Blessed Samhain! Happy Halloween!

visitors from another world?

Photo by J. Harrington

We're comfortable with this festival marking the end of Harvest, but much less so with it signaling the beginning of Winter. But, if it's not planting season, nor growing season, nor harvest time, what is there but Winter? Our discomfort probably has something (everything?) to do with the reality that we relate more to hunting, fishing, gathering cultures than to the agrarian ones, although we realize they're not mutually exclusive.

For much of our adult life, Autumn has been a time of leaf color change, grouse hunting, hunting waterfowl during their migration and, while we lived in Massachusetts, an ocean full of striped bass and bluefish fattening up in the near shore along the coast and heading South toward warmer waters. Fall offers a time of change, or restlessness, "harvesting" both wild and domestic resources before the mean, lean days and days ahead. If we're lucky, days for sitting by the fire and hearing or telling stories of days past.

at Samhain, bonfires are often lit

Photo by J. Harrington

The belief that Samhain or All Hallows' Eve is a time when the boundaries between the worlds are thinnest and most easily crossed fits well, we think, with a change from a season of growth to a time for storage providing sustenance in a time with little growth, a cold and quiet season. In this world, death and life are two points on the same cycle/circle. Science tells us atoms are continuously recycled. It tells us nothing about spirits or sparks of life. Offering treats to those of the younger generations can help assure they'll reach maturity to care for the rest of us, both the young and the old, with few or no tricks.

Samhain

By Annie Finch (The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother's mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

"Carry me." She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

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Missing something?

Sometimes we don't realize how much we can miss something until it's back. Since our posting yesterday, that's happened to us twice.

some things can make you batty!

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night was the first time since early last Spring that we've had homemade chili with corn bread. It was every bit as good as we remembered although, we admit, during the Summer we don't recall even once thinking about how good a bowl of chili would taste. [Back story: the local big box grocery doesn't really put the boxed chili mixes anywhere near the shelves of canned chili. We wandered for more than five minutes looking hopeless and hopelessly before the Better Half managed to bail us out from the opposite end of the aisle we were searching.]

Who me? I would never...!

Photo by J. Harrington

The second time we ended up missing something was at midday today, when our dog SiSi decided she needed to see some of the country beyond the yard. Usually, after we've been for a walk, and we take her off the lead at the street end of the drive,  she bolts straight for the front stoop. Not today. She swerved around the North side of the house and kept going until she disappeared! We bellowed. No response! Again we called. Still no response. We still needed to feed and walk the Better Half's dog, Franco, so we turned to that task and hoped for the best. By the time we got back to the house with Franco, SiSi had returned and was checking out the interior of their dog run. We were so happy to see her we didn't even yell at her for being naughty. She winked and told us she was both a treat and a trick!

Now we've had more than enough excitement this week, or at least in the past twenty-four hours. Then, tomorrow's Halloween and next Tuesday is Election Day. Life is sometimes just one joyful event after another. It would have been a much different story if our little yellow idiot weren't curled up on the couch napping.

Theme in Yellow

By Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o'-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.

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'Tis the eve of the eve of ...

Halloween (Samhain) is Wednesday this week. It's another way to say "All Hallows' Eve," the eve of All Saints Day. So Tuesday will be the eve of All Hallows' Eve and today is, or will be a little later, the eve of Tuesday. We could try back counting from Christmas Eve, but that's pushing the seasons too much for our taste. There are, however, only eight eves before Election Day morn.

first, there's one Jack-o'Lantern

Photo by J. Harrington

At our suggestion, the Better Half [BH] started pumpkin carving last night. She finished two in a more creative style than we would have been able to freehand. Maybe next year we'll actually break down and get one of those kits for ourselves. As good the BH's work is, we fear it's overshadowed by the works shown here in Saturday's issue of The Guardian.

but, after dark, they multiply

Photo by J. Harrington

As you may know, but in case it's slipped your mind, Election Day is one week from tomorrow (or you can vote early should you so choose). Under today's Republican regime, in our name, they're separating children from their parents and holding them hostage; meanwhile, radicals of the "right-wing" type are mailing pipe bombs to liberals and news organizations; voters are being suppressed to reinforce gerrymandered Republican wins; worshipers, Christians and Jews and Muslims, are being attacked and some murdered in their places of worship and #45 suggests armed guards be placed at the doors of holy buildings; the poor and middle-class are being "taxed" to provide tax cuts for the richest 1%; and Republicans continue to try to destroy both health care financing and the environment on which a healthy economy and a healthy population of workers and consumers depends. Enough of the dirty tricks. Let's make some real treats by turning November 6 as blue as it needs to be to put a curse on an unAmerican Republican agenda. We have heard some say, but have not yet seen any proof, that Shakespeare's witches were hexing Republicans.

Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble”

By William Shakespeare(from Macbeth)

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

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Weather for the birds?

A red-bellied woodpecker is at the feeder. We most often see them during the colder weather months. More woodpeckers will arrive once the suet has been put in the holders. That's still to come and, candidly, we haven't yet enjoyed enough good Autumn weather to be ready to experience the arrival of cold and ice and snow-that-stays. Perhaps this week upcoming will provide enough sunshine to temper our autumnal moodiness. Today's partly sunny, mostly cloudy skies have been an improvement over the complete overcast, rain and drizzle that's filled most of the past two months around here, and our perspective on life has soared to the skies accordingly.

red-bellied woodpecker feeding on sunflower seeds

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday while helping the Daughter Person and the Son-In-Law move to their new house, we drove along a harvested bean field that had half a dozen or so swans(?) and multitudes of Canada geese gleaning what the combines left. We've never before seen "swans" feeding in a field although the good folks at Cornell say they do. Maybe, if the "swans" were  decoys, we still haven't seen them as field feeders. They were far enough off, and we were traveling fast enough that we can't, with certainty, say they were live. Later in the day, on a subsequent trip, we saw a very large flock of Canadas that looked like they might be headed South. They seemed too high to be on a feeding flight, but there's no real reason yet for waterfowl to head toward warmer climes. Another of life's mysteries we'll never understand. Do geese fly across the field for the same reason the chicken crossed the road?

swans on local water

Photo by J. Harrington

We weren't as stiff and creaky today as we thought we might be after hauling boxes and furniture yesterday, but we're glad the new home-owners decided to defer today's loads while they sort what's already been delivered.

The Swan

By Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?

Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -

An armful of white blossoms,

A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned

into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,

Biting the air with its black beak?

Did you hear it, fluting and whistling

A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall

Knifing down the black ledges?

And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -

A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet

Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

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Empty nesting again

Yesterday the Daughter Person and the Son-In-Law closed on their first house. We're spending today helping them move into their new home and out of our house. We went through Empty Nesting when Daughter Person went off to college. The she and the Son-In-Law to be moved in with us while he finished his degree. Now they're off again. All grown up? We'll return to our regular programming tomorrow or as soon as our old bones and muscles have recovered from today's activities.

autumn leaves, St. Croix River

Photo by J. Harrington

Between loads being transported, we made a quick stop by the Discovery Center in Osceola to check our the Craig Blacklock presentation on his book of photos celebrating the St. Croix River's 50th anniversary as a Wild and Scenic River. Enjoy the photos on his web site.

Parenthesis

By Valerie Mejer Caso

Translated by Forrest Gander

Nothing's in the nest. No needles. No newborn ravens.

Maybe something like night in the deep hollow,

an eggshell planet, cracked in the middle, an empty bowl of soup.

Nothing's in the nest. No thread. No webs of words.

Maybe something like my navel, the eclipse of a magnifying glass.

A slice, mute with regard to its empty depths.

In the nest, nothing. The web unwoven. Dismembered.

In the space, something, yes. A piece of cloth. Sounding like flags

taking wing, a worm in its beak and suddenly, eyes, my eyes

which, cutting across the empty air, direct themselves at something noiseless over there.

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Frost on the punkin? #phenology

Earlier this week we had a morning or two of clear, sunny skies following cold nights. Frost didn't show up well (at all) on the "punkins" lining the driveway, but it was beautiful on the grasses in the fields, until the sun climbed high enough to warm the stems and melt the frost. We could use more days like those before the snow flies.

Autmn's frosted grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

Mice, crickets, and spiders have been creeping and crawling into the house looking for Winter shelter. We've manage to catch and release the crickets and spiders. The mice, and one mole / shrew, didn't fare as well.

