'Tis the season.... when Cookie Monsters prowl!

We're looking at some open water almost everywhere. It's going to be quite a shock when this extended spell of above average temperatures, plus sunshine!, comes to an end, now forecast to be a little less than a week away. But then we'll be well into the Christmas season, when snow and cold are needed in the North Country, or else things seem awry. Even we, who consistently fail to appreciate sufficiently the pleasures and beauty of the Winter Solstice season, would miss it if we didn't have a "White Christmas."

'tis Christmas cookie season!

Photo by J. Harrington

Thus far there's been no sign or talk about Christmas cookies or a gingerbread village. We're not sure whether to harass the Better Half and the Daughter Person or to simply take matters into our own hands. (Or, maybe, when the Better Half reads this she'll take the hint.)

and time to visit the Gingerbread Village

Photo by J. Harrington

If not, since we can bake bread, we can probably handle gingerbread and cookie dough, right? But, to be honest, we're much better at munching than baking Christmas treats. Christmas cookie thoughts seem to be as nice a way as any, or at least as any we can think of, to bring November to a close. Tomorrow will be December 1, a definitive beginning to the holiday season. Then it's only 20 Days more until Winter solstice.

If you're inclined to celebrate the solstice, you might enjoy this piece we discovered this morning, in which Robert Macfarlane describes The Eeriest Novel I Know. We're tempted, very tempted, to see if it's available through our local library. (It is and we placed it on Hold.) Christmas provides a perfect cover for indulging in our second, third or fourth childhood. Now we have something to read while we enjoy our cookies.

Eating the Cookies

Jane Kenyon, 1947 - 1995

The cousin from Maine, knowing
about her diverticulitis, let out the nuts,
so the cookies weren’t entirely to my taste,
but they were good enough; yes, good enough.

Each time I emptied a drawer or shelf
I permitted myself to eat one.
I cleared the closet of silk caftans
that slipped easily from clattering hangers,
and from the bureau I took her nightgowns
and sweaters, financial documents
neatly cinctured in long gray envelopes,
and the hairnets and peppermints she’d tucked among
Lucite frames abounding with great-grandchildren,
solemn in their Christmas finery.

Finally the drawers were empty,
the bags full, and the largest cookie,
which I had saved for last, lay
solitary in the tin with a nimbus
of crumbs around it. There would be no more
parcels from Portland. I took it up
and sniffed it, and before eating it,
pressed it against my forehead, because
it seemed like the next thing to do.

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Demography? Democracy? Where do they meet?

We live in a largely rural region. Some local farmers are still harvesting corn. Most cornfields are down to stubble. Bean fields look like they've been shaved and covered with tan felt. Haven't noticed any Winter cover crops coming up yet. Lack of cover, snow or crop, leaves soil vulnerable to the winds we've had the past few days. Will this weather pattern bring a bumper snirt [snow + dirt] season soon? It's forecast to get colder over the next week or so, but no mention (yet) of significant snow. Maybe political snow jobs will have to do for now.

Minnesota has 8 Congressional Districts

We often write here about bioregionalism. Perhaps the time has come to start thinking about Bioregional Democracy. After the last presidential election, and some recent votes by some of Minnesota's members of congress, we're thinking more and more about whether we live in a representative democracy. For today, we'll just outline some examples of the kinds of things that leave us scratching our head.

We frequently mention that we grew up in Massachusetts, one of the six New England states. The area of Massachusetts is 10,565 square miles. Massachusetts had an estimated population in 2016 of 6.8 million people, represented in Congress by 9 members of the House. We now live in Minnesota, which has an area of slightly less than 87,000 square miles, about 8 times the size of Massachusetts, with a 2017 estimated population of 5.6 million people, represented by 8 House members. Each state's House members represent about 700,000 to 800,000 people per member. Here's where things seem to us to go awry. We now live in Minnesota's 8th congressional district which, by itself, has an area of 27.5 thousand square miles and a population (2016 estimate) of slightly less than 700,000. Both Minnesota and Massachusetts are represented by 2 senators. But, based on area, shouldn't Minnesota have more than 2 senators. Or, maybe the Eighth Congressional District should petition for separate statehood?

