Cabin Notes: sticks and picnics

June 11, 2025

The last of the aspens started to pop yesterday, their buds emerging and unfolding like pastries in the oven. June 10. I note the date in my head. June tenth, june tenth, june tenth, the last of the leaves. I also take a picture. That’s how I practice phenology here, the rhythms of plants and animals in relate to the seasons.

When we first moved here, Ben had a moleskin for this purpose. He wanted to track rain and temperature, wind and snow, but we found it difficult to capture accurate measurements. Where could we put the thermometer that wasn’t influenced by protection or sunlight, where it wouldn’t blow right off the wall? How could we mount a rain stick in ground that insisted on tilting it? How do you measure snowfall when it’s snowing sideways?

These are answerable questions, but not by us, not without more matches than we had to burn. And so the moleskin faded to the wayside.

Instead, we’d say things like, “seems a little early for the dust to arrive,” and I would turn to my photos. I would search the month we were in, for every year we’ve lived here, and look at the evidence. What day did the poplar leaves come out? When did the juniper berries come in? Do you remember when the columbines bloom? And there would be a photo, chronicling it.

Phenology is a new word to me—I only learned it last week, but it’s a practice I’ve done all my life, given its deep connections with migratory birds. “Look! Look!” My mom would call, “the mountain bluebirds are here!” Maybe amidst their own calls, they thought this was her breeding call too. Every year they would fly north into the meadow below the cabin, nesting into boxes my mom had staked and cleaned, and they would hear the call of the Watchful Ornithologist (Midwestern, Female).

Look, look! Look, look!

Because we too are part of the phenology of things, swapping tires, putting out chairs, changing our feathers and furs. I am barefoot in the kitchen, in a t-shirt and loose cotton pants. I am leaning against the counter, my c-section scar pressing into the ridge of the countertop. Any opportunity to work the nerves. Any opportunity to get ready for the season ahead, climbing and running and sleeping on the ground.

With the early sun and the afternoon monsoon, summer has finally arrived, and I am singing in the trees with my friends.