While we were visiting Duluth yesterday, after an enjoyable lunch at Fitger's Brew House, we stopped by the Bookstore at Fitger's, where we picked up a book titled Natural Connections, exploring northwoods nature through science and your senses, written by Emily M. Stone and published by Cable Natural History Museum, where Ms. Stone is the Naturalist/Education Director. We started reading with the Fall section, since we're in the middle of that season. It's enjoyable, entertaining and educational. You should at least check it out [previous link] if you're interested in North Woods phenology.

North Country loon

Photo by J. Harrington

According to some phenology sources, we've reached the time of year when our North Country loons will be heading South for the Winter. Except for the howl of a wolf, we can think of no sound more evocative of the North Woods than the ululations of a loon.

When the Frost is on the Punkin

By James Whitcomb Riley

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,

And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,

And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,

With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;

But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;

The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still

A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;

The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;

The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—

O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;

And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...

I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be

As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—

I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

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A dreary day, trip to Duluth

We took a trip to Duluth this am. We're happy to report that, despite being battered by some very, very early November gales this October, much of the city is as we remember it, although with some added road construction backups. We're also quite happy to report that the burgers at Fitger's Brew House are as tasty as remembered. Duluth is one of our favorite Minnesota cities but, unless we're careful, we let too much time pass between trips there.

Lake Superior under clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

The further North one heads on I-35, the more barren of leaves branches become. Our North Country is well past peak color and into the late Autumn drearies. Tamaracks are the exception. Most of them remain covered in golden needles. The Big Lake was gray, to match the sky and the falling mist. If there was a horizon, we couldn't see it. Noteworthy wildlife viewed on the trip:

• one pair of bald eagles perched roadside
• four separate road-killed whitetail deer
• one road-killed wolf, reported by the Better Half, our view was obscured by road spray

Taylors Falls Lighting Festival, pre-parade

Photo by J. Harrington

As we headed South, through rain most of the way, the proportion of oaks increased in woodlots and that enhanced the numbers of leaves still visible on the trees. The Better Half made a bet with us about this year's first 1" snowfall, one that doesn't promptly melt away. She claims it will occur by November 17 wile we're holding out for December 2. (According to NOAA records, the median date of the first 1-inch snowfall is November 16 in the Twin Cities, but the first plowable snow often doesn't arrive until late November or even December.) We agreed that November 24, probably at noon is the dividing line. Snow before that, she wins. After that, we do. (We're hoping for the El Nino influence.) That's also the weekend of the Taylors Falls Lighting Festival, attendance at which has become a family tradition.

Snow-flakes

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 

Over the woodlands brown and bare, 

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

            Silent, and soft, and slow 

            Descends the snow. 

Even as our cloudy fancies take 

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression, 

Even as the troubled heart doth make 

      In the white countenance confession, 

            The troubled sky reveals 

            The grief it feels. 

This is the poem of the air, 

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded; 

This is the secret of despair, 

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, 

            Now whispered and revealed 

            To wood and field. 

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Bucking backyard buckthorn

It's a very pleasant surprise to notice how much more attractive understory looks without the clutter of buckthorn. If this Autumn we don't get all the buckthorn pulled from one small patch of woods behind the house, we'll finish next Spring. Over the Winter we'll scatter a couple of bags of Prairie Restoration's "Short/Dry Wildflower Mix" in the areas we have cleared and hope for the best come next year's growing season. Maybe we'll end up with a pollinators' garden if enough sunshine gets through the overstory. If not, we'll try a different mix next year.

backyard buckthorn before pulling

Photo by J. Harrington

The bird bath heater has finally been plugged in for the season (until next April or early May?). This afternoon we were roundly cursed by a blue jay who arrived for a drink and found instead a layer of ice. We'll put out some suet in the next week or so and cross our fingers the local bears have by now fattened up and settled in for their long Winter's nap.

Did you get to see the moon last night or early this morning? Tonight clouds are supposed to return and hang around for several days. Our shoulders and legs will appreciate the excuse to take a break from pulling buckthorn. A couple or three times we've pulled the classic "just one more," but as often happens, we said that two or three or four times each session. We haven't quite yet adjusted to the idea that we'll be pulling buckthorn for the rest of our active life. We still have the mental model that it's a "project" that we'll finish rather than a lifestyle we're adopting. From time to time we check the Minnesota DNR web page to see if anyone has come up with a biological control agent. No luck so far. Since we broke down (again) this year and sprayed some of the poison ivy with glyphosate, we're weakening on the idea of using that on some of the seedlings. We'll see how much exercise we think we need come Spring.

