Little moments just might become big memories if you keep your eyes open
for elusive wild things and your heart open to change and challenge.
Blink. Don’t blink.
On the long rambling drives that my father and I have taken during the slow days of the pandemic, one of the things we like to do is look for wildlife. We live in a county that is roughly half mountains and half plains, with two fairly large cities and some significant small towns taking a big chunk out of the mostly flatland spaces. We love the mountains, of course, as does everyone who makes their home in Colorado, but a trip into the mountains takes more of a commitment (time wise, at least) than does a drive in the country, so again and again we take the leisurely rural roads — wide curves, soft dips, foreign landscapes and increasing isolation as we move farther away from the city.
Honestly, inside a car moving down the highway is where my dad would spend every minute if he could. My sister recently called the moving car his “happy place,” and I believe that’s true.
When he was still working, every job he had required extensive car-time — whether it was just around town, like it was when he worked for a transportation service, or around the various counties he oversaw as a county agent and later dairy herd improvement specialist, or to remote spots across the state as a writer for Colorado State University. Sitting still has never been a natural fit. He’s 92 and many — maybe most — of his friends are gone. Hobbies he once loved — like woodworking and gardening and dog training — seem alluring now only in retrospect. TV has never held much interest to him; and though he used to be a voracious reader, it is an activity that now includes more work than enjoyment.
So we drive.
And we watch the corn grow. And we watch the calves grow. And we watch the little lambs scamper with abandon in fields shorn down by sheep, until they themselves are sheep. We watch the alfalfa mature in tidy rows, turn into bails of hay and then stacks of bails until they disappear and make room for new growth. We watch the political signs come and go.
(The other day, we turned down a dirt road where a little farmhouse was set back in a clutch of trees and a particularly profane sign against our current president flew at the driveway. “I’m glad I don’t live in this neighborhood,” my dad said, when that place was in our rearview. “Why?” I asked, “Because there are too many Trump supporters?” My dad, a lifelong conservative who never in his life voted for a Democrat — at least on a national level — until last year, nodded and said, yes.)
And we watch for wildlife.
We see lots of hawks keeping watch from fence posts and telephone poles and lots of small birds of all stripes — magpies and red-wing blackbirds, Steller's jays and meadowlarks — but lately I’ve seen several bald eagles flying past from places where they shouldn’t logically be. And a couple months ago, on Earth Day, we saw five pelicans taking wing from a still lake on the edge of town.
(Above, a gallery of friends we've made during drives in Larimer County.)
Those birds, they’re here, a quick splash of color and a song, and then you blink and they’re gone.
In the autumn and the occasional evening, deer are plentiful, placidly munching on the weeds that grow along the roadways or napping in the shady spots. In the spring, pronghorns dot the fields and foothills. They’re skittish and camera-shy, so any lasting image is a gift. One week in late spring, in a fenced field where cattle should have been, a herd of buffalo grazed (no rollerskating). Last night, after months away, they were back and they had babies. Sometimes, since early spring, we were surprised by the sight of yaks, black and white like a Holstein but big with a hump like a buffalo, their horns long, their hair flowing, curly bangs covering their foreheads, domesticated and at home in a field next to a center-pivot sprinkler but wary and reserved. Mostly now, as summer stretches on and the days are hot, hot, hot, the yaks stay out of sight. This week, instead, we saw a small group of longhorns resting in a ditch. (Not wildlife, but impressive, nonetheless.) Two days later, when we drove past the same spot, they were gone.
The world changes. If you’re watching, it changes right before your eyes.
My sister moved to Alaska nearly 30 years ago. She had a high-stress job in Children’s Hospital in Denver, helping fragile infants through their first fraught days of life, and she was tired and looking for adventure. So she accepted an education position in Anchorage, promising to only be gone for a couple years, and bought a ticket on a ferry. Looking for my own adventure, I went with her to help her with the boxes and the tangible culture shock.
We spent two nights and two and a half days on that ship, sleeping on the deck (no stateroom for us) in sleeping bags borrowed from our brother and drinking copious amounts of coffee to ward off the ocean cold. It was, as you can imagine for a girl from a land-locked state, the first time I ever saw dolphins playing in the water or otters bobbing along in the wake of a boat, puffins showing off their party colors on the cliffsides, cormorants and marbled murrelets. Mostly, we sat on the deck watching, waiting for whales, which were — as are all ancient animals that survive — elusive.
Mostly we ate stew from the snack bar and, as already mentioned, coffee. But the last evening, before we were to disembark in the wee dark hours of the following morning, we decided to treat ourselves to a good meal in the dining room, on real dishes with real silverware and white tablecloths. We gave our order to a charming waiter — tiger prawns and pilaf — and settled in to enjoy our celebratory dinner. Just moments before the waiter
brought the food to the table, out the starboard window, humpback whales breeched the water.
