Driving Colorado

Pawnee Grasslands, CO

We drove back to Ft. Collins, CO from Nebraska along Highway 14, which passed through the Pawnee Grasslands.  This sea of short prairie grass and wide open spaces gave one a feeling of expansiveness and timelessness.

Colorado Highway 14

Hay bales (edited photo)

Snow fence

Snow fence

We saw wide open prairie, wind farms, feedlots, and snow fences.

“Snow Fence”
by Ted Kooser, from Flying at Night: Poems 1965 – 1985

The red fence
takes the cold trail
north; no meat
on its ribs,
but neither has it
much to carry.

Fence posts capped by cow skulls

Abandoned house along Hwy 14, CO

Country road with Rockies in the distance, Colorado

Distant Rocky Mountains, nearing sunset

 

Tumbleweeds

 

Kochia tumbleweed caught on fence, along I-80 in Nebraska

“[F]rom the point of view of humans, the tumbleweed’s main function is poetic.  They roll and bounce on the wind, they fly through the air like half-filled weather balloons, they pile up in throngs against fences and buildings.”
—  Ian Frazier

Tumbleweeds caught on a fence in Nebraska

Kochia tumbleweed with shadow

Tumbleweed piles up along fence

It was very windy in Nebraska, so it was no surprise that we saw tumbleweeds bound across the land as we drove along I-80.    They made me smile, and I soon was silently humming the drifting tumbleweeds song that I must have heard on the radio when I was a child.

“Tumbling Tumbleweeds” lyrics by Marty Robbins

I’m a roaming cowboy riding all day long,
Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.
Nights underneath the prairie moon,
I ride along and sing this tune.

See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I’ll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

Cares of the past are behind
Nowhere to go but I’ll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

I know when night has gone
That a new world’s born at dawn.

I’ll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

The Dearness of Peonies

A few photos of peonies from this season’s show:

Pink peony

White peonies from Kitty’s garden

Peonies by the bucketful, Wallingford Farmers Market

Pink peony with weathered fence

Tree peony, petals gone

Peonies
by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open–
pools of lace,
white and pink–
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities–
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again–
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

Watercolor and ink sketch of peony

 

Israel Impressions 1: The Kibbutz

Audrey’s and Alberto’s home on the kibbutz

As a wayfarer in foreign lands, I saw myself as a pilgrim.  But I was not on a religious pilgrimage, even in Israel, where holy sites for three major religions — Islam, Judaism, and Christianity — anchor the many diverse communities.  I went to Israel to stay with my sister and her husband.  They’ve lived on Kibbutz Gazit in northern Israel for nearly 30 years, raised three daughters there, and were the perfect hosts and guides for my stay.  It had been 25 years since I last visited them (they travel to the United States to see us every few years), and back then they lived in a tiny apartment and ate most of their meals in the communal dining hall.  On this trip, I got to see their “new” house (it was built for them 8 years ago) on the kibbutz.  It was spacious, airy, and had a full kitchen — we ate only one meal at the communal dining hall on this trip.

The kibbutz and Israel in general were pretty green in April — their dedicated tree-planting efforts have resulted in a much greener landscape than I remembered from my previous trip.  It was the end of harvest season.  Flowers and trees displayed showy blossoms.  Birds sang and trilled and cooed.  Storks passed by the kibbutz on their yearly northern migration.

The kibbutz is a hybrid of farm and village and natural area.  Its agricultural roots still hold strong.  They raise sheep and cows and chickens.  They grow organic produce and big crops like wheat.  They also have a plastics factory on site, which helps to diversify their income.  And some residents, like Alberto, work in jobs off the kibbutz.  But unlike the isolated farmsteads in the U.S. midwest, the residents of the kibbutz live in clusters of houses and apartments and dorm room-like dwellings, offering the benefits of community and support.  There are on-site day care and elder care, for example.  And while most people now cook at home and eat as a family, the communal dining hall is still in operation for those who need it.  At every meal and social event, the area outside the hall is a virtual parking lot of golf cart-like “vehicles” used by the elder residents to get around.

And you could see why mechanized transport is needed by the frail and elderly, because the kibbutz covers a big area.  There are the residential clusters, the barn and livestock areas, the orchards, the fields.  And surrounding all that is a huge natural area of rolling hills and wadis (creek valleys).  It was a beautiful setting.  Here are some photos:

Mount Tabor seen from the kibbutz

Feeding time in the sheep barns

Sheep (who is this stranger looking at me?)

