Spring, a fresh start

We've made it to the end of March. Things should get better warmer from here. Today's posting is going to be short and sweet. (I'm recuperating from the general anaesthetic they gave me for a procedure I underwent this morning.) Tomorrow starts National Poetry Month. We'll be focusing on the poems and poets in two books, one published by Minnesota Historical Society Press, Where One Voice Ends Another Begins and County Lines, an anthology from the League of Minnesota Poets, published by Loonfeather Press. Minnesota has a rich literary and poetry heritage that some of us believe deserves more recognition. Thanks for your understanding. By the way, we failed to note a couple of days ago that My Minnesota had reached 500 postings. Thanks for sharing them with us.

oak leaves starting   © harrington

Older, Younger, Both

By Joyce Sutphen 

I feel older, younger, both

at once. Every time I win,

I lose. Every time I count,

I forget and must begin again.

I must begin again, and again I

must begin. Every time I lose,

I win and must begin again.

Everything I plan must wait, and

having to wait has made me old, and

the older I get, the more I wait, and everything

I’m waiting for has already been planned.

I feel sadder, wiser, neither

together. Everything is almost

true, and almost true is everywhere.

I feel sadder, wiser, neither at once.

I end in beginning, in ending I find

that beginning is the first thing to do.

I stop when I start, but my heart keeps on beating,

so I must go on starting in spite of the stopping.

I must stop my stopping and start to start—

I can end at the beginning or begin at the end.

I feel older, younger, both at once.

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Spring's swift arrival?

Lat year we went from snow covered trees and ground in mid-April to open water full of waterfowl in late April. Today moderate numbers of geese were observed looking silly walking on the ice at Carlos Avery. Large flocks of geese were seen headed north. Male redwing blackbirds are perched on the cattail reeds. Many more robins are flitting through the underbrush. Not yet seen but heard are sand hill cranes and turkeys gobbling. All that's missing is open water (and melting the ice covering my driveway). Soon the woods should look like this:

ferns sprouting in Spring  © harrington

And yards will start to look like this:

day lilies growing leaves    © harrington

I'm starting to find it a pleasant change to be able to write about what's here this Spring as well as what's still to come. I bet you feel the same. Anne Stevenson knows how long it can seem until full-fledged Spring finally arrives.

Swifts

By Anne Stevenson 

Spring comes little, a little. All April it rains.

The new leaves stick in their fists; new ferns still fiddleheads.

But one day the swifts are back. Face to the sun like a child

You shout, 'The swifts are back!'

Sure enough, bolt nocks bow to carry one sky-scyther

Two hundred miles an hour across fullblown windfields.

Swereee swereee. Another. And another.

It's the cut air falling in shrieks on our chimneys and roofs.

The next day, a fleet of high crosses cruises in ether.

These are the air pilgrims, pilots of air rivers.

But a shift of wing, and they're earth-skimmers, daggers

Skilful in guiding the throw of themselves away from themselves.

Quick flutter, a scimitar upsweep, out of danger of touch, for

Earth is forbidden to them, water's forbidden to them,

All air and fire, little owlish ascetics, they outfly storms,

They rush to the pillars of altitude, the thermal fountains.

Here is a legend of swifts, a parable —

When the Great Raven bent over earth to create the birds,

The swifts were ungrateful. They were small muddy things

Like shoes, with long legs and short wings,

So they took themselves off to the mountains to sulk.

And they stayed there. 'Well,' said the Raven, after years of this,

'I will give you the sky. You can have the whole sky

On condition that you give up rest.'

'Yes, yes,' screamed the swifts, 'We abhor rest.

We detest the filth of growth, the sweat of sleep,

Soft nests in the wet fields, slimehold of worms.

Let us be free, be air!'

So the Raven took their legs and bound them into their bodies.

He bent their wings like boomerangs, honed them like knives.

He streamlined their feathers and stripped them of velvet.

Then he released them, Never to Return

Inscribed on their feet and wings. And so

We have swifts, though in reality, not parables but

Bolts in the world's need: swift

Swifts, not in punishment, not in ecstasy, simply

Sleepers over oceans in the mill of the world's breathing.