Japanese Knotweed Killers 

By Jan Wrede

We smote and killed.
No broken needle.
Some chemical remains.
Needle too large for small stalks.
Injector refill problematic.

Victim mortally wounded.
Time for mercy
And finishing spray?
When is the coup de gras?
Killers are ready

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October's falling leaves moon

October's full moon is tomorrow night. The Anishnaabe call it binaakwe-giizis, falling leaves moon. In some cultures it's called hunter's moon. As late last night became early this morning, an almost full moon shone brightly through tree branches whose leaves have been falling all week. With the oak trees in the neighborhood, leaves will fall all Winter and, on some, the stems won't loosen until the bud for next year's leaf swells with Spring time's warmth.

October's full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Next week, Halloween's moon will be in its third quarter showing 50% illuminated. We can't figure out if that's more or less spooky than would be a full moon on All Hallow's Eve. Neither can we figure out if it would make sense to move election day so it doesn't fall between Halloween and Thanksgiving and close to the time that

"the boundary between this world and the next was at its thinnest. Some say that the dead could revisit their homes and other spirits such as nature spirits could also appear; food offerings were left for them in the hope that they would appreciate the kind thoughts and work their magic to keep the cattle safe over the winter and ensure that the next year’s harvest would not fail."

Perhaps in our growing dotage we're getting more superstitious, but look at where we are after the last election. Our governance gets more and more spooky by the day. Mixing spirit visits and votes seems to be just asking for trouble, although we suspect that November elections were scheduled to accommodate farmers getting in the harvest. This is no longer the 1800's and we are no longer a predominantly agrarian society. Time to rethink when we vote? BE SURE TO VOTE THIS YEAR ON NOVEMBER 6!

October

By Bobbi Katz

October is

when night guzzles up

the orange sherbet sunset

and sends the day

to bed

before supper

            and

October is when jack-o’-lanterns

grin in the darkness

            and

            strange company crunches

across the rumple of dry leaves

to ring a doorbell.

October is

when you can be ghost,

            a witch,

                        a creature from outer space…

almost anything!

And the neighbors, fearing tricks,

            give you treats.

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The music of Autumn

Today is close to a classic and perfect North Country Autumn day. The breeze is a little strong but all the other seasonal attributes are there: sunshine, temperatures, leaf colors. In fact, we're more than halfway through meteorological Autumn and on election day will be halfway through astronomical Autumn. We celebrated by pulling some more buckthorn while listening to folk music on our smart phone. By the time we were finished today's work on land restoration we felt like a rejuvenated hippie.

Canada geese on the move

Photo by J. Harrington

We find we're restless at about this time each year. Are you? Hummingbirds and monarch butterflies have headed South, as have many of Summer's songbirds. Waterfowl will probably hang around as long as they can find food and open water, then they'll pack it in. If our road were a trout stream, we'd have sworn we saw a hatch of tricos today. There were swarms of tiny, tiny grayish flies, fruit flies?, midges?, hovering along the edge of the road when we walked the dogs today. They reminded us that this Winter we need to get our act together and take a shot at Winter trout fishing. We also need to get out gear reorganized.

One of the "restless" songs we used to listen to as we headed off on hunting and fishing trips was/is Willie Nelson's classic On the Road Again. Among other Autumn songs that complement our restless feelings are:

• Urge for Going (one of Joni Mitchell's masterpieces)


• Gentle on my Mind (one of John Hartford's most popular)


• Who Knows Where the Time Goes (Sandy Denny's song first beautifully covered by Judy Collins)

Season of the Witch

Photo by J. Harrington

Later this month, we can enjoy Halloween while we listen to Donovan's Season of the Witch. Then next month brings a somber interlude with Gordon Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald before we head over the river and through the woods to listen to a Thanksgiving Song sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Music

By Juhan Liiv

Translated from the Estonian by H.L. Hix & Jüri Talvet

Read the translator's notes

It must be somewhere, the original harmony,

somewhere in great nature, hidden.

Is it in the furious infinite,

in distant stars’ orbits,

is it in the sun’s scorn,

in a tiny flower, in treegossip,

in heartmusic’s mothersong

or in tears?

It must be somewhere, immortality,

somewhere the original harmony must be found:

how else could it infuse 

the human soul,

that music?

