Little Wren was cold and uncertain this evening at the rim of the Black Canyon. We joined a few friends for cocktails at the canyon, each bringing our own beverages and some kind of snack to share. Black Canyon is one of the more dog-friendly national parks, and three of us brought our dogs to the overlook along with our picnics. After a couple of hours of warmer sunshine late afternoon, clouds rolled in again and the temperature dropped just about the time we arrived. As we gathered, we observed a massive wedge-shaped cloud over the south rim, which gradually moved closer. We are hardy souls and typically brave the elements when we’re enjoying where we are, but I called an abrupt end to the gathering when I watched one woman’s hair slowly rise until it was standing on end. Synapses fired in me that went something like this: static electricity>⚡️> leave now! I’m grateful for the time spent with friends, for the amazing Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, just a beautiful half-hour drive from home, and for coming home again.
I’m grateful for erosion. Without it, we wouldn’t have canyons. Imagine that. None of the drama, beauty, adventure; no more of the unique habitats, microclimates, and endemic creatures of canyons… like the adorable canyon wren with its unmistakable song (be sure to click ‘Listen’ in the link). No Grand Canyon, no Black Canyon of the Gunnison (pictured above), none of the other fabulous canyons around the world. Not that I’m a huge fan, and not that it will be feasible for much longer, but no hydropower dams which admittedly provide electricity and irrigation water to a lot of humans… Besides forming landscapes, erosion can also benefit the planet by distributing nutrients…
I realize that I’m in over my head, because as I search the internets for benefits of erosion, I find a 10:1 ratio of articles about “why erosion is bad and benefits of erosion control”: Not many specifics about why it’s good. It depends on your point of view, I guess. For certain, erosion doesn’t play nice with human efforts to control the environment, and the more intensely we have tried to shape the planet to our will, the more we have decided that erosion is a problem to be reckoned with rather than accepting it as a natural force of evolution. So I’m gonna be grateful for it anyway, because of canyons.
A peppertastrophe today as a result of yesterday’s deluge, perhaps. The main trunk of the huge, healthy scorpion pepper broke! None of the peppers have entered their final ripening stage, and they won’t ripen off the plant until a certain trigger point is reached with the perfect combination of daylight and temperature. I’m grateful for equanimity and ingenuity. I was disappointed but shattered as I might have been a few years ago, and immediately set about trying to salvage what I could.After a few efforts to stabilize the plant in water I was grateful to find the perfect rock to hold it in a bowl. I’ll figure out something more stable and permanent tomorrow if it doesn’t drop dead, and try to limp it along hydroponically for a few more weeks until the peppers start to turn yellow.And in kitchen successes, yesterday’s dilly beans above,and today’s bread and butter pickles below.I’m grateful for another precious day alive in this beautiful world.
A silvered juniper skeleton serves as a fence to keep people away from the precipitous edge of a sheer cliff.
I’m grateful to live so close to one of the most spectacular canyons in this country, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, protected as a National Park. I’m grateful to live near the North Rim, by far the less visited part of the park. Usually on a summer Wednesday morning there might have been one or two cars parked at the ranger station, a couple of tents in the campground, and no one else on the rim drive overlooks. I guess with Yellowstone closed for flooding everyone decided to come here. I’ve never seen so many cars at the ranger station, a dozen at least, and four or five at the nature trail parking pullout. There were people everywhere!
The Painted Wall, the highest cliff in Colorado
I’m grateful for the sweet melancholy of caring enough to miss someone I barely know when he’s gone… enough to grieve the wild world, the ancient trees and fragile lives in this park, for the state that the human species has brought this planet to… enough to wish the best for all beings, even humans, even so… I think I prefer this to not caring.
