Desert Morning (A Riff on Joni)
“Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today” ~~~ Joni Mitchell (listen)
Me and Bouy are creatures of habit. We so enjoy our morning routine, which starts with a walk. Here’s what that looks like.
I wait at least a half hour hour after sunrise to give all the coyotes time to get back to their dens (they keep us up at night and run Bouy to death). That also lets the sun get high enough in the sky to warm things up enough so I don’t have to wear a heavy shirt, which I get hot in and have to take off by the time we get back from the walk.
The photos really can’t do justice to this place. When the sun is low in the sky, the colors are incredibly intense: brilliant yellows, rich olive greens, incredibly deep blue skies, blazing orange/red/purple/turquoise sunsets.
Things just seem more solid, dense, and somehow real in the desert. Hard to describe, but it’s real. Even a rusted old bottle cap.
And at night we have tons of stars, the Milky Way, and total silence. To cap that all off, the sun powers my refrigerator, lights, WiFi, laptop, phone and camera!
We’re camping on the edge of a large wash, with heavily vegetated riparian corridor. Lots of small birds. I saw a huge hawk on our walk this morning. He let us get close, inside 100 feet. I’m not a birder, so don’t know what kind of hawk. I’ll look it up and find out. I put out a hummingbird feeder but haven’t seen any. Don’t know if they’re here now. Will find that out too.
We get back to the bus. Buoy gets clean cold water and fed. I brew a pot of coffee and bask in the sun. Incredible warm sun on my face in the cool morning air. That’s it!
Now, I’ve gone coast-to-coast just to contemplate.
But, no regrets, coyote!
(A local artist, coincidentally named Wolf, makes these desert scenes on license plates)
When the curtain closes and the rainbow runs away
I will bring you incense owls by night
By candlelight, by jewel-light, if only you will stay
Pretty baby, won’t you-
Wake up, it’s a Chelsea morning