Spring flux by Cosmo Langsfeld

Tracy Schwartz

LIVING ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDS, THIS WRITER FINDS SOLACE IN NATURE’S QUIET CURRENTS.

By Cosmo Langsfeld

SPRING FLUX

Spring at 9,250 feet above sea level. Daytime temps hover in the 30s and 40s, occasionally venturing into the 50s. That, combined with overnight freezes, provides a patchwork cover of hard snow and crunchy frozen ground in the morning that by afternoon has become a gloppy, sloppy mess.

One thing about living up here is that when the world goes haywire, which a lot of people argue that it has, it’s easy to shut out the nonsense. A closed road, no cell service, slow and semi-reliable Internet and a landline that cuts out with no apparent reason – the periodic self-isolation that became many people’s new normal over the last couple of years is, for me, more of a way of life. I’m no hermit, but if I wanted to be, the option is there.

Long days and nights on the ranch. Weekends see a steady stream of dog walkers and cross-country skiers. Snowmobiles pass with skis or split boards lashed to the side. Then the road gets plowed. I can’t figure out why. In a few weeks, Mother Nature would do for us what was likely thousands of dollars of machine work. Plus it shuts

off the backcountry access to snow-lovers prematurely. Once that happens, though, things REALLY quiet down. Maybe a dog walker wanders by a couple times a week in the early mornings before the mud softens.

Something else happens then, when all the humans leave and the days get long and quiet, the nights quieter still. When the people move out, the animals move in.

I was in my kitchen when I first saw the two geese. I want to say I saw them come in, gliding down-valley and settling with a flutter on the warm springs-fed pond. My kitchen window looks out at the pond – and beyond it, the barn, cabins, a couple of outbuildings, then the wetland and creek bottom and the view of the mountain up valley hemmed in by opposing ridgelines. More likely, I probably looked out while making coffee one morning and just saw them there.

I’ll admit, I’ve given little thought to the daily habits and rituals of geese. But I watched them throughout the days and weeks. They roamed the tall dead grass around the pond, bobbing their heads from time to time to pluck edibles from below. Maybe snails? A sizeable snail population resides in the warm spring water. Or maybe just grass? Did I mention I don’t know much about geese?

They did their goose thing. They came and went, spending time on the beaver ponds in the pasture. I don’t think they went far, because they always turned up again at the pond, moseying about before bedding

Photos Don Emmert

down for a time.

Initially I thought maybe the geese were here to stay. A warm springs-fed pond teeming with minnows and plant life seems ideal for raising a clutch of goslings. But alas, Canadian geese don’t nest in the Gunnison Valley. Seems obvious, given their name, but in the moment, none of that crossed my mind. Mostly I had the voice of David Attenborough in my head, calmly narrating my own private nature show, and nesting geese seemed like the perfect story arc. There was even a nice foil to the geese in the form of the coyotes.

Coyotes are fascinating animals. Greatly maligned by the Warner Bros. and made foolish by roadrunners, the real-life animals are much more graceful and intelligent.

That spring I saw one coyote more than the others, and yes, given enough time on your hands and a little bit of awareness, you can tell the difference between individuals. She (I came to think of her as female, though I never confirmed this) was a loner, and I first spotted her around the pond. She would come in the evenings and hunt in the tall grass. I watched her catch numerous mice, moles, voles or other rodents and was grateful for her pest exterminating habits. Once or twice she was there at the same time as the geese, and I watched, not so secretly hoping for some sort of showdown between them (enter again the somber tones of Mr. Attenborough), but that never happened.

Sometimes she howled from up on the hillside. A few times I saw her out in the pasture, yapping away as a dog and its owner went by on the road. She would yap and then run in the opposite direction for a few yards, then stop, yap and feint again. I knew if I skied up the road or out the pasture in the evenings, I would see her in almost the same spot, hunting in the willows. She must have had a den around. Maybe with a litter of pups? Who knows, but I had a lot of time on my hands to craft imaginary lives for my neighbors.

This loner was not entirely alone. Two other coyotes traveled as a pair and moved through the ranch from time to time. I’ve seen them, or two others like them, in the summer, hunting in the higher meadows. I’ll see one on the edge of the trees sitting, watching. Then the dogs take off in the other direction and the second one I hadn’t seen is running away on the opposite side of the meadow from its partner. I look back and the first one has faded into the aspens, the trunks of which are almost the same color as

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The single coyote seemed to be residing on or near the ranch, because I saw her every day, but the pair appeared only intermittently. Notably, once summer came and people returned, I stopped seeing the pair on the ranch and the solitary coyote began hunting exclusively in the pasture.

Inevitably, though, time would pass and I would see them again.

Once the following fall, while walking dogs in the pasture, I saw a lone coyote at the base of a hill. In the dusk, it blended in with the hillside, hard to spot. A moment later, yipping came from the other direction, down in the willows of the creek bed. The dogs ran toward the yipping as I looked in that direction, and when I turned back a few seconds later, the coyote at the base of the hill had moved about 50 yards closer. Why would a wild animal come in on us like that? It hit me like a ton of bricks: the son of a bitch was hunting us. Or more likely hunting the dogs, all the more disconcerting because they weren’t my dogs. I called them back, and we walked quickly up to the house as the coyotes yapped and howled away in the creek bottom.

I’m not crazy. I understand a wild animal is a wild animal and should be nothing else. But still. After everything we’ve been through, you guys would really do me like that?

The animals are only part of the spring flux. There’s a stillness in the spring that is difficult to replicate. The days are so quiet. I watch as the Earth opens up, the living things awakening. I’ll hike up a ridge and look down at the valley bottom and spy patches of green, likely in the springs, showing between the white and brown. Then, slowly, the color spreads. Birds return. The days get warmer, longer; the freezes shallower.

As the ground melts out, I venture down toward the garden. Till the soil. Watch as the green fingers of garlic poke up into the sun. The hard-frozen snow in the morning makes for the best crust skiing. I spend my days writing. Cooking. Skiing. Running. It’s a simple routine and one I dream about during the busier times of year. And even when everything else grows increasingly uncertain, I can always fall back on the ebbs and flows of nature. Like breathing, or a beating heart, they go on without our input, apart from whatever nonsense is going on beyond the view from my kitchen window. b