Desert indian paintbrush just beginning to bloom
I spent much of the afternoon out in my dryland native meadow front yard, giving it’s annual spring clean-up and “pronghorning.” As I squatted close to the ground, clipping and hand-raking the detritus of winter to reveal tender new green, I remembered why I love doing this physically challenging yard chore. Each bit of detritus I clear away reveals life springing up anew, a miracle to me in this record-breaking drought.
Prairie groundsel, a charming native daisy relative
Last year was simply dry; this year is so much worse that it’s not even comparable. Most of Colorado is now officially categorized as in “severe” drought. Our snow pack, the source of summer water for rivers and streams, is at one-third of normal for this time of year. Here in my valley, we’ve received less than an inch of precipitation in the four months since January first. And April is normally our wettest month. This year it’s been sunny, windy, and relentlessly dry.
Mountain ball cactus stores water in its fleshy body in special reservoir cells.
So I was surprised to find four species of wildflowers blooming in my restored native grassland yard: the desert or wholeleaf indian paintbrush and prairie groundsel above, this beautiful starry mountain ball cactus, and the Lewis flax in the photo below. (The mountain ball cactus was a birthday gift from a botanist friend, Ellen T. Bauder, who knows my passion for restoring and healing my yard, formerly a blighted industrial area, with native plants. Thank you, Ellen.)
An impossibly blue Lewis flax flower, closing up for the day
It seems I didn’t give the native plants enough credit: They’ve lived here for millennia, they’ve dealt with drought before. Of course, I’ve also been giving the yard a drink now and then. Not nearly enough though, to compensate for the snow and rain the plants would receive in a normal year. Nor is treated city water, all I have to use since my rain barrels are dry, comparable to natural precipitation, which washes nitrogen and other nutrients out of the air.
The wildflowers blooming in my yard are short, stunted by the drought. If we don’t get some precipitation soon, their blooming season will be short too. Still, that they’re managing to flower at all seems miraculous to me. A benediction of sorts in a very hard time, a time of drought on many levels. “Have faith,” these tough and beautiful spots of color in my just-barely-greening-up dryland meadow yard say to me. “Life carries on.”
It does. I should know that. Sometimes we just need a reminder….
*****
And now the news. This week brought two exciting releases, both from projects a long time in the finishing:
Pieces of Light, the new, updated eBook version
First, the release of the updated, eBook version of Pieces of Light, my very first book, an award-winning nature journal set in Boulder, Colorado. The eBook includes new author’s notes at the end of each chapter, and was published by Terraphilia Press (my own press, invented to release my WildLives audio CD). Many thanks to my virtual assistant, Lisa DeYoung, and editor/writer/ fiber-guru, Deborah Robson, for their expert help. Pieces is available for Kindle now, and will be out for Nook and on the iBookstore soon. (It’s only $4.99–a steal!)
Second, the pollinator video I was filmed for last summer while Richard and I were working on the interpretive garden project at Carpenter Ranch is just out through The Nature Conservancy’s new “Nature Works Everywhere” program. It’s short, free, and comes with a companion lesson plan. Pollinators—Putting Food On the Table is for anyone who gardens, enjoys flowers, or just loves to eat. It’s fun and informative—take the pollinator lunch challenge!
A honeybee heads for a Brodeia flower
On the personal front, I’m still sub-par from my 2,400-mile swing through Texas and New Mexico. But I’m recovering, and the glow from that standing ovation in response to my keynote talk hasn’t faded….
Blessings and joy to you all.
Susan, I enjoyed the wildflower pictures and also the state of your “dry” garden. Much of the nation’s weather has been strange, although here in the NW it has been quite normal. Also, congratulations on your news of recent releases. How exciting to see your first work in a different format.
I’m glad you enjoyed the wildflower pics–I thought you might. The PNW is getting all of our snow and rain this year, I’m afraid. Maybe next year the jet stream will be kinder to us…. Thanks for celebrating my projects. I hope your new blog is behaving for you now!
wonderful!! Chipper and I were shocked by the drought- i hate to say we hadn’t realized it was so bad out your way.
Chipper my little garden buddy and I talk about your restored yards idea as we play with the garden areas of our yards…we are quite excited with the wildlife and insects who have a home in our special little “native” plot. You continue to inspire us to explore experiment and grow!
Love the re-released eBook- i am savoring it- and i think the format turned out well- better than most i will say thats for sure! I noticed this is your production company that released the e-Book- kudos to you Susan! I am so very proud of you – enjoy the continued discovery of life peaking through- survival is so exhilarating isn’t it?
Blessings dear one
Doc Chery, It is very, very bad here. And it’ll take some years of “normal” to set things right. I am afraid that global climate change has made drought our new normal though. Sigh.
Thanks for your comments on the updated version of Pieces of Light. I’m glad the formatting looked decent to you. I’m kind of a type design snob I guess.
And yes, survival is a joyous whoop, something I’ve learned a lot about here recently. Blessings to you and Maria and your whole pack!
