"This is nice, Martha!"
After two nights of not much sleep, Bear and I needed a walk that wouldn't inflict suffering upon us in the "person" of deer flies or heat. We headed out before I finished my breakfast to this mostly shady road. I figured I could handle our trek without the cane -- I wanted Bear to be able to go at her own speed and to smell things along the way. She and Teddy have been so cooperative and understanding as I rehabbed this leg. She had a wonderful time, and I had an OK time in the shade and the breeze.
My magpies have flown. I wondered how that could be, then I saw that near their tree the Refuge personnel had cut down a dead tree. I suspect (but cannot know for sure) that the truck and chainsaw would be enough to make that family walk away if they had to. I think I saw them later perched on a pile of dead wood a few yards away.
This part of the Refuge is not beautiful. To the east of what looks like will be our walk for the next month or so is disturbed, ugly land. It's not irrigated though ditches run through it, and there is no ground water. It is not even the native desert of the San Luis Valley. It reflects strange things done to it by humans over the centuries. I have no idea what the plans are for this immense swath of ground. A few years ago there were willows growing on it, the willows I painted with the crane on the large canvas what seems an eon ago, but they were all cut down. Wood has been piled up in what look like burn piles of the future.
To the west is a state highway beyond that the barley field belonging to the Refuge and an old homestead that fascinates me. There are three houses on it. You can see the progress of the settlers over the years. The oldest house is sod/adobe with two windows and a low roof with a shallow pitch. In front of it is their first frame house -- just a big room, really, with three windows and a pitched roof. A ways in front of that is the "big" house, one of the square houses that is all over the US, I think, originally built around a chimney. Both frame houses have black roofs and black painted trim. This helps the snow melt and diminishes frost on the windows (my theory). There are a couple of log outbuildings, clearly a stall for horses and what looks to be a hen house along with an out house, the kind of configuration my Aunt Jo's house had in Montana.
On the south side (where most of our wind comes from) they planted a row of cottonwood trees as a windbreak. I really want to explore it, but it's "Do not come over here this is National Refuge Property" signage is everywhere. I always wonder who the people, were and I'm sure someone in this valley KNOWS who the people were.
In the cottonwoods is a nesting pair of red tail hawks. Their young have flown and the two are doing what redtails do. Only the male is there. A lot of romanticizing noise is made about how they "mate for life," but for those hawks it's a matter of the nest, not each other. They return to the nest to breed and raise their young. If one of them dies, the other will keep the nest waiting for a replacement. For some reason I thought about that today looking at the buildings on the empty farm.
Because there's no water around, there are few mosquitoes and, so far, no deer flies. I'm completely happy to obey the laws of nature for the next month or so. When August comes? The temps will start to come down and the deer flies will be at least nearing the end of their sinister little lives. We're pleased and I might even venture out in shorts...
No comments:
Post a Comment