Cabin Journal

Amid the Wildlife

At the cabin and the surrounding mountains, I’m surrounded by wildlife. I feel like I’m part of the same breathing universe as they inhabit, even if we perceive it differently, have different wants and needs. Under the same pine trees and big sky, we respectfully do our business side by side. I’m sitting at my computer writing, while the hummingbirds are having their daily skirmishes with each other, and the house wren is feeding its chicks and the ground squirrel is nosing around the wood pile for something to eat. We inhabit different worlds—they know nothing about computers, and I can’t climb trees, catch bugs in mid-air or eat pine cones—but we’re all connected by this place.

There’s an element of danger to some wildlife encounters. Last week walking around Meeker Park, I saw a very large animal in the willows across the meadow. At first I thought it was a bear, but when it lifted its head I could see the antlers. It was a moose, staring at me with what I perceived as a hostile look (below) . Moose have a reputation for being cranky, with poor eyesight, so I considered that it might just decide to charge for no good reason. With a top weight for a male of 1,500 pounds, standing between five and seven feet, and a charging speed of 35 mph, I started looking around for trees or rocks for protection. Luckily, it was more interested in the willow bushes than me.

The next day I was being extra cautious on the Hallowell Park trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, because I’d seen moose there before among the willows. But once I started hiking up the narrow trail along the creek and among the aspens and pines, I dropped my awareness. So I was startled when I paused on the trail to catch my breath and realized a very large animal was to my left, about three feet away. It took me a few minutes to ascertain that it was a bull elk, with a huge span of antlers. 

But it wasn’t rutting season, when male elks attack each other and sometimes anything that’s moving, so we exchanged a few pleasantries, and I continued up the trail. Shortly after, I had the sense that I was being followed, and when I turned around it was the elk followed by a younger male elk (top). It was a narrow trail, with the creek on one side and a steep hill on the other. What was the proper etiquette here: who had the right of way?

Since it weighed some 500 pounds more than me, I decided to defer and stepped a few feet off the trail. It came up slowly, eyeing me warily, and as soon as it got even with me, it took off, while the younger male decided to err on the side of caution and climbed up the hill.

When I drove back down to Estes Park later, cars were parked along the road as people stopped to photograph herds of elk across the valley. Get on the trails, I wanted to yell to them, knowing that most park visitors wander only a few feet from their car. But I know these tourists are drawn to the same thing I am: something wild, outside of our civilized lives. One of the pleasures of living near a national park, where neither hunting nor dogs are allowed, is that animals have grown comfortable with humans and let us get close.

Kayaking at Lily Lake this week, I was in the water with the ducks (left), beavers, muskrats, fish and dragonflies, so close to the muskrat sitting on a tangled web of water weeds that I could see it teeth grappling with the tough weed.

One night at the cabin, I stepped out on the front porch to more clearly see two deer on the other side of our dirt road, munching on bushes. As I stood there, a hummingbird buzzed me, just a few inches from my face, checking me out. Later, sitting at my computer, I looked up to see the two deer step softly and shyly into the yard. It was early evening, the landscape bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, and they were sporting brand new velvety coats and antlers.

I breathed in the light, the rosy clouds to the east and their absolute gentleness.

Ireland Old and New

Travel, almost more than anything else, forces me to confront my illusions.

When I went to Ireland I wanted to see an ancient way of life, something authentic: monasteries where monks chanted hundreds of years ago, romantic castles and stone walls that still enclose green fields full of baa-ing sheep—sheep that historically have produced Ireland’s famous woolen sweaters. I wanted to sit in an Irish pub, drink a glass of Guinness and listen to a fiddler while the locals danced and convinced me to join them.

Everything that wasn’t part of my vision I tried to edit out—at least from my photos: the surfer in lovely St. Finan’s Bay, the cars that jammed the picturesque village of Kinsale (right), or the modern lime green tractor and bales of hay wrapped in black plastic in front of an old gray stubbled stone barn, The photo above is for me the quintessential Ireland: the omnipresent sheep, a farmer’s cottage and the green pastures rolling down to the steely blue sea. But what you don’t see is the huge tour buses roaming the countryside, all the modern homes or the tropical palm trees and agave plants that shouldn’t be growing in such a northerly climate.

