Cabin Journal

Flowers Gone Wild

In a summer with record-breaking heat across the West, wildfires so hot that they are creating their own weather storms, and reservoirs, rivers and lakes drying up, here in the Colorado mountains a small miracle is occurring.

A late spring with snowstorms into May followed by daily rain showers in June have produced more wildflowers than I’ve ever seen here before. On my septic field, flowers are blooming that have never grown here before, and on ground that in past years would have been barren if not for the thistles.  Last week I counted at least 20 species of wildflowers in the yard around the cabin, and I’m sure I missed a few of the smaller, less showy ones.

The wild roses that grow here sporadically are flourishing along the roadside and among the aspen, their pink petals littering the ground. The columbine that usually flower for a week in mid-June are still blooming in late July. The modest sulphur (buckwheat) flower, short and with tight yellow blossoms, has taken over whole hillsides (above).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the past few weeks, the view from my front porch has been a sea of purple lupine, sulphur flowers, yellow cinquefoil, pink wild geranium, and the tall needle and thread grasses, which I’ve rarely seen.

This week, as the cinquefoil begin to fade, the yellow blanketflower (gaillardia, right), purple asters, mariposa lilies and blue harebells are making their appearance. I love the blanketflower with its smart golden petals and red centers, but the asters (bottom photo, with harebells) are one of my favorites.

 

 

A simple flower with the thin purple petals around a yellow center, they usually appear in bunches that light up their surroundings. Around them the mariposa lilies (top left) float serenely—white delicate bastions of light. The blue penstemons (left) aren’t as plentiful, but amid a field of white yarrow and green grasses, their color is startling.  

On my walk around Meeker Park, I stopped at a field where I always see a few angelicas (below), but this year there are probably 50, raising their thick, juicy red stalks above the grasses that are now turning brown.

 

 

 

Another tall plant is the green gentian, 2-3 feet high, its flowers a subtle greenish-yellow, but the whole plant is a marvel, an intricate and yet delicate structure. I always have to wonder: how was such a perfectly proportioned thing created? And for what reason? It doesn’t need to be that beautiful and elegant to attract bees or other pollinators.

I don’t know the answers, but I know I need to get out as much as possible—brave the heat and smoky skies—and admire the wildflowers for the short amount of time they light up the landscape. I need to stand respectfully in their presence, trace their intricate patterns and let myself be awed by their wealth of colors and forms, and by their profusion.

A wildflower season like this one is rare and will likely never happen again in my lifetime, especially as our climate becomes more extreme. In a summer where the environmental news gets worse every day, I have to rejoice at this source of wonder.  

Here and There

In Glacier Bay, the water is an unearthly and milky blue: something in between turquoise and jade. On a boat, plying the channels and bays of southeast Alaska, you feel that you could sail these waters forever and never reach an end. Always in the distance are white-capped mountains, which never get closer or farther. They’re always on the horizon—seemingly unreachable.

On an Alaskan cruise last month, I was overwhelmed by the vastness and emptiness of this landscape. For days we saw no other boats among miles of open water where the only signs of activity were the spouts of humpback whales and a quick view of the tops of their sleek bodies as they briefly surfaced before slipping back into their watery homes; sometimes we saw their tails flip as they took a deeper dive into a place invisible to us on the boat. Occasionally, we would come to an island teeming with life:  sea lions lounging on the rocks or playing in the water; sea otters floating on their backs; and puffins and other seabirds in the water.  

Evidence of civilization was scarce: only a few fishing boats and yachts; and almost no human habitation. It would be difficult for humans to get a toehold in this monumental landscape, even though the early natives found a rich life here. Pristine forests come down to the water’s edge, and waterfalls plunge from the tops of mountains so tall that I got dizzy staring up to the top where snowfields dazzled the eyes. At the terminus of bays, glaciers creaked and groaned while we wandered through a maze of blue icebergs big enough to get lost in. I felt that vastness most when we kayaked, where we were tiny dots in a landscape that seemed too big to comprehend. Here we were insignificant.

Coming back to Colorado, I dreaded returning to a place crowded with humans and their detritus. Even in the mountains, there are masses of people, especially in popular places like Rocky Mountain National Park. Yet once back at the cabin, I fell into the ease of life here. In southeast Alaska there is no easy way to enter into the hundreds of miles of wilderness except by boat. Hiking is difficult because the mountains are so steep and are covered with dense and almost impenetrable forests—and also full of huge brown bears.

But in Colorado, I can drive to the nearest trailhead, park my car and start walking. Or I can walk out my cabin door and hike into the forests around Meeker Park. This ponderosa pine landscape is spacious enough for flowers, shrubs and grasses to grow, so I don’t have to bushwhack through dense and steep woods, like the sitka spruce forests in Alaska.

Although the flowers in Alaska are huge—the purple lupine reaching almost 4 feet tall—the number of species is small, because there are few open and sunny meadows in which they can flourish. Here in Colorado, especially this summer, the wildflowers are profuse: whole fields of Indian paintbrush, yellow buckwheat, purple lupine and blue penstemon.

The only deciduous trees I saw in Alaska were alder, which are outnumbered by the more plentiful and somber spruce and hemlock. Here in Colorado, aspen cover  meadows and hillsides, providing a sheltered space for the columbine and other flowers to grow, and for birds to nest. In this landscape of intense sunlight, the soft rustling sound of their leaves and filtered green light provide havens of coolness and calm.

On the waters of Glacier Bay, I never heard song birds, perhaps because there’s not enough food. Here at my cabin, hummingbirds, swallows, nuthatches, Stellar’s jays, western tanagers and bluebirds fill the skies from morning till night.

In a world that is fast becoming overrun by humans, Alaska is one of the few places on earth that’s still pristine and untouched by civilization, a place where humans are vastly outnumbered by bald eagles. I’m grateful it’s still wild, but I also appreciate the intimate landscape at the cabin, where I can sit among a field of flowers and listen to the soft whispering of the aspens and the chirping of the swallows. In Alaska, I’m awed by the grandeur, but here I feel enclosed in nature’s sweetness.