Saying Good-by to Summer

Clements Mountain 9/14/2013

A bittersweet smile crossed my face as I stood looking at my favorite view of Clement's Mountain.  For whatever reason, I have loved this mountain from the first moment I saw it in early June.  Its regal continence stirred within my soul a wild longing...where it came from exactly, I do not know.  But this once, glacier clad mountain continues to speak to my wild heart and I acknowledge it with a kiss blown into the wind and few tears.

The side of Clements Mountain 8/2013

I came up here last Saturday thinking it would be my last time up before I move on to other adventures. I came to say goodbye, to ask it to watch over the wildness contained in this beautiful park.  To ask the Guardians who stand tall up there on the peak to keep safe the secrets I have only begun to hear and listen to.  But I was wrong.  I did come another day...yesterday and was able to enjoy the wildness of that mountain in all its glory. 

The meadow below Logan Pass looking up

It was snowing on Logan Pass on September 18, 2013.   Not a lot, not dangerously, the snow melted on the pavement as we rode up the Going to the Sun Road in the Red Jammer Bus, so I felt unafraid but wonderfully, wildly alive.  The small, wet flakes flew in a straight line with the wind into my hand.  Yet they clung 1000 feet up on the tall mountain sides which towered above me.  I was not driving so I could enjoy the cold, wetness as it hit my hands, my face.  I had them both stuck out of the Red Bus windows. 

The view out the back window of the bus

Luckily I was in the back of the bus...no one else cared. I shared the back seat with a stranger, someone I'd just met a few hours before.  The delightful surprise was that we both had our windows rolled down.  I glanced over and he was as enthralled with the weather and drive as I was.  Both of us,  like kids, were hanging out the windows and were enjoying the icy wind and fog-shrouded view of the steep mountains and valley.  I laughed to myself because everyone else was bundled in blankets.

Snow on the Gardne Wall

How great was it that a kindred soul rode in that backseat with me!  I got to enjoy the unusual beauty of the high mountains on such a day with someone who "got it".  That was an extra treat on this, my birthday.  So, the good-bye today was not just to my lovely, wonderful, wild mountains but to my 50's.  Yup it was my 60th birthday. The decade contained great discovery, adventure, health/un-health, happiness/sadness, personal and spiritual growth.  

Reflecting

I remember my 50th birthday, clearly.  I celebrated by backpacking alone out to my favorite spot in the Deem Wilderness, skinny dipping in Lake Monroe with the bridge in full view a few miles away down the lake.  I stood on that day, 10 years ago, upright in the shallow water and waved at the cars as they traveled home unaware of the naked aging yet still fit, beautiful body in the distance!  What will this next decade hold? I do not know. 

Looking back at Logan - Hawk weathering the storm

I am very excited though, if today is an indication of things to come.  How many get to celebrate on top of a 6500 ft peak in a small snow storm?  It was a fine way to say hello to new adventures and to remind me that summer lasts only for a time so live accordingly.

Fields of August Flowers at Logan Pass

The flowers bloom wildly & boldly but for a short time.  Fall comes and they grow golden with the coolness of autumn nights and sometimes the snow touches them early and they pass sooner than they expect to. Thus there is the need to live boldly and show one's true beauty and color as opportunity allows!  But some do survive to stand amidst the snow, brazenly resilient and colorful to the end.

I capture me while taking photo of friends

That will be my new expectation...to stand brazenly and colorfully and to live each day with the remembrance of September's cloudless blue skies.  I will enjoy the sun and walk up the mountain slope as far as I can for as long as I can stand upright to put one foot in front of another.  And then its going to be me and the walker clomping along.  I vow to never take things for granted but to enjoy and be amazed by the surprises around each turn in the road.  

Our shadows dance on top of Red Rock Falls in Many Glacier

So to put it in words we've all heard before and I paraphrase, I want to ...."slide into home base holding a beer glass in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other, beat up, hair askew, reading glasses slightly ajar, Leki poles bent, backpack torn and Keen sandals muddy, Yelling...WHOOO HOOOO! I did it up right!"

Sunset - Doing it up Right!

Summer in the City

The warm sun beat down upon my back as I looked up from planting.  I wiped the salty sweat with a quick swipe as more gathered upon my brow.  Deciding, somewhat spontaneously, to put in my garden after all was why I was standing in the hot June sun planting.  My decision to not plant this year due to the constant fight with the deer and instead put my energy into walking long miles in the heat had not stood.  I found the call of the dirt to be too strong.  The need to feel the dark earth, warm and moist, nay to fondle it, caress it like a lover, was too strong.  Plus, I just love going to the nursery and buying really past prime plants and making them grow. 

So, into the ground went a bunch of Kohlrabi.  Why because last year the deer ate them ALL and there is nothing better than a cold, raw kohlrabi...who knew?  I didn't until a couple of years ago...after the first bite I was a goner...they are really that good.  For some reason, I always buy way too many tomatoes.  I am not a good tomato grower.  They seem to look at me and laugh.  "You know that I will grow and sprout a bunch of little tomatoes and then the blight will come, don't you?", they say to me.  Still, hope springs eternal in a gardener's heart, I put in 10 this year.  

For some reason, I wanted to try cantaloupe.  Gosh, Vera, its JULY!  Ever the optimist, I figure I have as good a chance as any having them give me 'lopes before the snow flies!! Plus, I'll be really proud if they grow, I've never grown cantaloupe, successfully, before.  Also, into the dark, dry earth went 2 Cucumbers, 4 Flowering Kale (can you eat them?) and some Basil.  I'd planted some up on the porch earlier from seed and the danged Chipmunks ate all but 1.  These do not look like basil though so guess I'll see what they end up becoming!  Oh, I also put in Chocolate Peppers! What the heck?!

I'm friends with the owner of this family run nursery/vegetable market and when I bought my plants we stood in the outrageously hot greenhouse talking about the lack of rain, the farm bills running through Congress, the health of the sustainable Portage County farming community, how to keep the Blight off tomatoes and just generally catching up after the long winter.  I told her the story of our garden "tractor" we just purchased and how I was now calling myself a farmer since I "officially" own a tractor now.  She laughed companionably and totally got it.  We talked about our deer herd since she lives just south of me and the same deer that plague me eat her for profit vegetables.  A much bigger problem for her than for me just losing my summer veggies.  Yet again, she understood and commiserated and agreed that if I could get a bigger operation going that I had a good place to sell organic veggies. 

That easy, summer camaraderie of the garden is why I love working the earth.  We all live  by what nature brings our way.  We have the same enemies...deer, rodents, bugs and hail.  Advice is as freely shared as is an extra package of plants because we all know that being able to raise your own food is something to be proud of and not everyone has the guts or the determination to stick it out.  Its fun being a member of the Order of the Perpetually Dirty Fingernails.  

Not my backyard but this is summer sunset in the city!

 So, I'll cross my fingers and stand out in the yard looking skyward for signs of rain, battle the bugs and pick weeds in the waning light of the rosy, summer sun with birdsong my sunset serenade.  I'll breathe in the grassy air and the peace that comes from being a part of the earthly cycle of birth and death. The result of all the work?  Yummy fresh veggies!