simple shadows in the snow

I watch as it clears the ridge
A small and simple curve of reflected light
Surrounded by a halo of pale silver glow
A perfect round that the full moon would be
She shows herself to me somewhat clearly now
A complete illumination of her secret side
The face she often coyly hides in her dark shadows
Reflecting only her features which stare coldly at the sun

In the white arc
Silhouettes of tall timber from three miles away playing shadow games in the limited light
And here back home
Safe and warm in my cabin with my dog by my side and my boys still asleep
The worries of yesterday are for but a moment forgotten
The fears of my son, our changing home, the world and nature around me

How can I care so deeply
With passion the color of wild rose petals in snow
Or the fragrance of summer rain on sun baked soil
And not risk being hurt
Which opening oneself up seems to allow
Like the invitation of an open door

Or am I better to remain closed
Cold and frozen
Uncaring
A rock face of the winter mountain
Forever facing north and hidden from the relief of the sun

Let my son grow
The world turn
The moon rise
Things fall apart and break
As I sit back and do nothing but watch?

Above the ranch looking down at the reservoir

Ten below zero and the whiteness remains unchanging. The signs I saw what seem so long ago of the assurance of spring now give the impression of such insignificance.  The birds, feeding on fields of snow.  The swollen tips of the willows and glossy new branch ends on the Aspen. The increased intensity of light, almost blinding on the settled snow.

Funny how we worry ourselves that it will be so different this year.  It will be later, earlier, bigger, lesser… than what, I wonder?  For I say this too. Later that our calendars read or our minds demand?  Does nature fail to meet our expectations or are we too thrilled in seeking the variety? And then we watch and it all work out in due time, and usually, the correct time.  It is not ours to choose.  It is not ours to control.

Let it go.  It will come.  And probably, right on time.

It is not so much the end of winter that I long for, but for the something new that promises to be here soon.  Excitement, anticipation. The transformation of life, our lives. Building, swelling within me as within the river still remaining covert beneath the ice and snow.  Listen to the flow now.  Is it intensifying, or is the protective layer of snow and ice thinning so that we can hear what is below better now?

Us, we can transform, and we do.  Daily we make progress, are one step closer to our future.  Where will that future lead us?  So many uncertainties, and still so much we can do.

The remodel of cabin #2

We complete the remodel of Cabin #2, with the exception of some final details, including the bedroom carpet and the new window, which for some reason which I imagine will not surprise you, we have decided to wait to bring in when we can drive our truck, not haul the 9 foot long piece of glass behind our snowmobiles. And decorations.  Nesting.  I can not help myself and enjoy setting up each cabin as its own perfect little home.

Construction is cleaned up. Tools are packed up and moved on.  Where to? Onto the next…

And now we make changes to our cabin to retrofit it as a rental guest cabin.

The first thing to be changed is the upstairs bathroom.  What I loved most about it – the openness, free of walls, I could soak in the tub and still chat with my boys downstairs in the kitchen – we figured this would not go over too well with a group of guys here for the fishing.  Walls and doors might be preferred.  And with our hammers, nails and saws, most anything is possible.  This one will be simple.

a before picture: our upstairs bathroom

In the back of our minds already is the project we will work on when this one is complete.  Finally, the start of the remodel of the Little Cabin.  After all, we do need a home…

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

Chinese Proverb

looking west

I stood upon the frozen creek obscured beneath a winter’s load of snow.  I could hear the hushed flow far below. A whispered secret, between no one but the earth and me.  I keep the riddle to myself and laugh at her subtle humor.

The boys return from town and tell me of mud lower on the mountain, in the valley, on the pastures, dry ground along the road.  The tell me of a friend they see riding a bicycle and it is beyond my recognition here and now when our reliance on snowshoes, snowmobiles and skis remains absolute.

Somewhere there is brown, somewhere there is green. Here so far from such imaginings, the whiteness is complete.

light on the snow of the frozen reservoir

I walk in the afternoon and think of what will be.  Balanced on the snows surface with my broad plastic shoes, each step separated from the earth’s potential by this crystalline lag.

