Ostern

I love those holidays like Easter that last for days with all our favorite things, like dying eggs and hunting eggs and eating eggs. And the cookies Prairie made to decorate in vibrant colors, our family gathered under one roof, sharing and playing, laughing at our kites jumping on the gusts of wind in bright sun along the river bar.

Any day now there'll be the first calf of the year on the Magpie Ranch, a lean little creature taking tiny knobby-legged leaps beside his mother.

I'm thankful for the moisture this past week, the snow and sleet and rain. For the native grass is growing along the benches and canyon slopes, and in the drill rows of our restoration projects, the new seed is germinating.

I know the river will come up in her banks and I try not to think of the herd crossing in their usual places, the little calves braving the current, their heads bobbing above the waves. I am reminded some things come naturally.

Each week brings new flowers, birds I am learning to know, with always a fencing job and cattle to be herded and lately, horses needing shod. I have planted more asparagus to join the feral sprouts in the garden, thick with equisetum. And I dug in a rhubarb start in hopes that all will survive the blaze of summer. Perhaps I want a reason to come back, when I can say, I've got to get to the river and water those plants...

Trailing the rocky slopes, I scan for buds on the prickly pear, their spiny limbs suddenly plump and tall after the wan and dessicated months of cold. It won't be long before their creamy yellow blossoms tinged with pink dot the canyonsides.

Green up. Glorious green up. It feels so good, I could almost eat the grass myself.


From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef