Dawn broke this day in a rolling expanse of watercolor fire: peach and coral and copper and crimson bands billowing out from behind the eastern peaks. The flames lasted longer than I would have expected, perhaps a nod to the weather already on its way.
If the forecast holds, a real storm will arrive this evening.
And it looks like snow already, even if nothing yet falls from the whitening sky. This morning, we had abundant sun and bright blue skies to dance with the clouds, but the former have now ceded all space to the latter, and it looks as though we may have flurries well before the appointed time. It’s a beautiful sight and a beautiful prospect, too — far better, at this moment, than the clear hard turquoise blues of the image above, taken on a mid-January day three short years ago.
The subject of this week’s Monday Photo Meditation is a gorgeous shot of the weeping willows that line the pond on the west side of our land, one Wings captured digitally from that western boundary, behind trees and pond and facing southeast. As representative as it is of what midwinter is here, it would serve as perfect subject for contemplation anytime, and for any number of reasons.
It’s also illustrative of the speed with which our climate is collapsing now, and the habitat with it: Those dormant willows, dressed in their winter regalia, shimmered like spun gold in the low afternoon light.
Now, three short years later, those same willows have only a scant few golden branches visible. The drought has turned them gray, and while the two larger ones are suffering, the smallest, at the rear, may not survive at all.
The same is true of their four counterparts that line the main ditch in our north field: all gray and skeletal, just bones now. Shrouded in yesterday’s falling snow, they looked like ghosts.
Three years to move from crisis to collapse, from distress to outright death.
The colonial world has no idea what’s coming, and won’t believe it even when it’s too late.
Days like this put me in a melancholy mood at the best of times. Now, of course, it’s always a national holiday, a necessary one, for a man whose actual date of birth was memorialized yesterday. For me, it’s complicated by the fact that this day, this date, is the anniversary of my own father’s birth; he would have been ninety-nine today. Two years ago, this day and date brought us a great gift that I have often wondered was sent in some way by him: The entire herd of elk, which has been coming down from the mountain to the sanctuary of this space for some fourteen winter nights now, gathered at our fenceline in full numbers in the full light of afternoon’s end. Fifty, seventy, perhaps a hundred of them, all ages and sizes, from calves to most elder and graying of bulls, came in a group as the sun began its downward journey. We watched them from the upstairs deck, and it was very clear that they were fully aware of us. They milled around for a good hour, some grazing, youngsters playing, always on watch but also seemingly at peace. Normally, they visit only under cover of full, late dark, and make sure they depart by dawn. This visit was an anomaly, albeit a seemingly very intentional one, as though they wanted us to see them fully, perhaps as a way of acknowledging that they understand this to be a refuge — in these days of climate collapse and encroaching overdevelopment and increased poaching, a needed one if the herds numbers are to survive.
It felt like a gift.
After a flurry of early visitations in November, we have seen less of the elk herd thus far this season. It varies from year to year; much depends on available forage at higher elevations, and perhaps the late rains and early snows last fall ensured more than has been the case in most recent years. They also come down here for access to water, and after last year’s wildfire season, that may be a bigger problem than ever, even despite the early storms. Typically, they only venture down this far when it’s exceptionally cold and/or exceptionally snowy.
But now, as the clear cold sky gives way to the snow, we may see them yet this week, ambling about our fields in the dark.
January is always a hard month here, and thus far, this one has been no exception. A visit from the elk would be a welcome respite; so, too, would a visit from enough snow to revive the willows.
And perhaps, at midwinter, enough to revive our spirits.
~ Aji
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