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Autumn's gold

Sunsets the past few days have been beautiful, with bands of saffron silhouetting tree branches now barren of leaves. Lawns, drives and roads daily wear fresh shawls of fallen leaves. Yet not all the trees nor all their branches are Winter-bare nor are all the fields harvested.

Autumn's thinning leaves of gold and bronze

Photo by J. Harrington

Tamaracks are now among the golden choirs bringing candle flames to landscapes. Early morning grasses are frost-sparkled, as if starlight had fallen among the stems and blades. We've been reassured to see the Big Dipper the past few mornings as we've walked the dogs.

Yesterday we briefly drove through a mini-blizzard that, were it Summer, would have been a single cell thunderstorm. We're now definitely in the times of "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute..."

homemade artisan sourdough bread

Photo by J. Harrington

Soon open waters will be frozen over. The ground will be coated with snow. We'll be locked into a cold cycle for several months, broken by occasional ice storms or Winter thaws. Fortunately, it's also a season of home-baked bread and home-made soups and stews for the fortunate among us. It's only about a month until the Thanksgiving holidays. That's not too early to think about what we have to be grateful for and how that should be reflected by our votes on November 6. Are you planning to support greed or kindness as you fill in circles or make X's? You are planning to vote, aren't you? Those who could vote but don't won't even get coal in their stockings at yule tide. Coal's getting left in the ground due to climate change.

Like You

Roque Dalton, 1935- 1975

translated by Jack Hirschman

homemade artisan sourdough bread Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

---

Como Tú

Yo, como tu,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de los días de enero.
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sange unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.

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Listen! Don't give up Hope!

Studs Terkel, a great listener, wrote the book Hope Dies Last when he was in his early 90s. Rebecca Solnit's second edition of Hope in the Dark was published a few years ago. Particularly since November 2016, we've become more reliant on these works to temper our increasing cynicism. Solnit's observation, that

“The grounds for hope are in the shadows, in the people who are inventing the world while no one looks, who themselves don’t know yet whether they will have any effect…”

was affirmed by a personal experience these past few days, when a plant we were convinced was dead, displayed a bloom in the shadows of fallen leaves.

an aster bloom from a "dead"plant

Photo by J. Harrington

A day or two ago, we happened to glance at the leaves accumulating near the end or our drive. Peeking out from under a handful of oak and wild grape leaves was the purple and yellow flower of a New England aster. A little more than a year ago, we planted a couple of aster plants on the West side of the road at the South side of the drive. Come May of this year, we had what looked like two very dead plants. No sign of green whatsoever. They stayed that way through June, July and August.

Perhaps it's been the spell of abnormally(?) wet weather we've had during most of September and October, that same spell we've muttered about and cursed, that brought out the Lazarus genes in the aster. We'll never know, but we do know this: the reappearance of life from the dead plants has kicked our cynicism in the butt with a vengeance. For that, we are very grateful. As Terkel tells us

'Hope has never trickled down,' writes Terkel. 'It has always sprung up' - and he gets his title from Jessie de la Cruz, a founder member of the farmers union, who insisted: 'If you lose hope, you lose everything.'

Our hopes have definitely "sprung up" with the emergence of a beautiful blossom from a "dead plant." We wish you comparable sources of hope in your lives. We also hope you reinforce your hopes by voting on or before November 6, 2018, especially if you vote for politicians who've demonstrated their listening skills more than their promises of painless solutions. You know who we mean.

The Hope I Know

By Thomas Centolella

doesn’t come with feathers.

It lives in flip-flops and, in cold weather,

a hooded sweatshirt, like a heavyweight

in training, or a monk who has taken

a half-hearted vow of perseverance.

It only has half a heart, the hope I know.

The other half it flings to every stalking hurt.

It wears a poker face, quietly reciting

the laws of probability, and gladly

takes a back seat to faith and love,

it’s that many times removed

from when it had youth on its side

and beauty. Half the world wishes

to stay as it is, half to become

whatever it can dream,

while the hope I know struggles

to keep its eyes open and its mind

from combing an unpeopled beach.

Congregations sway and croon,

constituents vote across their party line,

rescue parties wait for a break

in the weather. And who goes to sleep

with a prayer on the lips or half a smile

knows some kind of hope.

