Miracle hardly does justice to the difference between yesterday and today.
Thirty degrees warmer, blue skies with puffy clouds, and the snow’s all gone, except on the mountains, which are covered now… That means plenty of water in the streams, tons of wildflowers in the mountains, and probably the best summer since we’ve been here. All those trails up the wooded canyons will be damp and pungent through the season, overrun with ferns and mints. It’s been a while since I hiked through the high country, waist-deep in flowers (no lie), but I think it’s going to roll around again. Oh my God.
There’s so much snow on the higher mountains, it hurts to look at them in the bright sunlight. And what we have now is a combination that’s always stirred my soul: green grass and flowing water below, white peaks in the middle, blue sky above. Standing warm and comfy in the sun, even though the air is chilly, looking out at fields of snow 3,000 feet above me, with daffodils blooming at my feet, ravens and magpies squawking and floating across the landscape in a weird inversion of the tropics, at this moment I don’t want to be anywhere else. Which is fortunate, because here I be.
I’m starting a “Llano Quemado Spring” series at FotoFeed this week that will give you an idea of what it’s like. Quite dramatic, as it may be where you are. Equally dramatic is how different I feel today, and if that’s not a miracle, I never met one. It freaking snowed all day yesterday and the ground got soaked, so after all my whining and bitching, after all the navel-gazing and self-administered torture, after all the nostalgia for the life-charged flowering springs I left behind back East, what does the Big Joker do but SUDDENLY GIVE ME SPRING… A real spring, I mean. It’s wet outside, the ground is alive, the air has just enough humidity to raise the excitement.
I don’t even want to look for another house. Screw it. I’m just going to sit here and do what I like.
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Appropos of next-to-nothing, here’s another observation about the “terrible desert” in which we live. It has cattails, and it has the semi-aquatic animal called muskrat, which likes to eat cattails. I saw one swimming in the “Little Rio Grande” (Rio Grande del Rancho) yesterday.
Both pretty odd for a desert.
J
I have seen those little guys too. One local called them “water dogs”. It took me a while, then it hit me – water dogs – kinda like prarie dogs – their aquatic cousins.
“Water dogs”! Neat… I’ve seen them here before, too. Very adaptable. Where I used to live in Maryland, the locals called them “mushrats,” no “k,” and you could even find them skinned and dressed for sale as food in a couple of VERY rural grocery stores.
I shall pass on that aspect of the critters, however.
The Deacon in Pogo was also a “Mushrat.” IMHO, the best ‘toon ever.
What do Marylanders do for Aggies? You know, everybody has their Aggies or Okies. How many Aggies does it take to eat an Armadillo? Maybe the same number of (fill in the blank) that it takes to eat a mushrat.
J