Ducking season's change? #phenology

There's a flock of half-a-dozen or so wood ducks hanging around the west end of a small pond up the road from the house. Some may have returned to a Spring resting place. We're guessing hunting pressure has pushed them off bigger waters around here. Since wood ducks are reported to be one of the North Country's early migrants [see p.4], perhaps there's a message that Winter will be delayed and mild? [There are no ducks in the accompanying photo, no matter how hard you look.]

country pond in Autumn

Photo by J. Harrington

Leaf colors are now peaking but not as spectacular as some years. Nevertheless, the next week or two will be the time to get out and enjoy one of the best times Minnesota has to offer. Don't be surprised if we get snow around the first week of November. For that matter, do you remember the Halloween blizzard of 1991? Most of the time we've locked it away as a repressed memory.

early November snow

Photo by J. Harrington

We're hoping for a very delayed start to cold, freezing, snowy weather because there's still a bunch of buckthorn we'd like to get pulled, and a chance to smooth out the grounds before Winter sets in. Then we can spread some wildflower seeds on the snow and see what grows come Spring. If that doesn't work out, we'll do the ground prep and seed spreading after snowmelt. How's that for flexibility?

We hope that Friday 13th left you largely unharmed. We avoided, barely, a couple of near accidents with the jeep, so our luck for the week seems mostly used up. One of our favorite poets, Wendell Berry, has a poem we've included before, but it fits so well with Friday the 13th's hazards and this time of year. We hope you enjoy, both literally and figuratively,

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry, Special Contributor

 When despair for the world grows in me
 and I wake in the night at the least sound
 in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
 I go and lie down where the wood drake
 rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
 I come into the peace of wild things
 who do not tax their lives with forethought
 of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
 And I feel above me the day-blind stars
 waiting with their light. For a time
 I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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