Springtime in the Wild West

This was what the sky was doing on my way home last night. It smacked of something wicked this way coming. But it was sure beautiful.

Here's what I saw when I woke up this morning:

Yup, something wicked this way came. Remember my sunburn from last weekend? It still itches, and I'm waking up to SNOW. Unbelievable.

However, if you don't like the weather in the west, wait five minutes. Something wicked will that way go. And besides, I can't say as I'm hating this springtime precip. The smell of sage is a balm for the soul. For those of you who've experienced it, maybe this picture, taken on this morning's commute, will conjure it - that spicy warm scent that drifts lightly on damp spring air:

It's mother nature's air freshener.

I remember when I first smelled sage. We lived in Wyoming, my husband's home state. Rowdy and I would hop in the big ol' Ford he calls Old Smokey and head out into the high desert for the weekend. Never had a plan, but we'd load up a six pack of beer, a pack of red vines, a bottle of water, some binoculars, our sweet dog, and hit the road.

All times of year were special, but spring was just amazing. I remember a day quite like this morning, trucking along dirt roads through the sage brush, looking for a break in a fence that evidently criss-crossed the entire state. You could see the storm clouds coming for miles and the smell of sage rising heavily from the damp ground. Eventually the rain came down. The colors of that day were incredible: purple and gray sky, deep green of the increasingly saturated sage, chocolate brown of the slippery mud. Makes me want a big old glug of Coors just thinking about it.

I remember the pickup sliding/careening on that gumbo mud  down a little hill into a gully and not being very eager to climb up the other side. There was a very real prospect of getting stuck out there in the high lonesome, no shelter aside from Old Smokey and the listing remnants of an old homestead on the horizon. I really could have cared less. I could have stayed there forever.

Happy Earth Day everyone!