Massachusetts has 9 Congressional Districts

Looking at the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election and comparing that with the electoral college vote, there's clearly something else out of whack. Clinton received 65,853,625 votes (48.0%) compared to Trump's 62,985,106 votes (45.9%), yet the popular vote loser received 306 Electoral College votes compared to the popular vote winner's 232 EC votes. That makes about as much sense as Massachusetts having 2 senators to represent 10.5 thousand square miles and Minnesota's CD8 having one quarter of a senator to represent 27.5 thousand square miles. I'm not convinced that replacing the electoral college is a solution,  but I am certain that the system we now have is broken. I wish more folks were commenting on that than on the latest Tweets from #45. Whatever happened to our priorities? Have we declined to the level of Rome's bread and circuses? Might Walt Whitman have been too optimistic?

                     For You O Democracy

By Walt Whitman

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,

I will make divine magnetic lands,

                   With the love of comrades,

                      With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,

I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks,

                   By the love of comrades,

                      By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!

For you, for you I am trilling these songs.

Source: Leaves of Grass (1892)                                             

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Political winds blowin' answers wrong

It's unseasonably warm. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. But, the wind is howling. Some of the cut greens Christmas decorations beside the front steps were inadequately anchored and secured. We fixed that, we think. That all depends on whether the winds get stronger than they've already been blowing. At least we don't have to shovel the wind, but the answers blowin' in the wind aren't the ones we should be looking for.

There are two pieces of legislation moving in the House in Washington.

is Birch Lake in Northern Minnesota more worthy of protection?

Photo by J. Harrington

Representative Tom Emmer's H.R. 3905, MINNESOTA'S ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN THE SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST ACT, and Representative Nolan's H.R. 3115, SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST LAND EXCHANGE ACT OF 2017. Each of these pieces of legislation is intended to supplant the due process of environmental review and permitting, and land exchange at a fair market value assed value with power politics decisions.

I wonder what the implications of these acts will be for Minnesota's ability to manage the resources within it's boundaries. Do you recall there being any public hearings in Minnesota on either of these pieces of bad precedents? Here's a list of Congressman Emmer's Town Halls. The most recent listed was back in February. His bill was introduced in October. Does anyone recall any discussion of the proposed legislation at an Emmer Town Hall? Congressman Nolan's local events are more numerous, but his efforts to avoid due process decisions and to cost taxpayers real value have triggered negative reactions for Iron Rangers.

All of the preceding is of particular interest to us because we see the consequences of Emmer's and Nolan's efforts as driving a further wedge between those who might otherwise be inclined to try to rationally discuss alternative ways to demonstrate that Minnesotans are intelligent enough to find ways to have both jobs and a protected environment. Canada has developed an approach called "Toward Sustainable Mining," [TSM].

TSM was developed to help mining companies evaluate the quality, comprehensiveness and robustness of their management systems under six performance protocols: 

  Tailings management
  Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions management
  Aboriginal and community outreach
  Crisis management planning
  Safety and health
  Biodiversity conservation management

It requires third party certification of compliance with protocols. Such an approach might, we repeat, might offer both higher environmental performance and more assurance of permit issuance than Minnesota's current system. It might also offer an opportunity to reach agreement on where in Minnesota is too risky to mine sustainably.

is the St. Louis River in Northern Minnesota less worthy of protection?

Photo by J. Harrington

When we first moved to Minnesota, several decades ago, this state was understandably proud of its environmental quality and protections. Whatever happened to the culture that supported enactment of the state's Minnesota Environmental Protection Act? When did we decide that a scorched earth policy was the only way we could create jobs? How did our members of congress become convinced that setting very bad precedents was what we wanted them to do? It's less than a year until we get to confirm or deny the correctness of their judgement. Compare the performance protocols listed above and tell me that our current permitting systems, and the two pieces of bad legislation in the House, are equivalent to Canada's current system. Is Minnesota really trying to win a race to the bottom, so we can become bottom feeders?

[UPDATE: H.R. 3115 passed the House. No Senate companion, but House could try to amend it to a "must pass" piece of legislation.]

Boundary Waters

by Sheila Packa

Off the road
where lichen and thick moss
take in minerals
beneath the balsam
over the border
past the landing
in the stone face of granite
above the water's mirror
small islands where
root dives into stone
amid broken limbs
of white pine
behind the reflection of day
into dark endings
reached for my own reaching
hand in the cold water
of October—
a tail flick of a fin
among the sunken
shoulders
in a vein of ore.
To take from another body
is a question
answered by loon
or by the morning rime
with weasel
searching the char of a cold fire.
After the urgent
animal of the body—
a heavy frost
and the moose that trod
over our path
running, hunted.       

