Living – Places: 36

"Even the blood of plants is the blood of humans—the only significant difference is the magnesium atom in chlorophyll and the iron atom in hemoglobin. One captures light, the other oxygen."
– Benjamin Vogt, A New Garden Ethic

2024

Wow, the first really beautiful snowfall of the year. It snowed overnight and until noon today, and then the clouds cleared and the sun burst through.

A picture looking up at several tall old Ponderosa trees covered in snow and reflecting the sunshine, against a beautiful blue sky with a few whispy white clouds.


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I love autumn.

Against a tangled background of still green foilage, a single grape leaf faces the camera, spread out almost like wings of a butterfly. It has begun the process of turning. Around the main veins running from the stem out to the leaf tips, branching many times, it is now a pale yellow green. Between those veins, it is still mostly green, which really highlights the leaf's vein structure. The very tip of the leaf has begun to turn a rusty brown.
Looking out at a dense mix of trees and bushes, some still green, others bright yellow.
Looking up at a vine tangled in a tree with its bright red, jagged edged leaves glowing in the midday sun.
A peacefully quiet scene of a creek with its banks lined with trees and bushes, some green and others glowing yellow in the midday sun, all beneath a clear blue sky.
A cluster of propeller-shaped seeds at the end of a Box Elder tree branch. The bright orange yellow are glowing in the autumn sunshine.
A cluster of trees, some with leaves turning bright red at the eadges, others turning yellow, and some still green.
This Green Ash stopped me in my tracks as it glowed golden yellow in the early morning sunshine with just a few leaves still tinged green to frame the glow.
This giant old Cottonwood, towering above all the surrounding trees, is one of my favorite trees along my walk, especially in the autumn when it turns a bright, glowing yellow against the deep blue sky beyond.
A birch tree with leaves glowing golden yellow in the afternoon sun.


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Late summer flowers are blooming right now along the way of my daily walk, including Virgin's Bower (Clematis virginiana) blossoming from vines growing amongst Wild Plum bushes.

A photo of several Virgin's Bower flowers, which are made up of long, thin, white hairlike petals growing somewhat chaotically out of a yellow center, all set against a shadowed background, which is a thick Wild Plum bush that the Virgin's Bower vine is growing within.

Another attraction along the way is a large ant mound that is in a field. It is such a big mound, a couple feet across, maybe 18″ high, and all made of tiny grains of stone. It's been there for a few years now. I don't see the ants very often, but they're not very big, so it's amazing that they've made such a big mound, and that they keep it in such nice shape all year around. Sometimes it gets a bit eroded by heavy rains, but within a couple days, it's all tidied up again. I always wonder what it must be like within the mound … a maze of tunnels and storage spaces, I suppose.

A large ant hill (about 2 feet across and 18 inches high) rising up out of a field of wildgrasses.

See also: What's Inside An Anthill?⩘  by Insider Science, YouTube.


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There were a lot of gifts on my walk today, like these clusters of peach-tinged boxelder seeds that are forming in preparation for taking flight later in the year.

Several clusters of boxelder seeds. They look a bit like moths with peach-colored wings. They are protected beneath green boxelder leaves.

There are a fair number of wild roses growing along the way, though most have only one or a couple flowers. These wild roses are growing in a protected place at the base of a rocky cliff where they get some sun, but not too much, and therefore are in soil that is slower to dry out during the sometimes long stretches between rainfalls that we have here. So they are big, vibrant, and full of fragrant flowers.

Several wild roses with deep green leaves and lots of pink, four-petal flowers are growing in front of a craggy, beige rockface.

It looks like we're going to have a year rich in wild grapes. Soon, the air is going to be full of their most wonderful fragrance wafting on the breeze.

Lots of clusters of little, pale yellow grape flowers are forming among the big, bright green grape leaves on the vines entwined throughout the other bushes growing along the way.


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One of my favorite spring flowers is salsify. This morning, they were all along my walk, brightly glowing against the rich green of the wild grasses. You know, I like summer, though it can get quite dry here, so hues of tan and brown predominate as summer progresses. I also appreciate winter, which can be incredibly beautiful here in the foothills of the Rockies. But when spring arrives and I'm surrounded by the outburst of nourishing deep green splashed everywhere, I feel especially grateful.

