I was telling a friend that it feels like I'm in an 1861 prairie schooner trying to navigate the Great Plains back in the day of you-there-can-anybody-see-the-trail. 

I mean the sand is beating my home and my lungs. Sometimes, it comes up like a great virtual levy or a prehistoric-sized tumbleweed worming its way across the fields. It's like the tricky genie from Aladdin's Lamp sending a sand storm to plague the invading infidels. Some of us know these are the sounds of the great glacier shelves melting off Greenland and the Antarctic — further tell-tale clues of earth warming. 

The sounds of a sandstorm across the valley could be the banging and clanging of trunks, pots, and pans from the trek that Gabby Hays took in all those western shows like In Old Caliente from 1939 or Trail Dust from 1936. My screen door slams with each wave of the storm; the partially remaining wind chimes are singing one-note tunes; the finches and other steady birds are down low in the trenches of the gravel road. Not even a Jack Rabbit lifts his head as the air drinks the crystal dirt. 

Last week, the National Weather Service called for severe winds and fire danger because the winds had lowered the humidity to almost zero. 

As I looked out over my yard, I noticed the lilac bushes don't dare bud for all the sand that could get trapped in the blossoms and ruin any bee foraging for pollen. I can't even hear the TV or the 2013 Geico commercial about Paul Revere's mobile phone or the noise from Drew Barrymore's daytime guests. Sometimes, during these barrages of wind and free air mutating into dirty air, I cannot hear my own thoughts about the laundry list, movies to critique, or emails to write. Then my orange tabbies chase each other to that aspen and the next. 

Just now, the storm has subsided, and there's a moment of God-fearing quiet, and not even the one-note chime sings. Then slowly, the sound of rolling thunder, like the thunder of ancient bison galloping away from hunters, might be heard as a muted drum at first. Then, the closer the noise comes, the louder the bass drum.  

The sound fusses with heaviness, suggesting unseen forces collide over the chemical-sprayed and plowed fields. Then, blowing clouds swoop up the topsoil and deposit it 20 miles away. 

These sounds are ancient sounds not heard by the Native inhabitants when the planet's changing worlds were forming. These are the echoes of the earth's emotions in hoarding the sand where the Great Sand Dunes National Park now stands. These sandy winds shake loose the moisture in the air and rattle the snow until they, too, evaporate. 

Simply put, it's a mess to breathe, walk, or drive in this gale. Along Highway 17, a long-standing memorial still rests where an agriculture truck slammed into a compact car, just making its way the best it could through the ground swell and mist of sand. Flowers in vases grace the corner.  

When people have Asthma, public health always recommends staying put inside and out of these suffocating clutches that are traveling our historic valley. Stay put and watch time pass; watch how the seasons change, peer into how our planet's and our selves' health changes. Watch out for the malnourished baby seals washing up along the coasts and the dolphins dying off Peru; remember the winter heights and lows. Watch out for the signs to come.

Nelda Curtiss is a retired college educator and long-time local columnist. Reach her at columnsbynellie.com or email her at columnsbynellie@gmail.com.