Late Spring at 8,000 Feet

June 5, 2008. Imagine. When I awakened this morning, this was the view into our patio just outside the kitchen door. Humph! Except it was excellent to get the moisture. It meant I didn’t need to spend my time watering all the new planting I have been doing to beautify our yard. But it’s hard to believe it’s nearly summertime when a gust of cold air smacks your face when you open the door to let the cat go out.

the young apricots

jaunty in their snow white hats

this fifth day of june

For me, it is impossible NOT to be creative in the summer months, but creative during summer means just about anything at all. Certainly it doesn’t necessarily mean painting or writing. It means sitting beguiled by the beauty all around, the dandelions like butter in the huge lawn, the trees still opening up to what will later be a deeper green, the mountains across the valley below, mauve in the distance. It means listening to the birdsong, watching the ravens ride the high winds, then swoop, doing somersaults as they go, down into the steep canyon just across the road. It means enduring the snarl of the dirt bike one of the kids up here rides every beautiful weekend day, waiting for its enervated voice to die away, back into the silence of crickets and birds, the breeze. Summer is the feast. No time to paint! But this is where the painting starts. This is its source.

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