The couple dozen long, thin, lemon yellow petals of a salsify flower are glowing in the bright early sun framed by blades of rich green wild grass below. In the center of the petals are scores of deeper yellow, very thin and long, slight curled pistil styles with streaks of dark brown.

A week later and the beautiful salsify seed heads are gracing my walk.

A seed head about three inches across full of individual seed stalks radiating out from the center. Each stalk has a thin seed at the base, then a thin stalk that ends in a graceful kite that is made up of a dozens of very thin stalks curving out from the main stalk, perfect for carrying the seeds on the breeze.

This is a beautiful wild growing stand of dame's rocket in a little field along the way I walk everyday. According to Wikipedia⩘ , dame's rocket (Hesperis matronalis) "was brought to North America in the 17th century and has since become naturalized there, now growing throughout most of the US and Canada."

A stand of light violet colored flower heads growing in a little field with deep wild grasses and other plants growing in front of them and trees behind. Dame's rocket flower heads are made up of clusters of flowers that have four petals with a deeper violet center.


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I was wandering along on my walk in a somewhat absent-minded way when something caught my attention: up above my head, a pair of mushrooms had popped out of the lichen-tinged bark of a gnarled old boxelder tree. Although we have a bit dryer climate here, we do have some mushrooms, but this is the first time I've seen mushrooms growing out of tree bark like this. A bit magical.

A pair of mushrooms growing straight out of the bark of an old boxelder tree. The mushroom stems are thick and tan, the caps are white and tan. The tree bark is tinged dark orange with lichen.


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One of my favorite things in springtime is when the blossoms open on the old apple trees growing on the side of the lane I walk along most days. I love the way the buds are a rich reddish pink, then burst open to reveal white flowers with just a hint of pink.

The tip of a branch on an old apple tree with a white fully open blossom surrounded by reddish pink buds that are just starting to open. A ladybug can be seen on a leaf beneath the open blossom.

Another treat is the various wildflowers that bloom along the way. There's a place I walk past where an entire field fills with the glorious glow of blooming wild mustard⩘  a little later in the spring. But today, just on the side of the lane, a lone wild mustard brightened my day with its beautiful glow.

A cluster of wild mustard flowers displaying tiny bright yellow petals surrounding centers of light green buds of petals that haven't yet opened.


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Yesterday, it was sunny and in the mid-70s F (~23 C). A gentle breeze was blowing. As we walked down the lane on our daily walk, the breeze kept enveloping us in one of the most wonderful fragrances life has to offer, the scent of wild plums in blossom. Wild plums are one of the first things to flower in the spring, and their flowers come out before their leaves. The wild plum bushes along the lane were absolutely covered in bees in every size, from tiny ones all the way up to big bumblebees.

A wild plum bush totally covered in clusters of tiny white flowers beneath blue skies with a few whispy white clouds, and a redstone cliffs visible in the distance on the other side of the St. Vrain Creek.

Today we awakened to a heavy snowfall, with a couple inches of snow already blanketing everything and freezing temperatures. It was a somewhat unreal experience to be wearing a coat, insulated gloves, and a wool hat, and to be out shoveling snow just 24 hours after the kind of walk we experienced yesterday wearing short sleeves and sunglasses. But this is the Rocky Mountain foothills!


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Wow! Another significant snowstorm. The snow from the previous storm had mostly melted away after a couple warm, sunny days, and we were enjoying another warm, sunny day yesterday. I was puttering around in my shop, cleaning my electric chainsaw after having used it to cut up the downed limbs from the previous snowstorm. My beloved was tended to seedlings in our sunporch (she's getting ready for spring planting at the botanical garden she is creating). Suddenly, there was a huge explosion. I literally thought something had blown up in the valley below us. We both ran to the picture window facing the northeast and saw that even though our place was still bathed in sunshine, there was a solid wall of dark gray clouds moving in from the northeast. It had been an enormous thunder we had heard.

Looking towards the northeast through sunlit Ponderosa trees at a bright, sunny hillside beyond, above which is a solid wall of dark gray clouds.

As the storm moved over on top of us, the dark clouds were being lit by near continuous lighting, though none of the thunder blasts were as strong as that first one. Then it started hailing. We watched and listened, trembling, as the hail, pushed by a strong wind, smashed into our windows. Fortunately, the stones were relatively small, so no damage was done as it piled up to about a 1/2″ deep.

