Au revoir April and #NationalPoetryMonth

On this last day of April 2019, we again say good-bye to "the cruelest month," and to National Poetry Month. This morning, as we returned the bird feeders to their hangers, we startled a mallard duck from our back yard "wet spot." The mallard's activity getting airborne startled the cottontail rabbit that had been browsing on something or other. We briefly watched wingbeats head in one direction and a powderpuff tail in another. There's a lot to be said for bucolic mornings, even (especially?) if they come at the start of yet another cloudy day.

We haven't done a lot this year to focus on National Poetry Month, in part because each time we post here, we include a poem that we think relates somehow to the day's theme. We've now done that about 2,350 times, almost all of them consecutive days. We believe there's poetry for everyone and everything. In fact, this week we came across an opinion to the effect that poetry is like music, you may not like all music, but you probably like at least some. To properly wind down National Poetry Month this year, please go find some poetry you like. Of course, we'd like it if you checked in here every day looking for some. Another option would be to sign up for Poem-a-Day, or bookmark that link and check it daily.

Although we neither understand nor enjoy all poetry, we're currently reading and enjoying, among other books, Tracy K. SMith's Wade In The Water and Jim Harrison's Dead Man's Float. Here's a poem from Harrison's volume as we move from the country of April to that of May.

Another Country

By Jim Harrison

I love these raw moist dawns with

a thousand birds you hear but can't

quite see in the mist.

My old alien body is a foreigner

struggling to get into another country.

The loon call makes me shiver.

Back at the cabin I see a book

and am not quite sure what that is.

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North country Spring

Winter-stark outlines of tree crowns continue to soften and fill in as budburst and leaf-out continue. Grass blades and day lily leafs emerge more and more from ground that was snow-covered and frozen weeks ago. North of us, near Ely, fresh snow is causing high school sports' events to reschedule to later, hopefully warmer and sunnier, days in May.

tom turkey displaying in Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Local streams are still running bankfull and a bit more. This morning we noticed a wild tom turkey displaying as he strutted his way through our sand plain fields. Spring developments proceed at their own pace, not by our calendar.

We well remember the times, years ago, when we were chased from Spring turkey hunting trips to South Dakota by blizzards that made camping and hunting just plain miserable. The National Phenology Network notes that:

In the east, spring leaf out is 1-2 weeks early in the upper Southeast, and 1-2 weeks late across the Great Plains, southern Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Spring leaf out is four days late in Missoula, MT and Minneapolis, MN.

We admit, to our shame, we don't usually pay enough attention to notice a four day late arrival, but when it starts to approach a week or so, that gets our attention, although, with the normal variability of phenology events around here, "normal" becomes hard to judge. As we've noted several times before, Minnesota would be a much more enjoyable place to live, work and play if the averages of temperatures and precipitation etc. weren't comprised of quite a few extremes.

Spring

In the north country now it is spring and there
Is a certain celebration. The thrush
Has come home. He is shy and likes the
Evening best, also the hour just before
Morning; in that blue and gritty light he
Climbs to his branch, or smoothly
Sails there. It is okay to know only
One song if it is this one. Hear it
Rise and fall; the very elements of you should
Shiver nicely. What would spring be
Without it? Mostly frogs. But don’t worry, he

Arrives, year after year, humble and obedient
And gorgeous. You listen and you know
You could live a better life than you do, be
Softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will
Be able to do it. Hear how his voice
Rises and falls. There is no way to be
Sufficiently grateful for the gifts we are
Given, no way to speak the Lord’s name
Often enough, though we do try, and

Especially now, as that dappled breast
Breathes in the pines and heaven’s
Windows in the north country,
Now spring has come,
Are opened wide.

Mary Oliver

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It's bearly Spring!

This is a tough time of year for many creatures. New growth is just starting. Last year's fruits and nuts are few, far between and well past ripe. Deer browse on twigs. According to Audubon Guides:

"Spring is very challenging for bears. When they emerge from their dens in April, they may have lost up to twenty percent or more of their weight over the winter. They are ravenous at a time when there is very little vegetation, the mainstay of their diet. Wetland plants such as swamp thistle are a primary source of food in early spring. Other foods include the tender, unfurling leaves of deciduous trees, catkins (pendant flowers) from early-blooming trees like aspen and willow, grasses, insect larvae and snowfleas."

