Beltane Beltane Moon
A few photographs from my Colorado Native Plants class yesterday.
An Atypical May
Monthly Archives: May 2015
Long ago native to this place
Beltane Beltane Moon
Up early today. Too early. 3:00 am. Sigh. Still, got blogging done, e-mails sent and my high intensity workout in before leaving for my first Native Plant Master class in Morrison’s Mt. Falcon Park.
On the way I got gas at Conoco rather than the Loaf and Jug (Rumi, Omar?). I did that because I wanted a breakfast burrito from the best breakfast place in town according to reviews. But when I pulled up, the best breakfast place in town was gone. Not there. Vanished. Disoriented me for a bit, even though it was a food wagon. Not sure where it went, but I found it disconcerting to have an entire business, one I’d seen frequently since we moved here, disappear. Not to mention that I wanted breakfast and now no longer had time to stop elsewhere.
The dewpoint/temperature convergence coupled with lots of moisture in the air gave the mountains long tendrils of fog slipping through the pines and white crowns like so many of my friends. Atypical. The effect is very schwarzwald. This could be Bavaria.
In Morrison I turned off 285 North, which heads into Denver, and onto Colorado 8. It goes into Morrison, passing by the Fort, the adobe restaurant I mentioned some time back. Just a mile or two past the turnoff for Mt. Falcon Park where I was headed is the well known Red Rocks Amphitheater.
These Coloradans are a hearty group. Every one came with a backpack, obviously used before, rain gear, hiking boots and some had water repellent, zippered pants over their regular pants. One young woman, recently moved here from North Carolina, had bananas, clementines and granola bars stuck in several mesh pockets.
I say hearty because we each dutifully consulted our Colorado Flora field guide, our plant identification list and the Native Plant Master guide for Mt. Falcon Park (these last two distributed this morning as course material) in the constant and, at times hard, rain. It rained as we investigated a pretty five-petaled plant whose flowers change color after pollination. It rained while we investigated the shrub with trumpet shaped flowers that stood next to it. It poured down rain as we used Colorado Flora to narrow down the two species of cypress that stood next to each other.
Further along the trail, yes, it rained, we found a vetch, one of two species of the pea family we looked at. Vetch takes up selenium from the soil and concentrates the mineral in its stalk and leaves. Horses and cows get the blind staggers from the selenium so, though a native, it’s an unwelcome plant in pastures. Plants that take up soil minerals and concentrate them in their stalk and leaves have created a new discipline, geo-botany. Geo-botany uses plant analysis to find places where toxic minerals are present in the soil.
Did I mention it rained? All the time, from moderately hard to pelting. Not a usual Colorado problem. This is an anomalous May, though May is usually wet. So I’m told.
We had a recently retired geologist in our class. We stopped among shrubs and short trees for a snack. He noted that was a geologically important spot. The Fountain formation, red sandstone and crumbly red shale, the same formation that makes up the Red Rock amphitheater, gave way to the granitic rock of the true Rocky Mountains only 5 or 6 feet away. “This means we go,” Tom said, “from 250 million year old sandstone to billion year old rock.” To the east the sandstone, remnant of a much earlier mountain range, covers the same billion year old rock exposed during the Laramide orogeny, the mountain building episode that formed the Rockies.
Since Kate had a pacemaker appointment, I had to leave early. I was not unhappy though I look forward to the next class. May it be dry. Of course, then it might be hot.
Beltane Beltane Moon
Hmmm.
“Snow for the northern and central mountains is looking like a sure-bet, and with that the National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch which goes into effect Saturday afternoon and continues through Saturday night. Heavy snow at elevations >8,500 feet for the northern and central mountains will add up to 10 to 20″ by Sunday morning. If your plans take you into the mountains Saturday afternoon, please plan for winter driving conditions.” weather5280
Minnesota Gneiss
Beltane Beltane Moon
There’s history, pre-history, then there’s a really, really long time ago. Friend Tom Crane sent these two chunks of Morton gneiss.* I think he wanted me to have a marker stone for the oldest rock in the U.S. Thanks, Tom. They’ve gone on the rock wall before the Ely greenstone** we collected last week.
We visited the Ely greenstone outflow in Ely together last Sunday after the Woolly retreat.
The ability to touch this hardened time is a remarkable opportunity. The past is always with us.
