Winter has ended

The long winter seems to have finally ended. (Except for the ongoing snowstorms and freezing temperatures so typical of “springtime in the Rockies.”) My wife and I have just returned from a cross-country ski around our local golf course, and the signs of spring are everywhere. Just since last weekend, we’ve noticed so many changes: in the light, in the clouds, in the quality of the snow cover, and in the number and type of creatures around us. We are lucky to spend lots of time in the outdoors, and to witness the many small miracles that occur around us in each season of the year.

My summers guiding for Barker-Ewing are marked by these repeating wonders: tree leaves bud, grow, turn color, and drop; antlers grow from velvet buds to hardened forked branches that are later shed; birds wing their way northward from the southern reaches of their ranges, arrive, mate, nest, raise their broods, and fly away south again; plants grow, bloom, mature, wither, and fade back into the ground from which they sprung. In this way, we river-dwellers track the days, weeks, months, seasons and years.