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May 24, 2010
08:49 PM
Life in the Tetons

Ever Hopeful

By Susan Traylor Lykes
Ever Hopeful

Susan Lykes

A hummingbird drinks during a spring snowstorm.

This morning, while I was barefooted on the front porch, taking pictures of big snowflakes landing on daffodils and tulips, I was buzzed by a hummingbird.  It was the first one of the season and, just like the past two years, the diminutive bird hovered where, in summertime, our feeder hangs.  When it didn’t find the feeder, it found me.  Needless to say, I dashed inside, dug out our hummingbird feeder, filled it with lukewarm juice, and hung it in the customary spot.  The hungry bird was back in a flash.  Though I hear little noise in town but murmurs of exasperation with the weather, it is the hummingbird that I really feel sorry for.  I hope he can get through a freezing night.

While it has snowed and rained over the past few days (weeks? months?), Mayo and I have managed to get out for some grand hikes.  We’ve watched blue grouse strut in the gathering dusk on a Big Hole ridge, walked through softly falling snowflakes on the Valley Trail in Teton Park, and explored a trail down to the South Fork from the Pine Creek Bench in Swan Valley.  There’s great early-season hiking to be had if you look in the lowlands.  

And even with day after day of grey and soggy skies, I am ever hopeful that spring will soon come, that I can at last plant the seeds that in a few months will feed us, and that the hummingbirds can sleep comfortably through our mountain nights.

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About This Blog

Michael McCoy

Editor Michael McCoy is a native Wyomingite who, through no choice of his own, moved to Iowa (“the third greatest state in the nation,” he says) when he was only a few weeks old. After high school graduation, he beelined it back to the University of Wyoming, where he earned a degree in Anthropology and the nickname of “Mac.” In addition to his Teton-area editorial duties, Mac works for the Missoula, Montana-based Adventure Cycling Association and writes freelance articles and books about the outdoors. “But that’s enough about me,” he says. “This blog is about you. I will prime the pump with an entry now and then--but ultimately, we hope it will be our readers, both locals and out-of-staters, who keep the streams of conversation flowing.”

 

 

 

Contributing blogger Susan Traylor Lykes was born and raised in the Denver area, a third-generation Coloradan. She spent much of her childhood in the mountains, and took up fly fishing at the tender age of ten, wielding her grandfather’s old bamboo rod and Pflueger reel. After graduating from the University of Vermont, Susan earned a master's degree in Town Planning from the University of Montana. For the past decade, she has focused on nonprofit land conservation and land use, serving on the boards of the Land Trust Alliance, the Teton Regional Land Trust, and the Orton Family Foundation.
Susan and her husband, Mayo, call both sides of the Tetons home. They are enthusiastic travelers and outdoorsmen — hiking, skiing, fly fishing, and bird hunting.

 

 

 

Contributing blogger Jeanne Anderson is a Cheyenne native and graduate of the University of Wyoming who has spent the last 25 years as a writer, PR consultant, columnist, and editor. Her passions include hiking, cooking reading, traveling, community, and creativity (she’s in her third term on the Idaho Commission on the Arts). She credits her broad practical streak to her parents, who started the first travel agency in the Cowboy State—from them she learned “every bathroom in the world is down the hall and to the left.” Jeanne and her husband Peter started Dark Horse Books in Driggs in 1995; their two-year experiment lasted 14 years. Now out from behind the bookstore counter, she’s looking forward to many new adventures.

 

 

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