A Year at Robie Creek - Intro to the 'Year at Robie Creek' series

Originally published in the:

It’s almost winter now, so if it didn’t snow last night (and it didn’t) much of the day will be spent enjoying the warmth of the fire. Our American Dipper has been here since yesterday, so there will be snow, more substantial than the foot that’s come and mostly gone recently, in the next couple weeks. For now we’re in that limbo state between ‘as ready as we’re gonna be’ and ‘now the real work begins’; the real work being, in coming months, keeping the snow from burying us altogether. The Dipper will go again before that happens; he visits every early spring and late fall for four or five days, bobbing leisurely along on the Creek, hopping out wherever the pickin’s look good on shore, and flying back to the top of our property again each time he reaches the bottom. I’m not sure why he likes it here so much except maybe that the banks are left largely undisturbed and there are a couple nice beach-y areas that invite fat night-crawlers to lay themselves out for breakfast, lunch and dinner during these times when their predators have mostly gone (or in spring not yet arrived) and late-winter melt or early-autumn rains have saturated the ground.

Once he’s gone and the real snow has come, there’ll be time after the digging-out to do some sledding down the driveway or into the pasture, especially fun when the power’s gone out (again) and our electronic world is quietened. People say things are grey and lifeless in winter, but the truth is there’s a myriad of color in the natural world even when it’s blanketed with more snow than we care to think about. The snow itself is often glacier-blue (and sometimes yellow, but we all know that kind should be avoided :D ), the pines and firs are deep green, mosses poking out from their snow-blankets a verdant yellow-green or a greenish-grey, and red red-willow branches and yellow left-over underbrush round out a vibrant winter palate. There’s always something to explore. One year we had a week of hard freezing with virtually no snow (until later) and the Creek, which almost never freezes entirely over, had a thick enough skin of ice to skate on all the way across. It rained before the ice could thaw and where it ran over the top it made amazing patterns of black and tan sand that were beautiful to look at but difficult to slide over.

What we won’t be doing again until the Dipper comes back and new green starts poking out of the ground in spring is wading after bugs and water-dwelling worms for our fishies or catching moths for the frogs. They’ll have to make do with crickets and mealworms and dried thimbleberry leaves for the next few months, which they don’t appear to mind at all. But in spring there will be caddis- and mayfly larvae hunting to be done, restocking of pond snails in our indoor aquatic environments, and an in-line pond to be built next to the pasture. There’ll be the usual weeding to be done, although calling it that fails to acknowledge the usefulness of some of the things we pull up and throw away for their habit of tending to become pesky, the burdock and bittersweet vine and bull thistles we try to keep contained while we encourage the growth of mullein and catnip and the aforementioned thimbleberries. Hawthorns will need to be reduced, birch saplings and raspberry patches trimmed, and it falls to me to say to the boys, “Hey, not that, not too much, that’s good stuff and I mostly want it there, just tame it a little.” They approach their jobs with enthusiasm; many thanks to nature for mostly being so hardy and resilient.

And after spring the summer will set in. It will be hot but not humid, making the shady side of the trampoline one of our favorite mid-afternoon places. This will be the time to finish off that pond, because the Creek will be low (but not gone) and it’ll be really nice to have our feet in it. The bed is full of rocks, the moving of which offers a workout on par with anything one can get in the gym, and sand that holds a distinct promise of gold or even gemstones if we were to spend the time to sift and pan it. Underneath is white granite bedrock, which will be covered in our pond with a layer of the boulders we can’t get out of the water, the perfect place for fish to while away the winters once our goldies have gotten big enough to move out there. By the time we’re done the nights will be chilly again, the days won’t be warm enough to want to spend all day in the water, and our Dipper will be back to say goodbye for the winter.

I haven’t told you about the hummingbirds, or the squirrels (regular by day, flying by night), or the skunks and skinks and foxes and quail—those will have to wait for another day—but this is an account of a year in our lives on Robie Creek, halfway across the country from Jan and Don’s beloved Owl Creek, out of which they bring you each week scintillating conversation and a plethora of ideas about how you can fully enjoy wherever you live and also support it in being even better than it already is. Many thanks to the Stovers for being the change they want to see, and all the best to all of you, dear readers.

-Peace Jaway

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