What gorgeous wildflower pictures in spite of drought – the color of persistence. Here in northern MI we have experienced a zone change. The powers that be changed us from Zone 5 to Zone 6 and yet the colder than normal temperatures persist. 31° this morning and every morning for most of this month as frost coats everything. We did have one very strange week in the early part of April with highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s. That week completely confused the growing cycle; cherry farmers are afraid they have lost up to 90% of this year’s crop due to the budding of their trees that week followed by many nights of below freezing temps.
I have been sitting up late at night reading “Pieces of Light” using the tiny LED light attachment on my Kindle. I am loving and savoring every word. One tiny phrase (of many) continues to stick with me as you so eloquently described the breeze blowing down through Boulder Canyon – “. . . mountain exhaled . . . “. As for formatting – Kindle formatting on any book isn’t perfect but I must agree with Chery that the formatting for “Pieces of Light” turned out so much better than other books I have read on Kindle. I have no idea how this is done or who does it.
“Pollinators – Putting Food on the Table” is a great short video. I know that if I still had a classroom I would show this to my students and use the companion lesson plan. The Nature Conservancy offers wonderful lessons for students of all ages.
Thank you, Susan, for sharing all of this with your most fortunate readers/fans/friends. Big hugs to you
Lindy, What a lovely compliment on Pieces of Light! I always figure if my words stick in reader’s heads, I have done my job well.
On formatting: in this case the who does it was me, with help from my assistant, Lisa. We used Apple’s instructions about how to format with ePub, the eBook formatting standard. We had to do a lot of checking of the formatting on my iPad and then tweaking small things to get it right. I think most people have it done automatically by translation programs and never check to see how it came out. The original book was designed by a noted fine-press printer, so it’s really beautiful. But that kind of control on eReaders because they all interpret ePub slightly differently….
I’m sorry, but not surprised, to hear about the cherry crop. That happens in Colorado quite frequently, but Michigan’s winter and spring weather is usually more stable. I think that’s probably part of what we can expect with global climate change: less “normal” weather, and more extreme weather as you have experienced this spring in the strange hot weeks followed by a return to freezing nights. It’s not going to be easy to manage, and it may play havoc with our food supply.
If you know any teachers who would use the pollination video, please forward the link. I am trying to help TNC by seeing that it gets wide distribution. In fact, if it went viral, I’d be thrilled!
SO glad that your Pieces of Light project is working well in its new format! It was a delight for me to be part of a successful e-book conversion. (The other books I’ve been involved with converting have not gone so well.)
And I love the pollinators video, and have forwarded links to it, and will continue to do so.
Couch time for you until you’re recharged!
Deb, Thanks so much for helping with the eBook process. It was definitely not as easy as advertised, but I am pleased with how it turned out. Now to sell them….
Isn’t that pollinator video fun? And eye-opening, which is the point. Thank you for passing the link along.
Couch time is a work-in-progress, but I’m looking forward to an evening of it once I finish potting up a few more tomato plants, and call my dad and deal with the week’s crises. Fun, fun, fun. I am feeling pretty burned out on caregiving, but as you know well, you just have to do what you have to do.
I’m usually a lurker to your site, but wanted to let you know I put Pieces of Light on my NOOK wish list…yes, it’s available now. But after reading the comments, I’m going back to update that to ‘buy now.’ I’m lookling forward to reading your earlier work,
Thanks! What a lovely compliment. I hope Pieces of Light gives you insight into the places you love, and the way we inhabit them.
You touched on what I was gonna mention, i.e. How tenacious life can be, and how persistent, even amid “‘severe’ drought.” (According to a recent article in our local paper, though, this summer is being predicted to be wet. However, as you mentioned, it’s gonna take a lotta normal to get us back to normal….)
Congrats on getting Pieces of Light reissued. Also, what good news that Pollinators is out, now.
May the surprises and “joy-ities” continue being uncovered and revealed.
Eduardo, I hope this summer is wet, but predictions are just that. Global climate change has altered what was “normal” so we don’t really know what’s ahead. Which I guess is the way that life is anyway…. Thanks for the congrats and for the lovely benediction!
Hope you’re feeling better now, Susan. Those long trips can take a lot out of you. Love the flower pics! Happy trails from slightly rainy Texas! bobbi c.
Bobbi, I’m feeling better in some ways and not in others. And that’s the subject of the blog post I’ll write tonight, after spending the day making more progress on late-spring yard cleanup and other projects. The first Terraphilia resident arrives tomorrow, a printmaker from California. That’s exciting (and a bit scary, I must say, since the shop is not even close to being finished). Hugs to you in slightly rainy Texas!
How groovy-cool to have the Terraphilia residencies fixin’ to start! I understand the scariness of the shop still being under de-re-construction, the We’re-not-ready-yet!-ness; but there’ll nonetheless be so much that WILL be there to greet the printmaker—not the least of which will be the incredibly nurturing and creative atmosphere. All the years of respirations from you and Richard will provide such deep and sturdying inspiration. Enough intangibles are very present to compensate for any “lacks” of the tangible.
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