Yesterday, at dusk, a little before full dark, we were curled up with a book, and the dogs were lying quietly digesting a recent snack. Suddenly, Franco, the Better Half's border collie cross, a dog known to be hyperactive much of the time, and hypersensitive to intrusions on "his" territory, went nuts. We bellowed at him and walked over to the family room / office walkout door, arriving just in time to see a black, role-poly furry rump rumbling down one slope and up another into the woods on the North side of the house. One of the neighborhood black bears had come looking to see what might be available in the local sunflower seed supply. We had already taken in the feeders for the day, but some spillage from the Winter months still hasn't been cleaned up.

late Spring (early June) midday raid

Photo by J. Harrington

Today, the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law stopped by earlier. They reported as they returned from a perimeter walk, that they saw a pile of bear droppings along the edge of the woods. No comment on what the bear had been feeding on. It's annoying, but worth the effort, to bring in feeders each evening and put them back out in the morning. Unfortunately, several years ago, that wasn't enough. One June, about mid-day, a local bruin decided that s/he couldn't get by without sunflower seeds for a snack and, in broad daylight, bent the hanger, trashed the feeder, and licked up the seeds. We went and spoke harshly to the intruder at the time. S/he grudgingly sauntered off in search of something else to nosh on. After we post today's blog, we'll go and park the trash can in the garage for the Summer. It's once again the time of year when predawn dog walks are more exciting.

The Truro Bear

by Mary Oliver

There’s a bear in the Truro woods.
People have seen it - three or four,
or two, or one. I think
of the thickness of the serious woods
around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds;
I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles,
the cranberry bogs. And the sky
with its new moon, its familiar star-trails,
burns down like a brand-new heaver,
while everywhere I look on the scratchy hillsides
shadows seem to grow shoulders. Surely
a beast might be clever, be lucky, move quietly
through the woods for years, learning to stay away
from roads and houses. Common sense mutters:
it can’t be true, it must be somebody’s
runaway dog. But the seed
has been planted, and when has happiness ever
required much evidence to begin
its leaf-green breathing?

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Migration weather delays? #phenology

For the week starting tomorrow, our copy of the Minnesota Weatherguide Engagement Calendar notes: "Backyard bird enthusiasts have their grape jelly, sunflower seed, and sugar water feeders up, anxiously awaiting the return of the first Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and ruby-throated hummingbirds." Of course, it also notes that todays normal high temperature is 63℉. As we write this about 3 PM, the outside temperature is about 48℉. Below normal high temperatures are in the forecast for the entire week ahead. Despite having become a backyard bird enthusiast, with a sunflower seed feeder up year round, we may hold off on the grape and sugar water until later in May.

rose-breasted grosbeak

Photo by J. Harrington

Arrival dates, based on the pictures we have in our archives, are as follows:

• rose-breasted grosbeaks -- May 9; May 10; May 11;


• ruby throated hummingbirds -- May 14;


• Baltimore orioles -- May 16;

Baltimore oriole

Photo by J. Harrington

These migrants seem to want some assurance that Minnesota has finished with plowable snowfalls before returning. The forecast for today and tomorrow involves the potential for such an event South of us tonight and/or tomorrow. We've our fingers crossed that, if there be snow, the forecast and the actual both continue to spare us. As much as we complain about perpetually cloudy weather, it is preferable to Spring snow.

first green flare

Sidney Wade

makes
the air

quiver
and dart

the throat
ache

to call
makes

the heart
cheer

the ear
keen

to the sheer
glorious

windfall
of oriole

veery
vireo

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Spring's arrivals: some here, others en route

The past few days we've seen several dragonflies, one or two in the neighborhood, a couple more closer to the Twin Cities. To be honest, we thought the weather had been too cool and it was too early in the season for them to be back. Since dragonflies are some of our favorite critters, we're delighted and hope that the inclusion of snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow won't do any serious disruption to the dragonfly population. The ones that we got the best views of look like green darners.

green darner dragonfly

Photo by J. Harrington

We're sorry to note that this week's weather has triggered leaf out on local buckthorn understory. We're back pulling the remaining bushes and saplings from the area behind the house that we've been reclaiming. Once that's done, we'll start on the growth in the front woodlot. Sometimes it feels like we're doing the equivalent of trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. It would be easier to stay motivated if there weren't so much buckthorn growing in the nearby MNDNR property, part of Carlos Avery WMA. Anyhow, the plantings of three high bush cranberries and two chokeberry bushes are now "protected" by wire cages. The Better Half installed the fencing the first time. This week's winds, plus uncollected oak leaves, tipped over several. We've now installed braces and we'll see if that holds through this weekend's weather.

sandhill crane in corn stubble

Photo by J. Harrington

Robins, and several species of sparrow-like birds, plus some stray juncos have been migrating through this week. Goldfinches are in bright mating colors. Someone has begun nesting in the bluebird box, a bluebird maybe? We've not yet seen any of the tree swallows that nest in the "purple martin" house we put up years ago. Several sandhill cranes have been visible in local farm fields. Swans appear to be pairing up on some of the larger local ponds. It's always a treat to see swans or cranes. The waves of grosbeaks, tanagers, orioles, and hummingbirds should soon be on the scene. Meanwhile, we're enjoying watching Spring settle in and helping where we can.

