Lodge conditions 7:50 a.m.:
~ temperature is 44.1°F and rising;
~ humidity is 83% (!!!) and falling;
~ barometric pressure is 29.21" of Hg and steady;
~ the Cascades Brook is flowing at 2.64";
~ the air is generally still, with light movement;
~ the sky is hazy but clear, and the sun is out;
~ the USFS Fire Danger is MODERATE.
The snows of winter are very nearly gone. There are small pockets left on north slopes and in the shelter of shaded depressions. And this lays bare some 4-5 months of litter/trash/dumping/yard waste.
This annual ritual is almost as disheartening as the crocuses, buds, blades of grass, and Cascades are exhilarating, but thankfully not quite.
As Americans, we have a deeply dysfunctional relationship with the trash we own and the waste that we produce. There is an arrogant ignorance to our disregard for our neighbors and our wilds.
Beyond the smokers using our world as their butt can, and the simple "letting go" of wrappers and cups there is a more puzzling relationship neighbors have with one another.
Neighbors, who know each other by name, who see each other regularly, will take their leaves, grass clippings, and branches and either stockpile them against their neighbor's property in an ugly wall, or even place it on their neighbor's land. Pizza boxes, plywood, dead plants and their tiny Styrofoam beads, and plastic bags are regularly tossed over the line. And these are people who know each other and live with one another. Polite conversations moderate but do not mitigate the practice. If you must be so vigilant with your neighbor, imagine the situation where only the chipmunk and the finch can speak for the conservation land?
Such is spring.
New life and new chances spring forth, and we get another chance to try again to re-right our world, and hope that just as the crocus is undeterred by the injustice and bursts forth in beauty, so we too might approach this season in the same hope and expectation for newness of heart.
