Cabin Journal

Hummingbird Heaven

Outside my cabin window is a never-ending drama of aggression and cooperation, virtuoso aerobatics and petty bickering. But I asked for it. I put the hummingbird feeder up at the cabin last week, and within minutes seven or eight of them started fighting for a perch.

 

It’s amazing that I get any work done. These broad-tailed hummingbirds almost never stop moving. Even when they are perched on the feeder, they are agitated, waiting for another bird to attack and push them out of the feeder.  Sometimes, two males will perch across from each other, but even as they are drinking from the sugar water, they are constantly checking each other, fluttering their wings and rearing back, as if they might need to leave suddenly or attack the other one. So much nervous energy; I feel it myself, want to do something, get moving.

 

The snow has melted, and all of a sudden there is life everywhere. Sitting at my computer, I noticed two black-collared mourning doves in the ponderosa across the yard. And while I was looking at them, three vultures flew over, while out of the corner of my eye I spotted something large on the ground. It was a coyote, calmly walking through the side yard.And the frogs are singing again, the ones I worried about when it snowed last week. But they must have buried themselves in the mud, just waiting for the warm sun to appear.

 

On my walks, I see Audubon warblers in the field that has become a marsh, almost flooded with all the rivulets flowing down from every hillside. The house wrens have reappeared, although they lost their bird house, a victim of winter’s heavy snows and winds. I see nuthatches climbing up and down the ponderosas and rabbits everywhere, eating the newly appeared grass. And the pasqueflowers are making a second appearance after the snow melted. 

 

But it’s the hummingbirds that entertain me all day—a constant whirring of wings and splashes of iridescent color: green and pink shading into orange. While the males, the gaudy ones, chase each other, butting the other birds out of the way of the feeder, the females sit calmly, removed from all the fuss. In an attempt to impress the females (and perhaps other males), the male hummingbirds soar 40 feet  into the sky and then come straight down in what looks like a kamikaze mission.

 

I never get tired of watching them. In fact, the more I watch them, the more I can’t turn away. After a while, I can see different personalities, like the few who perch on the clothesline and seem curious about what’s on the other side of that window (me watching them), tilting their tiny heads to get a better look. One hummingbird, perhaps younger, fan its tail out, as if still testing its body, and it reminds me of the opening of a delicate but richly colored Japanese fan.  

 

The hummers are like little jewels on the wing, bits of color and sound flying through the air. In my bird guide, I read that hummers make their nests using plants, lichen, and leaves bound with spider’s silk. I like to imagine their tiny nests of lichen and silk holding their bejeweled bodies.

 

A Small Gesture

When I got to the cabin last week, there was about a foot of snow on the ground, and it snowed all day and over night, adding another few inches. My neighbor said he’s never seen this much snow this late in the year—mid May—and the old-timers bear him out. I feel as if I’m getting a glimpse of the future world of climate change, where we can’t rely on the seasons being normal.

 

When I went for my walk in the afternoon, all the trees were laden with the heavy, wet snow,  and the clouds were low, so the light was muted. There was no wind, and everything seemed unnaturally still, as if I were walking through a painting. It was a beautiful painting, a winter landscape with mountain cabins framed by snow-covered forests, but it seemed unreal.

 

When I emptied water from my rain barrel around the ponderosa pines, it melted the snow and uncovered small green plants. So there’s life underneath the snow, just waiting to bounce back. But in the meantime, I worry about the animals. The bears have just emerged from hibernation, but what can they eat? The snowy, cold weather is an inconvenience for me, because I have to shovel snow off the decks and my shoes get wet in the slushy snow, but for the animals, it makes it more difficult to find food and their lives more precarious.  

 

I  kept hearing the whirring of hummingbird wings,  but there are no flowers, so what are they eating? I decided I needed to put the feeder out, even though I was leaving later that afternoon and the feeders could attract bears. But I hoped the sugar water might tide the hummingbirds over until the snow melted. Within a half hour or so, two males had discovered it and started chasing each other away.

