Outlook - Spring 2013

Drunken spring: soaked and flooded with life. Sore from a long nap under a thick blanket, the natural world reaches out anxiously to breathe a long, slow breath. Just as it is on the side of Slough Creek in Yellowstone, change is evident in any valley, meadow, or mountain. The season strikes with an unmistakable feeling. A sound, a smell—overt and palpable. The wait is over. Relief is here.

The world awakens from right where it was left. Green patches resurface and the trickling stream moves on down again, flowing as though it never forgot how. Wings wander back and paws plunder for sustenance beneath the matted grasses and moldy dirt. All that was hidden—now naked and exposed—reacts to the transformation.

To us, spring brings renewal: we recreate with the seasons and it’s time for a change. The trails, once hidden and forgotten, return—just as they always do—aged but the same. The sun heats our exposed skin where the biting wind once resided. Winter’s dead silence is interrupted by the harmonious chaos of busy creatures and cheerful fauna. We immerse ourselves and become part of the show.

As spring drinks away, we fill up our glasses and join in—it’s all that there is left to do. 

Photo by Dean Sauskojus