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Home? for the holidays!

Yesterday's bread experiment turned out to be edible, but the crumb is finer than we had hoped for and the whole wheat flavor is stronger than anticipated. We used a locally grown and milled wheat without blending in any all purpose or bread flour. The results weren't quite a failure, but neither were they a rousing success. Baking is getting to be as interesting as fly-fishing. We're learning to enjoy the process regardless of the outcome. Maybe we'll be more diligent with a bread-baking journal than we have been with fly-fishing.

more whole wheat than artisan

Photo by J. Harrington

The Joy Harjo books, at least what we've read so far, more than made up for the limited success with they bread. They are more than we hoped for and expected. 

Titles: In Mad Love and War, The Spiral of Memory

We started with the latter and find that it helps scratch an itch we couldn't previously reach. Here's a sample from The Introduction:

"In Mad Love and War this quest is re-presented and further perspectives are opened up. To an Indian legacy of struggles Harjo adds the lucid awareness of a contemporary world smoldering with conflicts that threaten to flare up into a blaze. She thus directs her attention not to one particular place, but to a "global village." Through such an approach, individual or ethnic conflict can be overcome, and an avenue opened up to dissolution of the first among the many barriers that are encountered in a multicultural situation...."

Is it true, that "Home is where your dog lives?"

Photo by J. Harrington

The way we see it, that description could as well be written about the events and cultures of today or tomorrow, instead of more than seventeen years ago. Harjo explores, among other questions, where and what is home. We've been grappling with similar questions for much of our adult life. We hope we'll come closer to answers that work for us if we follow Harjo's poems as guides. If not, the journey will be interesting, at least, and full of beauty and mystery. For now, we'll work from the Christmas tree ornament we have that announces "Home is where your dog lives." Going back to the first Christmas, is a family in a stable close to a stable home? When does a house become a home?

                     My House is the Red Earth

By Joy Harjo

My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world. I’ve heard New York, Paris, or Tokyo called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For instance, that fool crow, picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy strips of fat. Just ask him. He doesn’t have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter—he perches on the blue bowl of the sky, and laughs.

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Of poetry, coffee and bread

The Better Half and I headed to St. Paul today. We were past due for a visit to Nina's Cafe, plus, Sixth Chamber books was holding for me a Joy Harjo book of poetry and another one comprised of many of her interviews. We (this is the editorial version) don't get to many of our old hangouts as much as we used to, so it was a pleasant trip with pleasant company to a place that used to be close to a home away from home.

Nina's Cafe, St. Paul

Photo by J. Harrington

Heading back North after our cappuccinos, we spotted a peregrine falcon land on one of the street lights near the Jackson Street train yards. Not that we're snobs or anything, but a peregrine is a step up from our usual fare of red-tailed hawks. If you quickly check the range map at the Cornell site, you no doubt would question our identification. Instead, go to the ebird sighting and notice that peregrines, though rare, are found in Minnesota. Unfortunately, there's no photo, we were busy driving in traffic.

artisan bread and baking cloche

Photo by J. Harrington

We need to make it a short and sweet posting this afternoon. We're in the midst of reverting back to baking 5 minute artisan bread, at the request of the Daughter Person. We made the dough before we left this morning and no have the shaped ball rising in our cloche, almost ready to go into the oven. We're hoping this is sort of like riding a bicycle, once you've learned....? Apparently some folks in the family have been "sourdoughed" out. We're grateful that we can accommodate them, especially since we've been thinking that our sourdough bread needs to be a little more sour. If we ever thought we really knew what we were doing, we'd tend to get bored. It's amazing how much variation we can create with different combinations of water, flour, salt, sugar, yeast, sometimes starter, and varying amounts of time and heat. Playing with these ingredients, and a few more, is high on our list for next year. Have you started your 2018 list yet? We're pretty sure ours will include bread baking, poetry, photography, politics, fly-fishing and some local travel, leavened with a dash of flexibility.

                     Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit

By Joy Harjo

Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It’s a story so compelling you may never want to leave; this is how she traps you. See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped.

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Why turkey?