Though not the hope I know,

which slinks from dream to dream

without ID or ally, traveling best at night,

keeping to the back roads and the shadows,

approaching the radiant city

without ever quite arriving.

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Peak Autumn? #phenology

This week most of the oak leaves have turned tawny and bronze-colored. Maples are now chrome yellow, bright orange and scarlet. The black cherry tree's leaves look like flames of burnished copper. The remaining milkweed pods have burst into scattered white spots in the fields of tan and khaki grasses. Autumn winds push falling and fallen leaves back and forth across drives and roads and house decks.

early Autumn snow on maple leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The dogs are shedding more than usual. Mice are moving into Winter quarters. At least one pocket gopher is still active and pushing up mounds in what laughingly passes for lawn around here. Chipmunks seem to have disappeared, but could it be hibernation time yet? Red and gray squirrels are enjoying the mast fall of acorns. Oak seedlings will emerge next year from oak nuts that were stashed underground and forgotten.

late color change maple leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

Chickadees and nut hatches, both white and red breasted, swarm to the feeders several times a day. Asian beetles, the kind that look like ladybugs, have been flying in swarms through the air and trying to find opportunities to enter buildings. Some remaining hornets are still about after the sun warms them by midmorning.

As we approach Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows Day and the thinning of the boundary between worlds, many of the creatures that live in the North Country get an Urge for Going. We've not yet seen signs of major waterfowl migrations headed South, but expect such on a daily basis. Monarch butterflies are now close to their Wintering quarters in Mexico. We've noticed flocks of Juncos from time to time. If there's such a time as peak Autumn, we must be getting near it.

The technician is coming this afternoon to check the furnace for a heating season that's already started. Soon we'll need to take the snow blower for a seasonal checkup. The reports we saw this morning note this Winter will either be warmer or colder, wetter or drier than average. That sounds about right since many of our weather patterns are getting more volatile. Yesterday it was over 70℉, tomorrow it's supposed to snow. The good news is we have a long list of good books to read while nature takes a quiet(?) Winter rest in the upcoming months. But first some pumpkins need to be turned into jack-o-lanterns.

Leaves

Lloyd Schwartz, 1941

                        1 

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it’s not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony 
isn’t lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it’s about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its 
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far 
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
        the trees don’t die, they just pretend,
        go out in style, and return in style: a new style.





                        2 

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far 
enough away from home to see not just trees 
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high 
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were 
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks 
like rain, or snow, but it’s probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, 
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the 
most color last year, but it doesn’t matter since 
you’re probably too late anyway, or too early—
        whichever road you take will be the wrong one
        and you’ve probably come all this way for nothing.






                        3 

You’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won’t last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You’re on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won’t last, you don’t want it to last. You 
can’t stand any more. But you don’t want it to stop. 
It’s what you’ve come for. It’s what you’ll
come back for. It won’t stay with you, but you’ll 
        remember that it felt like nothing else you’ve felt
        or something you’ve felt that also didn’t last.

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Learning from our history?

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Sir Winston Churchill

Forty-six years ago today the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972 were enacted by the House over the veto of then President Nixon. We have been part of a pilot effort in Massachusetts working on the implications of Section 208, Areawide Water Quality Management Planning, while the Amendments were still known as the Muskie-Blatnik bill. We believe the nation's waters are cleaner than they would have been without the 1972, and subsequent, amendments. We also believe there are some critically important cautionary lessons to be learned, especially when we look at milestones that must be reached to minimize the negative effects of climate change on human beings.

does the St. Louis River meet standards as it enters Lake Superior?

Photo by J. Harrington

Here is the objective and the goals of Public Law 92-500 as enacted:

The objective of this Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. In order  to  achieve this objective  it  is hereby declared  that,  consistent with the provisions of this Act—

"(1)  it is the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985;

"(2)  it is the national goal that wherever attainable, an interim goal of water quality which provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provides for recreation in and on the water be achieved by July 1, 1983;..."

does the Mississippi River meet standards as it flows through Minneapolis?

Photo by J. Harrington

As far as we know, we have not come close to meeting either the 1983 goal nor the 1985 goal, and even less so the Act's objective. In fact, in Minnesota about 40% of the waters fail to meet standards. (We can no longer find any data on the EPA web site that provides comparable information at a nation scale.)

