Yesterday’s fast-changing forecast was almost accurate: At the end, it predicted five inches of snow; we were granted four, just like last week. The difference this day is that the snow is wetter, heavier, and the clouds are heavier, too; it will all melt, but not by noon.
The extended forecast suggests that there is not even a small chance of any more for a week and a half, but they said that last week, too. Here, the storms come early and late, hard or softly, just a dusting or perhaps a foot and more at once . . . or nothing at all, as has been the case too often in recent years. This time, at least, our prayers, sent up with the best of intentions and hearts, have compelled mountains and sky to answer back with an echo of winter.
Even before mid-morning, flurries began to fall once more; within the hour, it was a heavy, steady snowfall. Now, at mid-afternoon, there is a band of light beneath the low-hanging clouds that illuminates the western horizon, but still the flakes fall — small, scattered, steady — on the rebound, having ridden the echo’s wave from the northeast to land here.
Rebounding from the same direction as the storm in the image above that is the subject of this week’s Monday Photo Meditation.
Wings captured that photo three years ago very nearly to the day: in 2019, November twentieth instead of fourteenth. We had no snow then, not even the merest dusting, but the snow clouds that had passed through here from the west had rebounded then, too, a boomerang effect, returning our way to catch, if not the crystallized water that the land so badly needed then, at least the rays of the setting sun. He shot it in digital format, and it’s unedited — unfiltered and unretouched in any way. Those are the actual shades of the storm here at this season when sun and clouds decide to dance, and the actual golden glow of the land, as well. People find it impossible to believe . . . until they see it for themselves, in real life and time.
At this moment, we have neither golden glow nor midnight blues; our world is white, earth and sky alike, albeit the latter is infused with subtle shades of gray. It’s like being enfolded by the wings of a giant white dove, except that most of the doves have long-since moved on for warmer climates, leaving the cold to the invading Eurasian collared doves and, of course, the equally invasive and now-omnipresent pigeons. But the small birds have arrived in some numbers; the jays, too, are here apparently for he duration. I hear the flickers more often than I see them, but they seem intent on wintering over again this year. It seems as though the entire red-winged blackbird clan is here, having decided to raise a late-year brood that even now has not reached maturity, and there are always the strays, the goldfinches and the grosbeak and the towhee all here last week, all entirely out of season. And, of course, there are the magpies and crows, the ravens and red-tailed hawks, all indigenous to this land and these skies.
And the elk.
The elk are winter creatures here, disinclined to come down from the mountains anywhere within sight of human habitation until lack of winter forage leaves them no choice. But in the cold months, for more than a decade now, the whole herd has been making the journey down to our land on a semi-regular basis. They know that there is safety here, sanctuary: no risk of human predation, and no need to cross the highway. Here they have fresh water readily available at all times, supplemental food, . . . and, perhaps oddly, perhaps not, companionship with the the horses.
There is only one horse now.
Two days ago, at the end of the afternoon, a saw a mare’s-tail cloud in the northeast sky — had I been staring at the trees in the image above, it would have appeared above and just to the right of the solitary willow on the right-hand side of the photo. The skies were filled with them that day, and with dissipating contrails, too, but alone among all the white that flared across the sky, this particular small cloud had reformed itself into the unmistakable shape of a bull elk’s head, complete with antlers. I shot a couple of photos, one of which made it into that night’s Patreon offering, and thought no more about it.
Until yesterday. I had speculated that the Spirit Elk was reminding us that his herd would soon be joining us in their search for winter sanctuary, an occurrence that has never, to our knowledge, begun earlier than the first week or two of December. Apparently this momentary sky spirit had a much more immediate message for us, for yesterday morning, Wings went to tend to Miskwaki’s grave, scattering some late wildflower seeds across it in anticipation of last night’s snow . . . and discovered a clear line of tracks, small and large alike, that apparently gained the south fence and for some reason made a beeline for the grave of the horse they had known for some eight or nine winters. They gathered there, apparently, as though remembering— perhaps paying their respects in a way that only hoof-clan cousins know. Then, they eventually made their way around it, young and old alike, and made their way across the yard in front of the house; the evidence was there for us to see.
This is the earliest they have arrived, to our knowledge — almost exactly four weeks to the day prior to their last “earliest” such date. Did they come to see Miskwaki? Did they somehow know? I have no idea; I only know that they gathered by his resting place before moving on.
Then again, the cold is already here, and the snow with it. We have always known that spirits walk at this time and season. Perhaps that is not confined to our kind, and perhaps winter is not the only echo to call to our world here now.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