The grace to say they live in another firmament.

A way to say the miracle will not occur,

And watch the miracle.

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Intergenerational equity

Today was an interesting day. For the first time since last October, I think, the interior of my black vehicle warmed in the sun. That was a very pleasant surprise. All four of the adults who live at "the property" headed for Natural Built Home in Minneapolis to pick out some marmoleum flooring samples. After eliminating half a dozen or so colors as "too yellow," or "too much blue," or something, we settled on four light to dark neutral colors. We ended up with four because, for every one of the samples we brought home, two or three of the four of us liked it, but none of the samples could garner four votes. Assuming we work out the arrangements needed for the daughter person and her fiancee to acquire "the property" from those of us in the older generation, a balancing act is needed between those who will finance the improvement and those who will probably live with it the longest. This raises some really challenging concerns about sustainable development and lovable buildings. We don't all love the same things. Is there any way to make a building generically lovable? Stewart Brand's book How Buildings Learn offers some insights, such as shearing layers, that may be useful. We'll report at some point in the future about how this exploration of multi-generational sustainability turns out. Personally, I'm not sure a compromise that makes everyone equally unhappy is an answer.

St. Croix Chocolate Co. (behind pine on right)  © harrington

On a sweeter note, we dropped by Marine on St. Croix during our return trip. St Croix Chocolate Co. was having a sampling and Easter preview today and some in our merry band really, really didn't want to miss it. Many (all?) of their chocolates include local and/or organic products, so they're the kind of company I like to support (along with independent bookstores and coffee shops). Instead of indulging my sweet tooth, I spent time walking about "downtown" Marine and taking some photos. I know that Marine is reminiscent of a New England village, but I was trying to understand if that was all of what I found attractive about that place. I finally realized that, like New England villages, it is built at a human, walkable scale. Unlike downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul. Marine, or even Stillwater for that matter, can readily be comprehended by folks.

part of Marine's "downtown"      © harrington

Main Street

(For S.M.L.)

I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea,
But it isn't half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be
When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow,
And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go.

Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing,
And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the Spring;
I like to think of it white with frost or dusty in the heat,
Because I think it is humaner than any other street.

A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels,
And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels:
It is dully conscious of weight and speed and of work that never ends,
But it cannot be human like Main Street, and recognise its friends.

There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day,
And twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play.
And there wasn't a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy
That Main Street didn't remember, and somehow seem to enjoy.

The truck and the motor and trolley car and the elevated train
They make the weary city street reverberate with pain:
But there is yet an echo left deep down within my heart
Of the music the Main Street cobblestones made beneath a butcher's cart.

God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky,
That's the path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die.
Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown,
But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown.

Joyce Kilmer

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When does Spring get sprung?

Every so often, I have to take a hard look around me and admit that the problem isn't with the world, it's with my expectations. This is one of those times. We all know that the March temperature has been running 7.5 or so degrees below average. But that's an abstract metric that needs to be related to reality. I took a look at some photos from around the end of March for the past six or seven years. Here's what the back yard looked like on March 31, 2007.

Snow-free by April 2007          © harrington

I can remember quite a few April trout fishing trips in which the world, and much of the water, was brown or tan. Winter was over but there was no real sign of Spring. And there have been years like 2012, when April 2 yielded open water and leaves starting to open on the local trees.

April 2, 2012: water and leaves open    © harrington

Then, as we all remember too well (unless somehow we repressed the memory) there was last Spring (to use the term very loosely). On April 19,  after much of Winter's snow had melted, we got to enjoy this encore:

mid-April snow, 2013           © harrington

All of which makes me very dubious about comparing today's local weather with anything. Weather is too highly variable. Climate, on the other hand, is all about statistics, long term trends and a scope approaching the global. According to recent reports, we'd best figure out how to adapt to the kind of extreme weather events that will make the differences between Minnesota's "early" and "late" starts to Spring seem like child's play. Why, because we can't, or won't, overcome our addiction to fossil fuels. Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man"), indeed! By the time we change, or burn all we can "economically recover," we may all be living in Dante's Fourth Circle of Hell.

Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change

By Naomi Shihab Nye 

Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t change

is train tracks. She’s sure of it.

The train changes, or the weeds that grow up spidery   

by the side, but not the tracks.

I’ve watched one for three years, she says,

and it doesn’t curve, doesn’t break, doesn’t grow.

Peter isn’t sure. He saw an abandoned track

near Sabinas, Mexico, and says a track without a train   

is a changed track. The metal wasn’t shiny anymore.   

The wood was split and some of the ties were gone.

Every Tuesday on Morales Street

butchers crack the necks of a hundred hens.   

The widow in the tilted house

spices her soup with cinnamon.

Ask her what doesn’t change.

Stars explode.

The rose curls up as if there is fire in the petals.   

The cat who knew me is buried under the bush.

The train whistle still wails its ancient sound   

but when it goes away, shrinking back

from the walls of the brain,

it takes something different with it every time. 

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"We've got it covered?"

Do you recall seeing anything in the Twin Cities' news media about the opposition to Enbridge's "Alberta Clipper" pipeline? A search of the Star Tribune's web site yields articles about Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission deliberations, and about the "environmental opposition" from the Sierra Club and MN350. What seems to be missing, at least I couldn't find reference to it, including doing a search on "enbridge horseback protest" is any mention of the protest ride organized by the Native American environmental organization, Honor the Earth. What I find most strange about the lack of coverage is that the protest was noted in newspapers throughout the northern part of Minnesota. It was even picked up by a couple of national blogs, Huffington Post and TreeHugger.

The slippery slope of lack of coverage?        © harrington

Lest you think I'm singling out the Star Tribune, I'll report here that I neither could I find a word about the protest on MinnPost, although Twin Cities Daily Planet did have a couple of opinion columns and MinnPost reported, back in 2010, that Enbridge has pipelines in Minnesota and an Enbridge line in Michigan sprang a notable leak. Compound what I see as a lack of coverage with recent stories about how devastating the Exxon Valdez oil spill has been and still is 25 years after it occurred. Then multiply that by the 40,000 plus or minus public comments on the SDEIS for the proposed PolyMet NorthMet mining project (which was well covered in the Star Tribune), and I have to wonder if a pipeline would have to run under the Vikings stadium or Target Field before local news outlets would say boo. Minnesota is one state, isn't it? Aren't we all in this together? That's not a conclusion I'd draw from reading or watching the local news. Maybe that's why months ago I started reading The Guardian to find out what's happening in the good old U.S. of A. As William Carlos Williams has noted “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” David Tucker helps us understand a "slow news day."

Lost our way?   © harrington

Today’s News

By David Tucker 

A slow news day, but I did like the obit about the butcher   

who kept the same store for fifty years.   People remembered   

when his street was sweetly roaring, aproned   

with flower stalls and fish stands.   

The stock market wandered, spooked by presidential winks,   

by micro-winds and the shadows of earnings.   News was stationed   

around the horizon, ready as summer clouds to thunder--   

but it moved off and we covered the committee meeting   

at the back of the statehouse, sat around on our desks,   

then went home early.   The birds were still singing,   

the sun just going down.   Working these long hours,   

you forget how beautiful the early evening can be,   

the big houses like ships turning into the night,   

their rooms piled high with silence.

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Don't be deceived

If you look at the photo immediately below, you might easily swear that Spring couldn't be within a 1,000 miles. You might be incorrect.

frozen marsh               © harrington

Just before the photo was taken, a pair of bald eagles were seen soaring together over the marsh in what looked like early mating behavior. Spring was less than 1 mile away, if you look up and not around. Tomorrow's forecast talks about rain and Sunday's high temperature is supposed to be in the 50's. I'm getting giddy with anticipation. I had to go get some ant baits today. The "sugar ants" have become active, another sign of warmer weather. Soon, Spring will be busting budding out all over.  Here's a clear indication. Look at those leaf buds just waiting for some moisture and warmth to erupt. One of us here at My Minnesota keeps forgetting (or refusing to remember, more likely) that Spring creeps in on little cat feet in the north country while Winter leaves by patches.

leaf buds and scales       © harrington

A Patch of Old Snow

There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten --
If I ever read it.