Yesterday's "Opt Outside," "Buy Nothing" Day went pretty well if we make allowances for the fact that the Better Half paid for our coffee at Coffee Talk while we waited for the Christmas parade to begin. But, since it was a small, local, Main Street business, we're giving ourselves an exemption.

Before going out for coffee, we trimmed half a dozen or so dead branches off a pair of oak trees, and sprayed pruning sealer over the cuts. We still haven't really figured out why so many oak branches die. It doesn't happen on maples or conifers that we've noticed. Then again, we aren't sure why or when turkey became the traditional Thanksgiving main course. We did some poking around in the wilds or the internet today. Most pages that purport to explain the origin of Thanksgiving turkey admit the authors don't really know. Of the options available, we're particularly fond of this one in TIME magazine. It was written by a food historian and refers to turkey drovers. Here's her summary of how Thanksgiving turkeys came to be:

"Some give credit for the turkey’s preeminence to Sarah Joseph Hale, the “Godmother of Thanksgiving,” whose accounts of early New England celebrations emphasized a roast turkey and eventually became the model for the festivities adopted by the rest of the country after Abraham Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1863. Others credit the bird’s existing role in English celebratory feasts and the fact that its large size made it a practical item for such affairs. Others still believe it is because the turkey’s position as the most American of feathered creatures—Benjamin Franklin, after all, thought it a much more “respectable bird” than the Bald Eagle—makes it a fitting entrée for one of the most American of holidays."

As it occurred to us at Thanksgiving dinner this year, we're very please that we didn't end up with bald eagles being served as the main course, even though they're the symbol of the US. They are birds of prey, but we've also seen quite a few feeding on road kill.

the parade wasn't the only activity

Photo by J. Harrington

one of the goats is right, middle

Photo by J. Harrington

and Santa with his elves

Photo by J. Harrington

The Christmas lighting  ceremony at Taylors Falls last night was a treat, especially the contagious excitement of the flocks (herds? droves? schools) of youngsters showing their parents around. Here's a few photos. The herd of goats, especially they pygmies, were a real treat.

                     300 Goats

By Naomi Shihab Nye

In icy fields.

Is water flowing in the tank?

Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?

(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?

Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,

follower or leader.)

O lead them to a warm corner,

little ones toward bulkier bodies.

Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.

Another frigid night swooping down — 

Aren’t you worried about them? I ask my friend,

who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,

far from here near the town of Ozona.

She shrugs, “Not really,

they know what to do. They’re goats.”

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#OptOutside #BuyNothingDay IT'S TODAY!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and, if not, that you enjoy a speedy recovery. Today is the day to Opt Outside while we Buy Nothing, but first give any nearby family members and significant others a hug. We're going to follow the hash tags in today's title. You might want to VISIT FOR FREE a Minnesota State Park. Beat that, Black Friday merchants. Tomorrow we'll support Small Business Saturday at a book store or two.

It's late November and supposed to be a little warmer. There's a couple of oak tree branches that need to be pruned so they won't shade part of the indigenous plants garden that's going in next Spring. We'll promptly use pruning sealer anyhow, but November is supposed to be a time that's safe from oak wilt.

three amaryllis, posing as Wise Men

Photo by J. Harrington

Each of the three amaryllis bulbs on the window sill is sprouting nicely. (Each is, all are!) We're thinking they might represent the Three Wise Men if all goes well and none get lost to amaryllis wilt or something.

Taylors Falls Christmas Lighting

Photo by J. Harrington

Tonight is the Christmas Lighting Festival at Taylors Falls. We suspect (and hope) that's all it will take to get us really into the Christmas mood. Having Thanksgiving dinner with some suspected of supporting Trump had us on our best behavior, and that get's really stressful after the first five minutes or so. Today we're back to our hopeful and golden-hearted curmudgeonly selves. We wish you all the same.

                     A Christmas Song

By Norman Williams

Christmas is coming. The goose is getting fat

                        Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.

                        If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do.

                        If you haven’t got a ha’penny, Gold bless you.

Tonight the wide, wet flakes of snow

Drift down like Christmas suicides,

Layering the eaves and boughs until

The landscape seems transformed, as from

A night of talk or love. I’ve come

From cankered ports and railroad hubs

To winter in a northern state:

Three months of wind and little light.

Wood split, flue cleaned, and ashes hauled,

I am now proof against the cold

And make a place before the stove.

