Color everywhere! From the garden to the skies. Last weekend was the Crawford Pioneer Days fireworks display, possibly the only one in the state for the rest of the summer. Through the year, the Crawford Fire Department, a dedicated volunteer corps, keeps boots out on cashier counters everywhere, and people drop in change or a larger donation. They shoot off a spectacular long display from the peninsula in the middle of Crawford State Park reservoir, so there is no danger of sparking a wildfire.
Everyone in my house seemed a little wigged out when I got home. They haven’t seemed to mind fireworks before now. The dogs rushed outside and one was reluctant to come back in, and one of the cats streaked through the house from door to door as though she couldn’t wait to get out. A little more active energy than has greeted me in previous years when I returned home from fireworks. But everyone settled down quickly. I’m glad I’m not home for the fireworks, so I can imagine it doesn’t bother my dogs. Rocky trembled in our arms for awhile, but then he settled down when we kept his ears covered.
They are routinely among the best fireworks displays I’ve seen in my life, and that includes Manitou Springs 4th of July, and the 1976 US Bicentennial fireworks over the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in DC. Those were both spectacular in their own way, but never in my life would I have ever imagined that I would sit in a small group of good friends year after year enjoying the best fireworks ever in our own back yard.
This year we watched from the yard of a Reluctant Host at the north end of the reservoir. Here, in the shallow V formed by the valley, fireworks filled the sky, sometimes startling us with how high they blew up, or their size, or color and intensity, the largest blooms filling the entire night sky. Patterns, colors, trajectories, subtleties, each firework is its own one-time moment, taking up our attention completely as we watch its trajectory.
Our host was reluctant because for years his dogs were undone by the explosions. Also his tender heart knows the terror that numerous other pets and wildlife feel with that horrendous violent noise. It’s been a few years since his sweet old dog died, the one he hid in the closet with to comfort during every fireworks, while the rest of us partied and watched from across the reservoir. I persuaded him, bribed him actually, to let us watch from their house this year; promised they wouldn’t have to host anything else for five years. Silly me. Because (despite having some grim thoughts about “rockets red glare” and our increasingly militaristic society) after that display I want to watch from there every year.
And then the next morning, at the top of the driveway as I was heading out, a small white dog, some smooth-coated terrier, ran in from the road. I stopped and got out and crooned to it but it ran on past the car too fast for me to catch, clearly running from something, likely the previous night’s fireworks. He wore a collar and was panting hard but not close to stopping as he trotted on over the hill through the sage flat toward the neighbors’ fence. I hope he was on his way home, but he looked disoriented and lost. I notified a few neighbors to the south, and hope someone was able to stop him. It made me so sad.
The tracks my mind goes down sometimes. I let my feelings turn into thoughts and pass through me, but still sorrow lingers when I let my speculation go again. Exactly the kind of heartbreak that’s made our Reluctant Host unfond of fireworks for years.
Weights and measures. One night of fireworks, though, is nothing compared to the havoc the 416 Fire is wreaking on the San Juan National Forest north of Durango, well over 100 miles south as the crows fly, and flying they are now. We’ve waked to the smell of smoke several mornings this week, and I come inside off and on during the days depending on winds. I woke yesterday early and shut all the doors and windows to keep out the smoke, then lay back down and meditated on the ramifications.
The last known grizzly bear in Colorado was killed in the San Juans in 1979, but no one has been able to prove that no more survive. I imagined a grizzly mother with two cubs trying to outrun the rampant monstrous fire that has been devouring those mountain woods for the past two weeks, now up to 33,000 acres and unstoppable. Or a black bear mother with cubs. Or a herd of pregnant cow elk or mule deer does. Rabbits and foxes and coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, mice, and birds: hawks and eagles, songbirds, hummingbirds, all fleeing for their lives and getting incinerated as the fire creates its own erratic winds in what is known as extreme fire behavior. Access to the entire national forest has been closed for the foreseeable future, with some hikers and campers alleged to remain in the wilderness. More than 2000 homes north of Durango have been evacuated. The fire is not expected to be contained until at least the end of July.
It’s on our minds. We can’t help it. We’re praying for rain, not only for the San Juans but for our own parched ground, our fields scorched and fraught with water wars. Blessed is standing in the rain this morning, a single three-minute sprinkle with the sun shining, wetting me no more than if I’d stepped through my garden sprinkler slowly. We have high hopes that remnant fringes of Hurricane Bud will saturate our sad land tomorrow. We are not concerned about new shoes or handbags or golf clubs, or where to go clubbing tonight. We country mice are praying for rain.
Meanwhile, while I have water I am spreading it liberally throughout my own little paradise, my refuge, my sanctuary, and sanctuary to birds and butterflies and bees, and any other wild creatures who pass this way; and I am breathing deeply the penstemon perfume, and thinning peaches, and cutting lettuce, and doing the best I can to cultivate some peaceful shred of mind in the midst of climate and constitutional chaos. Making these images soothes me, and may seeing them soothe you also.
Western tiger swallowtails circle the yard in seemingly random loops that resolve into patterns when observed over a long enough afternoon. The ancestral butterfly bush, Buddleia alternifolia, attracts them as well as other butterflies and lots of bees.
Penstemon palmeri, and hybrids, self-sow with abandon throughout my yard, and are buzzing now with Bombus borealis, huge yellow and black bumblebees, gentle giants.
Yellow Bucket
The juniper titmice have a nest in the half-alive juniper in Biko’s round pen, not far from the patio. I set up the tripod by my lunch chair and played with various exposures and lens lengths. They, like most birds, are so acutely aware of any potential threat to their nest, that I had to pretend I wasn’t watching for a long time, with the camera aimed at the hole in the tree. Then I shot a few frames, a few times when there was no one around. After awhile, I waited til one of the parents flew to the tree, shot just a couple at a time, until they were coming and going without paying me too much mind. Above, one is taking food to quiet the tiny plaintive flutter of squeaks inside; below, removing a fecal pellet, I think. What else could it be? Like many (but not all) birds, they like to keep their nest clean.
A rare visitor to the garden, this 
Topaz is an incorrigible lizard hunter. Though it distresses me that she hunts lizards, at least she’s not going after birds… She comes to me with a particular yowl when she’s got one in her mouth, and then she drops it. The lizards freeze when she pounces and carries them, and it takes them a few minutes to liven up and try to run after she sets them down. In that moment I try to catch them, and carry them to a safe brush pile outside the fence. Not that the fence stops the cat, but that they have a chance to hide and live another day. Every now and then she plays with one long enough to kill it, but when I catch her first I can save it. This is one grateful 
The irises have begun blooming earlier than usual. There is one true white iris, and one whitish-lavender iris, and both these light colored flowers attract these little yellow and black beetles. I watched for quite awhile trying to determine the nature of this behavior that looked like a vicious attack, but because time after time the smaller beetle emerged unhurt and came back for more, I suspect it was either breeding or just a territorial display. 
Though the beetles do have a little competition for their irises, like this Agapostemon, or green sweat bee. Below, a honeybee packs her pollen baskets to overflowing on the pink honeysuckle, which is now the bee magnet of the week, and smells almost as sweet as the fading lilacs. 
The garden roller coaster is in full swing now, and I can hardly keep up with the watering, much less photographing the abundant, diverse, and beautiful life that makes the ride into summer so raucous and delightful. Heirloom arugula is ready for picking for pesto, asparagus is winding down, lettuce is fresh and tender. The peach tree is loaded with small fruits, as are both apples, and I found about a dozen intrepid apricots on that tree that was hit so hard by several deep frosts during its prolific bloom. Late summer will be full of fruit!
The first butterfly I see in spring is the mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa. The species ranges throughout the northern hemisphere, and is called mourning cloak in many other languages, though in Britain it’s called Camberwell beauty, white petticoat, or grand surprise. It gets a jump on other species because it doesn’t migrate long distances, instead overwintering in suitable habitat tucked into tree cavities or under loose bark, emerging in early spring to begin its reproductive cycle. After mating, females lay their eggs around twigs of host trees upon which their caterpillars feed, including various species of willow, cottonwood and birch, and in American elm, hackberries, wild rose, and poplars among others.
The second course featured a creamy roasted carrot soup seasoned with ginger. Now I know the secret to the most full-flavored carrot soup is to roast the carrots first.
This was followed by a ravioli filled with with sun dried tomato, toasted pine nuts and goat cheese in a pesto cream sauce. I am not a goat cheese fan. I try now and again to taste it, because my damn friends all love it, and it keeps showing up. But invariably, a musty goat smell comes out my armpits within ten minutes of eating it and I can’t stand to be around myself. So I typically avoid it. However, that night, I’d have had to miss a course, so I did try it, and it was so mild I barely noticed eating it, and there were, luckily for my neighbors, no after effects.
A kiwi-lime sorbet came before the main course, two tiny delicious scoops of tart sweetness with a slight bitter crunch from the kiwi seeds, which was a perfect palate cleanser.
The main course featured seared salmon with a creamy Béarnaise sauce (or stuffed roasted red pepper for vegetarians), parmesan encrusted asparagus, and a simple jasmine rice topped with another edible orchid blossom which tasted startlingly like watermelon. 
For dessert, an exquisite chocolate mousse with a hint of orange, drizzled with a chocolate merlot sauce from local winery Azura Cellars, came atop a plate of sweet white sauce with a pansy flower and strawberry garnish. None of us could eat another bite, and we drove home through a steady rain feeling deliriously satiated.
Though the storm dumped a good amount of snow in the mountains, that won’t by itself protect us from extreme drought by midsummer, but it will help replenish the reservoirs. Still, a day after the storm, even the mud is dry.
The other big news is, at last a bumblebee on the almond tree! I’ve been most anxious, because usually there are bumblebees all over the almond tree, and I’ve not seen one until today. When I saw a bumblebee, so still not that reassuring, but better than nothing. Though by the time I got back outside with the camera, she was gone.
It’s charming to me that sometimes the honeybees open a bud, rather than land on an open flower. I’m sure there’s something special inside. She starts with her tongue, then pushes her face deep into the bud.
