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Category Archives: spring
This Fall Interval
In this interval, we hauled the hay, stacked the wood, stowed the cushions from the outdoor furniture. We transported the flowerpots that spent the summer adorning the decks around the house down the hill to the greenhouse. If the plants … Continue reading
Posted in change of seasons, color, fall, gardening, spring, summer, winter
9 Comments
One Last Fire
Spring, as I’ve said before, is a slow unfolding up here in the mountains of central Colorado: the season isn’t to be rushed. But eventually the days lengthen and long-dormant plants emerge. Among the first of these are rough cinquefoil, … Continue reading
Posted in change of seasons, snow, spring, weather, winter
Tagged firewood, snow, spring in Colorado, woodburning fireplace
4 Comments
Mud
Griping about it seems peevish if not gallingly insensitive while a good portion of the nation’s midsection is suffering from the effects of widespread flooding, but I feel compelled to offer a few words on the topic of mud. The … Continue reading
Pesky Wildlife
“…Rural development encroaches on the traditional habitat of coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, bears, mosquitoes and other animals that can be dangerous and you need to know how to deal with them.” from “Code of the West,” created … Continue reading
Posted in birds, spring, wildlife encounters
Tagged Colorado wildlife, country living, mountain bluebirds, Sialia currucoides
10 Comments
Hope Springs: An Epilogue
I had been pinning my vague sense of unease and discouragement these past weeks on the weather: on the dry and the wind and the swinging of temperatures from too warm to too cold. But when I saw clusters of … Continue reading
Posted in change of seasons, spring, wildflowers
Tagged pasqueflower, pulsatilla patens, Rocky Mountain wildflowers, spring
2 Comments
Hope Springs
Every year it’s the same: as temperatures start creeping up, offering reassurance that winter is winding down, I start obsessing over color. This is a spring thing for many of us living in the world’s temperate zones, I suppose, but … Continue reading
Posted in change of seasons, color, gardening, spring
Tagged Colorado weather, drought, high fire danger, spring snow
6 Comments
The Rocky Mountain
In the usual pattern of spring weather, the promontory on our northeastern horizon gleams white like an alpine stereotype. The broad hulk of Pikes Peak is fronted by layered foothills and crags, which cascade down toward a grassy pool called … Continue reading
Posted in change of seasons, precipitation, snow, spring, weather
Tagged April snow, Colorado Fourteeners, Pikes Peak, snowpack
4 Comments
The Shape of the Wind
I am not, as I have mentioned in this space before, fond of the wind. In its rush to be elsewhere, air on the move unsettles my universes: the interior one as well as the world outside. The agitated limbs … Continue reading
A Monotony of Mild
The winter started out cold—fiercely so, in fact. Icy air preserved the scanty accumulation from small snowstorms for weeks, solidifying it to slick veneers anywhere it was packed down—on roads, on the pathway I follow to and from the barn. … Continue reading
Posted in change of seasons, color, snow, spring
Tagged Colorado Rockies, El Niño, mountain bluebirds, spring snow
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Just One Storm
I’ve lived in a semi-arid environment all my life (except two years during college when I lived in England: a wonder of green, and skin that did not demand a daily slathering of lotion). Living where the air is perched … Continue reading
Posted in gardening, observation, spring, weather
Tagged April weather, high altitude gardening, spring snow, thunderstorms, tulips
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