Today I went out without winter coat or winter boots.
Today spring has come to Carden.
After a morning of working on the computer I decided that I really needed to get out to enjoy the day. Where better to go than to check out Wylie and Alvar Roads. On the drive down Victoria Road, I saw that Alvar Road was still too snowy and icy to travel so I continued down and along over to Wylie. Along the way, kestrels lifted from the hydro lines as my car passed by, crows flew overhead and the brown fields looked lifeless.
And then I saw what always makes me smile: the cattle are back on the landscape.
I can't tell you why seeing them out makes me feel so content except that there is something so basically natural here. These are not manicured paddocks, not maintained, not groomed. These animals have the chance to live in a very wild way, dealing with natural things like coyotes, lightning strikes and junipers. They go into the trees for shade when it gets hot and wander the acres looking for food when they are hungry. The cattle in Carden go out on the land in spring and don't come in again until fall turns the grasses too brown to consume. Some have their calves out there; some are just fattening up for a different fate.
So after pausing to connect again with this life, I forged ahead. And Wylie did not disappoint.
It was in its usual challenging condition.
After careful maneuvering around potholes and puddles, I was eventually stopped by snow.
So I parked the car and continued on foot. As I walked I could hear a couple of crows having an argument with a raven. A killdeer was calling and the red-winged blackbirds were exclaiming over their territories.
And then I was stopped again - too much water to ford.
I took a few moments to look around, to listen to the wind and the birds and to wonder why this desolate landscape resonates with me so much.
Nearly there, I encountered this little bit of wildlife as it made its way along the road.
On the drive back down Wylie I was stopped by the sight of a bird flying into a tree. It was not a starling or a red-winged blackbird. This was something different but the light was bad and I could not be sure what it was until she flew down beside her very blue mate. I watched as this bluebird pair travelled along the fenceline. Then they landed and I thought I could take a picture of them. But as I focussed in my attention was drawn away by something else even more unexpected.
What was that I was hearing? Was I mistaking it for a variation of the call of a red-winged blackbird? There it was again. And on the other side of the road, again. The unmistakable sound of a fingernail being drawn across the teeth of a comb.
Could it possibly be that there were chorus frogs there in the long wet grass feeling spry with the sudden warmth? I sat and listened for several minutes and it surely did sound like that to me.
I drove further south along the road and then turned the car back northward, hoping to see the bluebirds again. Crossed the massive puddle for the third time but no sign of the birds so I parked the car and waited. I never did see them again.
But they have returned. More will be coming.
And soon this desolate land will be filled with bobolink and grasshopper sparrows, upland sandpipers and snipe, butterflies and dragonflies and wildflowers.
It's already started.
We just need to wait a little bit longer for the Carden landscape to show its colours.
