Greenstorm's Journal

It's raining gently. It's supposed to continue. It's been so dry lately; I'd worried for my corn, pre-soaked and placed into earth that was dust up to two inches down.

The corn grew anyway. It was ready, swollen with life and roots, and it sent its reach downwards where moisture lingered under it. I'd trodden it in well to reconnect the soil with its capillary motion and it came right up through my footprints. Now the sky provides: this morning is a long gentle song of raindrops pinging on my chimney and new solid roof and sighing silently into the receptive soil. If I were on the lake it would sound like silver.

Rain allows me to rest. The sun is like an engine revving and it wants me to go somewhere, do something, feel every thing at once. In the rain I can go out and gently put my hand into the soil and slide a tomato plant in and it feels like no motion at all, like the world just slightly turned and that was the outcome. I can sit and listen and my mind listens too: ebb and flow.

I went out into the rain just now. It always sounds wetter than it is: drops on the roof inside, tiny kisses of mist on the skin outside. That's one reason I like working outdoors: it reminds me it's not as unmanageable as it seems from inside. I planted a little corn and visited with the ones that are up. I should post more about them really. The favas too are really spreading their wings. There is so much light for them here and they don't mind the cool; really they are an excellent plant for this climate.

After work today I'll go out again in the rain and hopefully the mud by then -- now it's an inch of mud then an inch of dust below and then moist soil below that -- and plant the rest of the tomatoes, and perhaps the squash. It's late to put these things in; well see how they go.

Today was my first day in a helicopter. They're pretty normal for my line of work, not frequent but normal from time to time. Everyone is surprised I've worked in this field as long as I have without being up in one.

They are such an incredibly intimate tool to learn the landscape. We covered a lot of distance, but part of what we did was to count swans on the river and look at individual pine germinants, couple-centimeter-tall trees, on forests that had been burnt by wildfire.

They allow you to transcend the limitations of space and scale in ways I hadn't imagined.

I love this area. I love the mountains with rocky snowy peaks and whitebark pine; I love the wide generous valleys; I love the hills with cobbled slopes that catch the sun. We spotted about twenty moose and spent five minutes in an area I'd struggled to walk around one small part of for an entire day. I saw forests that used to be meadows: our pilot's family had lived in this area for a couple generations.

There was snow on the ground, not deep but great for contrast. There was a perfectly blue sky with sun. Low clouds and mist lay along the so-many-lakes here: Takla Lake, Tchentlo Lake, Pinchi Lake, Hatdudatehl Lake, Purvis Lake, Stuart Lake. They were all trying to freeze but the water was still warmer than the air so they streamed cloud up to hide themselves.

My connection to this landscape is so private, intimate, and important to my soul. So much of the trip I was thinking, I can't take pictures because this moment is sacred just to me. So many of the pictures would mean nothing to you.

I took some anyhow, to remember.