Our body is the Morton gneiss of our deep past. It carries in itself memories of formative events we have long forgotten. There is a debate about the continuity of the self, one side seeing it as a narrative stitched together to explain our existence, but non-essential. The other side, my side, sees the self as a current manifestation of all the moments that have shaped us, plus an ineffable emergent quality that makes us more than the sum of our parts.
The dense, hard bones of mother earth support the efflorescence that is the biosphere. This living, breathing outer layer is, likewise, an emergent property. It is not, said another way, predictable from the original constituent elements of planet formation. Thus, the entirety of earth’s vital children evidence the earth’s own selfhood.
This is not the gaia hypothesis which sees the earth as an interdependent system of systems. It is, rather, an attempt to position the evolution of our planet from Hadean times, the earliest period of earth’s formation, as a mystery, yet one with known parts.
The mystery is that these parts formed at all from the detritus of the big bang. The mystery only deepens as evolution proceeds and creates a wanderer that follows a repetitive path. As geologic changes shaped the early continents and reshaped them, another, profoundly deeper mystery occurred. Somehow, life. From inert gneiss and greenstone and all the other truly ancient bones, came a quickening in the vast waters that covered most of the surface.
In my opinion the revealed self of this particular cosmic location manifests in this most peculiar change, one in which the earth begins to move, root, swim, run, think. I am not trying to anthropomorphize the earth. It doesn’t need it. It is as it has become, a thing sui generis, unique in our solar system, maybe in our galaxy. Who knows?
*”Archean crystalline basement rocks are exposed at several places along the Minnesota River valley in south-central Minnesota. These rocks are mostly gneisses of various compositions along with other igneous and metamorphic rocks.
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Left: exposure of mafic gneiss at Granite Falls beside the Minnesota River. Right: closeup view of pegmatite vein within the gneiss at Granite Falls. |  |
Among these ancient rocks, the Morton and Montevideo gneisses are the oldest whole-rock continental crust in the United States. Many attempts to date these rocks using various radiometric techniques have yielded an age ~3.5 billion years old (Goldich, Hedge and Stern 1970; Bickford Wooden and Bauer 2009).” Morton gneiss
**”The lakes of the BWCA were carved from Precambrian bedrock of the Canadian Shield by advances of ice sheets during a succession of ice ages during the past two million years. Many varieties of this ancient bedrock are exposed, including granite, basalt, greenstone, gneiss, as well as metamorphic rocks derived from Precambrian volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Greenstone located near Ely, Minnesota is up to 2.7 billion years old. The size and shape of most lakes in the BWCA are dictated by the bedrock, due to the ability of glacial ice to erode softer and weaker rocks more easily, creating depressions later filled with water.” canoetrip.com
The First Nations
Beltane Beltane Moon
This is exactly how I feel about animals. They are other nations. I discovered this quote in the office of our new vet, Dr. Palmini.
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. Henry Beston, author of the Outermost House
Cub Creek Crashing Down the Mountains
Beltane Beltane Moon
I took this video and these photographs on my into Evergreen for Mother’s Day presents. Our picnic in City Park had to be moved to Jon and Jen’s due to the possibility of snow and/or heavy rain. A most peculiar May here I’m told by locals.
He’s An Akita
Beltane Beltane Moon
Yesterday was dog taxi day. Vega to vet. Vega back from vet. Kepler to the dog groomer for furmination. Kepler back from the groomer. In between I threw in changing the tires on the Rav4. Feels much better to have those soft snow tires off the truck. No longer flensing rubber on the consistently dry pavement.
Vega has been subdued, but she did start eating this morning. That’s a good sign. Kepler looks sleak. The groomer said he had “an amazing amount of fur.” The reason his head was wet when I picked him up? “He didn’t want his head dried. And I decided to honor that.” Wise choice. When I said he was stubborn, she said, “He’s an Akita.”
The drive to Pine Junction, location of Paws and Claws, is spectacular. Once just beyond Conifer on 285 a long, high range of snowcapped peaks becomes visible. Riding through the mountains, seeing more mountains ahead. Wonderful treat for an ordinary trip to a groomers. The road off 285 that takes me close to Paws and Claws is Mt. Evans Drive, the highest paved road in North America. Haven’t driven the rest of it. Not opened yet. Closed all winter plus some.
