Cabin Journal

A Good Rain

At the cabin last week, I was greeted by somber skies and cooler temperatures, a welcome relief from the hot and dry days since early July. Soon I heard the soft hissing of a drizzle. All day long the skies alternated between heavy downpours, light showers and brief bits of clearing. When the rain stopped, my neighbors and I would run out to take our walks, only to be chased back to our cabins by the next storm. For the first time in two months, my rain barrel filled to the top.

The next morning, I awoke to full-on sunlight, with no clouds to obscure or dull the blue skies. When I stepped outside, I was greeted by the most wonderful of smells: the after-the-rain, everything fresh, the world suddenly full of possibilities. Each blade of grass, pine needle and aspen leaf was gleaming, lit up in the sun. It felt like the world had been reborn. Plants that had been half dead, limp stalks curled over on themselves, had straightened—plumped up by a healthy life-giving infusion of water.  When I went for a walk down the road, in the early morning stillness, chipmunks, ground squirrels and rabbits were everywhere, reveling, it seemed, in this renewed world.

Still, signs of autumn are starting to appear. The nights are getting colder, dropping down to the high 30s. During one longer interlude between storms, when the clouds cleared I could see the first new snow on Mount Meeker, just a dusting on top, which would melt the next day. Some of the aspen trees show a branch or two with yellowing leaves. Most of the hummingbirds have left already, and the ground squirrels will soon burrow underneath the ground for winter. It’s time to appreciate every day here now.

Trees Still Standing

I just came back from a trip to the Midwest where I visited my 94-year-old father who is slowing down and withdrawing from this world. He’s in a wheelchair after a stroke left him unable to walk and talk, and his life has become restricted to the apartment he shares with my mom and a caregiver. But out of the corner of one window he has a view of tree branches. One is a deciduous, probably a maple, and the other is a blue spruce. Every day he pointed it out to me, as if it were a thing of rare beauty.

Across the creek from my cabin is grove of spruce trees that I like to join—to stand among these tall giants that grow straight up along a rocky cliff (similar to this grove of ponderosas, right, across from the cabin). They form an almost perfect circle, one that invites me to stand tall among them. I get strength and peace just from being among these trees, a few of which are undoubtedly more than 100 years old. Our conversations are silent, but sometimes when I’m full of fears and doubts, I hold my hands against their bark, trying to absorb their strength and solidity—their stoicism in the face of dry, hot summers and long, cold winters.

Several weeks ago, I saw that two of the trees had ribbons around them, and when I looked up at their crowns, I could see that they were dying. But when I came back to the cabin after visiting my parents, I wasn’t prepared for the sight of stacks of lumber: two massive tree trunks cut into small pieces and a pile of smaller branches. And two holes, two empty spaces in the grove where these trees had stood.

I know that gradually, over time, young trees will start filling in the spaces left behind by the missing spruces. In the Midwest, my father will watch as the leaves start to turn on the maple tree and then fall, watch as snow covers the spruce branches. At the same time I’ll look forward to new trees starting to grow in my spruce grove and continue to seek the advice of the ones still standing. More than a thousand miles apart, my father and I will both find comfort in our trees.

But when my father is gone, I can’t imagine how the hole will ever be filled.

Facing Climate Change

It’s now been about six weeks since any measurable precipitation fell at the cabin. I don’t remember such a dry summer. Every day the clouds gather and manage to squeeze out a few drops that fall but don’t even wet the ground. One day it thundered all afternoon but still nothing came of all that drama.

The landscape is quickly turning brown, and not just brown but sparse, as if it’s pulling itself back. The wild rose bushes that looked so profuse and lush in June now are scraggly and thin. The verdant landscape of June is long gone, even though a few flowers are still growing and the aspen leaves still flutter in the wind, although some are turning brown (above). Only the grasses in the very bottoms of the valley are still green (below). The creeks are running thin and weak, barely existing on the snows from our wet, snowy May.  

It’s not just dry but hot. One bad weather pattern would be hard enough but the combination   doubly stresses the plants. It’s painful to be at the cabin now, to see life being beaten down under the assault of these two forces. I sometimes feel like I want to be back at my Boulder home, where I keep everything green with constant infusions of water that’s piped down from the mountains.

When I go for a hike I notice I’m distracting myself with thoughts so I don’t see nature suffering. But when I open my heart to this place that I love more than any other, it’s like connecting to myself, even if the feelings are sadness and loss.

I know what’s happening here is just a small part of what’s happening all over the world, as climate change makes it hotter and drier in some places, like here in Colorado, and creates flooding in other places. I promised myself I won’t turn away from it but align myself with nature and whatever it’s experiencing.