Cabin Journal

No Trespassing

 

Shortly after I moved to the cabin, a former owner told me about a trail that followed the creek and led to a waterfall and then continued down the valley. Because the trail passed through private property, I avoided it in the summer, not wanting to disturb anyone’s privacy, even though no cabins were visible from the trail. It’s not really a trail but a faint outline in the grasses, a narrow passage through rocks and trees.  

But once fall came and most of the summer residents left, I discovered a wonderful hike, different than the surrounding landscape of dry hills covered with pines. Down along the creek, it’s more lush, with stands of aspens and more grasses. With everything squeezed into the bottom of the valley, I felt closer to nature, brushing the trunk of the aspens, climbing over the rocks, and skirting the edge of the stream. It felt like a hidden place, not visible to the rest of the world from above.

I felt a bit uneasy about hiking through someone else’s property, but other people had mentioned this place, so I got the sense that others walked back here, that perhaps it was something commonly accepted. The cabins around here are surrounded by Forest Service property, so who’s to say where government property ends and private property begins?

Yet, when I attempted to do the hike a few weeks ago, I was met by several no-trespassing signs and branches laid across the beginning of the trail. There was no uncertainty that the owner did not want anyone on his property and that I was definitely unwelcome.

Reluctantly, I turned around, not willing to challenge someone’s strong territorial claims. Yet I wonder where the lines are drawn here. Many of the roads I walk on in Meeker Park are private roads that lead to cabins, with “no trespassing” signs guarding the entrance from the main road.  I understand that local residents don’t want people who don’t live there driving around, kicking up dust, and making noise. But as a walker, I’m not bothering anyone.  Compared to the jeeps and ATVs, what harm am I doing?

I can understand the impulse behind “I found my piece of paradise, now leave me alone.” After all, one of the reasons I bought my cabin was to escape from the “civilized” world with too many people and too much noise. But is there room for those of us who love and respect this valley to share the space?

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

 

This week at the cabin I celebrated two rites of spring and one last ritual of winter.

Sitting at the table, working, I tried to decipher a sound I hadn’t heard since last spring. Amazingly, the frogs have come out of their winter stupor and were humming away down in the meadow where the creek runs. Their arrival is at least two weeks earlier than last year. Meanwhile, new grass is coming up through the old, and the bluebirds (below) are everywhere.

Mid-afternoon, I thought I heard what sounded like distant thunder, but told myself it was just a plane passing over. April seems too early for thunderstorms. But the rumbling continued, and soon there was rain, not a lot, but a good sign. That evening, when I was in Estes Park for dinner, there was more thunder and then a real rain, coming down hard for at least an hour. After a month of little precipitation, the rain felt like a huge relief, as well as a gift for the   earth.

When I came back to the cabin, the air outside was still moist from the rain and cool, so it seemed a good night to use the woodstove. For the past month, it had been almost too warm, with daytime temperatures in the 60s.

I got the fire going and prepared to settle down to a pleasant night of reading by the fireside. But then I heard a noise on the roof, puzzled for a moment, and then realized it was rain and started seeing flashes of light. Amazingly, another thunderstorm was moving through the valley. I realized I could either bury myself in a book or just open myself to this astonishing night. So I raised the blinds, turned off the lights, so only the fire glowed, and the only thing I was aware of was the crackling from the fire, the thunder from outside, and the sound of the rain. Who needs a TV or CD player or even books when the world is so alive?

 

Eyes on the Ground

Most of the time on my walks around Meeker Park, I keep my head level, or I’m distracted by the clouds that bloom over the mountains and sail east.  But this time of the year, I’m more likely to keep my head down, looking for the first pasqueflowers, those springtime beauties that are more dazzling than anything I’ll see later in summer—carpets of purple lupine or bunches of purple and white columbine—because these first flowers of spring emerge so unexpectedly from the brown detritus of last year’s plants. Right now, they’re the only thing of color—aside from the yellow Oregon holly—in the still drab landscape and more so because their petal-like sepals are almost transparent, so a tiny purple light seems to glow from the brown forest floor.

When I arrived at the cabin on Wednesday, I checked the place in my yard where I usually see the flowers but there was nothing. Yet Thursday morning, when I went to my car, I nearly stepped on one, and when I came out a few hours later, there was another. And a few hours later, a whole phalanx had emerged, some of them still curled up. Around the unfurled ones, I could see the silky hairs that protect the plant from the still cold nights and always possible snow. From the seasonal records I keep, these pasqueflowers are flowering two weeks earlier than last year.

They seemed to pop from the ground, as if the warm sun had finally penetrated the soil and propelled their release from the earth. I thought if I sat there long enough and watched, I could see one actually slither up through the soil. But other things distracted me, so they surfaced when I wasn’t looking, their secret entry into the daylight safe from my prying eyes.