Robert Frost

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Dreams, wishes and wisdom

The sun is shining. The sky is blue with few clouds. The breeze is up and the temperature down. Today's high temperature is forecast to be about 50% of our average high for today. I've started a list of wishes (or prayers) for the immediate future running through the remainder of the year. It's an online alternative to a "God box."

Would you put an oil pipeline crossing here? Where?    © harrington

• May today be the last day this year there is frost on my windows.
• May the ice be gone from the driveway by next Monday.
• May the local rivers have ice off by April 3.
• May the local lakes have ice out by April 10.
• May I get out fly-fishing as often as I want.
• May we find at least six sugar maples to tap.
• May the mice etc. have left the backyard apple trees alone.
• May the weather the first week in October be extraordinarily nice and sunny and warm and dry.
• May my writing and photography improve and My Minnesota's readership grow.
• May Democrats relearn how to be progressive so we once again have a two party system in this country.
• May we learn there is no such place as "away" and financial assurance isn't.

I already know I have a terrible track record of putting some things into a "God box" only to claw them back out again. Most of what goes into the box are things over which I (we) have no control. May I learn to let go of what I can't change and to work smarter on what I can, such as how often I go fly-fishing. Do you suppose our legislature could use some God boxes?

Bald eagle in poplars   © harrington

Carl Sandburg has some important reminders about who we are and where we came from.

Wilderness

By Carl Sandburg 

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.    

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot’s hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

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March moments

This morning, as I was heading off to a meeting for a project I'm working on, I decided to leave my camera at home. I'd be traveling known routes that I had traveled just a few days before, and wouldn't have much time to spare for photography. Of course, that's why I saw what I think was a snowy owl perched in a tree overlooking the Carlos Avery tundra. Naturally, as I passed by the same tree on the return trip, there was no sign of whatever I saw earlier. Having learned to never say never, I'm not sure I can now say "never again" will I leave the camera at home because I won't need it. A small sign of Progress on the season front showed itself as I was coming south on Highway 65. A little north of the Cambridge exit there were a number of Canada geese and some swans sharing open water in a wetland on the west side of the highway. They were visible despite the "Spring snow storm" through which I was driving. Since they probably spent the Winter somewhere warmer than Minnesota, and I didn't, they're probably taking today's weather more in stride than I have.

March 24: 25" gap between feeder and snow bank  © harrington

For obvious reasons, we haven't made much progress on the melting front over the past week. The gap between the bottom of the feeder and the top of the snow bank has only grown by 3 inches, from 22 inches a week ago to 25 inches today. After tomorrow, we're looking at a consistent series of daytime high temperatures above freezing, so we hope to be able to report a major improvement in snow melt next week. As she often does, Jane Kenyon captures the moment, this one in March.

Spring snow

by Jane Kenyon

A thoughtful snow comes falling . . .
seems to hang in the air before
concluding that it must fall
here. Huge aggregate flakes
alight on the muddy ruts
of March, and the standing
water that thaws by day
and freezes again by night.
Venus is content to shine unseen
this evening, having risen serene
above springs, and false springs.
But I, restless after supper, pace
the long porch while the snow falls,
dodging the clothesline I won’t
use until peonies send up red,
plump, irrepressible spears.

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Playing taps for Winter

I'd be inclined to attribute my frustration with Spring's tardy arrival to my normally impatient outlook on everything, except the temperature this month is about seven degrees below average. Not one or two degrees, but seven, that's a bunch of below average highs and lows. It looks like the local woods are still holding about 8" +/- of snow. Walking the dogs, when the wind picks up, is often downright unpleasant. The Old Farmer's Almanac calls for April and May to have above normal temperatures around here, although their chart for May shows below normal temps, so who really knows. If we could get a few days warm enough to melt our snow cover, then the ground could start warming and we might be in better shape than we've managed so far. But, just as we can't see the river flowing beneath the ice, nor the sap rising beneath the bark, we should ask what else is there that we are not seeing?

