I’m posting this Cliff Swallow photograph from over a year ago because birds always, always make me feel better.
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
~ Emily Dickinson
.
nature
Self-Preservation 101
On this election night, I’m taking steps to avoid a full-on freak-out:
- I vacuumed up the dog hair, cat hair, geranium petals, and miscellaneous debris because I feel less angst when I’m doing something, even if that something is a mundane housekeeping chore.
- Then I listened to The Clash’s Combat Rock at full volume while lifting weights.
“Know Your Rights” felt particularly timely and I pumped that iron with a fierce determination.
- I just remembered the photos I took this morning, of the tenacious cottonwood leaves clinging to the tops of the trees down the hill from me. I’ve been watching and admiring them for the past week and I’m posting them here as a reminder that all the political ignorance and ugly out there right now is no match for nature’s beauty. So take that, climate-change denying authoritarian soulless candidate who might be my next “voice” in the Senate!
- Beer.
- Netflix.
- Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
(And you know what else? In the spirit of self-preservation I’m also gonna quit wasting my time trying to get that effing bullet point to line up where it should line up!)
Backyard Photographic Safari
We just had a gentle rainfall and then the sun came out
so I ventured into the backyard with my camera,
searching for some images.
Here’s the untouched documentation (you may click photos to enlarge):
Bumblebee and Lamb’s Ear
Valerian and Moonshine Yarrow
Wild Rose
Apache Plume
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything
else in the universe. ~ John Muir
Thankful Thursday: The Snowshoe Edition
Today I am thankful for easy access to wide open space where I can clear my mind and soothe my soul. I am thankful for the sixty minutes I had all to myself, with no one else around except some magpies and a coyote. I am thankful for the snow- and ice-crusted splendor (such as these images provided to morgueFile.com by people who had the foresight to bring along a camera):
I am thankful for the mystery of animal tracks in the snow:
I am thankful for the delight of seemingly random patterns in the snow (although I figured out the ones I saw were made by small clods of earth coming loose from the hillside and rolling down the slope to stop in dark blobs at the end of their dainty trails, an image I REALLY wished I could document with a camera):
I am thankful for delicate, lacy sheets of ice melting in the sun:
It’s been a tough week in a whole lot of ways, and so when I saw a cluster of mullein stalks standing ramrod straight in the snow, something about the weak shadows they cast made me teary; it was like some lonely roll-call. Lonely yet courageous. In any case, today I am thankful for Nature’s refuge that I found via my snowshoes.