In Spring

By Rose King

I'm out with the wheelbarrow mixing mulch.

A mockingbird trills in the pine.

Then, from higher, a buzz, and through patches of blue

as the fog burns off, a small plane pulls a banner,

red letters I can't read—

but I do see, over the fence,

a man in a sky-blue shirt walking his dog to the beach.

He says he missed it, will keep an eye out.

Four barrows of mulch around the blueberry bushes,

I'm pulling off gloves, and he's back, beaming.

"It says, I LOVE YOU, MARTHA.

Are you Martha?"

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Sandhills on the Sand Plain

Parts of yesterday and today have been devoted to Spring clean-up chores. We may need to research all the wonderful things tree leaves do for us, such as providing Summer shade and exhaling oxygen, and then compost or mulch, because we're annoyed at the scattered mess they make of lots of places where we don't want or need mulch or compost in the making.

The leaves along the drive are torn up in a number of places. We still haven't figured out if that's being done by deer, or squirrels, or both. It looks like someone's been trying to feed on what's left of last Autumn's chrysanthemums, and, maybe, pine cones and / or acorns. Although last year the acorn crop around here was poor.

sandhill cranes in flight

Photo by J. Harrington

Anyhow, one of the treats of putzing about outside while not running a noisy machine is that we've been able to hear the trumpeting calls of sandhill cranes. One day soon we need to see if we can further check the etymology of the word crane. We can't determine if it originated because humans craned their necks looking skyward for the creature making those sounds, or was it the other way around, cranes long necks became the source of humans craning their necks to gawk. It appears that the verb derives from the noun, but we're not sure.

sandhill cranes in Carlos Avery WMA marsh

Photo by J. Harrington

When we first moved into our current home, sandhill crane sightings were much rarer than they have been the past several years. The population has increased over the past 50 years or so and the east-central area of Minnesota is noted for its population of these magnificent birds. Hearing their calls, seeing them in flight, or feeding in the nearby marshes and fields is a worthwhile compensation for tolerating our North Country Winters while they enjoy warmer climes to which they've migrated.

The Sandhills 

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

        - Linda Hogan

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Spring, a time full of anticipation

Three years ago, the roadside about a mile South of us was brightened by this time in April with the blooms in the picture (dogwood?, mountain serviceberry?). This year we still hold that in anticipation. Slowly, buds are swelling, more and more are bursting, leaf out has begun on some local plants, but there's barely a hint of life in the leaf buds at the tips of the oak branches hanging over our deck.

time to watch for patches of roadside beauty

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps our little slice of the Anoka Sand Plain still needs more rain and warmth to actually have Spring start bursting out all over. Meanwhile, we'll keep cleaning up last year's leaves and pulling buckthorn. We're starting to realize that. given where we live, these activities aren't occasional chores but more like a way of life. Figuring out what might work better as a ground cover, without having to clean up leaves each year, seems as likely to be successful as a search for the holy grail. May that be the biggest, most significant issue we have to take care of this growing season.

male goldfinch and purple finch at feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Purple finches have again joined the goldfinches at our feeders. The males of the latter have about completed their change into mating colors. Having several of each at a feeder looks a bit like an explosion in a crayola crayon factory. We expect, or at least hope for, visits from even more colorful tropical migrants sometime in the near future. Spring is a time of anticipation.

Spring

By Mary Oliver

I lift my face to the pale flowers
of the rain. They’re soft as linen,
clean as holy water. Meanwhile
my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves
into damp, mysterious tunnels.
He says the smells are rising now
stiff and lively; he says the beasts
are waking up now full of oil,
sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain
rubs its shining hands all over me.
My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says
each secret body is the richest advisor,
deep in the black earth such fuming
nuggets of joy!

