Tonight is Easter night for those folks who follow the holidays. This is the way the Ahwahnee looks tonight. It is april 4, 2010. Maybe this will be our last snow storm of the season. Maybe. But earlier this morning we had our big lawn decorated with colorfull flat bunnies running across the green velvet lawn.
Earlier, like at 7 in the morning I was outside litter picking the lawn for the celebration of the hopping bunnies and I spotted a wayward egg, and I thought, " oh goodie, the bunnie came and left me an egg." Ha, ha...as I put it in my pocket I see Christina exit the Sweet Shop holding up bunnie ears, tail, and bright pink bow tie, "put this on" she hollers to me. So then I realized the egg was not meant for me so I tucked it back in its green hideout alongside the hopping bunnies...took Christina's offering and put the ears on my head.
Guests got a laugh at the litter picking lady wearing bunny ears. I got my aqua mate and went inside the Hotel to water the plants and continued wearing my bunny ears. I felt so silly....a bunny eared plant lady watering her orchids. The guests got quite the laugh and I had to volunteer a few authentic bunny hops to complete the theatrical event. In our Solarium a curving table was decorated with Easter Bags and colorful soft rabbits. The children were given an Easter Bag and then escorted out into the meadow to search for more Easter Eggs.
Our feathered friends, the Ravens, had gotten to some of the eggs before the children made it out doors. Some found the egg leavings from discarded Raven gatherings...and others more fortunate, got there before the Ravens ate the eggs.
Some of the guests made great sport out of my little white bunny tail and others loved the pink sparkly ears. It was fun for us all and the best part was being a spiritual part of the event. Our Ahwahnee Bunny Host, Sarah wore ears also and a pink satan bunny jacket that looked runway perfect. (I did not see 1,500 children however.) The few we did have searched the fresh spring green grasses and graced their faces with sparkling smiles of delight at the Easter Bags. Then everyone wandered off to hike before the snow came down, soft and wet...
Our sitting bridge looks like this tonight. This snow will be melted by morning or the afternoon. It is our typical spring snow, wet and heavy but beautiful. So far it measures about 2 inches. This bridge and the path beyond were swept by me today...they were clean and clear. Our porters with their luggage racks and carts, and our housekeepers with their fully loaded carts require clean paths for easy rolling. The pine needles and the little pieces of branches that flicker and fall, sprinkle about everywhere with no designated space nor position.
The woods are a giant web of intricate lace, dry, wet or covered in snow. If you are a ground person, or a walking person all you can see at eye level is a lattice network of wood taking up the entire space around you. Sometimes it is impossible to see through the forest. Some of the trees are so big and the giant trees populate the area intensely the area becomes filled with giant growing wooden stalks...I call the living trees, the soldiers of Yosemite because they stand guard and their function is to keep us alive by purifiying our air, and they provide houses or homes for all creatures, and they provide warmth when there branches are used for kindling or for a fireplace...well maybe not these trees directly, but trees in general. Our Yosemite trees are more sacred than this.
Yet during the big winds, they become humble and loose their grip on the earth and tumble in great yielding descent to the forest floor. Then tons of wood crash with sound of crackling and thunder and the earth trembles and shakes and the tree digs into the soft swollen ground, embedding itself and surrendering back to the mother earth, thus it begins its decaying process. And the wood becomes home to other forest inhabitants, like grubs, and ants, and beetles and squirrels that make use of the old soldiers for hiding their acorns or pine nuts, to consume them later when hunger comes.
Trees like this fall. Seldom, but the last few storms have yielded tons of downed wood. Mostly Black Oaks and some of these along the roads of 41. They have been falling quite often this year so we must be cautious and watch the wind cells up on the 41. One fell in front of my vehicle as I was traveling back into the Valley and it was perhaps 4 feet in diameter and when I gave it a little push it would not budge. It fell completely across the road, and split like a toothpick, yet to move it required a call to 911 and a large earth mover had to come in the middle of the night to push it off the road. It was not the only fallen tree on the road. A wind cell had whipped through the forest and the road was crisscrossed with entire trees and large limbs of these forest giants, some a 100 years or more old. We live and occupy space in a high risk mountain.
This is our snow blower. We used it once this year. And I waxed it once this year. It makes so much noise the upstairs windows of the Ahwahnee rattle from the sound of the blower. And it gets clogged up and when that happens it stops working. It was more useless and less effective than my shovel. If we allow the weather systems to operate, the snow melts off within a day and so far has not gotten deep enough to be of concern. One of my co-workers said it was 6 feet high one year. This year we have seen it be a foot high perhaps and have had maybe 6 to 8 storms. Sometimes rain and sometimes snow.
Tonight you get 3 out of 5 that are horizontal...tippy canoe and tyler too!
