Word of the Day - Sylvan

Mark took a couple of days to get the fences pulled up on our mountain ground. He left me with only one stream of water to change so that makes me happy and I feel a bit of freedom with him gone overnight. That is until I wake up and feel unease at my aloneness. He took the mosquito net. I hope he uses it because the little buggers are fierce this year.

It’s lovely to have the cattle in the mountains. They take constant tending, but it’s a different kind of tending than winter-time feeding. Mark knows each animal even on the range, but to me it’s as if they take on different characteristics in the wild. He might say, “there’s the cow you blogged about in the calving barn with the twin.” Really? I don't even recognize her. She’s just another slick hereford out enjoying the foraging season.   

It’s snowing cotton at our house from the giant cottonwoods that grace the northwest corner of our sylvan homestead. I like the sound of "sylvan." It means wooded, only more poetic. It is associated with an idyllic or pastoral setting, disconnected from the modern world. And we are, that is, we do . . . live in the woods. No, not a majestic hardwood or pine forest. Our trees are common black willows, box elders, elms, Russian olives and cottonwoods. They’re fast growing. Some might call them trashy. We call them beautiful, stately, comforting.

I’ve learned there can be too much of a good thing, however. I’m trying to convince Mark that we need to take some trees out to address the “how many ever” board feet of lumber that is produced every year on our ranch. The leaves cover and choke the grass in the pasture, the base of the trunks provide hiding places for weeds, and most of all, with too many neighbors, the lovely silhouette of each tree is blurred and crowded out. Then there are the limbs, upon limbs, which need to be picked up and hauled away or burned. If I feel old, it’s after a day of dealing with weeds or tree limbs.

Not to mention the cotton! Every seed on the cottonwoods has a halo of white stuff that coats the lawn and garden and piles in the corner of the porch. Sometimes as the breeze swirls on the pavement, balls are formed - neat little spheres that dance a dos-a-dos on the sidewalk. Working in the garden means a nose full of cotton. The seed-making indicates that we’ve had a wet spring and our trees are making the most of it. Nature is cool like that. We’re not complaining. Mark says it’s a reminder that we’re not in charge. How true, like the mosquitoes.   

a man-made flood irrigating pond

they're loaded this spring

another sign of a wet spring: expanses of camas lillies