Soon, a quiet season

More blue skies and sunshine. Early Christmas present? Most of the old time Minnesotans we know would claim that "we'll pay for this." To which we say "Not if the Yellowstone super volcano gets us first." Of course, that kind of attitude is exactly the opposite of the middle class, delayed gratification our parents tried to instill in us. We're old enough to remember when "middle class" was more defined by values than income. Those were the days!

These days, except for birds (and squirrels) at the feeders, there's been precious little critter activity. Goldfinches are back after an extended absence but we haven't even seen Runny Babbit for quite a while. We've seen nary a turkey for weeks nor a whitetail since the trio fed on the pumpkins under the pear tree more than a week ago. We're not sure if it's something we said or ...?

Winter cottontail, a.k.a. Runny Babbit

Photo by J. Harrington

On the home front, we haven't quite finished our Christmas shopping, but we think we can see the end of the list from here. This is a good thing, with Christmas only ten days away. We're looking forward to the quiet time that comes after Christmas. It's nicely described by Joanna Van Der Hoeven in her Zen for Druids:

This is the time of the shortest day and the longest night, and the shift out of the deepest darkness towards lengthening days with more sunlight occurs. In Britain, where the days can be terribly short, especially on dark, overcast wintry days, this shift towards the light half of the year is very remarkable and special for some people, not least those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is a time of darkness, of quiet contemplation and family. Bringing sprigs of greenery into the home to decorate the hearth and integrate the natural world with the inner sanctums, and the giving of gifts that is now traditional at this time of year, strengthens the family and community bonds. It is a time for rest, as the earth lays dormant, seeds waiting below ground for the return of the sun even as the cold winds blow.

"as the earth lays dormant"

Photo by J. Harrington

This reminds us that we need to do some research during our quiet time, to see if it makes a difference whether we spread the wildflower seeds we have late in the Winter on top of the snow, or early in the Winter beneath most of the snow. That should be an interesting quest, to see if there is an available answer. We're hoping to do more than feed the field mice and the shrews that tunnel through the snow.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

Anne Boyer

The coven of bison
          brought here as wishes
                    bore 80 million calves
                              in a year
                              This was the epicenter of the nursery
                              of the palace of the monument
                              of the battlefield
of the resurrection of the biome—
170 million acres aggressively
                                      self-returfing &
            a new state slogan:
                        AD ASTRA
                        THE TALL GRASS
                                 PER ASPERA
                                 ITS REVENGE
The public-private partnership¹
          was lesser prairie chickens & very large cats.
Even the sky could hear the wolves returning.
The grasshoppers were strategists.
The Koch brothers melted plows.

---

¹ After decades of contention between park advocates and local agribusiness activists, in 1996 a unique public-private partnership was formed to create a tallgrass prairie preserve in Kansas on one of the few undisturbed patches of tallgrass prairie left in North America. In less than a decade, the park fell onto hard times as the private wing of the mostly private public-private partnership could no longer financially sustain it. The preserve looked like it was going to have to be sold. Then the Nature Conservatory, led by a former managing director of Goldman Sachs and assisted by a $1 million dollar gift from Wichita’s Koch brothers, took over. They introduced thirteen bison to the Kansas prairie to unexpected results. The bison quickly returned to their pre-Columbian population. After a controlled burn of the entire great plains in the spring of 2019, the tall grass prairie ecosystem of the U.S. restored itself from tap roots that had lain dormant at the earth’s core since John Deere invented the steel plow in 1838. The interior U.S. radically depopulated as prairie dog colonies caused irreparable damage to the infrastructure of its cities and towns.

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