snow-covered bluffs, ice covered river    © harrington

As the weather warms, and the deciduous trees on our property grow this year's leaves, I'm planning on marking the maple trees to see if it might be worthwhile to make some of our own maple syrup next year. I'll need to check on which kind of maple tree I'm looking at and make sure the diameter is at least 10" about 4 1/2 feet up. Because this will be a "romantic" effort more than a production activity, I'm going to want to see if I can find the old fashioned metal buckets  with tented covers and spiles (taps), instead of the plastic you see in the photo below. While I still lived in New England, I remember seeing some sugar bushes using the plastic tubing, but I liked the sharper sound of sap dripping into metal rather than plastic. So, regardless of how this Spring turns out, I've got something to look forward to in late Spring this year and, with luck, early Spring 2015. Sarah Littlecrow-Russell's Song from a Reedless Flute captures feelings similar to those I have these days for the times I spent in Vermont.

local sugarbush being tapped           © harrington

Song from a Reedless Flute

By Sara Littlecrow-Russell 

You are beadwork woven by a broken Indian woman

That I mend with cautious, needle-pricked fingers.

You are raw sweetness of burning chaga

Scraping my lungs and startling tears.

You are the bear claw necklace

No longer caressing

The space between my breasts.

You are cigarettes

That I quit years ago,

But sometimes smoke anyways.

You are maple syrup on snow

Melting on my tongue

Until I ache from the cold.

You are the cedar tree

Sheltering my childhood

From unwanted caresses.

You are the star blanket

Sliding off the bed on autumnal nights.

You are a stubborn braid of wiingashk

That must be relit with a dozen matches

Before it releases thin streamers of sweetness.

You are the love song

Played on a reedless flute

That only spirits hear.

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They're back!

Yesterday, I thought I saw a wind-driven goose sail across the back yard. My better half, who has much better hearing than I, reported hearing geese while she was walking her dog late in the afternoon. The time has come, or will be here by week's end, to watch for the arrival of red wing blackbird males perched on the cattails at the marsh edge. The three Canada's in the distance, shown below, were photographed during Thursday's excursion along the St. Croix.

three Canada geese           © harrington

Today, while driving past some of the back waters along the St. Croix river, we noticed a flock of 6 or 8 turkey vultures squabbling over something or other. Since Minnesota is well within their identified Summer only range, I'm assuming they've returned from wintering grounds to the south. At the risk of jinxing us, the extended forecasts indicate that March may well go out like a lamb. I'm looking forward to that. Meanwhile, I'll search for beautiful women for the rest of March.

March

by James Wright 

A bear under the snow
Turns over to yawn.
It's been a long, hard rest.

Once, as she lay asleep, her cubs fell
Out of her hair,
And she did not know them.

It's hard to breathe
In a tight grave:

So she roars,
And the roof breaks.
Dark rivers and leaves
Pour down.

When the wind opens its doors
In its own good time,
The cubs follow that relaxed and beautiful woman
Outside to the unfamiliar cities
Of moss.

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The sun'll come out -- tomorrow?

Take a look out your window. Unless you have plane or train tickets to somewhere warm, this is about as good as it gets for the next week or so. You could go and check out the Spring flowers at the Como Conservatory, or, you can check wherever you buy flowers to see if they have any forsythia bunches blooming. Last weekend I displayed some rare common sense when I asked my better half to see if she could find some forsythia while she was shopping. I volunteered to pay for a couple of bunches. They really help the living area take on an aura of Spring.

Spring decorations              © harrington

We have a forsythia bush in the front yard that needs to be transplanted or replaced. We have well draining soil in abundance, but the full sunlight that makes forsythia happy will never reach the plan in front of the house, shaded from the western sun by the house and from eastern and southern sunlight by some tall oaks and white pines. This is the year I want to will get a forsythia and lilac planted where they belong and we can see and smell them on Spring and Summer evenings. I'm starting to think and act a bit more like "the man who planted trees." If you haven't read it, you might want to check it out someday soon. Here's a link to one version. Claude McKay offers another way to respond to a Winter such as we've just had.