I walk the lands where brown waters will flow and iris will grow and the mountain will shiver in an ecstatic burst of new life. The earth will give birth in a passionate display to spring, to life, to color, to promise.

But for now, she continues to rest, to wait, to loiter.

a view of simpson mountain

Before me is the East Pond, a still carpet of smooth white that only my memory suggests the joyous song of the frogs.  When, pray tell, will you sing this year?  Spring will be late, but your chant will resonate when the timing is right, not by a calendar’s page but by a soft and slight sign only you will recognize.  May I be so lucky to hear you once again?  And who will hear you when I’m gone?  How odd to think no one has before, no one may again.  And how little it matters to you. 

For now I wallow in the great expanse like an infinite void allowing me to remain present, denying the impending, the inevitable. The future. What will it bring for us? The mountain holds no crystal ball but the answers are scattered deep in her woods like dried leaves of seasons past, and float easily on her running waters.

I am as ready to burst forth as the spring season, exploding with burning life. I wish to leap, trusting the net will appear. But my feet are immovable, stuck in this deep snow.  I am held motionless, in limbo, lingering in the wide white divide.

The snow, the very thing that comforts us, allows us peace and solitude, is that which threatens.  My mare must be led out in the next ten days.  I look around and wonder how.  I know not where we will be in only months time, and again I look around…

Bittersweet blessings.  That which brings me solace is at times my demise.

Just another day of life. And each experience another piece to this magnificent, intricate puzzle of which we are so fortunate to be a part.

snow and ice on a spruce between aspen

The ptarmigan (photo by Bob)

I have been watching the tracks, oddly narrow winding trails imprinted in the snow, patterns as random as a coyote’s across an open field; these now scattered about the base of the willows alongside the frozen river.

No matter how I have looked, they have remained obscure. I have continued to search but can not see white on white.  There is little life here in the winter.  We seek out what we can, some natural attraction to know we are not alone. 

They are at home here in the snow as are we. More a part of the landscape than we will ever be. We share the solitude. We become fleeting glances of passing wings, then allow the landscape to return undisturbed leaving only impermanent paths in the snow that will fade away as the next storm blows over.

Yesterday we came close to one another, I in their space or they in mine?  We allow for the passing of the other and continue on our way.  But not without their obvious unease, and my admiration of their natural beauty.

Ptarmigan in flight

Like a sudden gust of wind, they scattered before me in so many numbers as I unknowingly approached too close, a burst of white wing, feather and snow alike, a flash of snow in flight.  They settled again, then walked, scurried along the snow like a tiny boat in water, and buried themselves into the snow for an effective camouflage.  Only the black of their eyes and beak could be seen.  They belong here, a barely apparent part of the land, part of the snow, part of the air when they take flight, a scattering of white feathers in a sky which seems too blue.

Soft and white, perfect as the downy snowy hillside on which they seek temporary refuge.  They disperse but do not go far.  I wish to take chase, a bird dog’s passionate pursuit, if only to steal another glimpse, an inner desire to seek out the elusive. I allow them their retreat, turn my focus, and continue to walk the fair trail through the willows alone.

A ptarmigan deep in the snow

The Rio Grande Pyramid from Pole Mountain

In winter, our world is austere. The mountains’ silent breath barely stirs the naked branches.  The hillsides are unadorned.  The exposed flats are vast and somber.

There are some who are frightened by the silence.  The stillness overwhelms. There is unease in the endless open air. The lack of stimulation, sound, movement, life and lights is not enough.

I find comfort in the quiet calm, in the cold white clear before me. There is consolation in this soft and subdued world. I find my solace in the high country.

Allowed to be alone, allowed to be wild, I am free from social confines and judgments and the language of people I rarely understand. Words do not roll from my tongue; only spin webs within my mind. I am tangled in descriptions of the beauty before me.

Up here, I am allowed to bloom when the earth is dormant. You come, you take what you want, you leave. We are left to hear only the subtle hum of the river beneath the heavy snow, and the pulsing of our blood through our sturdy veins long after you are gone.