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Things seen and unseen this Spring day

We say the first appearance of a garter snake today. Well hidden under too many of Autumn's and Winter's perpetually falling oak leaves were a handful of flowers that had emerged and are now blooming in some sunshine. Day lilies have emerged to widely varying extents in locations with widely varying amounts of exposure to the sun. The offending leaves covering much of this activity have been, for the most part, hauled off to the leaf pile at the edge of the woods. Although we don't play golf, we suppose that makes us a duffer of a different kind, a forest duff-er. Light and variable Spring breezes and leaf collecting are not a great combination.

more and more day lilies have appeared

Photo by J. Harrington

The back blade on the tractor doesn't dig deep enough to clear out most of the small seedling brush we're trying to clean up. It helps though by making the seedings easier to pull through the loosened dirt. The three high bush cranberries (Viburnum edule) and two black chokeberry (Aronia sp.) bushes are now planted and watered. We've still to get the ground prepared for wildflower planting. Maybe tomorrow. Then we'll see what the rabbits and deer and turkeys and bear come and munch on.

it's scilla season

Photo by J. Harrington

No sign yet of a pasque flower bloom but we did see some tiny green stems and leaves that offer a glimmer of hope just North of the brush pile. Hopes for getting rid of that Winter brush pile any time soon disappeared today when MNDNR announced Spring burning restrictions. We'll pick up more of the small stuff and toss it into the burn pit we haven't used yet. Meanwhile, the sun is shining, we've made a little progress toward improving our little corner of the world. We mostly helped the Better Half and she did a little vice versa. Today made it pretty clear what we weren't cut out to be a landscape architect or a farmer. We keep falling into the hunter-fisher-gatherer bin instead. It's enough of a challenge to prepare ourselves, let alone seed beds etc.

In Perpetual Spring

By Amy Gerstler

Gardens are also good places

to sulk. You pass beds of

spiky voodoo lilies   

and trip over the roots   

of a sweet gum tree,   

in search of medieval   

plants whose leaves,   

when they drop off   

turn into birds

if they fall on land,

and colored carp if they   

plop into water.

Suddenly the archetypal   

human desire for peace   

with every other species   

wells up in you. The lion   

and the lamb cuddling up. 

The snake and the snail, kissing.

Even the prick of the thistle,   

queen of the weeds, revives   

your secret belief

in perpetual spring,

your faith that for every hurt   

there is a leaf to cure it.

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Ask not what your Earth can do for you, ask what you can do...

Yes, we paraphrased President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address in today's blog title. It seems only too fitting these days. It's a rainy Earth Day where we are. This year the oak leaf buds haven't yet swollen, let alone burst, unlike a few years ago when, by this time of month, some leaves were bigger than a mouse's ears. Today, we're curled up under a throw blanket, in a soft arm chair, becoming more and more deeply enthralled by Richard Powers' The Overstory.

oak leaf out, April 21, 2016

Photo by J. Harrington

Last year was, and this year is becoming, a year of rediscovering trees for us. Our skeptical, cynical, shell of incredulity is gradually cracking and splitting under more and more piles of evidence found in books such as the Hidden Life of Trees and About Trees, the latter of which is printed, in part, in a tree font. In fact, we're embarrassed at how cavalier we've been thinking about the ability of plants to photosynthesize. The last time we checked, we were hard pressed to make something like a life out of little more than thin air and sunshine. In fact, forest conservation and regeneration, growing more trees plus growing trees more, in both the temperate and the tropical zones ranks among the top 40 solutions to climate disruption, according to DrawDown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming.

We aren't yet fully convinced that the GAIA hypothesis is valid, but we keep finding ourselves leaning more and more in that direction. For this Earth Day, until the next one, we'd settle for being happy that we've managed to do more learning about our home planet, rather than exploiting,  destroying or crippling it.

In April

James Hearst

This I saw on an April day:
Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,
A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,
And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path
Shy and proud.


And this I found in an April field:
A new white calf in the sun at noon,
A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,
And tips of tulips promising flowers
To a blue-winged loon.


And this I tried to understand
As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:
The movement of seed in furrowed earth,
And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear
From a green-sprayed bough.

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Life ebbs, and flows. Happy Easter!

Whatever the roadside grass is that grows in the ditches, it's greening and growing again. Some neighborhood trees have put out catkins. Some maples are flowering. We've not yet seen the year's first dandelion. Thinking about Spring in the North Country reminds us of William Gibson's observation: "The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed." In turn, that makes us think about the saying "Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once." Imagine how frustrating and confusing it might be if Spring wildflowers bloomed at the same time as apples or pears ripened. Our pear tree hasn't even gone through bud burst this year while several years ago it was in full bloom the second week of April. Some years life flows sooner and easier than others.

early flowering? not this year

Photo by J. Harrington

Like seasons and tides, life has ebbs, like Winter, and fullness, like Autumn. Between the two is the Spring's growing and the Summer's swelling. Although Winter in the North Country sometimes creates the impression that life, as we know it, is disappearing, that's not true. If life disappeared, could it, would it return? How could something come from nothing? According to scientists, the earth existed for a long, long time before life came into existence on it. Scientists also wonder if, before the universe came into being with a Big Bang, was there nothing? If there was nothing, did space, and time, exist? If there was nothing and that meant there was no time, how long did the nothing of no time exist?

