Remembering a different season

 We decided to take our chances with the predicted snowstorm and stay here in Black Diamond for another night: now that we were here it would have been sad not to revisit some of the sites we had first seen almost four years ago in early summer. 

Then, as today, we went for a walk in the hills west of Black Diamond where our friend’s family has a ranch. I thought then it was one of the most beautiful areas in Alberta, with the flat farmland stretching out to the east and the foothills rising in the west, the snow-capped mountains sketched boldly against the deep blue sky. As much as the breathtaking view, I loved what was right under my feet, however: meadows teeming with wildflowers like avens, lupins, buffalo bean, stork’s bill and many others I had never encountered before. 

Today, the memory of all these things came back when we walked uphill, first through a poplar bluff, grainy snow crunching under our feet, slippery where the sun had started to melt it but had not been quite successful yet. Once we got out into the open there was hardly any snow left on the south-facing slope, and in the sheltered dip between the hill we were climbing and the one behind us the first blades of grass and tiny clover leaves had started to grow. 

 The view from the ridge was of a mountain chain much snowier than that last time, and a haze that would not dissipate all day made it a bit more difficult to see in the distance, but it was as magnificent as I remembered it. 

 

Wildflowers are only just dreaming of summer, as we are, but there is so much to see even now, and without the dazzling display of colour it is easier to notice other amazing things, like the woodpecker-hollowed old poplar that has seen many springs come and go, where I am reminded that new growth happens right along decay, that both are part of the cycle of life and are not only useful in their own way, but also have their own kind of beauty.