December 7, 2022 ~ Wednesday morning (too early)
For those of you who know me, you know I’m a night owl – not an early riser. Yet – here I am. I was awakened by pounding on my front door this morning a bit after 7am. I live in an area where I’m not about to open my door at that hour … so, I have no idea who it was or what they needed. Probably one of the many homeless looking for assistance. I’d like to help but …
So, here I am writing the piece that was in my head yesterday as I drove up to my daughter’s home to drop off my empty holiday decoration bins. They’ll stay there until three some weeks from now, when I’ll need them again to refill after taking said decs down. Oh the joys of a small place with no storage!
As I was driving, a wave of recollection washed over me. I lived in this area for 34 years … how can I forget (so completely) some things about being here? I don’t know, but I do/I have. And as I was puttering along the backroads, looking out at the scenery, I realized that the fifth Denver season – that I had somehow forgotten about – had most certainly arrived (obviously, some time ago, but I was just realizing it). Oh, most places have four seasons … Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Here, taking up a good chunk of time between Fall and Spring, is the season of Brown.
Everything here is brown. Or at the very least, a shade of it … beige, chocolate, tan, taupe, puce, khaki … you know, BROWN! Bland, blah, boring. You get the idea. For a gal who loves green … it’s horribly ugly and a bit depressing. The leftover fallen leaves are brown, crunchy and munched up lying in brown heaps … the sidewalks and grassy areas melt into one beige, tawny landscape … the now naked tree trunks and branches are brown … the fencing is brown … the local roofs are brown … the foothills in the distance are brown … the whole Denver area seems to be BROWN!
I was thinking, as I was driving along, that it should be illegal (somehow) to use brown brick and/or paint in this area. Why add to the already blighted surroundings with man-made structures of anything brown? Why not go the way of those in the Nordic regions? Blues, yellows, reds? Those colors would have to be better than the ubiquitous, obnoxious, eye-wearying, brain-numbing, soul-sucking brown. Or if not that bright … how about grays, maroons, and greens? Something other than what is now the norm. Right?
There are good browns, though, too … Brown University … Charlie Brown … James Brown … the brown of a sweet prairie dog or the brown yumness of a Hershey’s chocolate bar.
I digress.
Anyway – as I was driving, I was looking west over the foothills (also so, sooo brown). Some of the hills are dotted with trees … dark freckles on the hillsides … and some of the hills are completely barren except for grasses (also brown). Sigh. I miss the greenness of the island! I don’t miss much from the island (other than friends and that damn gas station chicken) but I do miss the greenness of it. The lush, always green forests and roadways. I’m living in a land of insipidness. Toto, we are not in the NW anymore.
Along the way I passed the backside of what I thought was an old, seemingly abandoned, military outpost. However, I don’t think it is abandoned but is still being used as a mental health facility. I might be wrong. Hopefully I am as it, sadly, just looks like some chilling, horror movie set! There were acres and acres of old barrack buildings, mountains of discarded whatnot (grills, machinery, ???) … if it’s actually still in use – clean it up Colorado! It’s depressing, unsightly and more than a bit creepy.
Past the weather-beaten prairie grasses of the area, there was a small lake. I slowed down to watch the geese as they came in for landing. I’d been watching several groups flying overhead as I was driving … so perfectly lovely … and now some of them were coming in for a rest. I’ve watched this phenomena a few times this week – lucky enough to catch the flock just at the right moment of descension … wings spread and wafting, feet forward … they seemingly drop from the sky like parachuted skydivers, landing perfectly … sometimes in between two other geese … without a feather out of place on any of them. It was mesmerizing and I realized I needed to pay more attention to the road than the geese. The perils of driving the back roads are many for me!
Like train whistles (which were non-existent), geese sightings were a rarity on the island … few would fly over the island and even fewer lived there. And, I’m referring to Canada Geese. It’s been a novelty for me, this season, to see them again. It’s a lovely, calming autumnal thing for me … watching them fly overhead in their V-formations. According to all things internet … “Geese fly in v-formation to conserve their energy during long migratory flights. They do this by using the slipstream created by the bird in front of them to make it easier to fly. You can often see one side longer because of crosswinds.” … and I thought one side was longer just because there were more birds on that side!
Canada Geese fly around 40 mph but can go as fast as 70 mph with strong tail-winds. They can fly for as long as 24 hours and sometimes cover 1500 miles in a single day! Researchers think that the honking heard from the flocks is a positioning statement … keeping the integrity of the flock and for changing positions during flight. Each bird flies a bit higher than the bird in front of him/her. When one goose gets tired, it will fall back and another will take its place … kind of akin to one honking – “I’m beat/I’m going to take a breather and fly at the back for a bit.”
While Canada Geese don’t have the night vision that cats do (kind of eerie), they have excellent vision and memories which enable them to spot landmarks in the air and on the ground. In the dark they can see 12x greater than humans and they also see color better than we do, too.
Migrating flocks can be 30-100 birds but each V-formation could be a smaller group of that same flock. Migrating patterns and routes don’t change much – so the geese you see this year around your local pond or office park, quite possibly will be the same as next year. While most birds don’t remember their family members after their first year, Canada Geese do and sometimes migrate with their families. They also mate for life and can live up to 15 years in the wild (but some pet geese have been known to live far longer … into their 40s!). They weigh between 5 and 14 pounds – typically, males are heavier than females.
A group of geese (on the ground or in the water) is called a gaggle; when in the air – a skein, team or wedge. And when they are flying very close together, they are called a plump.
As I am writing this, I just heard honking from above. How apropos! Maybe they are announcing their arrival … or maybe they are honking out, “Man, it’s brown here!”
It’s a bit more than two weeks til the Christmas holiday and the season is in full swing – after all, I’ve been watching Hallmark holiday movies since late October! My house is decked … but no boughs of holly (too spiny) … the tree is outside waiting for me to bring it in and adorn it (soon) … cookies will be made (next week) … packages will be wrapped (tomorrow) and cards will be send out (soon enough). It doesn’t feel like the holidays yet – maybe I need more music? Or maybe a little Christmas goose? (Not cooked, just outside on my lawn … a friend to the squirrels who have adopted me!)
I should thank whomever pounded on my door for getting me up. The morning light that is filtering through my (hard water spotted) windows is lovely this time of day. I am not usually up to notice it! By the time I’m up (an hour from now) the sun is angled differently and it no longer makes its way into the house … and by noon, due to the building next door … it might as well be twilight! There is no sunshine in the house again until late in the afternoon when it oh-so-briefly shines though my back kitchen window before it disappears over the rooftop behind me.
It’s time for me to fly off for the day. Hope you enjoy yours.