Mired fast in middle age, possessed

Of staved-in barn and brambled lot,

I think of that fierce-minded woman

Whom I loved, painting in a small,

Unheated room, or of a friend,

Sharp-ribbed from poverty, who framed

And fitted out his house by hand

And writes each night by kerosene.

I think, that is, of others who

Withdrew from commerce and the world

To work for joy instead of gain.

O would that I could gather them

This Yuletide, and shower them with coins.

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On giving thanks

Today we're grateful for the fact that the sun is shining. That, although cold, it's not bitterly so and that the wind is calm. Yesterday's snow showers set up a beautiful white backdrop that shows off the bright red plumage of a male cardinal rather spectacularly. We're grateful that we live at a time, in a place that holds such beauty. We're also very grateful that, thanks to writers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) and Joy Harjo (How We Became Human), we've learned more about how gratitude can enrich a life.

male cardinal on snow

Photo by J. Harrington

As we looked about this Thanksgiving morning, our eye was caught by a broadside hanging on the wall of the family room. As we recall, we bought it years ago at a Trout Unlimited silent auction at the Minnesota or Twin Cities Chapter annual banquet. The idea to bid, we believe, came from the Better Half. She used to be the owner and CEO of a consulting business of which we were an employee. The business was a corporate supporter of TU for a number of years. This morning, it belatedly occurred to us that the broadside, while speaking about fishing, can also readily be applied to marriage and to life, if we're at all fortunate. So, along with everything else, today I'm grateful for organizations like TU and the Sierra Club, and for fishing, which has been a source of enjoyment with the Better Half over the years, and for having enjoyed as many trips and years together with someone wise enough to recognize the truth that "The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." We're very, very grateful that we have the Better Half. We wish as much good fortune for you, and yours, to be celebrated at this and future Thanksgivings.

"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable,
a perpetual series of occasions for hope."

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota Thanksgiving By John Berryman Listen Online For that free Grace bringing us past great risks & thro' great griefs surviving to this feast sober & still, with the children unborn and born, among brave friends, Lord, we stand again in debt and find ourselves in the glad position: Gratitude. We praise our ancestors who delivered us here within warm walls all safe, aware of music, likely toward ample & attractive meat with whatever accompaniment Kate in her kind ingenuity has seen fit to devise, and we hope—across the most strange year to come— continually to do them and You not sufficient honour but such as we become able to devise out of decent or joyful conscience & thanksgiving. Yippee!       Bless then, as Thou wilt, this wilderness board.

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Not quite angels on high, but close

Late this morning we needed to attend to some errands. We ended up driving 30 or 40 miles or so, round trip, through cold air, under darkening, cloudy skies, past frozen marshes locked in by ice cover not yet safe for skating or walking. Farmers fields are bare and barren. Fallow fields are tan and tawny and sere. Parking lots and grocery stores are full of people hurrying in preparation for tomorrow's big meal.

The scene wasn't entirely gloom and doom, but neither was it full of cheer. Then, we noticed a in the empty sky a lower cloud waving against a ghost-like backdrop. A line, no, a couple of puffs, no, line, back and forth the shape shifted and writhed until it finally came into focus and our heart leaped with joy. GEESE! A large flock of Canadas, probably close to 50 or more, headed Northeast at mid-day. To feed? Back to open water somewhere to rest after a morning feeding session? They were headed in the wrong direction to be migrating.

Canada geese headed away

Photo by J. Harrington

We're not sure what it is about waterbirds, especially larger ones such as geese and swans, that pleases us so, just to see them. We've watched the pattern long enough to simply enjoy it: large flocks in the air, heart soars. Years ago, when we were among the honorable order of active waterfowl hunters, we thoroughly relished the number of things we got to spend time messing about with:

• boats
• canoes
• waders
• shotguns
• dogs: Labradors in particular
• shotshell loads and patterns
• decoys
• trailers
• canoes
• pick-up trucks
• camouflage for: hunter, boat, shotguns, etc.
• buckets and satchels and like to haul most of the above
• thermos for coffee
• gloves and warm layers
• water and snow proof outer shells
• paints for decoys and camouflage
• calls for ducks and geese
• lanyards for calls

swans resting on ice

Photo by J. Harrington

We've no doubt forgotten some odds and ends and maybe even some major piece or two of equipment such as blinds and cases (floating) for shotguns. We're going on record, right now, to say how very grateful we are for all the hours and days "wasted" with friends (two and four-legged) in swamps, marshes, tidal creeks, clam flats, lake shores, cattails, rushes, etc in pursuit of waterfowl that were worth every outrageous cent they cost in dollars per pound. Were it not for those hours and  days, we might still be looking forward to a butterball tomorrow, instead of an organic, free range, flavorful bird. Count me among those who, like Aldo Leopold, cannot live without wild things. I'm thankful we still have some to enjoy. Shortly after we finished our business and had returned home to walk the dogs, the darkened skies shared some snow showers. They reminded us of the old waterfowler's saying:

Fust it rained
And then it blew
And then it friz
And then it snew!

We settled for three out of the four today. Good enough! We still had a lab to walk in the snewshower!

                     Call Him Zero

By Sydney Lea

It struck them both as strange: although each pond and lake

clear to the coast was locked in ice, no open water,

the imperious wind kept pushing waterfowl inland. That night

a winter moon stood high and pierced the thin clouds’ vapors

so the boy could contemplate their emptiness inside.

Relentless, the flocks flew westward. The border collie whimpered,

putting his forepaws now on one sill, now another,

as if some odd creature circled the house.

                                                                                          This lifetime later,

a man, he looks back on that stay at her farm, its details clear,

their meanings still vague. His grandmother called it wrong as well,

that the weather should be so frigid even in such a gale.

As a rule this kind of cold needed calm. He sees the fire,

the dazzle of sparks when she loaded a log. What seemed most amiss

was how the old woman’s house no longer felt safe that visit.

He wanted and did not want to know what the dog might know.

He tried to picture the menace outdoors. He longed to shape it

so that he might name it. And after these many miles to now,

away from the ruby glow of the metal parlor stove,

from that blue-eyed collie, from the woman he so admires and loves

recalling that night; after so much time,

                                                                                          he still believes

that to name a thing is to tame it, or at least to feel less bewildered.

Not Death, for instance, but The deaths of Al and Virginia, his parents.

Not the abstract legalism, Divorce, but The disappearance

of my sweet wife Sarah, run off with that California lawyer.

Not simply Alone, but I have no children. Was that the wail

of geese coming down the stovepipe? If so, it would be a marvel,

but he knew it wasn’t. The caterwaul from the barn was alarming,

and more than it might have been had Grandma herself not startled—

after which she put on her late large husband’s threaded farming

coveralls outside her housedress, which rode up and made

a lumpy sash. She stepped out under cloud and bird.

He would not follow. Rather, he stood

                                                                                          indoors to wait

until she came stomping her boots through puddled barnyard holes

like a child herself, kicking ice shards to scuttle along

like beads from a broken bracelet. No matter. The world had gone wrong,

violent and void at once. She said, The mare has foaled.

On tiptoe, she read the mercury out the kitchen window,

then told her shivering grandson, We’ll call the new colt Zero. 

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Be thankful for hope!

Thanksgiving is two days away. We've been thinking about all we have to be thankful for in addition to all we can find to worry about.

After walking the dogs today, we're very thankful that we have a warm house that protects us from the wind and the windchill. We're thankful for the affection and company of those who share this house (and property) with us. We're thankful that we're more healthy than not, that there's food on the table and clothes on our backs, and that the vehicle in the garage is a major upgrade from our first car many, many years ago. Twice a year we had to hope it would pass inspection and were thankful when it did.

prepared to be thankful and full of hope

Photo by J. Harrington

We're thankful that, as much as they're being abused, the institutions in this country have maintained much of their resilience and, we hope, should be able to recover and/or be repaired when the current madness has exhausted itself. We are thankful that, several years ago, we read Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark (first edition). Like Mr. Spock on Star Trek, Solnit offers a different, logical and irresistible perspective and how to survive, help each other, and, perhaps, even thrive in times like ours. She recently had an article published in the guardian that you should follow the link and read. Here's an example of why, she writes:

"Social, cultural or political change does not work in predictable ways or on predictable schedules. The month before the Berlin Wall fell, almost no one anticipated that the Soviet bloc was going to disintegrate all of a sudden (thanks to many factors, including the tremendous power of civil society, nonviolent direct action and hopeful organising going back to the 1970s), any more than anyone, even the participants, foresaw the impact that the Arab spring or Occupy Wall Street or a host of other great uprisings would have. We don’t know what is going to happen, or how, or when, and that very uncertainty is the space of hope."