It's been 33 years since 1985 and 35 years since 1983. If we make progress toward keeping our green house gases at a level that keeps temperature increases at or below 1.5 ℃ with the same level of success we've met the water quality goals, our descendants will deservedly curse us.

We have seen little, if any, evidence that reaching the water quality or the climate change goals is technologically or economically unfeasible. It's not that we can't do it, it's that we won't do it. We're like the toddler who throws a tantrum when told NO! In reality, we find our approach to protecting the environment has about as much credibility as Senator McConnell's assertion that Social Security and Medicare, not tax cuts for the 1%, are to blame for the growing deficit. Greed is not only unseemly, it is hazardous to our health.

There It Is

By Jayne Cortez

My friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist  a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will try to exploit you

absorb you  confine you

disconnect you  isolate you

or kill you

And you will disappear into your own rage

into your own insanity

into your own poverty

into a word a phrase a slogan a cartoon

and then ashes

The ruling class will tell you that

there is no ruling class

as they organize their liberal supporters into

white supremacist lynch mobs

organize their children into

ku klux klan gangs

organize their police into

killer cops

organize their propaganda into

a device to ossify us with angel dust

preoccupy us with western symbols in

african hair styles

inoculate us with hate

institutionalize us with ignorance

hypnotize us with a monotonous sound designed

to make us evade reality and stomp our lives away

And we are programmed to self-destruct

to fragment

to get buried under covert intelligence operations of

unintelligent committees impulsed toward death

And there it is

The enemies polishing their penises between

oil wells at the pentagon

the bulldozers leaping into demolition dances

the old folks dying of starvation

the informers wearing out shoes looking for crumbs

the life blood of the earth almost dead in

the greedy mouth of imperialism

And my friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist  a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will spray you with

a virus of legionnaire's disease

fill your nostrils with

the swine flu of their arrogance

stuff your body into a tampon of

toxic shock syndrome

try to pump all the resources of the world

into their own veins

and fly off into the wild blue yonder to

pollute another planet

And if we don't fight

if we don't resist

if we don't organize and unify and

get the power to control our own lives

Then we will wear

the exaggerated look of captivity

the stylized look of submission

the bizarre look of suicide

the dehumanized look of fear

and the decomposed look of repression

forever and ever and ever

And there it is

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Dear Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party,

This is an open letter from a Minnesotan who used to consider himself a committed Democrat. We live in Minnesota. To be more specific:

• MN House District 32B
• MN Senate District 32
• MN Congressional District 8

St. Louis River at Jay Cooke State Park

Photo by J. Harrington

We have been for a long, long time card-carrying environmentalists. We've have been in a deep funk since November 2016 and have been looking forward to voting on November 6 of this year. Unfortunately, we have a major problem. Only one environmental organization that we know of (Save the Boundary Waters*) has endorsed any Democratic candidate for any of the following races:

• MN United States Senate
• MN Congressional District 8*
• MN Attorney General*
• MN House District 32B

St. Croix River at Franconia

Photo by J. Harrington

We were pleased to see that the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsed

• Walz for Governor
• Flannagan for Lieutenant Governor 
• Simon for Secretary of State.
• Numerous candidates for the Minnesota legislature

We had hoped to be able to vote a straight Democratic ticket but now find ourselves in a quandary. Without endorsements by a reputable environmental organization, we must consider not voting for anyone for the five races listed above. As we all know, elections have consequences. So do endorsements, or lack thereof. The world, the United States, the State of Minnesota, Congressional District 8, MN Senate District 32 and House District 32B all are facing major environmental challenges, such as responding to climate change, adapting to its impacts, protecting the Boundary Waters Wilderness, Lake Superior and the Wild and Scenic St. Croix River, plus transforming local, regional and state economies to sustainably support our children and grandchildren. We're deeply disappointed the Democratic Party hasn't put forth more qualified, forward-looking, environmentally responsible candidates so we could comfortably vote a straight Democratic-environmental ticket. Try harder next time, please? Be responsible.

We Are Not Responsible

By Harryette Mullen

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives. 

We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions. 

We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts. 

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. 

Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations. 

In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on. 

Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments. 

If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way. 

In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself. 

Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle

your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we

are unable to find the key to your legal case. 

You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile. 

You are not presumed to be innocent if the police 

have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet. 

It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color. 

It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights. 

Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude. 

You have no rights we are bound to respect. 

Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible 

for what happens to you. 

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