Place #6 - Grace

March 8th,     4:15 pm   30* 

After several more thaw/freeze events, the snow is easy to walk on...a bit slick on the side hills, but there's no need for extra cleats on my boots, snowshoes, or skis.  Nice!  Tikaani and I went out walking twice today.  It's sunny and mild, and I am being called to come out of the house, away from my desk, to breath this fine air and let the sunlight shine on the shadow that has found its way inside my heart.

Tomorrow is the day of Evan's death.  Today, five years ago, he was alive...exploring the mountains near Revelstoke. ..having the time of his life. It's never going to be easy for me, this truth.  But I am able to find solace in this place.  Just as the earth endures, I will too.  I will hold on to the love I carry in my heart for my son.  I will live, certain of his love for me.

I think that Tikaani senses that Winter, her most-loved season, is waning.  She is spending more time rolling on the snow, and sliding down the slopes than she did a few weeks ago.  We notice  many cylinder shaped holes that look like they have been bored into the snow.  Some are as wide as 6" or so, some are much smaller.  When I peer into these nearly perfect circles, I see plant seeds and small pellets of scat.  Tikaani and I came across a vole today that was making its way from one hole to another on top of the snow.  It was quite dark, and I had to scold Tikaani so that she wouldn't make this passing the vole's last one!  I was able to look at it closely, it looks like a larger darker mouse, but no tail.  It has the same type of sharp teeth, and very small claws.  I am amazed at the amount of tunneling and digging these creatures can do.  The vole climbed down one of his exits, perhaps wondering what had made such a huge shadow over him.  We might of saved him from a redtail that has come back to this place.  This vole was easy target on this field of snow.

Ahead of me, Tikaani has sniffed out something...it's a handful of tufts of fur.  Nothing else.  No bones, skull, anything.  There are no prints of paws or talons on the surface nearby.  The fur is the same color of the vole we just observed.  This one wasn't as lucky.  I am guessing either a coyote or a bird had a meal here.  I don't see apparent signs of digging, so I think this one must have been come out into the air, and been snatched up.

I notice how the snow is thinning on the hills across the valley.  I can see much more brown rock now.  Farther north though, there is still plenty of snow.  Tiffany Peak is capped in stark white.  Near the cluster of pines, I hear a bird, one I haven't heard all winter.  A sapsucker flits overhead, and moves on to another cluster of trees.  I caught a glimpse of red , black and white.  Not enough time to be certain, but it looked to be the size of a sapsucker.

As we walk on, I notice how the things that are dark against the snow have begun to hold the sun's late winter's heat.  Dark brown aspen leaves are at the bottom of divots in the snow; the boulders too, are becoming more of themselves, the snow has melted off and is pulling back from around their base.

I notice something new, a large sphere of woven grass material, in a place I have passed many times this winter.  This is sure sign of busy thatch-mound  ants .  We have many places on our property where these ants have built their nests in the ground.  I imagine that they are busily working inside their mound and because of the heat they have created and the sun's attraction to the dark color of their nest, their nest is one of the first to rise out of this snowfield.  

I turn to stand with my face towards the sun.  I breathe deeply, and slowly.