Counting the days

Today is February 15. When we awoke this morning, the temperature was -5℉. Local windchills are in the -20℉ range and colder to the West of us. After today (that is, not counting February 15), in seven days (February 23) the normal daytime high should reach 32℉. After today there are 13 days until March 1, the first day of meteorological Spring. After today there are22 days until Daylight Savings time starts on March 10. After today, there are 32 days until the Vernal Equinox on March 20, the start of astronomical Spring. Unfortunately, Shakespeare's Hamlet had it all too correct when he spoke the lines:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

He might well have been describing the pace at which Winter departs and Spring arrives in our North Country.  The weather app on our "smartphone" extends out nine days past today. It includes no temperatures forecast to warm to 32℉. Snow is included in the forecast for five of those nine days. It's not exactly that we don't like Winter (although we don't). Even if we liked snow and cold and freezing rain and ice, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing, and about this time each year, that's what we've had when it comes to Winter, too much of it.

amaryllis from Christmas 2017 to Valentine's 2019

Photo by J. Harrington

Unless something radically untoward and unforeseen happens, today's posting will be our last Winter's rant for this season. We will, henceforth, celebrate signs of Spring's arrival or preparations thereof. The sun is now warm enough to trigger melting around the edges of the few streaks of blacktop showing on our road. The Christmas amaryllis from 2017 have become Valentine's amaryllis this year. It's great to see flowers blooming. Slowly, snow will be blown from or melt off of tree branches, revealing leaf buds awaiting warmer days. Perhaps, one day soon, even the whitetail deer will start feeding on Spring's new growth and leave our sunflower seed feeder alone?

four-hoofed bird seed snitchers

Photo by J. Harrington

As an aside, we haven't lost track of our ongoing research for Native American place-names in the St. Croix Valley. In fact, yesterday we read something we believe and want to share. It's from the book Ojibwe: Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions. It's a quotation from the late Walt Bressette:

So I think our rights, indigenous rights, treaty rights, will become a vital tool in the role in the restabilization of this economy. In addition I think the indigenous knowledge that we have with our elders will become a tool that will be used. (p. 62)

The recognition and honoring of "indigenous rights, treaty rights" has become more critical during the past several years as the rights of more and more of us have been threatened. It's been said the we are "a government of laws, not of men." We don't see any way that can be true if the same laws don't apply equally to all peoples and if a dominant culture claiming to be a democracy refuses to respect and reflect the bedrock beliefs and values on which it is supposedly formed.

Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church.If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now.But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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