Looking through a window splattered with droplets of water left from the hailstones that hit it at a blurry deck covered in hail.

Then it started snowing, very fast. By this morning, everything was covered in about 10″ of dense, heavy snow. We spent a few hours shoveling. Then, just as we finished, the clouds lightened, the sun starting shining through, and we were treated to what I think is one of the most beautiful sights: a landscape covered with snow and lit by sunshine. So grateful!

Looking in the same northeast direction as the first photo in the series; however, this time the ground, Ponderosa trees, and hillside are all covered in snow that is brightly lit by the sun.

It's going to warm up into the 30s F today and the 50s tomorrow, so all this snow will melt away very quickly, just like last time.

Another view of Ponderosa trees covered in snow, this time looking towards the west.


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We just experienced a major spring snowstorm. It was warm the day before it began, rained hard in the evening, then overnight a big amount of very wet, heavy snow fell, perhaps ten inches. (If that doesn't sound like a lot, then try shoveling a steep, U-shaped, 150-yard driveway by hand, only to have a snow plow blast past after you've just finished, blocking both entrances with huge boulders of snow!) The next night, we received perhaps another eight inches of wet snow. Then it warmed back up, and within a couple days, most of the snow had melted away again, just stunningly fast. There are three things I'd like to remember about this weather event, one unfortunate, two really nice.

The first thing, the unfortunate one, is that the incredible weight of the snow broke off big branches in several of our Ponderosa pine trees. These are trees that are well adapted to this winter climate, so this is extraordinary, the first time in the 24 years we've lived here that we've seen this happen. And most unfortunate of all is that the snow took down an enormous branch of the most wonderful grandmother tree in our yard, a tree that is perhaps 300 years old. When we first saw this tree, we knew we wanted to live here. Where it snapped, the limb was about a foot in diameter, and the amount of boughs and needles that came down was just stunning and heartbreaking (and back breaking … I just finished cutting it up and carrying it over next to our driveway so that our tree specialist friend can chip it up and cart it away).

A large, old Ponderosa pine tree towers above our ranch-style house. A huge branch, perhaps a quarter of the tree, lies on the ground in front of the tree.

The second thing is something I have noticed on walks, including yesterday, which is the brilliant green plant matter growing in a pond that is part of a side channel of the South St. Vrain Creek that flows by near us. This stays green all winter long, even as everything around it is a dormant tan or brown. A few days ago, this little pond was frozen and covered in a foot and a half of snow. But as soon as the snow melted off, there it is, glowing bright green again. So amazing! My eyes feast on the green.

A little backwater pond is surrounded by bouldersand winter dormant wild grasses and shrubs. In the pond itself, however, is bright green plant growth of some kind.

Finally, the reason I cherish living here, the nearby peaks of the Rocky Mountains, which look so beautiful after a big snow storm. We can't see the peaks from our home because we're nestled up in the foothills, but we drove a couple miles east out onto the plains and took a walk so we could feast our eyes on Longs Peak covered in a nice thick blanket of snow. I love living next to the mountains!

A view of a majestic, snow covered mountain peak rising up into a blue sky with forested foothills below it, and in the foreground,winter brown pastureland an a fence.


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When I went out this morning to put some seed on our bird feeder platform, something on the very steep hillside across the way caught my eye. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. Had there been a rockslide that was strangely highlighted by the melting recent icy snowstorm? I got our binoculars to take a better look; it was a herd of perhaps 100 elk standing there, totally still, not even grazing. We've lived here a couple decades and had never previously seen anything like this.

In the middle of a distant steep hillside with a rocky ridge along the top, there is a circle of something that is a slightly darker brown than the surrounding tan winter wildgrass.

I went out to look again just now. They have since wandered further up and across to the south and are grazing. This is one of the few times when I wish I had a camera with a telephoto lens, but at least this will serve for remembering this afternoon.

A zoomed in picture of a herd of elk that is slowly wandering across a steep hillside.


