Love, Death, and Sheer Joy, High in the Rocky Mountains

Gee, the mountains are pretty when they're mad.

It’s hotter than hell in Colorado today—i.e. The New Normal.

And yet, the Continental Divide, thirty-five miles west of my barn/studio in Fort Collins, has already been dusted with snow, and we’re nearing the one-year anniversary of the snowstorm that killed off our tomato plants last September.

The hummingbirds weren’t too happy about it, either.

My watercolor, not to be confused with the masterworks by Mike Wilson, below.

When the sun slinks to a more remote apogee, my mind wanders into the mountains, where, with any luck, the water that nurtures everything and everyone out west will gather gently, steadily, over the coming seven months.