 |
| Changes... |
One more month this year. That’s what I keep telling myself. That, and that just about any time we feel the urge, we can get in the car and be here the next day. It’s impossible to believe we’ve been here, and away from Tucson, over three months. Four weeks from tomorrow we’ll have closed up the cabin and be heading south. I’m hoping I’m more ready (much, much more ready) when the time comes. Meanwhile my plan is to make the most of this last month of our inaugural summer in the cabin...the first of many.
 |
| Golden mantle ground squirrel harvesting buds on a flannel mullein |
 |
Migrating Canada geese stop for some
R&R on Bear Lake before continuing south |
No question about it, fall is on the way. It’s early afternoon and just now barely out of the 50’s, but clear and sunny with the perfect amount of crispness. The aspen are beginning to turn, usually the leaves changing to a clear yellow, but sometimes a rich orange. The grasses are ripening and heavy with seed. The tree squirrels, chipmunks, and golden mantle ground squirrels are frantically harvesting everything from pine and fir seeds to raspberries and buds off the flannel mullein. Migration has seriously reduced the number of hummingbirds at the feeder (though for those who are still tanking up for their long flights we’ve increased the ratio of sugar to water a bit to help them out) and we are seeing a big increase in raptor action, including a stunning near pass by a ferruginous hawk a few days ago and a close visit by a great horned owl last night, it’s ear tufts silhouetted by the last remnants of the sunset before flying silently to another nearby snag where it tolerated being nagged by a defensive robin before swooping back into the forest. The first hard freeze is probably no more than two weeks away and a fire in the mornings is suddenly no longer an indulgence, but a necessity, and snow before the end of September is not out of the question. I’m taking advantage of the chilly day with a pot of homemade baked beans cooking slowly in a low oven for most of the day, and the cabin is filled with the smell of brown sugar, molasses, onions, and smoked ham shanks.
Many local friends have come and gone over the summer, and this Labor Day weekend will mark the end of the season up here at the ranch, and at the retreat that adjoins us. Over 100 folks are expected at Sunday night’s end of the summer season barbeque and party, complete with entertainment (someone mentioned polka!). It’s the first time we’ve been up here for this annual event and we’re looking forward to it. It’s hard to say goodbye to our mountain friends as they, and before too long we, depart...we see more of them in these four months than we do of many of our friends that live a block or two away in our Tucson neighborhood, probably a function of the simple pleasures we indulge in here and a lack of extraneous entertainments that so distract us back in the city. Shared meals, weekly game nights, group hikes, the outdoor Sunday services, and pitching in to help each other have formed close ties, some of them unexpected, some several years long now and very dear to us.
 |
| Teacher Bob, his five charges, and one mom |
As summer nears its end, it also means back-to-school time. The two families who manage the retreat have five elementary school-aged kids between them, all boys (one lone girl, still a toddler, will have a challenging future with this group). They are all home schooled by their able and devoted parents, but this year my husband (with his three degrees in science) is teaching them a section of science each week. Last week they gathered for their first lesson with Bob, and the subject was bugs, a favorite with just about all kids, and these boys were no exception. They all headed off to the spring at the back of our five acres and were rewarded with finding long thin white horse-hair worms living in the muck. They headed to the lake down the hill and found loads of bugs and aquatic insects, including a dragonfly nymph. All the while they were learning bug basics, and another neighbor who was a life-long educator and is working with the parents on skills for teaching reading, provided vocabulary lists for follow-up work. When they returned from the lake with their jar of mud-clouded water, complete with a plethora of tiny critters all doing the backstroke, freshly made cookies awaited those with freshly washed hands. Homework was assigned -- a drawing of a bug and a collection of five different bugs to be delivered this coming week, when the topic will shift to birds. All involved enjoyed it, but no one more than Bob. Four more weeks, four more topics.
Four more weeks, a dozen or more hikes. Four more weeks, a temperature drop of 20 degrees or more. Four more weeks, four more game nights. Four more weeks, one more full moon,
