Ammi Midstokke: First snow, last flowers, and the end of seasons

There is a brief overlap in seasons this time of year when the high country and the low country are in disagreement. The mountains proudly claim autumn with their larch luminescent against a dusting of white snow, and a few sad huckleberries on otherwise bald bushes. Meanwhile, the wildflowers in my yard have recovered from the heat of summer and brag in an explosion of fuchsia, purple, yellow, orange and even late-to-the-party poppies in red.

In the rusty wheelbarrow planters, neglected echinacea and lavender are rejuvenated by the weekend’s rain, defying my death-by-deprivation methods of autumnal yard management. Much like my against-all-odds approach to gardening, botanists ought to be here to study the means of plants surviving climate change.

The drought/flood strategy I apply was showing promise until the moose discovered the tender maples and dogwoods planted this spring. I made the assumption that the nature nearer to civilization would be more civilized, but it appears the urbanized dear and moose here are just as unruly and ravenous as the wildlife were at our other place.

The blue skies and warm days fill us with a sense of obligation: We must go outside!

But haven’t we all been outside all spring and summer? Did we not start emerging in March, fattened up by the lethargy of winter and craving fresh wind and sunshine? Did we get our first rides of the season, our first waterskis, then just incessantly hike, fish, paddle, bike, attend concerts and eat on patios for months on end?

As much as I dislike the nip of cold and the scratch of wool, my appetite for the couch grows this time of year. I want the kind of weather that demands baking and sewing. The kind of rain and cold and wind that says, “It’s too late in the season for yard work, wait for April.”

I need meteorological permission to read a book and knit without guilt.

It is as inevitable as the cabin fever and hunger for light that descend upon me by mid-February. The predictable cycle of the seasons never seems to detract us from hoping for the next while lamenting the current in an infinite dance between anticipation and complaint. Even as they grow less predictable, leak into each other, exacerbate storms and temperatures, the tantruming, overlooked middle child of the environment.

But nature isn’t bothered by our impatience or dissatisfaction. It just goes about its work of life and death, calamity and calm while we fret about the forecast this week. This narcissistic myopia feeds our tendency toward immediate gratification. Our focus is temporal and geographical in its proximity.

Are the communities ravaged by Helene on the fence about climate change? What will it take for us to look beyond our next tank of gas? How broad must the collective grief reach before we make changes?

I straddle these realities like the seasons, find comfort in the tiny ways I think I’m having less of a negative impact, more of a positive influence. I tell myself I’m still on the winning side of the planet warming: longer summers, shorter winters. Then I lament how the birch and cedars are drying and dying out, the trails dusty and the new season – fire – seems to be taking over summer and fall. In the future, will we only have the two? Fire and ash?

My first spring in Idaho was in 1986. It was in no rush. The birch and alder took their time, the trilliums were shy. The air smelled of mineral and earth, as if the land were taking its first breath after the snow melted. The soil was rich, compact under my pattering feet. Conversely, autumn felt short, an abrupt robbing of color accompanied by a panicked hustle for firewood and wondering how long it would have to last.

The announcement of summer never came with trepidation or N95 masks. We celebrated each season, preoccupied with the minutia of its arrival. Now, as the seasons begin to fade into each other, maybe we ought to be more preoccupied with their survival.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com