After the Winter

By Claude McKay 

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves

     And against the morning’s white

The shivering birds beneath the eaves

     Have sheltered for the night,

We’ll turn our faces southward, love,

     Toward the summer isle

Where bamboos spire the shafted grove

     And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill

     Where towers the cotton tree,

And leaps the laughing crystal rill,

     And works the droning bee.

And we will build a cottage there

     Beside an open glade,

With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,

     And ferns that never fade.

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In search of Spring

Some years, when it seems as though Spring will never come, we need to go looking for it. This is one of those years for My Minnesota. On Tuesday, we noted that the Mississippi River, downstream from Mill Ruins Park, is open water. Today we went in search of open water along the St. Croix from Wild River Park to Osceola Landing. There is a little open water near Taylor's Falls / Interstate Park. Most of the river, though, looks like this

St Croix in Franconia           © harrington

or this

St. Croix at Osceola       © harrington

There are many more places where the ice is dicey than where the water's open. As we were driving around though, we did see three swans and several small flocks of Canada geese. Although there's no way to be sure, not having  seen any geese or swans in all Winter in the area we drove today, I'm guessing (hoping, actually) that some of the waterfowl we saw are migrants returned and not those who over-wintered. A more certain sign of Spring was found in the nearby woods. Someone is tapping their sugar bush. The tops of the pails are snow covered from our recent storm.

collecting sap for syrup           © harrington

Louis Jenkins knows how there is no substitute for real maple syrup and when not to "make do."

Football

By Louis Jenkins 

I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back...

I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...

What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's

brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same

skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.

I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and I

understand, also, that one often has to make do with what one

has. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn

syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they

weren't very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My man

downfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities,

one has to make choices. This isn't right and I'm not going

to throw it.

Subsistence foraging

From some of what I've read, this is the time of year, and the kind of weather, that might have, in the old days, caused Native Americans to eat roots and bark to stay alive. We're fortunate to have more than adequate supplies of food and fresh vegetables in our home. But, in anticipation of (preparation for?) any forthcoming Armageddon, some of the folks who live here thought it might be interesting to learn how to prepare pine bark. Here are photos of the preparation process. Collection photos you'll need to find on your own. There were only two pair of snow shoes, and the collectors didn't take photos.

white pine bark strips         © harrington

separating outer bark and cambium    © harrington

full bowl of cambium            © harrington

"green" fingers stained by outer bark  © harrington

cambium soaking in water   © harrington

draining cambium strips     © harrington

cambium strips on cookie sheet     © harrington

dry in oven (200 degrees, 30 minutes)  © harrington       

dried cambium ready for grinding        © harrington

Kimberly Blaeser helps move us into Spring with her Haiku Journey.

Haiku Journey

By Kimberly Blaeser 

i. Spring

the tips of each pine

the spikes of telephone poles

hold gathering crows

may’s errant mustard

spreads wild across paved road

look both ways

roadside treble cleft

feeding gopher, paws to mouth

cheeks puffed with music

yesterday’s spring wind

ruffling the grey tips of fur

rabbit dandelion

         ii. Summer

turkey vulture feeds

mechanical as a red oil rig

head rocks down up down

stiff-legged dog rises

goes grumbling after squirrel

old ears still flap

snowy egret—curves,

lines, sculpted against pond blue;

white clouds against sky

banded headed bird

this ballerina killdeer

dance on point my heart

         iii. Fall

leaf wind cold through coat

wails over hills, through barren trees

empty garbage cans dance

damp September night

lone farmer, lighted tractor

drive memory’s worn path

sky black with migration

flocks settle on barren trees

leaf birds, travel songs

october moon cast

over corn, lighted fields

crinkled sheaves of white

         iv. Winter

ground painted in frost

thirsty morning sun drinks white

leaves rust golds return

winter bare branches

hold tattered cups of summer

empty nests trail twigs

lace edges of ice

manna against darkened sky

words turn with weather

now one to seven

deer or haiku syllables

weave through winter trees

Northern follows jig

body flashes with strike, dive:

broken line floats up.