Can you tell we've had too much time on our hands, sitting around nursing a Spring cold, instead of being outside enjoying the most beautiful days of the year so far? Spring colds are just so unfair that way. Being stuck inside during Winter is much less painful than missing out on the early days of the return of life from its roots and seeds and burrows and dens. We wish each of you a Happy Easter, or Passover, or whatever Spring festival you celebrate according to whichever calendar you follow.

Resurrection

Alison Hawthorne Deming, 1946

My friend a writer and scientist
has retreated to a monastery
where he has submitted himself
out of exhaustion to not knowing.
He’s been thinking about
the incarnation a.k.a. Big Bang
after hearing a monk’s teaching
that crucifixion was not the hard part
for Christ. Incarnation was.
How to squeeze all of that
all-of-that into a body. I woke
that Easter to think of the Yaqui
celebrations taking place in our city
the culminating ritual of the Gloria
when the disruptive spirits
with their clacking daggers and swords
are repelled from the sanctuary
by women and children
throwing cottonwood leaves and confetti
and then my mother rose
in me rose from the anguish
of her hospice bed a woman
who expected to direct all the action
complaining to her nurse
I’ve been here three days
and I’m not dead yet—not ready
at one hundred and two to give up
control even to giving up control.
I helped with the morphine clicker.
Peace peace peace the stilling
at her throat the hazel eye
become a glassy marble. Yet here she is
an Easter irreverent still rising
to dress in loud pastels
and turn me loose
in Connecticut woods to hunt
my basket of marshmallow eggs
jelly beans and chocolate rabbit
there fakeries of nature made vestal
incarnated in their nest of shiny manufactured grass.

for Gary Paul Nabhan 

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It's pasqueflower time #phenology

The Jewish people began celebration of Passover at sundown yesterday. Today, Christians consider Holy Saturday and tomorrow, they celebrate Easter Sunday. During our childhood, which occurred back in the last millennium, new clothes at and for Easter and displaying Easter lilies in the house were traditions, along with the Easter Bunny, Easter eggs, and Easter baskets. These days, in our dotage, we've still got Easter eggs and baskets, but it's been years since we got new clothes specifically for Easter, and, not quite as far back, pasque flowers replaced Easter lilies as our celebratory blossom.

According to the internet's Wikipedia, the pasque flower's name is:

Derived from the Hebrew word for Passover, "pasakh", the common name pasque flower, refers to the Easter flowering period[1]. Common names include pasque flower (or pasqueflower), wind flower, prairie crocus, Easter flower, and meadow anemone.

pasque flower in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

The flower in the picture grew on a sandy slope behind the house for the past few years. We planted it after spending lots of time several Springs in a row unsuccessfully searching places reported to have wild pasque flowers growing. We finally decided it was time for the mountain to come to Mohammed, so to speak. This year there's been no sign yet of the flower's blooming, although the day lilies are just starting to emerge from the ground. It has been a later start than usual for Spring around here, even for the North Country. We won't give up hope for another week or two, but maybe it's time to go get another couple of pots of pasques just in case. This is definitely a case where we can, with a clear conscience, argue more is better.

Cut Lilies 

Noah Warren

More than a hundred dollars of them.

It was pure folly. I had to find more glass things to stuff them        
       in.

Now a white and purple cloud is breathing in each corner

of the room I love. Now a mass of flowers spills down my                
      dining table—

each fresh-faced, extending its delicately veined leaves

into the crush. Didn’t I watch

children shuffle strictly in line, cradle

candles that dribbled hot white on their fingers,

chanting Latin—just to fashion Sevilla’s Easter? Wasn’t I sad?        
      Didn’t I use to

go mucking through streambeds with the skunk cabbage raising

bursting violet spears?  —Look, the afternoon dies

as night begins in the heart of the lilies and smokes up

their fluted throats until it fills the room

and my lights have to be not switched on.

And in close darkness the aroma grows so sweet,

so strong, that it could slice me open. It does.

I know I’m not the only one whose life is a conditional clause

hanging from something to do with spring and one tall room        
      and the tremble of my phone.

I’m not the only one that love makes feel like a dozen

flapping bedsheets being ripped to prayer flags by the wind.

When I stand in full sun I feel I have been falling headfirst for        
      decades.

God, I am so transparent.

So light. 

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Does Minnesota love its lakes more than its rivers?