 

From inside, at my computer, I watched one drink hungrily from the sugar water. It made me feel good, as if I were extending a lifeline to this small, fragile-looking bird. Or was I interfering with nature? But with climate change, we’ve interfered in a major way. This seems a small compensation.

Settling Down

When I go to my cabin for my weekly two-day sojourn, it always takes me a while to settle down, my mind still spinning with thoughts from home and work.  To acclimate myself, I do some small chores around the cabin: in winter, shovel the front and back deck; in summer, sweep the pine needles from the decks, empty the rain barrel, maybe just walk around the cabin to make sure everything is in order, see if the woodpeckers have dug any more holes in the wooden shingles.

 

But often, when I sit down with my laptop to do some work, my mind is still not settled. I’m always pushing myself, thinking what’s the next thing after that? And after that? I give myself two hours to edit, then have lunch, then another hour to work, then a walk, then more work, thinking of the next milestone: making dinner, or, in winter, getting the fire going as it gets darker and colder. It feels like I’m crossing a raging river, and I need to know where the next rock is to stand on, so I don’t fall in and get swept away.   

 

At night, sitting by the fire reading, and my mind is still hopping around: should I be reading something else among these piles of books on the end table? Maybe I should make a pot of tea. Finally, I sit down in front of the wood stove to poke at the logs, get the fire going again, and I’m mesmerized, as always, by the flames, the way they seem to roar up from nothing, then  settle down, the way the embers glow blue and orange and red. For a brief moment, I don’t think of anything, let my thoughts go, and just let things be. There’s a sense of relief, of some barriers coming down. I’m finally aware of where I am and have stopped thinking about the next thing.

 

The next morning, walking into the kitchen, I’m struck by the morning light coming through the window and hitting the pine walls. I’m enjoying just being here, feeling the cabin wrapped around me, the utter quiet. I don’t need anything else. I’ve settled in.

 

 

Anticipation

For the past month or so, as the weather has warmed, I’ve been anticipating sitting out on the front deck of my cabin. It’s one of my favorite activities here: just sitting, listening to the bird calls, the wind through the ponderosas, noting everything in my immediate landscape—and  maybe with a good book in my lap and a glass of ice tea or wine.

 

The last time I was here, when I found all the snow had melted, I retrieved one of the green metal chairs from the garage and set it out on the front porch (below), hopeful that I would be able to use it. But it was windy and cool that day and the wind chased me back inside after about 10 minutes.

 

So last week, with temperatures forecast to be in the 80s in Boulder, I hurried to the cabin on Wednesday, sure I could sit outside, even thought the temperatures are 10 to 20 degrees cooler in Meeker Park than in Boulder. But I couldn’t beat the approaching bad weather, and by the time I got up there, it was already cloudy and windy.

 

And then I woke Thursday morning to 8 inches of new snow. This wasn’t what I wanted or even expected. And I thought about how much of the time when something  isn’t the way I wanted or expected, I feel disappointed, annoyed, and close myself to what’s there. It’s like returning to someplace you have fond memories of—maybe a lake where the water had been an intense blue and the breezes were light, just enough to ruffle your hair. You carry a memory, ache to go back, but when you return, the skies are sullen, the water is flat and gray. You feel cheated.

 

When I woke Thursday morning and found the snow, that’s how I felt. It was almost May, time to break out the shorts and T-shirts, and instead I was digging for the snow brush in my car. But when I sat down to meditate, and my mind reached some place of acceptance, I suddenly saw the beauty outside my window. The pine trees were almost buried in huge clumps of snow, gleaming in the sunlight. Every so often the combination of sun and slight wind would disturb one of the clumps, and they would come drifting down, scattering small flakes sideways, like veils of snow spun through the trees.

 

When I went out to take photos, I saw that the whole landscape had been transformed, yesterday’s brown valley now a basin of white, the peaks covered in snow (although Mount Meeker remained hidden in clouds), snow outlining the aspen branches and smothering the cabins in a white blanket, everything sharp and clear.

 

Life wasn’t disappointing me. It was thrilling me, showing me new landscapes—as long as I kept my heart open.