sandhill cranes

The joy is mine

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

All gratitude to Zippy who, after I had to cancel my run yesterday due to bad air, figured out this morning that while the air near our home was unhealthy, it was clean down near the water! As I ran along the trail, breathing in cool smoke-free air, I saw multiple Great Blue Herons, gulls, mergansers, geese, hawks, some little brown jobbies, and lots of slugs. My mood improved dramatically!

Because I don’t run with a camera, I don’t have photos to post. However, I’ve still got tons of Sandhill Crane photos I’ve never shared and this one sums up the joy I felt this morning while running free.

Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge. March 11, 2024

The fascists aren’t gonna take my joy. Please don’t let them take yours, either. In fact, I’d love to hear what’s made your heart soar recently. Let’s spread some joy!

In which Garrett Bucks lists “Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now”

/ Tracy Abell / 12 Comments

Hello, friends. I’m just popping in to share this awesome list from Garrett Bucks, the founder of The Barnraisers Project which I attended two years ago. I can vouch that Garrett is ALL about our shared humanity, plus he’s funny and an incredible writer.

Garrett published his list on February 12th and the entire, very long title is actually:

Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won’t magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important
Why? Because others will see you do them, and it will make it easier for them to take their own (slightly less lonely but equally beautiful) action by your side

Sandhill Cranes, Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge. March 12, 2024

Garrett prefaces his list with this:

I wrote this for people who, like me, have spent much of the past few weeks hoping that somebody else would do something bolder in this political movement. We are downtrodden because we’re full of rage and heartbreak, but the polls tell us that our neighbors don’t share those feelings. We realize we’re seeing something that so many aren’t, but we’re not sure how to bridge the gap. We have wished (appropriately) for bravery from our media, from elected Democrats, from public officials in general. However fair those wishes are, they come with a risk: that we miss the opportunity to be the lonely voice for justice in our own community, the person who makes it a little easier for a second and third and fourth lonely voice to start perking up by our side.

I don’t pretend that all it takes for a social movement to succeed is a bunch of individuals throwing the activist equivalent of spaghetti at so many isolated walls. Nothing I offer here will be enough. And yet, so many of us are waiting for something we can join, which presents a true opportunity to be the first person in your circle welcoming fellow travelers into halting, shaky, earnest action.

Finally, I’m certain that not all of these ideas are applicable to your situation. You’re tired. You’re busy. You’re sick. You don’t have a robust social network. You have anxiety about putting yourself out there. Those are all real. And also, my hope isn’t that every one of these is for you, but that a few might be. And if none fit the bill, what an opportunity: I’d love to hear your idea for what you and others could do.

Enough scene-setting. Here are some ideas. In list form, but there’s a narrative if you’re looking for it. They’re all offered with love:

I’m confident if you read his full list, you’ll find something there that speaks to you. It’s very accessible and guaranteed to spark other ideas in your head. It’s a list worth bookmarking so you can return to it again.

Before I sign off, I want to share a promising development from my own neighborhood: one of the most pro-Trump households on my street had a small Trump sign in their front window (they took down their huge flag several weeks after the election), but today that window sign is gone. Each time we walked past, I’d check their window, wondering when the level of cruelty would exceed their tolerance levels. Well, apparently something in these past days of Trump and Musk’s smash-and-grab actions went too far for my neighbors. The sign is gone. While I wish they’d seen the light sooner, I welcome them to the revolution!

Remember to breathe. Find moments of joy in every single day. Stay hydrated.

Solidarity! ✊🏾

Sunday Confessional: dance drought

/ Tracy Abell / 13 Comments

The past year was incredibly difficult on a personal and global level and, unfortunately, it continues into this new year. I’ve unintentionally dropped many good habits–running, hoop dancing, posting here–as a result of the grief and sheer exhaustion of bearing witness to the suffering of so many. Today, however, I finally summoned the energy to do something I’ve dearly missed: hoop-dancing. For twenty minutes, I danced and spun in my hoop, singing along with the music. Emma was happy to see my dancing again and we howled together for several minutes, me grinning as her tail wagged and wagged.