I lie back in the snow and know no greater comfort, burying myself for but a moment in the endless, noiseless, soothing white world around me, leaving but an imprint of a snow angel, only to be covered again after the next passing storm.

I do not want more.

Below the ranch looking up

Weeping rocks, an ice formation along a cliff hidden in a secret canyon along the frozen creek

And today, the snow falls.

Soft as a silk sheet it settles across the fields, smoothing out the stories of the past, like a fresh coat of paint on the old barn, frosting the tip of each spruce needle, collecting on every bulky knot of the aspen’s bark. Sound is reduced to a whisper.  Sharp lines and shadows are erased.  The world is muted to shades of grey.  The mountain eases our faults and settles her burden as her hills are freshened like a white washed wall.

On my mitten lights one perfect flake of snow. For a moment, as solitary as I am.

A snowflake. One in this sea of millions, each we would consider a wonder if only we took the time to see.  Now I see only this one here before me, though we are surrounded by so many more, inches of new snow piled on old, all formed by how many of these individual creations, each a tiny miracle.  This one, having landed in such a way to capture my attention, invited me to stop and stare for just a moment, to observe its translucent lines and delicate beauty present before me, crystalline white on my old black mitten.

Simple lines, so fragile and fine. Perfection in a fleeting moment.

And in a moment, it is gone.  Melted into the fabric that covers my hand, from the warm breath of my face too close in observation.  I have nothing left to see.  Only millions more, should I take the chance to look.

Though on a snowshoe yesterday, it may not look like spring...

Go ahead and laugh, but I feel it.  It is there, as soft as a whisper.  As subtle as the sound of the river running beneath the ice and snow. It is there, a promise, silent and discrete, in the velvety afternoon air, the warm winds that blow from such a distance to the west, in the heavy loads letting loose and sliding from the roofs, in the icicles dripping and developing longer every afternoon. The delicate grey branches of the aspen trees are sending out their glossy red shoots of new growth. Buds on the tips of the willows have begun to swell. The seeds are secretly planted.  The belly begins to swell. She but alludes to the raw umber beneath the endless cloak of white.  Undetected to the average observer who sees only snow and ice, the breath of the mountain is deep and husky and sings of a change towards spring.  

I am not fooled. I am certain winter is not through.  She rests. The mountain allows herself a deep breath, a heavy sign, and prepares to resume her course of seasons. A January thaw.  We have one every year.  And every year I feel the same. Triggered by some instinctual urging, I begin to look for new life, notice the slightest changes, feel the new minutes of day light, revel in each tiny transformation.  The patterns I should know by now, and still I question myself, my knowledge, my ability to predict or guess the mountain.  When I assume unpredictability, she is steady and sure.  When I think I finally know her, she changes her song quick as a whistle.

Despite my uncontrollable inner longings, I am not ready for spring.  I cling desperately to this winter as a frightened babe to her mother.  I need it to last, just a little longer.  So many projects, so many things I wish to accomplish, so many plans left incomplete. Still. Winter is my time to do, and I am not done.  I ask her to take her time, make each day last, as each one will, just another minute longer. 

Hanging like a drop of water on the tip of an icicle.  Will it freeze and become of the icicle, elongating this slender dagger?  Or fall, leaving no more than a dark stain on the wooden deck awaiting evaporation in the afternoon sun?

...yet willow buds begin to swell

Tracks and trails - here alongside, and on, the Rio Grande.

Alone, I wander up the trail, a path of sorts no more than a game route, steep and vague and secret, complete with logs to jump and branches to duck under. During the summer, I ride my horses here, in warmer days, days now so far away.  Then, as now, I know I will pass no one.  In the summer, of course, such solitude is not easy to come by.  Such solitude is cherished, soothing; it consoles the soul then as it does now.