The pond North of our house isn't really a "pond." It's a pool in a flowage that feeds the Sunrise River, but most of the year it looks and acts pretty much like a pond. The rate of flow is normally not much. This Spring, especially this week, is a different story. There's an easily discernible flow through the "pond" coming from under the road that passes over the unnamed flowage, brook, creek. Many of the wetlands in the neighborhood are drained by similar "cricks," most of them unnamed. Our local Sunrise River has signs at some of its bridges, like this one at County Road 19.

who decides which rivers get name tags and where?

Photo by J. Harrington

Are any of Minnesota's 10,000+ lakes unnamed? Who gets to decide if a brook or creek or stream or crick has a name? Why are some rivers clearly named at some bridges, but not all? We believe more Minnesotans would care more about protecting Minnesota's rivers, all approximately 91,944 miles of them if they knew which river they were crossing, and which watershed they were in, much more of the time. In fact, we wonder if Minnesota cares for its lakes more than its rivers. We haven't checked but we bet there are more lake associations than river associations. Furthermore, think about all the different agencies, particular the Department of Natural Resources and the Pollution Control Agency, that have some significant responsibilities toward rivers, but is there any one overall entity in charge, other than the governor? Not according to a report published a decade ago by the University of Minnesota's Water Resources Center:

Minnesota’s waters are governed by hundreds of laws, regulations, rules, and ordinances involving more than 20 federal agencies, seven state agen-cies, and hundreds of local units of government.

Spring brings marsh marigolds to wetlands

Photo by J. Harrington

Before we got sidetracked (backwatered?) we were going to note that we walked one of the dogs up to the "pond" today because we thought we had seen a small patch of marsh marigolds there in years past. The corner where we believe we saw the marigolds is currently well under water. We'll keep an eye on it and watch to see if marsh marigolds emerge later in the year. We've also found marigolds behind the house in the wetlands where skunk cabbage lives. The other day we only made it part way through the fields. We fear we must admit we're out of shape after a Winter playing couch potato. If we avoid overdoing it while we get our legs back in shape, we'll wander back into the swamp soon, unless it starts snowing again. Then, all bets are off.

Creek-Song

By Shari Wagner

It begins in a cow lane 

with bees and white clover, 

courses along corn, rushes 

accelerandoagainst rocks. 

It rises to a teetering pitch 

as I cross a shaky tree-bridge, 

syncopates a riff 

over the dissonance 

of trash—derelict icebox 

with a missing door, 

mohair loveseat sinking 

into thistle. It winds through green 

adder’s mouth, faint as the bells 

of Holsteins heading home. 

Blue shadows lengthen, 

but the undertow 

of a harmony pulls me on 

through raspy Joe-pye-weed 

and staccato-barbed fence. 

It hums in a culvert 

beneath cars, then empties 

into a river that flows oboe-deep 

past Indian dance ground, waterwheel 

and town, past the bleached 

stones in the churchyard, 

the darkening hill.

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Growing, degree days?

In meteorological terms, we're a couple of days past Spring's midpoint of April 16. Astronomically, we've about two and one-half weeks to go until the May 5 midpoint. Looking our our windows, the latter seems to better represent Spring's plant phenology. Thinking about this caused us to go wander into the wilds of the internets and see what we could find about growing degree days.

how many growing degree days until we see marsh marigolds here?

Photo by J. Harrington

The basic concepts relating growing degree days [GDD] to plant development are nicely explained here. We've not been able to find a GDD-phenology source specific to Minnesota. (If you know of one, please provide a URL in the comments.) Thus far, the best we can do is this site and we're not sure how to readily read the map since what appears to be the legend doesn't appear on the custom map we selected for Minnesota. Perhaps if we had a graduate assistant to sort through all of the options we could produce something with more real world benefit. Scanning the graphics it appears that this Spring is running considerably cooler than normal [see: Degree-Day maps created daily using a 50° F. lower threshold:]. That confirms our "seat of the pants" impression. Before we fuss and fume too much more, we're best spend more time learning about USA-NPN's visualization tool.

We've lived through a major remodel of critical rooms (bath and kitchen) in what was once our home. It seemed as though the first 90% or so of the work was demolition, with things getting worse day by day. Then, suddenly, in the last three days of the project, all was fixed and well. Minnesota's Springs are most often like that kind of project. Instead of a pleasant, gradual warming, we get day after day of cooler than normal temperatures, then, suddenly, several 85 or 90 degree days in a row and Summer's arrived. Perhaps we're still being influenced by the mid-May walleye opener many, many years ago when we launched the boat on a pleasant Spring evening, tied it to the dock, and returned for the midnight opener several hours later to find 3" of snow covering the seats and boat bottom.

Budding Scholars

By April Halprin Wayland

Welcome, Flowers.

Write your name on a name tag.

Find a seat.

Raise your leaf if you've taken a class here before.

Let's go around the room.

