It's still early in the seasonal change, so we may find more spiders looking for a mate or whatever motivates them to head indoors. (There's a wide range of opinions online about whether or why spiders head indoors in Autumn.) If we do have more invaders this year, we'll try to take a picture before cupping the culprit. (Did McGarrett ever say "Cup 'em Danno" do you suppose?)
bull snake on garage floor |
Another creature that we sometimes find looking for a place to spend the Winter is a gopher snake or bull snake in Minnesota. Last year the one pictured above was seeking refuge in our garage, or perhaps it was just looking for a wayward rodent. As if it were a misguided spider, the snake too was transported back outside, but we used our hands instead of a cup. With luck, it eventually found, or made, an empty pocket gopher tunnel in which to hibernate.
Autumn oak leaves
Photo by J. Harrington
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This morning's rain brought some oak leaves down onto the driveway. Oaks will continue to drop leaves now for about the next forty-eight or fifty weeks or so, unlike more "honest" deciduous trees, that drop their leaves over a relatively short time frame, oaks, like our dogs, shed almost year-round. Many oak leaves hold on (it's called marcescence) until next Spring's expanding leaf buds swell with new growth. There's a couple of theories why marcescence may offer an advantage to oak-like trees. There's also many reasons humans sometimes migrate.
Peace Path
This path our people walked
one hundred two hundred endless years
since the tall grass opened for us
and we breathed the incense that sun on prairie
offers to sky
Peace offering with each breath
each footstep out of woods
to grasslands plotted with history
removal remediation restoration
Peace flag of fringed prairie orchid
green glow within white froth
calling a moth who nightly
seeks the now-rare scent invisible to us
invisible history of this place
where our great-grandfather a boy
beside two priests and 900 warriors
gaze intent in an 1870 photo
his garments white as orchids
Peace flag white banner with red cross
crowned with thorns held by a boy
at the elbow of a priest
beside Ojibwe warriors beside Dakota warriors
Peace offered after smoke and dance
and Ojibwe gifts of elaborate beaded garments
thrown back in refusal
by Dakota Warriors torn with grief
since their brother’s murder
This is the path our people ran
through white flags of prairie plants
Ojibwe calling Dakota back
to sign one last and unbroken treaty
Peace offering with each breath
each footstep out of woods
to grasslands plotted with history
removal remediation restoration
Two Dakota held up as great men
humbled themselves
to an offer of peace
before a long walk south
before our people entered the trail
walking west and north
where you walk now
where we seek the source
the now-rare scent
invisible as history
history the tall grass opens for us
Breathe the incense of sun on prairie
Offer peace to the sky
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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