The cottontail rabbit I mentioned a month ago is still around. When I didn’t see it for a few days and the entrance to the burrow near the front walk stayed covered with snow, I assumed it had met with the usual fate of bunnies around here, becoming dinner for a coyote or an owl.…
Moondo, my little bay horse, is the most opinionated equine I’ve ever met. This isn’t to say that he’s mean or obstinate or flighty, just that he has strong ideas about how his universe should operate. Ego and a dainty appetite are behind a few of his more maddening behaviors, but his principal preoccupation is…
I’ve been looking forward to January since November. Back then, I’d realized that the writing project I was working on had gone wildly off course. Although I knew it had made a wrong turn, I didn’t have the time or energy to chase after it. January, I figured: I’ll get back to it then. It…
Weather here defies pattern-seeking. High elevation and dynamic terrain make fickleness, with a propensity for the extreme, the norm. Sure, there are thunderstorms in summer, but their duration, ferocity, and direction of approach keep me guessing. The same can be said of wind, except it will kick up whenever the heck it wants to. Snow…
A couple of weeks back, after about a half-inch of snow had fallen overnight, Doug came back inside from feeding the horses their morning hay with a report: “Ummm, I’m pretty sure there are cat tracks on the driveway,” he said, “And it looks like it lay down, too.” I booted up and went outside…
The season is over. The potatoes are dug, as are the carrots and the dinky onions. The kale, while green right up until an arctic front settled over us and drove temperatures below zero, is done for the season. The leaves of the cherry tree abruptly turned and dropped last week, after having lingered for…
I don’t get out much. This is intentional and by nature. I enjoy the vast good fortune of a life that revolves around a home place in a beautiful natural setting. I work from home, and my husband and I continually strive to arrange our leisure time to include activities that do do not require…
A fringe of scarlet on the leaves of a Rocky Mountain maple. The fade to gold in the cottonwoods. A landscape gone tawny under sun-cured grasses. Short glossy hairs dropping off the horses, replaced by fuzz. Frost-blackened leaves curling on the beans, the squash, and the tomato plants. All of which raises the question: Where…
My tastes don’t generally run toward clear favorites or coveting the “best” of this or that. I favor variety and contrast and have a tendency to be suspicious of my strongest biases, regarding them with clinical curiosity and trying to figure out where they’ve come from and whether they’re worth hanging on to. Evidently, though,…
For the most part, the wildlife around our place regards me with either fear or wariness. Birds flutter, squirrels scurry, deer bound. The latter, admittedly, only retreat to their calculated safe distance before turning to assess my intentions, but all of them move away when they detect my presence. Except the ravens. They don’t fly…