Call out your colors.

I see someone's petal has fallen—

please pick it up and put it in your desk

where it belongs.

Sprinklers at recess,

fertilizer for lunch, 

and you may snack on the sun throughout the day.

Excuse me . . .

what's that in your mouth?

A bee?

Did you 

bring enough

for everyone?

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Leave it on the ground?

As bud burst and the first hint of leaf out appears in our local trees, their stark, harsh Winter outlines begin to soften. We've noticed that particularly in some of the neighborhood aspens. The rain that's falling today, and forecast for tomorrow, combined with the prospect of sunnier, warmer weather later this week means we should be able to sit quietly outside and hear the woods explode with new growth, all except maybe the mosses growing on fallen tree trunks. Unlike trees, which we can watch grow taller year by year, moss growth appears much more subdued, almost nonexistent.

moss growing on a fallen tree

Photo by J. Harrington

We've learned all we know about mosses (precious little though it is) from reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. The existence of mosses on fallen tree trunks and the uses that woodpeckers and those that depend on their cavities make of dead standing trees tempers our desire for a neat, clean, uncluttered wood lot. We're still trying to sort out the ecological role played by fallen trees and how much we can "tidy up" our woodlot without doing serious damage to those that share the neighborhood with us. If we had more ruffed grouse around, and one or more of them used any of our fallen trees as a drumming log, the question would be settled. We've had a soft sport for grouse for all our adult life. Still, there's our intermittent atavistic desire to enjoy a blaze in our fire pit from time to time. We think we've once again reached the point at which "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The fact that we've cleared the driveway and thus gathered a bunch of fallen, dead branches from last week's storm(s) will hold us for now. Trying to find a responsible balance point in moderation is an ongoing challenge but at least we don't have to travel hours every day to gather firewood needed for family cooking and to keep a hearth fire going.

The Forest

Susan Stewart, 1952

You should lie down now and remember the forest, 
for it is disappearing--
no, the truth is it is gone now 
and so what details you can bring back 
might have a kind of life.

Not the one you had hoped for, but a life
--you should lie down now and remember the forest--
nonetheless, you might call it “in the forest,"
no the truth is, it is gone now,
starting somewhere near the beginning, that edge,

Or instead the first layer, the place you remember 
(not the one you had hoped for, but a life)
as if it were firm, underfoot, for that place is a sea, 
nonetheless, you might call it “in the forest,"
which we can never drift above, we were there or we were not,

No surface, skimming. And blank in life, too, 
or instead the first layer, the place you remember, 
as layers fold in time, black humus there, 
as if it were firm, underfoot, for that place is a sea, 
like a light left hand descending, always on the same keys.

The flecked birds of the forest sing behind and before 
no surface, skimming. And blank in life, too, 
sing without a music where there cannot be an order, 
as layers fold in time, black humus there, 
where wide swatches of light slice between gray trunks,

Where the air has a texture of drying moss, 
the flecked birds of the forest sing behind and before:
a musk from the mushrooms and scalloped molds. 
They sing without a music where there cannot be an order, 
though high in the dry leaves something does fall,

Nothing comes down to us here. 
Where the air has a texture of drying moss, 
(in that place where I was raised) the forest was tangled, 
a musk from the mushrooms and scalloped molds, 
tangled with brambles, soft-starred and moving, ferns

And the marred twines of cinquefoil, false strawberry, sumac--
nothing comes down to us here, 
stained. A low branch swinging above a brook 
in that place where I was raised, the forest was tangled, 
and a cave just the width of shoulder blades.

You can understand what I am doing when I think of the entry--
and the marred twines of cinquefoil, false strawberry, sumac--
as a kind of limit. Sometimes I imagine us walking there 
(. . .pokeberry, stained. A low branch swinging above a brook) 
in a place that is something like a forest.

But perhaps the other kind, where the ground is covered 
(you can understand what I am doing when I think of the entry) 
by pliant green needles, there below the piney fronds, 
a kind of limit. Sometimes I imagine us walking there. 
And quickening below lie the sharp brown blades,

The disfiguring blackness, then the bulbed phosphorescence of the roots. 
But perhaps the other kind, where the ground is covered, 
so strangely alike and yet singular, too, below
the pliant green needles, the piney fronds.
Once we were lost in the forest, so strangely alike and yet singular, too, 
but the truth is, it is, lost to us now.

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Spring sightings (con't.)

Yesterday afternoon we noticed a bald eagle gliding over the house. Later, when one of the dogs took us to check for the mail, we startled that eagle, plus another, out of the trees in the woodlot South of the house. Might it be that we have a nesting pair of bald eagles in the neighborhood? That would be cool.

hen or tom turkey?

