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Please walk with me as we enjoy a grand autumn afternoon in Summerhawk Valley. an Intimate Portrait of Summerhawk in the Colors of Autumn |
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This is the older area of the beaver pond which experienced significant bubbling at the height of the Divide Creek seep - back in Spring/Summer 2004. This area is once again placid, slow-flowing water. This photo was taken the same day I and a representative of EnCana as well as an environmental official with the state viewed the area. Walking into this area we mildly startled a doe and what appeared to be twin yearlings drinking from this pond. [10-23-07]
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This is the newly extended area of the
old beaver
pond. It is very difficult to capture the bubbling activity in still
pictures, but this is where it is occurring (as well as at Turkey Point).
[10-23-07] On the day I took these pictures (the same day I met with the two gentlemen mentioned earlier), I asked Blackcloud and others of the spirit world to guide each of us individually into this meeting, to help the two I walked with bring open eyes and an open heart to this situation, and allow each of us to put our best foot forward on this ground that has so fervently been dedicated to environmental prosperity, peace and healing. |
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| Another, more distant view of the newly extended area of the pond. [10-23-07] | An old beaver chew. Typically, the
beaver prefer cottonwood (faster growing and much softer) but, they will
also chaw down an oak. That's what you see here - an old beaver-chewed oak
stump. [10-23-07] |
Plenty of folks find beaver to be a useless and nuisance creature; and whereas they will destroy trees, flood a plain and play havoc with ditch systems; they are industrious animals and an integral part of a healthy, natural riparian eco-system. Though a part of me aches when they take a mature tree, they only do so as a part of the natural environmental cycle - and from the ring of water that fringes one of their lovely ponds, a plethora of new life will flourish in time - including trees. Through their diligent work, they create, in free-flowing stream beds, broad bodies of water - like pearls along a necklace - and introduce the opportunity for a greater variety of plant and animal life to establish itself and thrive within an area. Despite annual Spring floods which often diminish or destroy their efforts, the beaver rebuild and often abandon one area in temporary favor of another. Food supply often influences such patterns. Their labor never ceases; and, in a semi-arid environment, such as ours represents, it is thanks in great part to the beaver who inhabit Summerhawk valley, that we enjoy the kind of bio-diversity this land hosts year in and year out. I've watched these creatures play and work in the waters above, and they have taught me much about patience, endurance and an ability to manifest a vision through dedicated endeavor. Those lessons have carried me at times, and without them, I may not have earned the appreciation I now have. These animals are only one species of many which live here, which I learn from, which sustain and strengthen me within. |
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| A bench Blackcloud built, overlooking a secluded part of Divide Creek. This is a good place to pause during a walk in the woods and simply sit and think about things for a while. [10-23-07] | As you leave the bench and wander further down the trail, you come across Badger's house, newly widened in preparation for Winter. This house has been here for several years. It's quite large - maybe ten inches across. When I pause here to take a picture, you can bet I tread quite lightly! [10-23-07] |
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| Upon leaving Badger's house, an
overgrown path leads to the oak forest - right. [10-23-07]
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The oak forest, it's floor littered with this autumn's newly shed leaves, is rich in black loamy earth. Beneath its leafy Spring-time canopy, it annually hosts hundreds of song-birds. Wild bees make their hives among oak trunk hollows. This is an absolutely magical place to wander about looking for medicinal botanicals in the Summertime. We are standing at the entrance of Mossflower Trail. [10-23-07] |
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Cottony-soft seeds shimmer in the warm afternoon sun of a superb autumn afternoon. [10-23-07] |
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Within the oak forest I discovered a small pine thriving beside an oak. In the forest, as in all aspects of life, there is a balance continually wavering between cooperation and competition. The oaks have provided a sheltered, nutrient-rich environment within which the pine has found its footing. As it grows it will compete with the oak for sunlight. I wonder which will endure? Surely, under the best conditions, both will thrive for a time. But, the broader climate of evolutionary change will set the stage for a future unfolding today. As inhabitants of this land we, as people, struggle also. In this troubled time of renewed industrialization, our Earth suffers from a near critical imbalance. And we stand on a threshold... caught in the slow-motion ever-desperate throws of a world tipped very nearly out of balance. As people, we are no more and no less affected by our actions and inactions as the wildlife which surround us and in some cases have learned to live with us. A stone's throw beyond L.A. resides a world of plant and animal life as busily struggling to survive as those waiting for a bus in the inner city or those sipping sherry while gazing through high-rise tinted windows. Somehow, though, we have forgotten our Earth in the interest of ourselves and our proximate hand-to-hand combat with the 24 revolving hours of our daily lives. As guilty as anyone of consumerism and it's vile contribution to the degradation of this Earth, I none-the-less strive every day to find balance, live with and learn from this Earth that provides for myself and my family. It is a tiny patch of planet entrusted to our care and a responsibility we take very seriously. I endeavor daily to divest the distractions which drive me from an awareness of my place - my heavy footprint - on this yielding planet. We are not immune from the devastating effects of industry within a wild area, for whether we realize it, we share and depend upon a collective habitat of interconnected water, air, soil and symbiotic ecology. The forces that act to shape our world today, a doe's world tomorrow, leave an aggregate and lasting impact. Eventually the doe, the pine, the frog in the pond may be gone. Sacrificed to industrial pillage. When that day comes, I won't be around to fight for them anymore, because I will have gone with them. I am that immediately connected. That fundamentally invested. I will have been edged out as well. And willingly - for, without wilderness I am without self. But I know this. I wonder how many people haven't any notion of their true relationship with a planet rotating along an infinite cosmic plane. Can we afford to lose our sustainability? Our very selves? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The broader climate of evolutionary change will set the stage for a future unfolding today.
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This is a place Blackcloud named Turkey Point, it consists of a small peninsula around which flow the waters of Divide Creek, held to a slow march by a newly enlarged beaver pond. The ground bristles with the overarching limbs of long-dead oaks and those which just lost their leaves this season. Subjected to continual undermining, this densely overgrown jut of land, which hosts a flock of wild turkey, is quickly becoming an island. Note the pond in the middle-ground. [10-23-07] |
Another view of Turkey Point which
shows the pond snaking along its flank and preparing to meander left around
the bend. The shadowy spot in the middle of the stream, just ahead o f the
fallen log (which drifted down from Spring floods) is a submerged boulder at
this other site of new bubbling activity. [10-23-07] |
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The striking form of milkweed husks which have long since dispersed their downy cache into the wind. A vital plant for declining numbers of monarch butterflies, and in decline itself in many places around the world, the milkweed grows in demure abundance among the coyote willows along the fertile banks of Divide Creek. [10-23-07
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Divide Creek flows Northward out of the high country on its journey to meet the Colorado - a river which will probably sadly never again see the sea. There is something fundamentally constipated about the way humankind has permanently bound and depleted such a spectacularly wild, living thing. My daughter once gathered a draught of the Colorado in a jar and delivered it to the Gulf herself in what was a small but deeply significant gesture of enabling one of nature's now lost but most blessed and powerful unions. [10-23-07] |
I hope you've enjoyed sharing a little of Summerhawk up close. As the valley draws inward in preparation for the long winter season, I, too, reflect on the cold, peaceful months to come. Squirrels scramble to gather the last of their summer harvest, mule deer wander into the quiet protection of the peaceful valley and woolly bear caterpillars amble about in search of a place to safely hibernate. This nearing inevitable time of rest reminds us there is a time to bustle, and there is a time to fallow. |
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View a panorama of Summerhawk Valley |
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All contents of this site, unless
otherwise noted are copyrighted by Lisa Bracken, 2007. All rights are
reserved. |