Her description of where hope lives and what it is leave no room for even a hair-splitting, nit-picker such as yr obt svt to find fault.

"Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognise uncertainty, you recognise that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists adopt the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterwards either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone."

"I hope there's a seed inside this shell!"

Photo by J. Harrington

If you find yourself in need of a source of hope more immediate than words, and you don't have a kitten, puppy or young child nearby, bundle up, head for nearby woods with some bird food, and watch chickadees for awhile. It's always worked for us. Hope often appears as insouciance, a key chickadee trait.

                     Of History and Hope

By Miller Williams

We have memorized America,

how it was born and who we have been and where.

In ceremonies and silence we say the words,

telling the stories, singing the old songs.

We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

The great and all the anonymous dead are there.

We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.

The rich taste of it is on our tongues.

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?

The disenfranchised dead want to know.

We mean to be the people we meant to be,

to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how

except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?

With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—

and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together

cannot become one people falling apart.

Who dreamed for every child an even chance

cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.

Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head

cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.

Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child

cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.

We know what we have done and what we have said,

and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,

believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—

just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set

on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—

but looking through their eyes, we can see

what our long gift to them may come to be.

If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Musing a November muse

This morning we took a break from day-to-day stuff and a couple of projects we're working on and kept a promise we made to ourself last week. We spent a few moments reading Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac chapter on November. [see p.10-11]

a sole survivor

Photo by J. Harrington

Although Wahoo is native to our current home county, our East coast, salt water fishing background keeps us thinking that it's a fish, not a bush. We're completely unsure whether to laugh or cry at Leopold's report that "The rabbit, despite his omnivorous appetite, is an epicure in some respects. He always prefers a hand-planted pine, maple, apple, or wahoo to a wild one." We experience this same behavior with rabbits, deer and pocket gophers. That explains why, over the two dozen or so fruit trees we've planted in our little patch of Anoka sand plain, only one pear tree is still standing. Maybe we'll try something different next Spring.

a troublemaker (for trees and bushes)

Photo by J. Harrington

Two of our favorite birds are mentioned prominently in November, the goose and the chickadee. The latter lives in our own little wood lot and takes advantage of our sunflower seeds. The former visits on occasion and lives during breeding season in the marshes a mile or so West of our property. Their Spring honks are one on the years most heart-warming sounds we know of.

a favorite, Winter or Summer

Photo by J. Harrington

Although there are many shortcomings in the world today, there are also many sources of hope and joy. Not the least of these are children. Today is World Children's Day Please help celebrate it for your sake as well as theirs.

                     Names of Children

By Rachel Sherwood

In early morning when the sun

is vague and birds are furious

names of children float

like smoke through the empty room:

Ariadne, dark as seal skin

Ian, fair-skinned baby

Marina   Terrence   Alex   John

after dinner   pulled back from

talk of war and morals

their names glow like light

around a candle —

Jack, my rampant youngest son

Celia, my daughter who sings

but no children call from other rooms

no soft faces turn to kiss

each guest goodnight

or whisper that stars are a giant's eyes

there is only the slow still wait

through the opaque night

for morning and more names.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

It's now been 5 years +/-

Our first posting here was November 5, 2012. We missed a few days in 2013, due to an injury. Taking that into account, we've now been posting daily for five solid years, longer than some jobs we held when we were much younger.

each day dawns bright, whether cloud-covered or not

Photo by J. Harrington

During these five years, we've garnered more than 200,000 page views. That's more than 40,000 a year, about 3,500 a month and around 100 a day. Thank you, whoever you are.

We've had readers, or at least page visitors, from these countries:

• United States, 
• Italy,
• Canada,
• France,
• Ukraine,
• Poland,
• Germany,
• South Korea,
• Brazil, and the
• United Kingdom.

Every day, for 5 years, we've found something worth writing about, and a poem to match the day's theme or topic. We hope that settles any concerns about how relevant poetry may be to daily life.

During the past five years we've moved from a hard line "polluter pays" principle to a broader recognition that it may be necessary and beneficial to make public investments to protect our common natural resources and our common heritage.