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One of our favorite moments when we are out walking is saying hello to our buddy, Ranger, who we've known since he moved here ten years ago. He's gentle, loves Mrs. Pasture's Cookies for Horses (which we share with him with his human's permission), and just hanging out for a few moments. We see him nearly every day. Today was special because the weather started out overcast and gray, but then the sun broke through in all its glory in the early afternoon, making for a beautiful walk.

Ranger, a tan quarterhorse with a dark brown mane, is standing at a fence touching his nose to the hand of Garima. Behind them is a tan wintertime pasture, a low red barn in the distance, and tree-covered hills beyond.


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I love the subtle hues of winter along South St. Vrain Creek.

A view of the frozen South St. Vrain Creek winding through a field. Alongside the creek are bushes bare of their leave with branched colored in rusty orange hues. In the field in front of the creek are wild grasses that are pale orange.

Another thing I love is the beautiful ways the icy creek changes each day, a living sculpture. After the hard freeze we experienced a week ago during which the creek completely froze over, the temperature has been rising above freezing each day and falling back below each night. Today, the icy surface of the creek had ripples in it, the surface of which were thousands of ice flakes glistening in the sunlight.

The icy surface of South St. Vrain Creek. On the left side, a bit of flowing water is showing before it flows beneath the ice. The surface of the ice is filled with ripples from the ice thawing and freezing. The icy ripples are covered with thousands of ice flakes.


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A trio of Mule deer bucks visited us this afternoon. When we went out to gently encourage them not to completely eat the herb and hummingbird flower garden that wraps around our home, while also quietly telling them they were welcome to browse the rest of the place, they walked off a few paces, then turned to calmly look at us, as if asking with an inherent dignity, "And what are you doing here on our land?" I took this photo a few minutes later when they had wandered a bit further off.

On an overcast afternoon, a view of a hillside with lichen-covered boulders strewn amongst tan wild grasses and Ponderosa pine trees, In the center is a Mule deer buck calmly standing and looking towards the camera.


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Even though it was chilly cold during our walk today, it also was beautifully sunny, which nicely highlighted the meandering dark trails in this milky white frozen pond we passed by, likely left behind by those mysterious and elusive creatures commonly known as nocturnal ice worms.

A sunlit little frozen pond surrounded by glowing dried grasses and the twigs of bushes. The whitish ice is interspersed with lots of dark squiggly dark lines that make it look like we're on an alien planet where ice worms wander around just blow the surface of frozen ponds.

(Two days later, the entire surface of the pond was covered with a translucent white frost, with no tracks visible, so I'm really glad we had the opportunity to see this.)

See also: Where do these shapes in pond ice come from?⩘  by Dan Holtmeyer, Southwest News Media, Feb 6, 2019.


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This time of year, the winter sun is low and far to the south. When we're walking along the South St. Vrain Creek between the north and south hills, there are moments when we are in full shadow, while across the way, the south-facing redstone cliff is fully lit up and almost glowing. I always marvel at the handful of Ponderosa pine trees that are growing right up out of the near vertical cliff face. They look small in this photo, but they are large, magnificent trees. How they have managed to get enough water and nourishment from the barren rocks they have been growing up out of to sustain themselves into such a grand old age is pure wonder.

A sunwashed, peach-tinted cliff face rises up above deciduous trees that line a creek just out of view below. High up on the cliff, there are a half dozen big, old Ponderosa pine trees growing right out of the side of the cliff face. Above the cliff, there is a line of more Ponderosas growing along the edge of the cliff. And above it all is a magnificent blue sky.


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Every autumn, I trim the dead branches out of our Ponderosa trees for fire mitigation. My goal is to reduce the chance that a grass fire would jump up into our trees or that sparks flying would ignite dead wood still in the trees. Each year as I get older, the job gets a bit more challenging, especially when I'm reaching up 20 feet or more with my pole saw, so I was really happy when I finished a few days ago. Then, a couple days later after we had a beautiful little overnight snowfall, I thought the pile looked really cool frosted in snow, so asked Garima to take a quick pic as we were headed out for an afternoon walk.

I'm standing beside a pile of dead tree limbs higher than me that I trimmed out of our Ponderosa pine trees over the past few weeks, giving a thumbs up gesture. A gravel driveway curves around behind and there are Ponderosas surrounding the scene. Everything is coated with a fresh layer of snow that fell overnight except the tire tracks, where it has melted in due to retained heat from the day before.


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