Snow storms and bud bursts #phenology

The sun is shining. Yesterday's "wintry mix" has mostly melted. Dennis Anderson has stirred up a small hornets nest (in the comments) with his recent piece Unregulated farm tiling puts state's waters at risk. Once again we have to remind ourselves, never read the comments! As in many fields these days, we seem to be making some progress at the same time we're losing ground. We have no idea at the moment what the net effect may be but our concerns are growing more rapidly than our sense of accomplishment. The world seems to have gotten both more volatile and more contentious.

This Spring's weather certainly has been volatile. The stock market swings seem to be getting increasingly volatile. Political and legislative activity at the state, federal and local level is becoming more and more contentious. There seem to be fewer and fewer folks who recognize, agree on, or value what used to be know as the "common good." Robert Reich, author of a new book on that topic, is someone with whom my heart often agrees while my head disagrees. Maybe this time he'll help bring head and heart into alignment. That would be real progress.

red maple, late March bud burst

Photo by J. Harrington

A definitive sign of progress in our seasonal changes occurred sometime in the last day or so. The red maples in front of the house have started bud burst. We'll hope they're hardy enough to handle whatever Mother Nature throws at us from now until the start of Summer, which, in the North Country, occurs about two weeks after the average last frost. Remember, in Minnesota it's snowed every month of the year but one.

For No Good Reason

Twyla M. Hansen

As if you needed one,
as if you could help it,
for no good reason
a tune out of nowhere
pops into your head
when you least expect,
riffs effortlessly in the
folds of your cerebrum—

your own private jukebox,
your personal music device
on random minus the earbuds—
drumming itself up to keep
you company: here, a little
Janis Joplin while you vacuum
cat hair; there, a John Denver line
as you peel potatoes at the sink.

How can others not hear it,
this frequent odd gift?
Sometimes you forget
and blurt the words to the chorus,
which, after all, is all you can remember,
those take me home, country roads,
that feelin’ good was good enough
for me, even conjuring

the gas station in Colorado
back where you, wearing
those bell bottoms and that
paisley, were about to fill a tank
of freedom into the blue VW Bug
when Carole King belted out
and it’s too late baby, now it’s too late
though we really did try to make it

and you couldn’t move, couldn’t
quit sobbing to the steering wheel
that would not console those blues
or say what you had left to lose,
wouldn’t question why in hell
you were going down that road
where for no good reason
you seemed to be heading.

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