We've learned that daily writing is good for us. We pay more attention to the world around us and are more thoughtful, much of the time, in our responses to that world and its inhabitants. We've judged that readers prefer nature to policy, positive postings to bitching and moaning and, on a few rare occasions, have even been told our postings have been helpful.

While we've been adding to this blog daily, our poetry has been neglected. We're going to see if we can find a better (more satisfying to us) balance. Our daily posts may suffer from time to time, but if we find days when we're not writing at all, we will return to a daily post regime, not as punishment but as a reinvigorated routine.

a new day is born

Photo by J. Harrington

When we first started, we wrote about our hopes for a brighter day after the 2012 election. Those hopes were fulfilled, but only partially. Each brighter day can never be permanent, although another thing that we've learned is that each day offers a possibility for making the world, and ourselves, a little better. It's simply up to us to actualize that possibility each and every day. Those lessons came via Abraham Maslow and Rebecca Solnit and Maria Popova and my mom.

                     Not Writing

By Anne Boyer

When I am not writing I am not writing a novel called 1994  about a young

woman  in  an  office park  in a  provincial town who has a job  cutting  and

pasting time. I am not writing a novel called Nero about the world's richest

art star in space.  I am not writing  a book  called Kansas City Spleen.  I am

not writing a sequel to Kansas City Spleen called Bitch's Maldoror. I am not

writing  a  book of  political  philosophy called Questions for Poets. I am not

writing a scandalous memoir.  I am not writing a pathetic memoir. I am not

writing  a  memoir  about  poetry  or  love.  I am not writing a memoir about

poverty,  debt  collection,  or  bankruptcy.  I   am  not  writing   about family

court.  I am not writing a memoir because memoirs are for property owners

and not  writing a memoir about  prohibitions of memoirs.

When  I am not writing a memoir  I am also not writing any kind of  poetry,

not  prose  poems  contemporary   or  otherwise,  not  poems made  of frag-

ments,  not tightened and  compressed poems, not loosened and  conversa-

tional poems, not conceptual  poems, not virtuosic poems employing many

different  types of  euphonious devices, not poems with epiphanies and not

poems  without,  not  documentary  poems about recent political moments,

not  poems  heavy with allusions to critical theory and popular song.

I am not writing "Leaving the Atocha Station" by Anne Boyer and certain-

ly  not  writing  "Nadja"  by  Anne Boyer though would like to write "Debt"

by  Anne Boyer  though  am  not  writing  also  "The  German Ideology" by

Anne  Boyer  and not writing a screenplay called "Sparticists."

I am not writing an account of myself more miserable than Rousseau.

I am not writing an account of myself more innocent than Blake.

I am not writing epic poetry although I like what Milton said about lyric

poets drinking wine while epic poets should drink water from a  wooden

bowl. I would like to drink wine from a wooden  bowl  or to drink  water

from an emptied bottle of wine.

I am not writing a book about shopping, which is a woman shopping.

I am not  writing  accounts  of  dreams,  not  my own or anyone else's.

I am not writing historical re-enactments of any durational literature.

I am not writing anything that anyone  has requested of me or is  waiting

on,  not  a  poetics  essay  or any other sort of essay, not a  roundtable re-

sponse, not interview responses, not writing prompts for younger writers,

not my thoughts about critical theory or popular songs.

I am not writing a new constitution for the republic of no history.

I am not writing a will or a medical report.

I am  not  writing  Facebook status updates. I am not writing thank-you

notes or apologies. I am not writing conference papers. I am not writing

book reviews. I am not writing blurbs.

I  am not writing  about contemporary  art. I am  not writing  accounts of

my travels.  I am  not writing  reviews for  The New Inquiry and not writ-

ing pieces for Triple Canopy and not writing anything for Fence. I am not

writing a  daily  accounting  of my reading, activities, and ideas.   I am not

writing  science  fiction  novels  about  the  problem  of  the idea of the au-

tonomy  of  art  and  science  fiction  novels about the problem of a society

with  only  one  law  which  is  consent.  I am  not  writing stories based on

Nathaniel Hawthorne's unwritten story ideas. I am not writing online dat-

ing profiles.  I am not writing anonymous communiqués.  I am not writing

textbooks.

I am not writing a history of these times or of past times or of any future

times and not even the history of these visions which are with me all day

and all of the night.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.