which were devoured by grasshoppers even as they grew. I held little hope for them ever making fruit, but left them in the ground all summer as grasshopper bait hoping they’d leave some of my other plants alone. They eventually devoured the leek and onion green tops leaving me next-to-nothing there, but still I left the cauliflowers in the ground. Lo and behold, at last they are making heads, albeit tiny. I wonder if they’ll survive sub-freezing nights, or if I’ll harvest these tiny heads this weekend.

I’m grateful for a next-to-last lunch outside with one of the last little tomatoes, leftover coleslaw, smoked gouda, and toast, along with falling golden birch leaves and the first volume of The Rain Wild Chronicles. I’m also grateful for some meaningful meditations, meetings, and conversations today.

I think I’m most grateful today for a happy outcome for this little dark-eyed junco who crashed into a window this afternoon. I heard the thump, dropped what I was doing, and went to the back door, where I was dismayed to see Topaz with the bird in her mouth. As I opened the door she set it down and walked inside! What a good kitty!

I picked up the bird who had no apparent damage but was limp with an open beak. I dripped a couple of drops of water into its mouth, and carried it to a secure fork in the chokecherry tree, where it was able to grip and rest. Not long after, I looked out the window and saw it was gone, so I walked out to look around and make sure it hadn’t simply fallen. It had recovered and flown away! A large flock of these little birds has been hanging around for a couple of weeks; or maybe there are multiple flocks migrating through. Three have hit a window in the past week, with one fatality; that’s more birds hitting windows here than over the past entire year or more, so I tend to think they are migrating through and are unfamiliar with the lay of the yarden. I added another visual barrier to the large window, and hope that’s the last accident for a long time.

Enough

Oct16

On this precious day that will never come again I am grateful that I got to spend more time outside in the beautiful fall sunshine and colorful foliage. The red crabapple tree, the orange Amur maple beyond the house, and the stunning accidental aspen.

Just as we stood to leave the pond this afternoon I turned my head and gasped at these glowing cattails.

As I continue to put the garden to bed these weeks, I get to tend each raised bed adding soil and compost as needed. And today I planted a six-foot long bed with tulip bulbs of four colors as Wren supervised. I top-dressed the bed with an inch of compost and a mulch of hay and watered in everything. Later this week I’ll plant some more garlic, and maybe I’ll get a bed ready for some over-wintering carrot and greens seeds. The greens I planted last winter did really well under plastic when spring came and gave me plenty of food early before the grasshopper plague that stunted later crops.

There’s a brand of frozen ‘fresh’ dog food that I tried a subscription to: the introductory offer was great, but with the next step of ‘transition’ food the packages were 20% smaller, cost 50% more, and looked more like canned than ‘fresh’ food. I canceled that subscription, and just fed her the last of it yesterday. All along I was planning to cook homemade food to supplement Wren’s high-quality kibble, but just hadn’t made time for it — until today! I’m grateful for saving lots of money by spending an hour cooking a month’s worth of food for her. I chopped potatoes, sweet potatoes and broccoli, grated a couple carrots, and boiled them til they were soft enough to mash; then mashed in a can of black beans and a pound of grass-fed neighborhood ground beef that includes some organ meat, and simmered another ten minutes until it was a chili consistency.

When it cooled enough, I packaged it in three freezer containers and one for the fridge, and spooned a bit into her bowl even though she’d already had breakfast. She was so excited, and licked her platter clean.

Some days are hard. I’m grateful that today was an easy day in so many ways, and especially in my mind. As I kept moving through the moments of the day doing the right next thing, appreciating the environment I moved through, enjoying interactions with people and other animals, I felt like I was enough.

Fall Gardening

Oct10

I’m grateful today for fall gardening and having the energy to plant garlic. I ordered two varieties of softneck from Territorial Seeds and readied the beds to receive them. Fingers crossed for rain tomorrow to settle the cloves in after tucking them in rich, loose soil this afternoon. Sunny, cloudy, breezy, and just warm enough, it was a perfect day for fall gardening.

That Satisfying Pop

Sep11

I’m grateful for a full and beautiful Autumn day. It was gorgeous outside all day, a crisp wet morning from night rain, a clear blue sky with a few puffy white clouds moving along, some distant rainstorms, a little time outside with coffee, kindle, kitty, Wren, and hummingbirds; much good work to do inside, a gift delivery to a friend going into surgery tomorrow (may you walk pain-free now), just one wasp sting, and more fun in the kitchen.

The sourdough I mixed last night was barely risen by morning, it’s so cool at night now, so I put the bowl of dough in the sunroom for a few hours this morning. The bake didn’t happen til after lunch, but I look forward to a cheese and tomato sandwich tomorrow, and I was glad to share the perfect, warm loaf.