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Almost there

Of no immediate practical use, but encouraging none-the-less, the Mississippi River through downtown Minneapolis is ice free. I had an early morning meeting today and, driving West River Road, I noted that the open water was basically everywhere. On the other hand, I almost put myself in the ditch a couple of times by trying to ignore how sloppy the local roads, which were clear and dry when I left early this AM, had become covered by inch or three of melting snow, with another 4 to 6 inches coming this afternoon and evening. I just love this tug-of-war season. Remember last Spring? We had record-setting 12" to 18" of snow at the beginning of May, the My Minnesota files have photos of a snow storm on April 19.

April 19, 2013             © harrington

Basil Johnston, in his book Honor Earth Mother, makes reference to Winter Maker arranging to have Zeegwun (Spring) captured and held in a cave. Living in Minnesota makes me wonder if the story is a myth or the Ojibway equivalent of "reality TV." No indication yet that the geese are back, which doesn't surprise me. Last year they could be heard in numbers by April 1. By April 25, there was open water full of ducks and geese and gallinules galore by April 25. Be patient, Grasshopper. Spring is coming. She waits just south of the horizon until the annoying remnants of Winter return to their home beyond the North Country. When she arrives, she may be out of breath from her sudden rush. According to Gary Snyder, March in Kyoto is a lot like March in Minnesota.

April 25, 2013           © harrington

Gary Snyder: Kyoto, March

A few light flakes of snow
Fall in the feeble sun;
Birds sing in the cold,
A warbler by the wall. The plum
Buds tight and chill soon bloom.
The moon begins first
Fourth, a faint slice west
At nightfall. Jupiter half-way
High at the end of night-
Meditation. The dove cry
Twangs like a bow.
At dawn Mt. Hiei dusted white
On top; in the clear air
Folds of all the gullied green
Hills around the town are sharp,
Breath stings. Beneath the roofs
Of frosty houses
Lovers part, from tangle warm
Of gentle bodies under quilt
And crack the icy water to the face
And wake and feed the children
And grandchildren that they love

— from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems

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Happy St. Patrick's Day

It would please me no end if Mother Nature were wearing more green today. Maybe next year she will. Thursday is Vernal Equinox, the start of astronomical Spring. Unfortunately, the fifteen day weather forecast looks like we're going to maintain below average temperatures through this month. If this Spring is like many others Minnesota Springs, we could continue below average temperatures right up until we leap into the 90's. Sigh!

22" gap from feeder bottom to snow bank     © harrington

We are making progress reducing the snow cover that's holding down the temps of our Spring "warm-up." The gap under the bird feeder has grown to 22", almost double last week's. Driving along 35E yesterday, I noticed that bare ground is starting to show up in a number of places, none of them contiguous. The sun, on the rare occasion that it shows its face, is warming dark colored tree trunks enough to begin melting the snow around the base.

melted snow around the base of tree trunks     © harrington

Based on the records of Spring's arrival in prior years in this part of Minnesota, we can expect another six to eight weeks of mud and brown, and then green will start breaking out all over, about two months after St. Patrick's Day. For today, Billy Collins doesn't quite reach the level of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky's--`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:" but the sounds of his words have the ring of Irish to them. Mirled and clabbered, indeed!

Irish Poetry

By Billy Collins 

That morning under a pale hood of sky

I heard the unambiguous scrape of spackling   

against the side of our wickered, penitential house.   

The day mirled and clabbered   

in the thick, stony light,   

and the rooks’ feathered narling   

astounded the salt waves, the plush coast.   

I lugged a bucket past the forked   

coercion of a tree, up toward   

the pious and nictitating preeminence of a school,   

hunkered there in its gully of learning.   

Only later, by the galvanized washstand,   

while gaunt, phosphorescent heifers   

swam beyond the windows,   

did the whorled and sparky gib of the indefinite   

wobble me into knowledge.   

Then, I heard the ghost-clink of milk bottle   

on the rough threshold   

and understood the meadow-bells   

that trembled over a nimbus of ragwort—   

the whole afternoon lambent, corrugated, puddle-mad.

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