Locally rooted #phenology

Yesterday, on the way to pick up our box of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares, we flushed a flock of northern [yellow-shafted] flickers from the roadside. We're guessing they were migrating, since that's when we see multiple flickers flicker through the neighborhood. Otherwise, it's usually one or two of the locals at a time at the feeder.

northern flicker in Winter

Photo by J. Harrington

This is the time of year root vegetables really start to come into their own. Our CSA box had some, and some sweet sixteen apples. The root vegetables arrived in our kitchen before the CSA's email newsletter arrived in our inbox. We thought we were familiar with what all the locally grown root veggies look like and we were wrong. It took some research, plus the application of the process of elimination, to determine that we had two very, VERY rutabagas in our possession. A subsequent email from the CSA staff, and the arrival of the newsletter confirmed our suspicions. Sometimes, a sufficient shift in the size of something can create confusion about its identity.

do these look like rutabagas?

Photo by J. Harrington

There's a photo. Would you recognize them? We may get better at this checking our local roots, since we're now members of a Winter shares CSA that will involve even more root stock. All part of our focus on living more sustainably and locally even it if does add to the amount of head-scratching in our lives.

Morning Antlers

Arthur Sze, 1950

Redwinged blackbirds in the cattail pond—
today I kicked and flipped a wing 
in the sand and saw it was a sheared 
off flicker’s. Yesterday’s rain has left 
   
snow on Tesuque Peak, and the river 
will widen then dwindle. We step 
into a house and notice antlers mounted 
on the wall behind us; a ten-day-old child 
   
looks, nurses, and sleeps; his mother 
smiles but says she cries then cries 
as emptiness brims up and over.  
And as actions are rooted in feelings, 

I see how picking spinach in a field 
blossoms the picker, how a thoughtless act 
shears a wing. As we walk out 
to the car, the daylight is brighter 
   
than we knew. We do not believe 
flames shoot out of a cauldron of days 
but, looking at the horizon, see
flames leap and crown from tree to tree.

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