Later in the evening I processed a pound of peaches off the counter, making a few jars of peach salsa. I was grateful to have all the spices required except fresh cilantro, so I just used coriander powder. Also one jalapeño, and one Fresno pepper from the garden, and store-bought garlic and onion. Chopped, diced, minced, and cooked, I got three half-pints to can in the water-bath, and a smidge that was too hot to taste tonight but I refrigerated for tomorrow.

I’m grateful for that satisfying pop the jar lids make with a successful vacuum seal. There’s nothing quite like it: You pull the hot jars out of the boiling water, set them on the counter, and wait… I like to wait in silence, because the pop is just so satisfying when it comes. The truth is, you can have a successful seal even without the pop, but it just doesn’t feel finished to me until that *pop* happens when the lid sucks down onto the jar, sealing your summer produce to preserve it for a good six months or longer: A job well done. I’ve got a couple of pounds of peaches left on the counter, and maybe one more on the tree. I look forward to picking the last of the peach harvest tomorrow.

Harvest

Sep10
The apparent total of my pickling cucumber crop… what a small jar of pickles this will make! The vine itself isn’t much longer than the border of the picture. I certainly learned something about insufficient nitrogen in the soil this summer.
Where’s Wren, tomato edition. This basket represents the essential end of tomato harvest this summer. A few green tomatoes remain on some vines, but again, the weird cold spring, even with nutritious soil in these beds, resulted in a scarce harvest.
Ah, but the fruit trees! I’ve baked and frozen and given away, and still have a decent batch of peaches to process tomorrow; perhaps the most delicious way to eat them is simply peeled and sliced in a crystal goblet…

I’m grateful for any kind of harvest, and maybe more grateful this summer for a slow and gentle harvest without any urgency to put up the fruits of the garden. Some years I’ve been grateful for a hectic and abundant harvest of tomatoes, or cucumbers, or peppers, or any combination. This year I’m grateful for a tame and easy harvest.

Uneventful Summer Day

Aug29
As I enjoy morning coffee on the calm, dry, sunny, warm patio, with hummingbirds sipping from the scarlet salvias, people I love and millions of people I don’t know are preparing for or in denial about an event that will bring upheaval to many of their lives. I’m grateful for every uneventful summer day here.
And this evening as Hurricane Idalia rapidly intensifies 1800 miles away, I’m grateful that the biggest event on this particular summer day here at Mirador is the harvest of a few more tomatoes and the first jalapeño peppers.

As climate chaos delivers yet another unprecedented disaster, this time to Florida with a cat 4 hurricane expected to land early morning, I find myself once again suffused with that strange mix of agitated fascination, helpless anxiety, and scattered compassion.

People have got to wake up and stop saying, “You just never think it will happen here,” or “Oh, I’ve been through hurricanes before, I’m not gonna leave.” As one newscaster said, “This area isn’t heavily populated, but for the folks who live here this will be a life-altering event.” There will be fatalities, including a lot of wild and domestic animals. Crystal River is predicted to receive historic storm surge; because of its unique geology and warm spring-fed waters it is manatee central on Florida’s gulf coast. I worry that some of these endangered, gentle creatures will get pushed inland and stranded. As I write, about 100 of the 700+ residents of Cedar Key, a town I hold nostalgia for, have chosen to ride it out: the entire town could be under water by noon tomorrow. Many of my beloveds live in the path or fringe of the storm, from south of Tampa through the Big Bend and on up through Charleston, SC. Of course I worry about them too, but I’m grateful that my friends and family are largely sensible people.

I feel the coming suffering on an energetic level, and I want to help: this is compassion, though it is challenging to feel like this is enough. But as I tell students, even if we can’t help in a given situation, there is always someone closer to home on whose behalf we can engage in compassionate action. And we can all, each and every one of us over the age of 18, vote for local, state, and national representatives who take climate chaos seriously and will commit to shifting the course of humanity’s hurricane of greed and stupidity into a less catastrophic trajectory.

I’m also grateful for the delicious pizza I picked up from Chef Brandt yesterday since I had to run to town anyway, the Mush-Love; and for leftover pizza today with a few extra toppings from the kitchen. I’m grateful for the efforts of Chef Brandt to make international cuisine affordable and convenient in his home valley after honing his culinary skills and winning awards in Seattle.

The Peach Tree

Aug22

I am about to get overwhelmed again! But not quite as dramatically as with the apricot tree. I’m grateful for the peach tree, and its bountiful year. They’re still a few weeks away from ready, I think: blushing yet still green and hard as baseballs. I’m grateful for David who planted fish remains around this tree several years running, surely the reason it thrives, and also for the fish he caught and cooked for us.