Now my snowshoes fall lightly along the trail of tracks I have set before, following my own footsteps, silently tracing a course I know so well, an intimate path, a thread to follow securely in the disorder of the mountain. My breath is louder than the sound of the steps. I breathe with the mountain, the air, the snow.  I touch with my poles the different layers of storms, a powdery soft layer on top, then a slight change of texture and a bit of resistance and I feel the snow of the earlier storm.  The mountain reveals her past in subtle layers.

Up the aspen hillside I slowly wind, taking coverage in the silvery smooth bark and branches, grateful for the lack of leaves which allow the sunlight to filter through onto my back, now so warm as I work through the bare trees. I stop to rest.  I startle a solitary red tail hawk who spies me only a moment before I spy him.  He flies low through the trees, silent except for the brush of his wings on the aspen, an odd sound I would have missed has I not been still and listening. 

Out in the open, at last to the top of the hill, I rest again. The elk have been bedded down here, leaving in their wake large pits in the snow, sunken down to the pressed brown grasses, cradles where they have spent the morning resting after a feed, no longer seeking the shelter of the black timber to avoid the heat, avoid the humans. The hill above their beds is marked with tracks of their earlier meandering and pawing at the tall grasses beneath the snow.  It will not always be so easy.  The elk know.  Every day they are a little lower down the mountain, heading towards lower ground.

Crossing the wide open meadow is a challenge today.  Three moose used my packed trail yesterday.  Why they must follow my tracks, a mindless following perhaps as paths laid out before us can be. They with their long strides and wide foot prints punching deep into the snow with each step of their spindly legs.  I struggle to smooth out the bumpy trail they have left behind with each step of my lowly snow shoes.  It is not easy, my footing is unsteady. 

In such stillness, one notices the slightest of movements, of changes.  A coyote walks with ease in the snow on a hillside about ¼ mile away.  He sees me too.  He stops, and sits and watches me. Yes, he is sitting. I imagine he is amused to see me struggle so in the snow. I am reminded to laugh at myself. I learn it is easier for me to set a new track in the fresh snow to the side of the trail upon which the moose have travelled

I return to the trees, to another obscure trail down the mountain, making my way back to the ranch.  It is travelled by many now, more so than in summer when perhaps it is but me and my horse taking this route.  Now I see signs of the coyote, lynx, snowshoe hare, rabbit, squirrel, elk, moose, all following or crossing the same path, the same trail.  We keep our distance from one another.  There is plenty of room.  We need not crowd, need not invade the solitary nature essential for survive up here.

I consider the difference between observing nature in the wild – and observing wildlife in the backyard. Because we have infringed. Encroached. Sprawled.

Trespasser, they call me, these wild beasts in a wild land where they belong, and I am in their world.  They slip into the shadows of the trees, and wait but a moment while I pass.  The world is theirs again.

subtle and deliate beauty even mid day: snowy mountain behind a lacy willow branch

There is no moon, only the delicate light from the stars, dazzling against the infinite blackness surrounding them, quiet in their reflection upon the fresh crystalline snow.  They allow me light enough.  Eyes adjust when there is nothing brighter to blind us and wash out the quiet magic of the velvety glow. I feel my way to the sink to fill the coffee pot.  The big window before me sparkles with the deepness of the universe glittering before me, so close I can touch it, I am there, in it, among those stars dancing, one of many, howling wild and free in the black dome above us all.

The water spills over.  I return and am grounded in my warm cabin, inside looking out.

In the high of the mountains, we can see just a little more. The thin air provides less obstruction. There is no light pollution here. Only the reflection of flames from cracked door of the woodstove, flickering on the inside walls. There is something about the cold air. I know not how, or why, but I look up enough to know we see further, deeper in the intense cold of winter. 

A spark in the sea of stars I assume is from the chimney.  Then another and another.  I begin to pay attention. I look. The sky is alive.  Outside the window where a few of the horses had been lying in the snow, sleeping in the peace of the early morning and end of night, they are now standing.  I see their silhouettes large and black against the snow, facing the sky.  Are they too watching this enchantment in the sky unfold?