Some of the earliest trees planted on the kibbutz were these pines.

Field across the road from my sister’s backyard (the air was full of sand from Libya)

Harvesting hay on the kibbutz

Almonds growing

Flowers, Abutilon Tiger Eye

Rolling hills with Jordan in the far, far distance

Migrating storks

Wildflowers

Grapefruit blossoms from one of the orchards

We saw this baby donkey just moments after its birth

Kibbutz fields

One of our daily walks on the kibbutz

The Snow Was Our Pride, Our Beauty

“The cold was our pride, the snow was our beauty.  It fell and fell, lacing day and night together in a milky haze, making everything quieter as it fell, so that winter seemed to partake of religion in a way no other season did, hushed, solemn.  It was snowing and it was silent.”
— Patricia Hampl, A Romantic Education

Yesterday's snowy day at Green Lake

We get excited about snow in Seattle because it seldom lasts too long.  I find it’s best to slow down, park the car (there is no snow removal on most residential streets, so the snow packs, becomes icy, and stays that way until it turns to slush and melts), and walk if I need to get anywhere.

It’s nice to get a taste of winter wonderland, especially if the inconveniences are short and sweet.  Snow gives a time-out from our regular routines.  Who doesn’t enjoy the special pleasures of an unexpected “snow day.”

Here are some photos from a walk around my neighborhood:

Scalloped-edged fence

Snowy steps

Weathered clothespins

Patterned snow on paving bricks

Pine cones with snow

Basketball hoop in the snow

Traveling the Backroads of Montana

A common sign on the backroads of Montana

On our return home to Seattle from Glacier National Park, we enjoyed the final miles of a leisurely road trip through sparsely travelled backroads.  We headed back towards I-90 via U.S. Hwy 93, and Montana highways 28, 200 and 135.  I marvel at the good quality of American roads.  It certainly feels like an indulgence to take a road trip these days, with global warming and the energy situation, but I appreciate the chance to do so.

Burnt tree trunks line the hilltop on Hwy 89 near St. Mary's.

View from Hwy 89 between St. Mary's and East Glacier

We saw miles and miles of barbed-wire fences along the backroads.

Old barn along Montana Hwy 28

Colorful cattails in the ditch along Montana Hwy 28

Wheat

“Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of wheat.”
     — Socrates

Swaying stalks of wheat

 

Wheat field and wire fence

Wheat and fence post

Wheat
by Yoshire Ishihara

Let a stalk of wheat
be your witness
to every difficult day.
Since it was a flame
before it was a plant,
since it was courage
before it was grain,
since it was determination
before it was growth,
and, above all, since it was prayer
before it was fruition,
it has nothing to point to
but the sky.
Remember the incredibly gentle wheat stalk
which holds its countless arrows fixed
to shoot from the bowstring –
you, standing in the same position
where the wind holds it.

Summer Day Trips

This week I took advantage of the summer weather and spent my day off on a road trip to Whidbey Island.  Instead of taking the ferry, I drove through the Skagit Valley and then crossed the Deception Pass Bridge onto the north end of Whidbey Island.  I was by myself, so I could stop on a whim whenever something caught my eye.  It was a perfect day, and I took enough photos for four blog posts!

Barn painting at the Skagit River Produce stand near Conway, WA

I love driving country roads where I can go slow without holding up traffic.

Skagit Valley wheat field with old fence

I stopped at Roozengaarde Flowers & Bulbs

The snapdragons at Roozengaarde were amazingly colorful.

Curtained window at the Rustic Door antiques shop

Tulip Farm in Woodland, Washington

Holland America Bulb Farm in Woodland, WA

Barbed-wire fence and tulip fields

One of the volunteers at the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland advised us to drive about two more miles down the road to see the tulip fields in bloom.  I hadn’t realized that there were tulip farms in southern Washington.  This one was owned by the  Holland America Bulb Farm.  In contrast with the many tulip fields in the Skagit Valley north of Seattle, this operation was much smaller.  Instead of big fields planted in one color, the Holland America Bulb Farm planted just a few rows of each color, side by side, so the fields were a riot of bright colors. 

Mailboxes mimic the colors in the tulip fields

Patch of pink tulips

I particularly enjoyed watching workers cut fresh tulips in the field and gather them in baskets for sale.  What a beautiful setting for their labors!

Worker carrying her basket of cut tulips

Another basket of fresh-cut tulips

Fresh-cut tulips for sale