As the livin' gets easy #phenology

Sunday will be Father's Day; Monday -- Summer Solstice; June will be two-thirds gone and we'll be well on our way to the mid-Summer celebration of Independence Day. Many of the local corn fields look like they're going to be knee high by the 4th of July; some, maybe not. Although maybe some of the "corn fields" that I think aren't doing well are actually bean fields doing just fine. At 55 or 60 mph, I'm not always sure of what I'm seeing grow.

sandhill cranes in a field

Photo by J. Harrington

One nearby field, one of those that may be corn or fallow or soy beans, I suspect the latter, has half-a-dozen or eight sandhill cranes foraging fairly regularly. If I'm wrong, and it is a corn field, the cranes will no doubt move elsewhere as the corn height increases. One of the few things these days that gives me a sense of hope for the future is the increase in Minnesota's sandhill crane populations.

roadside crown vetch

Photo by J. Harrington

Road sides and ditches are showing more and more crown vetch, yet another wide-spread invasive. (I keep wanting to believe it's actually red clover.) I just don't see the local county or township or cities spending money to control invasive species along roads, although I wouldn't mind seeing lots more of our rural roadsides restored to remnants of prairie, with more emphasis on flowers than grasses.

Corn Maze

By David Barber

Here is where

You can get nowhere

Faster than ever

As you go under

Deeper and deeper

In the fertile smother

Of another acre

Like any other

You can’t peer over

And then another

And everywhere

You veer or hare

There you are

Farther and farther

Afield than before

But on you blunder

In the verdant meander

As if   the answer

To looking for cover

Were to bewilder

Your inner minotaur

And near and far were

Neither here nor there

And where you are

Is where you were

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