In the dark of the house I gently wake the boys. They both awake with a start and wonder what is wrong.  Nothing, I assure them.  Nothing I can say or see.  I tell them instead of the shooting stars.  In the dark of the cabin with the starlight the brightest radiance, Forrest comes out sleepily and sits before the big window.  The magic unfolds before him too.  For a child, no longer a child but a young man now, who has never seen fireworks on the forth of July, meteor showers and lightning storms have been what filled his eyes with amazing beauty, filled his soul with fascination and wonder.

We sit in silence and stare out into the vastness.  The sky rewards our patience.

He returns to sleep, the darkness remains, the magic in the sky continues to put on it dazzling show.  For me alone or so it seems.

Now I sit by the fire with the computer on my lap.  The darkness of the sky is lost in this artificial glow. It blinds out the subtle light of the stars. Yet, a message from across the country appears on the screen.  A friend has watched the very same show, 2,000 miles away…

Suddenly I am but one of those infinite stars again, and I take comfort in that, knowing I am surrounded by a countless number, a sea of endless stars, one of many, so many…

Ice flowing where once did water.

The land is dry. 

What once flowed freely is freezing mid stream, caught in its course, suspended in an interrupted surge, as the streams solidify, each into a leaden grey mass like congealed molten lava.

The flow of water is arrested in ice.  No more than a trickle slips beneath the thick surface and carries down the mountainside. You can hear the seep so faint as you stand by the ice flow, that which was once an open creek, hold your breath and listen. 

Little water makes it to the Big River. She is muted, subdued now, with a burdensome coat of ice weighing heavy upon her breast as she lies back and rests with long shadows of low sunlight above her and the smooth and sluggish freezing flow beneath.  Suppressed streams still faintly feed her.  Her hunger subsides.  She too closes her eyes, turns within, and sleeps.

the freezing of the Rio Grande.

tufts of grass on a cliff collecting snow

It does not happen all at once.  It is often slow, subtle, easy and soft.  Layer upon layer it builds, piling deeper and deeper, smoothing out the landscape to a gentle even white.  With time, with layers, rocks, roads, brush, even fence lines will become absorbed.  Our world will be buffered by snow.

Yesterday we watched the ermine, pure white but for his shiny black eyes and the dark tip of his tail, darting about in the yard along the coyote fence, nearly invisible in the fresh layer of camouflage white.  I remember several years ago, during the drought, observing the snowshoe hare already in their winter coats, but the ground was still open, exposed and brown.  We did not see many of their tracks in the snow that year when the white cover finally came.

Inside, unrelated to the world around us, there is a turning to white as well, as another baby dove grows his feathers, transforming from a prickly, naked pink to the soft, smooth white of his parents.  Unnatural, I believe at times, to be born at such odd times of the year, to be living out the cycle of life from the aviary we built in the corner of our kitchen. For these doves, this is all they know. They have room to fly, to breed, to raise their young.  They are wanting for nothing more. Unnatural, I still may say, as I open their cage and fill their food and water each morning.  This is my judgment, and yet who am I to judge? The same hands that helped to build the cage in the first place. The need to judge is outweighed by the need for life and beauty and song in our lives.  We all play the creator in our own lives, our own world, in one way or another.

And so as the snow falls down outside the window in heavy loads, painting the landscape an even pallid shade of white, inside we rejoice in the chirp of the young one, feeding from his father’s beak, spreading his brand new wings, and learning to fly.

A late autumn evening over the Rio Grande Reservoir

The grasses, what remain of the mountain’s summer bounty, are tired and brown.  Time and again they have been crushed by the weight of the early season snows, thick and moist, and still they stand tall, defiant, straight and proud, with the last of their exhausted energy, waving in the evening winds that meander up the hillside in the last of the warmth of the day.  The snow has melted again.  It will return before the rich earth shaded behind the tufts of grass is able to dry.

There will be another storm soon to push them back down, testing strength of wills or solid matters.  I have seen through the burden of winter snow, a field void of color and life, with rocks and brush covered clean in a smooth white wash, and peaking through I see a seed head, defying the forces that claim greater than they.

