Change, Constancy

Wind and rain in the night. Flowerblanketing snow in the early morning. Hummingbirds swarmed our feeders in lieu of nature's nectar. By late this afternoon the snow was gone and the yellow flowers of arrowleaf balsamroot were turned greedily toward the sun sinking in the west.


Down the hill, arrowleaf flowers glow yellow against springgreen grass on the rough spit of foothill that thrusts between two alfalfa fields . One by one, 14 longnecked elk leave the alfalfa for the safety of as yet leafless scruboak and the already green maples. They pass darkly across arrowleaf studded openings into more brush, whitepatch tails signaling their presence and passage.

Still scruffy muledeer cross the elk's paths and, tawny forms in the last rays of sun, slip from the brushy spit onto the Irishgreen fields, spread out with exuberant sprints, highspirited replacement grazers taking the evening shift.