The monte : spring loaded for outrageous bursts of color and beauty

 

Here and there a huisache, unable to wait for the official arrival of spring, blooms golden and sends a pungent waft into the air, a preview for the overwhelming redolence that will soon hover over the monte in an intoxicating cloud.

Considering the incredible rains of last summer and fall, the ranch lands are spring loaded for outrageous bursts of color and beauty. The roll of red earth on a cut we made for drainage wears a blanket of yellow buttercups. Now and again the orange petals of an Indian paintbrush wave from the dry grass like a well-dressed party guest who arrived a bit early. Though the tips of the bunch grasses are brown, their centers are vibrant green and fused with an energy that is nearly palpable.

I'm mindful even as I write this that a Blue Norther could blow through here and coat the world with frost, which would certainly hurt grass sprouts and the aloes and euphorbias in our yard.

Just as last spring and summer were odd -- spring with its lovely prolonged periods of cool temperatures and summer with the bounty of rainfall -- this is an odd, moist winter, a season of moderately cool days and chilly nights that has allowed us to enjoy the natural beauty of the ranch and evenings around the campfire.

I document this unusual winter, too, by the number of eggs our chickens are producing -- unprecedented numbers that rose in the fall and have only increased.

The bird traffic has been amazing, the atmosphere all day filled with the raucous calls of natives and winter visitors alike. Red-winged blackbirds compete with grackles and Chihuahua ravens for birdseed in the feeders in the barnyard and near our house. At the pond, black-bellied whistling ducks, herons, and terns take flight as we approach on foot. And in the barnyard, the cacophony of those free-roaming egg layers communicating pecking orders, the location of a cache of tasty bugs, or the deposit of another egg in the nest.

There's a good bit of work going on, too. The steel pipe corrales are getting a fresh coat of rust resistant paint. Trees have been trimmed and shaped. Repairs have been made to water lines and troughs have been cleaned and re-filled.

And there are the new dogs -- Cocoa the chocolate Lab and Chata the boxer -- sweet, under your feet, irresistibly loveable dynamos of unharnessed energy.

There is this image I have, a lifetime keeper of an image that of late rises to the forefront of my thoughts when I understand how resolutely my life is anchored to this place. On a cool fall night that we drove across the ranch we happened upon a dozen or so snowy egrets gracing a bare tree at the edge of the pond. There was just enough light to see the stark beauty of their white forms hanging from the branches like ornaments, and just enough light that the gift of that spectacle would reflect in mirror image on the dark, still surface of the water.