Transition

“Hummingbirds have a very good ability to navigate long distances. However they do it, they manage to come back to the same place year after year. I guess as it turned out I was working with plants that are going to live longer than I am. That can sometimes make my lifespan feel a little bit insignificant. Part of phenology is the end of things too.” – Dr. David Inouye, from “To Know a Place”

The union of RMBL, a non-profit founded in 1928, with Gothic, an abandoned mining town, created a community beyond time.

While it can be hard to appreciate the uniqueness of RMBL, Brendan Young’s beautiful video, To Know a Place, provides a glimpse. In an age in which the internet makes the knowledge of the world available to us in milli-seconds, Young documents the multi-generational commitment of the Inouye Family to understanding the phenology, or the annual cycles, of wildflowers and their pollinators. For five decades and involving millions of data points, three generations of Inouyes have observed and counted wildflowers and hummingbirds, practicing the patience needed for the world to reveal itself.