Springtime in Colorado

It's springtime in the Rockies, a/k/a mud season. Crisp mornings will turn into sunny afternoons, and a day or two later we will be getting a foot of heavy, wet snow.

Everything in this world is connected. The snow that blankets 14,000-foot peaks will melt in May and June and that water fills up the rivers and streams. How many forms of life will that water touch as it makes its way down through the ranchlands, farmlands, cities and towns of America, and finally into the sea?

Just a few miles down the road, the cow elk are gathering in the flats where they will hatch little elklings. The cycle of life in the wild makes them want to stay as far away as they can from we humans, but we are still connected nonetheless. We drink the same water, breathe the same air, walk over the same earth.

The Lakota have a word for this: Mitaku Oyasi. It means that everything is related; connected to everything else.

Yes, I KNOW that baby elk are called calves, not elklings, and that they are not "hatched." Hey, I'm a writer and really like the word elkling!

Wherever you call home, I wish you a happy spring, filled with new life and new experiences.

Mitaku Oyasi.

Here are a couple of April 4th, 2022 views from Leadville, Colorado.