Let there be light #phenology

Local daylilies that erupted from bud to bloom during the past few days, brightening roadsides throughout the township and county, seem largely unaffected by yesterday's storms. Unfortunately, so do the local deerfly populations, that also exploded since mid-week last. Although last night's storms successfully downed limbs and trees, triggering power failures throughout the area, they failed to reduce the numbers of annoying, biting insects that cause our border collie cross-breed to hallucinate that he's being harassed by bugs that only he can see or hear, even after he's safely in the house. Wouldn't you think something as large as a tree should be able to swat several hundred (thousand?) deer flies? I suppose if it weren't for deer flies, mosquitoes and ticks, we'd have more human neighbors than we could stand.

road side daylilies

Photo by J. Harrington

Since even some former climate change skeptics are agreeing that our weather has become more volatile, I'm wondering what, if anything utilities and others responsible for infrastructure are doing to design more resilient systems. We were without power from about 6:30 last night to about 11:00 am this morning, an inconvenience. But, if we had our own solar panels and an electrical storage unit, we'd be spared the inconvenience of no cooking, no water, no TV or internet. Convenience has been one of the underlying drivers of "new and improved" products. Look at how much better the internet has made your life with all the time saved by microwaves and prepared foods! Right? But, if we had a functional cooking fire and a real coffee pot, I could have had coffee this morning shortly after I awoke. What can phenology, and the responses of nature to our new normal, teach us about designing and building better, more resilient systems? Any thoughts?

Cosmogony

By Caki Wilkinson

A yarn ball and a hill

maintain an equipoise until

         their neatness starts to bore the gods

                   of potential and energy

         who hedge bets, reckoning the odds

                   of when the rest will be

set in motion, and who,

first stumbling upon this clew,

          constructed both the incline and

                   the inclination to unwind.

          Like most gods, though, they haven’t planned

                   to stay; they mastermind

the scheme, ex nihilio,

then slip behind the shadow show

          and designate an agent, chief

                   remaker of their mischief made.

          Each time, disguised, this leitmotif

                   gets salvaged and replayed,

a universe begins,

for orogens and origins

          suppose a Way Things Were before

                   some volatile, untimely That—

          sweetness perverted by the core

                   or belfry by the bat,

or here, a hilly green,

whose still life, eerily serene,

          completes their best contrivance yet:

                   from high above, a williwaw,

          a hiss, and then the silhouette

                   of one terrific paw.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.