Cabin Journal

The Tyranny of Lawns

On my walks around Meeker Park this summer, I found a lot of people cutting the grasses around their cabins. These nice, tidy lawns baffle me. Why would you want to have a cabin in the mountains if you have to re-create your life in the suburbs?

I already have that suburban yard in Boulder—a perfect rectangle of green manicured grass with the right mix of bushes and flowers, all anchored by a few well-placed trees, pruned to the perfect shape. It fits in well with the rest of the neighborhood.

But I much prefer the randomness of nature here at the cabin: trees growing wherever they want, some with lopsided branches; flowers finding the best place to grow, without regard for the best spacing or color combinations; and grasses wantonly growing, sometimes waist high. Somehow it all works perfectly.

From my desk by the window, all summer and into the fall I could look down into the tall grasses and observe the comings and goings of small animals. Chipmunks, ground squirrels and rabbits dig their holes, munch on grasses and use the cover to hide from predators: hawks, coyotes, weasels, bobcats. If you mow down the grasses, you’re exposing them and also losing your own connection to these animals, because they’ll go somewhere else where they are more hidden.

For the past two summers, I’ve battled with nature to regrow this area where the septic system was put in. The first year, I wandered around Meeker Park in the fall, looking for seeds that grew in dry places, then patiently waited for the first snow and went out and scattered the seeds on the dirt. Just a month or so later I looked out to see the juncos happily eating the feast I had put out.

Last year, I thought I got smarter. I decided to focus on just one area, close to the house, and cover the seeds with rich topsoil that I brought up in huge heavy bags. So what happened this spring? Grasses grew everywhere except where I had tried to plant them—a big bare yellow spot among the green grasses.

Last summer when I was in Wisconsin, I noticed that every house and farm had the neatest and tidiest lawns I’ve ever seen, as if it were a state-wide requirement or shared obsession. Wisconsin long ago learned how to control  nature—tearing down most of the woods to create farmland. Maybe there’s still some ancient urge to keep nature at bay and controlled, some fear of it overrunning civilization.

But here in the mountains, in this semi-wild place, what do we have to fear? These days I’m more afraid of the effects of civilization than nature’s wildness. I have more respect for the nature’s intelligence than I do for human judgment. Let nature run its course; it can’t do any more harm than we have to the planet.

 

Silver and Gold

Fall and spring started the same way for me at the cabin: shaking snow off the aspen saplings so they wouldn’t break (below, right). In May, it was a late spring snowstorm that hit just as the aspen were starting to leaf out. In October, it’s the reverse sequence: an early fall snowstorm arrived as the aspen are starting to wink out.

I had hoped for a different fall day: the one where I sit outside enjoying the brilliant autumn sunshine, listening to the soft clatter of the last of the aspen leaves and dreamily watching the white clouds drift across the deep blue sky. Instead the temperature never climbed above 40, snow covered the ground, and the skies were smothered in low clouds.

This white and gold landscape is not your usual one, and it’s startling to behold, even as I wish for something more amenable and pleasant. The tops of yellow aspen are framed against the white-clad mountains, and a few aspen are sprinkled among the forested hillside, looking like someone accidentally dripped some golden paint on the somber green pines (top). On the ground, the white snow is littered with aspen leaves, like gold coins thrown to the ground (above).

Everything is strangely silent, as if frozen in whatever position they took when the snow arrived, as if waiting for something to happen: a wind to stir things up or the sun to reappear.

There’s only one thing to do: enjoy this rare day and wait to appreciate the sun on another day.

 

The Light Within

After four days of rain, snow and cloudy skies, the clouds briefly opened up and sunlight poured down, lighting up the aspen and exposing Mount Meeker dusted with new snow.

For a short window, maybe three or four hours, the world glowed again—not just from the lemony aspen, but also from the tall blond grasses, the yellow and green willow bushes, the undergrowth of rose, crimson and russet leaves and red kinnickinnick berries. Walking underneath a canopy of aspen, I’m showered with light from above while I walk on golden leaves carpeting the road.

 

 

 

 

Whole valleys are filled with giant bouquets of brilliant aspens. On the hillside, a smaller bunch, but just as colorful, poke out from the somber green pines. Down a small ravine, where there's just a bit more water than on the surrounding slopes to nourish these water-loving trees, runs a line of aspens, marked by dazzling white trunks.

 

 

 

 

In the warm sun, life emerges again. The previous week I had seen painted lady butterflies everywhere, but I figured these insects would either have fled south as fast as possible or would be dead from the freezing temperatures at night. Instead, they were fluttering everywhere, still feasting on what few flowers are left: mostly thistle but a few purple aster, some goldenrod

I’m always amazed by the fragility and toughness of nature. How do these delicate-looking insects keep from freezing at night when I’m all bundled up, with wool hat and gloves, on this day when temperatures are in the 40s? They look like they could be crushed by a strong wind, and yet they migrate from the Southwest and apparently (there’s a difference of opinion on this) return south once their food source is gone. (Painted ladies in Europe migrate from Africa, crossing the Sahara and Mediterranean!) Perhaps that’s why we cheer these insects on: at the same time we admire their delicate beauty, we’re awed by their ferocious will to survive.

By afternoon the butterflies went into hiding as the sun disappeared, and the next day, I’m surrounded by clouds on the Finch Lake trail in Wild Basin. Everything glows with a different kind of radiance, and the colors are so intense I’m wondering if I left my polarizing sunglasses on. But it’s the moisture saturating the whole landscape--dripping down the aspen leaves and trunks, pooling on the emerald green moss, intensifying the blue and yellow lichen on rocks and fallen logs (above), and gleaming on the car-size boulders.

 

In this rare Colorado fog, everything looks delicate, as if a small gust of wind could shatter the mood and silence. Hiking as quietly as possible on this rocky path, I’m startled when I hear a loud sound and then see a herd of deer heading up the hillside, almost hidden in the fog. Across the valley, Mount Meeker is completely obscured, and just 20 feet down the hillside, the tops of the pine trees are indistinct shadows. Yet alongside the trail the aspens seem to radiate from within. At this time of the year, who needs sunlight?