(Above, a gallery of Alaska wildlife, beginning with whales, but not those whales.)
Like everyone else, we left our table to watch the dinner show.
There were maybe seven of them, and they were in the mood to play, breeching the still ocean, twisting on their descent back into the depths, spewing plumes from behemoth blowholes, slapping the water with their tales, performing to the audible gasps of a rapt audience.
And then they were gone.
By the time we got back to our table, our giant tiger prawns had begun to cool.
The food wasn’t the star of that meal. Maybe not even the whales.
Maybe just the transience of a moment never lived before and impossible to replicate.
Maybe just the fact that life is made of little moments and big memories.
Like the pelicans that flew over Terry Lake on Earth Day and the baby lambs that ushered in spring in the middle of a pandemic.
And the hum of tires on asphalt as you drive farther and father away and closer and closer together.
The Pie
On one of my trips to Alaska to see my sister, we decided to make the long trek to Denali National Park. Denali, big and beautiful and wild, is about 240 miles from Anchorage, so a good four to five hours on the winding mountain roads. If you’re lucky, Denali the mountain comes out of the clouds and escorts you along your journey. We saw it briefly that trip, but mostly we saw trees from the windows of a bus. We saw some moose standing on the roadside and maybe a bear lumbering in the trees; and we thought we might see the aurora borealis, but — in spite of several trips outside in the middle of the night — we did not.
On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped at a roadhouse to stretch our legs, use the bathroom, and get some coffee to fuel the final leg of the weekend sojourn. I don’t remember where it was or what it was called, and I’m sure I couldn’t find it on a map because it seems like it was off the main road. However, like all roadhouses, it was cool in a rustic, trapper sort of way.
To go with our coffee we got something called Fruits of the Forest Pie. I had never heard of it before then, but it came to our table warm, the juices of the softened fruit spilling out of the crust, thick and red and sticky. The apples and rhubarb were crispy and tart; the blackberries and strawberries soft and sweet. I don’t remember if there was ice cream, but I like to imagine there was.
I admit it. I like everything that has rhubarb in it, but I loved that pie.
I’ve spent the past number of years trying to recreate it. This recipe is a pretty good facsimile — although, of course, not quite perfect. I guess the secret sauce — a.k.a. the magic of a roadhouse on a mountain highway vivisecting the last frontier — is impossible to replicate.
The recipe
Fruits of the Forest Pie
Pastry for a 9-inch, double-crust pie
1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon corn starch
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest (lime or orange juice can also be used)
2-3 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch
pieces
2-3 cups any combinations of strawberries,
raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries
1 apple, peeled and diced
Optional: A few slices of peaches, if they’re in season
Optional: A handful of chopped dried fruit (cherries, apricots or blueberries)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Whisk together sugar, corn starch, salt and lemon zest.
Add the fruit to the dry ingredients and mix well, until the fruit is thoroughly coated and very little loose sugar remains. You want to use a total of 4-6 cups of fruit, depending on the size of your pie plate and how heaping you want the filling to be. An ornate crust with cut-outs or a dramatic lattice would probably work better with less fruit, 4-5 cups; while a simple top crust can easily accommodate a filling that mounds in the center. A traditional Fruits of the Forest Pie includes apple, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and/or blueberries, but you can determine the mix of fruit by what you have in your refrigerator and what your personal tastes are. I personally like sweet cherries in this pie and used them instead of strawberries, which I did not have on hand. I have never made it with peaches or dried fruit, but there’s no reason not to try them if that sounds good to you.
Allow the fruit to juice for about 20 minutes before putting the fruit mix in the crust, using a slotted spoon to strain out the juice. Stir the sugar and corn starch that has settled at the bottom of the bowl back into the juice and then add some of the juice back to the fruit mixture. Use your own judgment about how much of the juice to include. You don’t want your filling to be too runny, but make sure you include enough of the juice to keep your pie from being too dry.
Cover with the top crust. Seal and flute the crust. Using a small cookie cutter or a paring knife, cut vents into the top crust. (This is not necessary with a tight lattice, like the one I used.)
Bake at 425 for 40-50 minutes. If the top crust begins to brown too quickly, tent the pie with aluminum foil halfway through the baking time. The pie is done when the filling reaches 175 degrees or when it's been bubbling for at least 8 minutes.
Allow a full three hours for the pie to cool and set.
Note: I attempted a fancy two flavor lattice crust on this pie, but since there are already so many flavors in this pie, I would suggest a simple top crust instead. It would be easier, would get your pie in the oven quicker and really is a superior vehicle.
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