Feb. 23 2022: Mother Nature Rules

A day like today lets you know who’s boss. While the media delights in regaling us with horror stories of major natural catastrophes (hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and tornados), you can see the power of Mother Nature in ordinary weather, too. For me, it’s a mix of sound, movement, smells, and visual euphoria.

Right now, we are between 2 winter storms. The second should be arriving anytime, as it pushes its way past Utah. It’s already dropped several feet in the mountains, but we only got a few inches, already melted. The wind, however, is gusting to 40mph and the sun is playing peek-a-boo with the clouds, which are racing across the sky like they’re late for a date. I was outside throwing the ball for Clair, standing on some ice in the back yard, and the wind caught my jacket and spun me in circles.

The juniper trees love it: their branches are dancing and bobbing with the gusts. Unlike pines, their conical, tight shape makes all their branches move in unison and they flounce around like ballerinas in green tutus in nature’s choreographed ballet. It’s quite mesmerizing.

The sounds of the wind are dramatic, too. It whistles through the trees with that low howling sound you associate with a horror film. Whooooo! It’s especially eerie during the night of course, when you’re heading to the outhouse. Last night coyotes added their song to the wind. They were making their own music; they have their own orchestra. During the day the wind is more like a lullaby, calming and soft. There’s also the sound of the snow, which is skittering across the crusty ice in the meadow. Shhhhh, shhhh. Finally, there’s the sound of ice cracking in the creek bed and the waterfall running over the banks into its pool of ice water. We haven’t heard a rockslide, yet, but we will.

Finally, there’s the smell. When it gusts, the smell of winter sage is everywhere. Normally, you have to get right up to it to smell it this time of year, but something happens when the wind moves over the bushes. To me, the scent of sage is truly the symbol of the West in all it’s glory.