For the first few days, I tried to ignore all the modern stuff that didn’t belong in my vision of Ireland and sought out the  ancient places like the Gallarus Oratory, an 8th century place of worship so perfectly constructed of stones that, more than 10 centuries later, not a drop of rain penetrates; the remains of a 6th century monastery; castles dating back to the 12th century; and stone forts (left) used for protection and shelter dating from the 9th or 10th century. But 80 percent of the buildings on Dingle Peninsula are vacation homes, the Irish version of a U.S. ranch house—squat, plain houses, many of which are rented out to tourists.

At some point, I was forced to see the reality underneath the beautiful Irish landscape. The hillsides are covered in yellow gorse, and in my imagination these were similar to the heather in the moors of Scotland and England, long celebrated in song and verse by poets. However, the gorse—just like the scarlet fuschia that borders the lanes, and the palm trees (right) and agave plants—is a non-native species, introduced relatively recently.

I loved the small towns with their brightly colored buildings, but when I asked our tour guide if this was an ancient Irish tradition, I was disappointed to hear that towns painted their buildings in a competition for “Tidy Town”— some ploy apparently by the country’s tourism board to dress up the otherwise drab buildings for tourists.

We stopped at a churchyard on Ventry Harbor where gravestones were marked with the old Celtic crosses. My first thought was that this would be a perfect photo op, until I saw the men wearing fluorescent orange vests and heard the weed whackers. I was able to edit out the invasive signs of modernity but when I look at the picture, it doesn’t mean anything. It isn’t totally true.

In every town, the pubs advertise “Irish music,” and some version of traditional Irish music is played for tourists who want the Irish experience, but most of the time you’re aware that you’re being dished up something that’s not totally authentic. I never found a pub where I inadvertently stumbled in on the locals dancing and fiddling, never got the chance to kick up my heels.

As for the sheep, they’re not much used for woolens anymore; it doesn’t pay, so instead they become someone’s meal.

So Ireland is not the authentic place I wanted. Instead it’s a mixture of new and old,  abiding side by side. It’s messy, just like life. But it's all beautiful.

 

 

 

50 Shades of Green

I’ve come back to the cabin after being gone for three weeks to find summer just starting. The landscape is a tentative, delicate green. On the aspen trees, the leaves are still miniature, some just unfurling, and the grasses are not yet fully grown. There are few flowers, and most are the kind that hug the ground, modest and almost unseen (below). The purple flag that I look for in the deeper meadows are still closed, while the pasqueflowers, which I start seeing in April, are still hanging around, although a bit worse for wear and slightly bedraggled.

The mountains are still blanketed in snow. The most colorful part of the landscape are the blooming yellow willows that fill the valleys (below).

Maybe it’s the comparison to Ireland that makes me look at my familiar mountain landscape differently. In Ireland, the landscape is almost gaudy, such an intense green you want to avert your eyes; 37 shades of green, our tour guide told us. Dazzling yellow gorse bushes cover the hillside, while scarlet fuchsia line the roads.

 

In Ireland the light is diffuse, filtered through the constant clouds and moisture, so it’s pastel colored, almost dreamy. I felt like I could put my head on one of the shaggy white sheep that fill the hillsides and contentedly sleep. Yet here the light is too bright, almost startling. On the Wild Basin Trail last week, there wasn’t a cloud in the depthless blue sky, and the light seemed almost surreal, as if reality were heightened to an extreme degree. I craved the darkness of the tall pines.

At the cabin this week, the yard was full of chipmunks, ground squirrels, chickarees, and rabbits—a veritable zoo. Ireland apparently has no small rodents, although it does have birds whose music fills the air from morning until night.

 Oh yeah, and Ireland has an ocean. No comparison there.