And in turn, in kind, there is balance.  In the seasons, the elements, the coming and going of time and growth and death, as the last of the geese congregate on the flats of the reservoir where the river and streams converge.  They prepare for their long journey southward, flying low in formation of sight and sound over the bluffs above the river in the early morning as I feed the horses, listening to the distant haunting call resonating to the last of their kind remaining in the high country.  Time is running out.  Again.

Looking down from a distance at the headwaters of the Rio Grande

Your river calls you, sings softly to you, lures you like the Piper

And into her arms you go and flow

Enwrapped like a sleeping babe

Your toes curl and dig in warm sands

My river is cold

Kept and far away

Though right there before me

She allows me to look but not touch

Her icy depths go unfound

She does not beckon me

But chants to me in the distant hours

In a lonely wail of wild ways

And ancient wisdom where earth and sky merge

Full of answers for which I know not even the questions

And still I ask

And still I stare

And still I remain before her

And appeal for more

Naked trees glowing before Pole Mountain on an autumn afternoon.

The world around us begins to fade and color mutes to shades of brown and grey. It is softer now, subtle, sensuous, plain and transparent.  The flash and dash of summer have passed.  This is what I was longing for.

The pencil drawing of our mountain in winter light begins to take shape.  Lines and contours and curves and distance, all blending into one under the cloak of the leafless hillside.  Long shadows even midday in the orangey light of late autumn.

The mountain has not quite settled in for the season.  It is still slightly abuzz, though one must stop to listen for it now, with the last of the hunters and a couple of tourists remaining, the summer homes abandoned again. 

A solitary robin we saw yesterday while out riding, under a spruce tree in a tucked away south facing drainage. I had not seen one in weeks.  They too, in their numbers, have left.  We wondered if this one was perhaps injured, but we left him, turned our horses down the trail and rode on.  I thought of him after we were long gone.  Was there anything I could have done, or are we right to leave the wild in the wilderness, and let their fate be decided by the mountain?

Looking at Lost Trail Ranch under Pole Mountain and a clear blue autumn sky.

Ice has started to form.  First as a film, a thin crust on a bucket of water under the drip line on the north side of our cabin, catching the melting frost each morning as smoke from our wood stove warms the roofline. Last week I could tap the bucket and the surface would crack.  Now it is thicker, more durable.  The bucket becomes a solid, heavy mass of black ice.  

Ice will remain and grow and thicken for many months to come.  It becomes a part of our lives, a semi-permanence in our world for half our days, like snow covering the peak of Indian Ridge outside my kitchen window.  There as I gaze from the warmth of our cabin.  There for more of the year than it is gone, lost in the lazy warm wash of summer, the short season of open roads, seasonal life abuzz on the mountain like ants on a picnic.

The sun still has warmth. We feel it, savor it with long lunches and coffee on the deck in shirt sleeves.  Enjoy it while we can so openly, as it fades to fleeting moments, delicious in its precious glimpses.  Yet no matter how temperate the front of our cabin will get in the protected balmy radiance of the log wall mid day, tucked in the back as a secret from the sun, the ice will remain, solidify and swell.  It will not thaw out completely until at best April when we watch the pasture fade from white to patches of brown, and we can drive the road once again.

Yesterday morning the thermometer read thirteen degrees. Will we no longer see a morning reading above freezing until next spring?  We begin to look around the ranch, our home, our lives, decide what we need, what needs to be done, quickly now, under pressure for time we put on ourselves, the season puts upon us, in the short days remaining before the snow covers us and the mountain.  Stocking up for winter concerns us no different than the Stellar and Gray Jays and tree squirrels, all anxiously stashing their cache for the approaching season.

The ice multiplies, intensifies and spreads in the undisclosed pockets and private parts of the mountain, on the north slopes, tucked in behind the trees, there behind the cabin where the frost line begins to dig deep.  Silence starts to grow. Our blood thickens and slows as we watch the mountain clear and settle, recover from the season, and prepares for the long reprise of winter.