Cabin Journal

Warning: Animals Crossing

Do you know that deer can slip quietly out of the woods and onto the road without warning? I silently ask this question of the driver behind me, who is on my bumper, eager to push me forward and make me go faster down this mountain road in late afternoon, even though I’m driving at least 10 miles over the speed limit.

I think of the time last year when I was driving back to the cabin from Estes Park in the dusk, driving the speed limit because this was the time of the day when the animals emerged from the forests along the road. That time, too, another car was on my bumper, and when I saw a deer step from the dark woods, I started to slow down. When the irritated driver behind me started to pass me, I had to honk the horn, as much to scare the deer back into the woods as to alert the driver, who stopped just in time.

And so I find myself in the position of being the old lady slowing traffic and irritating the impatient drivers behind me. The ones who drive seemingly unaware that herds of elk sometimes wander onto the highway and pause, as if unsure where to go. The drivers who don’t know that bighorn sheep descend from their high rocky perches to lick salt from the road in the winter.

These aggressive drivers likely don’t care about the chipmunks and ground squirrels that dart out from the bushes without looking, running as fast as they can to get across the road before a car comes. Or that birds sometimes fly low and can get hit by an onrushing heavy car.

Even in Rocky Mountain National Park, where tourists come to actively seek out wildlife, I see cars speeding down Trail Ridge Road, seemingly ignorant of the whole tapestry of life that exists alongside this ribbon of paved road: deer and elk in the forest and meadows, moose among the willow bushes and aspen trees, birds perching in the high trees or squirrels running through the tall grasses.

It’s an ignorance bordering on arrogance, one that presumes our human existence is the most important, that we can mow down animals that get in our way, and that getting to our destination as quickly as possible is more important than respecting the lives of other beings.

I could pull over, let these impatient drivers pass me and speed on their way, but I feel responsible for protecting my animal brethren, if just for that evening or that hour.

If I can save one animal from the crushing weight of a car, I’ll be happy. Meanwhile, I’ll mourn all the others.

Smoke Gets in My Eyes

It’s a sign of the times that, rather than check the weather forecast in the morning, I check the air quality index. Last Saturday, the Denver area had the worst air quality on the planet: 192—a combination of smoke from the fires in California and Oregon and Denver’s historically polluted air.

It used to be that the mountains provided relief from the summer heat and pollution on the plains. But with climate change, temperatures at the cabin often are in the 80s, and the smoke from the western fires affects the whole state. In fact, last week,  the air quality index for Estes Park was higher (144) than it was in Denver, possibly because this mountain town sits in a basin where noxious air collects or else because the jet stream is moving the pollution in unexpected directions.

At the cabin, I could barely perceive the outline of Mount Meeker (left), just a few miles to the west, and the whole valley below was sunk in a white haze. Even the birds have seemingly fled. The swallows that were here the previous week, raising a new brood in the birdhouse by the garage, are gone. I miss their chirring sounds as they darted through the air catching bugs.  My neighbor who puts out feeders for the hummingbirds has noticed fewer of these tiny flashy birds in the past week. Even the birds that are still here—like the Steller’s jays—are quieter and less raucous. Does the smoke-filled air make it harder for them to breathe and thus vocalize?

Yet amazingly, amid all this gloom, the wildflowers are still going strong. The lupine have died out, but the purple asters, yellow sulfur flowers, white yarrow, yellow and red blanketflower, and mauve fireweed are still blooming, joined by the goldenrod.

I know I shouldn’t go out into this polluted air, but I can’t help myself. In only a few weeks, most of the flowers will dry up for the winter, and in another month the aspen will start changing color and dropping their leaves.

But today the creeks are still running, and the the wind is softly rushing through the aspens. The chipmunks and golden-mantled ground squirrels are still running through the grasses and flowers, as if there’s no time to lose. I watch from the porch as one ground squirrel (left) makes repeated trips under the cabin to steal the pink insulation and stuff it into its underground nest where it will make for a cozy and warm winter retreat.

Yet walking under these unnatural skies, I have to resist the urge to close my heart to this harbinger of our future under climate change. A part of me wants to huddle inside the cabin, close the curtains, distract myself with the Internet or a good book. But shutting out the world feels like death, like I’m cutting myself off from the source of life. Instead, I choose to cast my fate with the birds, the wildflowers, the pines and aspens, the chipmunks and the bear that wandered through the neighborhood that morning. Whatever happens to them happens to all of us.