I have been looking at cliff swallows’ nests.
And at how the desert pavement is renewed by wind and rain and winter snow, the pebbles and flakes and sherds inlaid in the sand as if brand new, as if no human had ever stepped there.
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Tag Archives: hiking in the desert
So We Go On
Just walking, walking, picking up rocks and talking about everything. So peaceful and happy that I began to sing under my breath. Jan said, “You sound happy as a rock.” As a leaf floating on water, a relaxed hand laid on the table, palm up.
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Toads
The rains have come, and with them the toads. The pools of the Syncline were full of bright red mud-water, tadpoles and predators. A slim—but no doubt well fed—garter snake with a black head took to the opaque slurry, then poked its head out like a sea serpent.
In a drying pothole were many toadlets so small they looked like insects, not a quarter inch long. They had finished their lightning metamorphosis, but at the bottom of the hole was a gelatinous pudding of polliwogs that hadn’t grown up fast enough. Now and then there was a tiny squirm or shudder from someone in the black mass, a last effort at life.
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Bullseye
Along a dusty red two-track we came upon a ring of burned stones, a campsite that probably dated to the Thirties. In the rusty upturned bowl of a Model T headlamp, tidily deposited, was a pile of coyote poop.
Perfect aim. No seat to leave up.
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This Just Out
This wide, dry land, faintly green with spring, and nobody as far as the eye can see. Wind roaring up from Ladrón Peak on the south horizon.
A mourning dove burst whistling from a clump of snakeweed. I thought, Hmm! Sure enough, there was her nest on the stony earth: round, shaped from dry grasses. Two exquisite white eggs in it, the newest things I’ve ever seen.
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BETSY JAMES: Worldbuilding and Wilderness 