Where's The Snow? (Colorado Mountain Living), Episode 3
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It’s been way too warm and dry for a typical February in the Colorado Rockies.
The last two weeks have been filled with hopes of snow, excitement when the snow falls and then disappointment by the lack of accumulation.
All of this crazy lack of weather has had me thinking a lot about global warming and fire season.
I’ve started working on clearing out the dead wood from the northern facing side of the forest. It’s the densest and filled with the most forest fire fuel, but it’s also very steep, which makes it into a challenging project.
I know that as one person, I’m not going to make much of a difference in a forest that goes on for many acres, but it makes me feel better to do my small part toward helping stop any potential forest fires.
And none of this dead wood is going to waste, by the way. My wood pile was getting kind of low, so the work I’ve been doing will help to heat my home for the rest of the season and I might even have some left over for next winter.
This tree was absolutely massive when I first started working on it, and over the last couple of years, I’ve almost fully cleared it out—just a little bit more to go.
Another thing about the northern facing side of the forest is that it’s usually snow packed at this time of year, but so much snow has unfortunately dried up with the warm weather we’ve been having.
But the shaded areas have retained their snowpack and the creeks have also stayed frozen.
My hope with all of this unusual weather is that we’re just in a drought—something that we can recover from—and that we’re able to see big snows again over the next few months. The Colorado Rocky Mountains are the first place I’ve ever lived that’s truly felt like home to me, and I don’t want to see these beautiful mountains destroyed.
I can’t stop thinking about global warming though. And this new obsession has inspired me to consume YouTube videos about native land regeneration and I’ve also been watching documentaries about climate change and learning what we can do to stop and even reverse it.
If you haven’t seen Kiss the Ground, or David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, or the series Our Planet on Netflix, I highly recommend watching them all.
It gives me a sense of hope that there’s such an interest in regenerating our earth, and saving humans from extinction, that these documentaries exist on a popular platform like Netflix.
And it gives me even more hope that we have the opportunity to reverse the damage, if we make changes collectively. We don’t have to let our beautiful planet burn.
That’s what I talk about in today’s Colorado Mountain Living Vlog! You can watch the episode by clicking this link here. I hope you enjoy it!
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Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.