It’s still April, but barely. In the dark of the earliest hours of the 30th, I wake to pitch dark and silence. Unusually dark and silent. Electricity’s out. I try to go back to sleep—the conditions are ideal, after all—but disturbing thoughts about the possible cause of a power outage insert themselves. What steals into…
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, dark clustered leaves scattered like green pawprints through the dead grass, the silver-brown thatch of…
As chores go, I quite like chopping kindling. So many household tasks are unpleasant to do, even if they’re wonderful to have done. The actual chopping of kindling verges on the pleasurable, though…provided I’m not fulfilling the duty on a just-in-time schedule. On chilly afternoons when I open the wood drawer to discover that I’m…