We’re getting so close on the Andover sale. Just a few items from the inspection list, nothing major. Then, Kate will drive to Minnesota for the closing. She’ll see her friends and have that, oh, I’m here as a no longer resident experience.
A Busy Day
Beltane Beltane Moon
Kate’s come down with some kind of bug. She went to the Colorado Potter’s show on Friday, the National Quilt Festival on Saturday and had the grandkids on Sunday. That’s a lot. Exhaustion plus many strangers can = not feel good.
Vega’s going into the vet today. She’s been listless since the attack yesterday and I discovered several more bites last night. She becomes very protective of her body when she’s hurt and didn’t allow examination until then. Kep, the attacker, goes to Paws and Claws for furmination today. He’s shedding with the seasonal change. A new issue for us since we’ve had dogs that don’t really blow their coats.
The Michelins go onto today at 2:00 pm. That means the Blizzaks will come home to stand ready for the next snow season. Which might be this weekend. Forecasts have us getting 5-8″ of snow on Friday or Saturday. How bout that?
Finally, tonight at 6:00 pm, if it’s not raining hard, I’ll take my Colorado Flora and its many taxonomic keys to Green Mountain in Lakewood. This will be practice for the Friday and Saturday classes at Mt. Falcon in Morrison and Sterling respectively.
Tires, Wood, Art and Dog Bites
Beltane Beltane Moon
Into Denver today to pick up four Michelin Latitude Tours. Saved $300 over my mechanic’s quote for the same tire. Tire Rack.com you rock!
On the way back I stopped at Paxton Lumber Company just off Colorado Avenue near I-
70. Actor Bill Paxton is a member of this family. Jon recommended it. They have wood for wood workers. I’m looking for wood to make a new top for some Ikea cabinets I have.
Woods they had, often 10-12 foot boards, many 3 inches thick: chestnut, yellowheart, padauk, wenge, pecan hickory, mahogany, teak, brown ash, walnut, alder, white ash, cherry, red oak, white oak, european beech, aromatic cedar (smelled so good) plus other, softer woods like pines, basswood, poplar. What a great place. Finishing the book shelves, getting a new top for my cabinets will mean I can organize and then use all my resources. Excited about that.
When I got back into the mountains, I made a stop in Indian Hills, a small town just off Hwy. 285. The Mirada Art Gallery there has a good reputation, the best in the Denver metro in spite of being in a relatively out of the way spot. It had a show of contemporary artists focused on the West that will close Friday.
The art, most of it, did not attract my eye. Too loose, too colorful, not enough depth. Expensive art to match your couch. However, sculpture Jennifer Stratman and painter Alvin Gill-Tapia would look good in any museum or home.
These were places I’d wanted to see for some time, but the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Today, it did.
While I was gone, the dogs tripped over into predator behavior. They are neither pliable, nor sensible in that state. Gertie has a wound just below her left eye. She looks like a prize fighter. Vega, who had attacked both Gertie and Kepler earlier in the morning, got bitten by Kepler. The e-collar he’s in didn’t bother him. Kate said he clamped on and wouldn’t let go. It’s not a terrible wound, but it’s a puncture wound through the dermis, so she’s back on antibiotics.
When they’re in a predatory frenzy, fights and biting occur at the door. Doorways are places where doggy status becomes critical, top dogs through first, omegas go last. In the frantic scrums like the one this morning everybody tries to get through the door at once. Havoc can, and did this morning, ensue.
Fog Will Lift
Beltane Beltane Moon
Dewpoint and temperature hovering together. Smoke in the mountains. Ponderosa pines covered in low hanging clouds. The air is, uncharacteristically for most of the year, humid. The green revolution has moved up Shadow Mountain to Black Mountain and Black Mountain Drive. No flowers yet, but lots of grass, ground cover, dogwoods and willows.
We’re down to the final movement in the Real Estate Symphony. The pace picks up as it does in the music hall. The inspection report is done. A few items to attend to, but not many though managing their completion from 900 miles will present some challenge. Not insuperable. Closing by May 29 if not before.
With the Andover house rocketing toward new (and appreciative) ownership and my biopsy scheduled for next Monday resolution of difficult issues could be close. When the closing is over, the house sale will be over. And none too soon. When a diagnosis is on the table, then next steps can be considered, action taken, not just waiting.
It’s possible, even likely, that we’ll hit June with the energy from resolution spurring us into the summer.