Anticipating More Spring

It is not unusual for spring to arrive late up here in the Sangre de Christos Mountains, but this year is currently showing a different pattern. The long end of a long winter has passed with snow fall amounts much more than sufficient to keep us safe from forest fires, that is as long as the spring and summer rains bless us with their usual regularity. The Rio Fernando which runs through my back yard, through the canyon and down more than 1200' to Taos, is now a roaring torrent of snow melt run-off. It is silty and brown during this period, carrying sediments from up in the mountains along with tree limbs, sections of beaver chewed logs, and oddities like old fence posts. The large styrofoam cooler I did not appreciate and still have to pull it out from where it is, fortunately, jammed into a fallen tree. I will have to wait until the rush of water receeds before I can reach it. The Rio Fernando is usually about 10' to 12' wide, but now the widest point is over 40' as it goes through the bend, creating new temporary islands and following age old relief pathways. With brown water and no foliage yet to be seen, it is difficult to find a beautiful way to photograph the river, but the buds on the plants are ready and sprigs of green are emerging.

It certainly helps me with my attitude to come out of hibernation and welcome so much the warmer weather and the return of new life, a new dawn of activity. Perhaps, I am not so adaptable to long winters, blizzards, and being trapped by weather. A friend of mine and his wife spent the ending weeks of this past winter down in the Central American tropics, emailing me photos of waving palms, sun bathing tourists, and sailboats in the balmy sunset. I wanted so much to be there. But, I wintered here, and now prepare the wood shop and gallery for new orders and the gallery for our tourist season, short as it is. Good it is for me to make my plans to capture the coming of spring around my beautiful southwestern mountain home land and load them into my website.

As spring blossoms, stay tuned!