The weather forecaster nailed it. Late on Wednesday, September 13, shortly after we shut down the pump and declared an end to Irrigation Season 2017, rain began washing the ashes of summer from our sky. It slapped against our windows all night and continued through Thursday and Friday, rescuing us from the shroud of smoke that had imprisoned us for weeks. 

During the wet bluster, we watched dozens of goldfinches, puffed plump against the cold wind, harvest seeds from sunflowers growing under the protective eve of our kitchen window. I hope that the high energy gleaned from our seeds powers them south soon. During a break in the precipitation, and from the same kitchen window, we watched a particularly industrious sparrow repeatedly leap up to catch larkspur stems, bring them to ground, and hold them down long enough to eat from the seed-filled pods. Later, I spotted a rufous-sided towhee capitalizing on the same larkspur seeds. (Let me take this opportunity to honor my high school biology teacher, Harold Knapp, who encouraged all his students to become bird watchers. Forty plus years later, thanks to the passion for bird watching that Mr. Knapp instilled, I recognized that bird as a towhee.)

I am less sure about identifying the family of hawks that hunt our fields. Swainson's? Perhaps. Rusty bibs, dramatic white on tail or rump, and a keening call that descends from high to low distinguish them, but my sources are ambiguous. This is their third season of nesting in one of our large homestead-era cottonwoods, but the first year for fledged young to be so evident. My trusted field guide says that, if they are Swainson hawks, they will leave in late September for winter digs in Venezuela. I hope that the parents and their three youngsters are fattening on our mice and storing adequate energy for their migration. I will miss them.

I failed to note when our corn-decimating blackbirds departed. (All but the one left behind, dangling dead from our ineffective net corn cover.) Good riddance!

If coyotes departed similarly then, surely--in the wishful thinking of this biased sheep producer--beggars would ride handsome, hot-blooded horses. Recently, a gorgeous big male dog watched me from a nearby ridge as I pulled sticky gumweed on our dryland acres. Hours later he reappeared, downwind, and tried to lure Weed into a fatal encounter. Yesterday, I spotted another, with a spectacular grey pelt, mousing near the ewes. Jim sped out and made a pass with the rifle, I glassed the pasture vigilantly, and we are relieved to be moving the ewes closer to home tomorrow. We acknowledge that not all coyotes kill sheep, but we never trust their intentions. 

The foxes we often see set off no such alarm bells. Distinctive markings suggest that we're observing at least two of them, but never in tandem. I've twice seen a solitary individual slipping along our south fence past the ram lambs. Another time, it jetted through the corral where a wayward bull resides. Last night, one of them dashed across the driveway toward cover along the north fence when I cruised down the driveway on the 4-wheeler. The field nearest our house must be a favorite hunting ground, for we've watched their distinctive stalking, leaping, and pouncing from the comfort of our kitchen several times. Having no poultry to worry about, we treasure these glimpses.

Recent additional rain, snow, and frost have punctuated summer's end and delivered clear air, crisp horizons, starlit nights, and autumn colors. I am energized and full of plans, eager to paint, pickle crab-apples and prepare for ram turnout. 

                            

I rarely lack for words, yet a month has zipped by since my last post. As I think back over all that has occurred during that month, neither boredom nor word scarcity have hindered my communication; rather, lack of motivation has been the most limiting factor. The leaden-gray, ash-filled, tightly-drawn curtain of smoke that shrouds our world, reduces it to painful ugliness and mutes my desire to write, paint, or share.

I need to get over it, maybe even learn lessons from veggies and sheep. Our tomatoes are thriving in the heat and steady rain of ash. They're heaped in every colander, featured in every meal, and plentiful enough to share with anyone willing to pick. The ewes seem to regard our eerily dark mornings and evenings as a mere acceleration of the season; they move out to graze at a fashionably late hour and return to the corral each evening earlier than usual. I should welcome potash from the sky and march purposefully to unusual circadian rhythms. Shouldn't I accept that which I can't change with grace and without complaint? Before succumbing to such placidity, I feel compelled to shout: To hell with this oobleck and that's about as much grace as I can muster!  

If I glimpse a bit of silver lining our drear, it is my need to grapple with discontent through physical activity. I am not tempted to squander hours on Facebook or escape reality with an engaging book. Nope, I seek out ugly jobs and slam into them with fury. My current target is sticky gumweed, that invasive increaser that has a use in Luden's cough drops but not in Montana pastures. For each day's attack, I don a big hat, sticky pants, stinky shirt, and gum-coated gloves for pulling feed bags full of weeds. Those bags get dumped into bulk grain bags--three pictured--that require the use of tractor hydraulics and power to lift and cart off the fields. I will never finish that job in my lifetime, but should I need variation in battlefronts, barn cleaning awaits.

The weather forecast suggests a change later in the week. Based on that possibility, I have wedged open enough room for optimism. Buoyed by hope for clean-swept skies and sharp-edged vistas, I am looking forward to the opening reception and awards banquet for Watermedia 2017; I'm visualizing paintings to be done before Great Falls' western art extravaganza in March; I am posting this blog in defiance of personal funk.