A dancing Sandhill Crane at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge. March 12, 2024

Today I reclaimed my joy. My intention is to dance again tomorrow . . . and to continue dancing in the days and months to come.  Dance as a revolutionary act!

Coming in for a landing

/ Tracy Abell / 8 Comments

I’ve been losing myself in revisions of my middle grade novel–grateful for the distraction from this brutal reality–and am close to being finished.

Sandhill Crane at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge. March 12, 2024

While I’m still a day or two away from being done, I believe in celebrating every step along the way. So, today I celebrate myself and this project as I prepare for the final landing. Yay!

Sunday Confessional: crane overwhelm

/ Tracy Abell / 16 Comments

As I posted last Wednesday, we recently had the privilege of witnessing a layover during the migration of Sandhill Cranes. This trip was fifteen years in the making as we’d planned to go to Monte Vista in March of 2009, but had to cancel for health-related reasons. And somehow, we never got our acts together until this year. All this to say, last week’s experience was a very big deal for a variety of reasons, and it didn’t disappoint. In fact, I literally have hundreds of high quality images from the two days we spent watching the cranes. For the last couple days I’ve been trying to rally my decision-making skills so that I can share photos (although not all that time was spent agonizing over photo selection as some hours were spent shoveling the 27 inches of snow we got in the storm that started Wednesday evening and finally ended Friday morning).

Decisions! This is where the overwhelm comes in: how can I possibly choose from all my wonderful photos? How can I convey the whole experience with just a sampling of pics?

Should I begin with the very first photo I took on Monday evening? (click all to enlarge)

Do I include the yoga-pose photo?

Do I share the majesty of cranes flying against the backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains?

Should I include an image showing how the camera sometimes struggled to focus on the closest crane when SO MANY OTHER CRANES were headed our way?

Or the very first crane dance I had the honor of witnessing? (According to BirdNote, Sandhill Cranes mate for life and they do this dance each spring to reaffirm their bond.)

And I should probably include an image that shows how close all of us were to these magnificent birds, right?

Maybe include an image showing another field we visited right as the sun went down (even though the photo doesn’t convey the sound of THOUSANDS of cranes), where many stood facing west?

Along with a photo showing how the cranes just kept coming?

And what about the next day’s photos–should I begin with this crane running before lift-off?

No doubt I should include this crane ‘s dance that began with a leap, right?

But then which of the other dance moves should I include . . .maybe this?

And which of the many photos I took at the other field when approximately three thousand cranes lifted off as one (leaving behind just three cranes who remained in the field for another hour) should I share?

Unfortunately (or not), I don’t have a photo of me overcome with emotion in this moment, tears running down my face. I can only say that being in the presence of all those cranes in motion/in community was one of the most profound experiences of my life. Minutes later, I stood in the silence they’d left behind, incredibly grateful for the gift of their presence and the peace of that moment, wishing that same kind of peace for everyone around the world.

I have an entire afternoon and evening worth of photos that I haven’t delved into here, but I’ll stop so as to not overwhelm anyone else. No worries, though! I’m absolutely positive I’ll be posting more in the near future. 🙂

Sandhill Cranes

/ Tracy Abell / 11 Comments

We had a glorious time at Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge with the thousands of Sandhill Cranes. This is just a tiny taste of what we experienced and one of the final photos I took yesterday evening. These four cranes were coming in for a landing at a popular feeding spot in the barley field.

March 12, 2024

I don’t know what it was about that corner but during each of the three feeding times we witnessed, cranes showed up at that spot which is within 50 feet of where people are allowed to stand. There’d be just a few to start and then others, like the four above, would drop in to join them. Zippy joked about the cranes having an agreement to take turns posing for the humans. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful for their presence. More photos to come!