Thoughts From The First Day of Summer

I am rather bored with the view out my window: a guilty admission.

It's because I've written so often of what I see in so many different conditions. Surely there's nothing really new out there. Of course, there is much that is new, but nothing so spectacular as to catch most people's fleeting attention. An example of breaking news, Ryan Park style: A tree on the property below was damaged last weekend by the burning of a too-near slash pile. Branches that were alive are now dead. Maybe the tree itself will follow. Too bad, it was a survivor of beetle ravages and none-too-gentle logging operations. Still, it is the one at work on a new crown. It may prove to be a better survivor up here than I. Is that boring news?

How about the absence of snow in the valley? What about the undulating shades of green that flow before me. It's been oh, maybe five minutes since the whole scene was a tired story expressed in shades of dirty white.

And the dandelions are back in force. Scarcely a week since the grasses decided it was safe to green up, and now the tell-tale yellow of those sexless non-flowers is sprinkled throughout. Got my poison out, doing my bit to be rid of them, but they will certainly thrive.

Birds are surely back in force. Robins aplenty. Pee-Wee's. Sapsuckers sucking sap, magpies on the prowl for unguarded nests. Hawks circling for a bloody swoop. Swallows in the mornings and evenings dining while performing breathless acrobatics above the treetops. Mountain chickadees, juncos, nondescript little brownish finches darting from perches for seeds and bugs. Flashes of flickers, hints of tanagers. And all of them making a fine sound just as the sun peaks above Medicine Bow peak at four-thirty in the very early morning.

Early because --

Today's the first day of true summer...a solstice! But it's a spring scene below, not even close to high summer. So we take our time and look it over and work a bit more at shedding the feeling that winter's cold fingers are still clawing at our backs.

I don't think the birds or the dandelions, or even that struggling balsam fir give a whit about winter's memory. For them it's all about making the best of this day. Grow, thrive, flourish! The life about us is at its most exuberant, perhaps because the time to be so is so very fleeting. A broader truth here, repeatedly revealed, not to be ignored. An unintended gift from all of my very local, boring nature, to me. To us.