Photo by J. Harrington

Late in the day we noticed a pair of whitetails browsing along the woods line West of the house. Based mostly on the differences in their sizes, we suspect it's the same pair that was noshing at the front bird feeder for much of the Winter. The gray in their coats is becoming Summer-red. Then, this morning, we watched a single turkey hen (? couldn't see the front to check for a beard) walk up the slope behind the house and across the field into the West woods. After a Winter of very sparse wildlife sightings, the activity of the past 24 hours is encouraging. Could it be a reward since we finally got around to closing up the bluebird house?

a pair of whitetails at wood's edge

Photo by J. Harrington

Cold Spring

By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.

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Bluebirds are back!

Midday we had a confirmed sighting of a bluebird (gender unknown), while walking one of the dogs. We've yet to close up the backyard bluebird house so that's on the list of things to do later today or first thing tomorrow.

bluebird's April arrival

Photo by J. Harrington

While chasing around the county on other errands, we noticed a red-tailed hawk or two, several lawns literally full of robins (migrating North?), three sandhill cranes flying to and from the local marshes, a few Canada geese resting in the local marshes, and the usual suspects at the feeders in front and behind the house. Perhaps Mother Nature has decided that, this year, mid-April is when North Country Spring will actually begin.

a flight of sandhill cranes

Photo by J. Harrington

Ice is fully out on the smaller ponds and lakes and shorelines are opening on the larger lakes that haven't yet reached ice-out. The Wild and Scenic River visitor center in St. Croix Falls is again open for the season. Most of the river around Taylors and St. Croix Falls is ice free except for the area immediately upstream of the Highway 8 bridge. Now, if only we could get some sunshine-filled days....

Bluebird

by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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Minnesota's second Spring

Every lake we drove past today was at least partially ice out. Many were ice free. Last week's snow has mostly melted. The sun is shining and we're working hard at following the first two rules of living a happy, successful, satisfying life.

1. Don't sweat the small stuff.
2. It's all small stuff.

The maples in front of the house have completed bud burst and look like they're in flower, but don't take our word for it. Check with someone who knows phenology, botany and/or forestry better than we ever will. The picture below, from mid-March several years ago, shows maples at about the same stage they're at this year at nearly mid-April.

red maple in flower(?)

Photo by J. Harrington

The last time we anticipated taking a walk back into our local swamp to see if the skunk cabbage had emerged, we seem to have triggered a multi-day snow storm. Therefore, we aren't going to mention whether or not we're going to take one of the dogs for a soul-satisfying hike tomorrow or Tuesday. We will, however, report back after the deed is done. We are also going to start really looking forward to watching for wildflowers blooming and leafout starting over the next few weeks. Seeing the bright yellow of marsh marigolds will help us shake what's left of our Winter doldrums. But, most of all, we're looking forward to getting outside and feeling the sun's warmth on our shoulders. It's been quite awhile.

marsh marigold in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Spring (Again) 

Michael Ryan

The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it’s Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you, birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.

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Will the real Green New Deal please stand up?

One of the first, and best, authors writing about climate disruption and its consequences is Bill McKibben. He started with The End of Nature and now, about 30 years later, has a recently published new book titled Falter. It's going on our "to be read" list. Each of these, and several other of his works, point out that "it doesn't have to be this way."

a disrupted climate means perpetual storm clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

Many of the issues and potential responses McKibben identifies are encapsulated in recent legislative documents at the national level and, even more recently, in a Minnesota-specific version. We spent much of today watching snow melt (even for the North Country, this April is anomalous) while wandering the back roads of the internet trying to find resources and sort out our thoughts on whether any of that recent activity represents real accomplishment. In the hopes that you're interested in the question, and to help save some of your time, here's a set of links to major pieces of the puzzle, as we see it [ymmv].

• National Green New Deal resolution (House version, H.Res.109)


• FactCheck.org The Facts on the ‘Green New Deal’


• Minnesota's Green New Deal (House version, HF 2836)


• Project Drawdown, 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming


• Green New Deal background and history


• The Green New Deal and Project Drawdown

So, we believe that the Green New Deal offers a solid basis for building the kind of cooperation and consensus needed to avoid, or at least moderate, the catestrophic effects of the forces we've unleashed. We further believe that using a candidate's support for (or lack thereof) the New Green Deal (in whatever the current consensus version is) might be a worthwhile litmus test for deciding which Democratic candidates to support in the upcoming national and Minnesota primaries. The folks that produced the "IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways" would no doubt appreciate it if we act on the fact that 2030 is no longer 12 years away, we are now down to 11 years and counting. And, taking a wild guess, we bet Bill McKibben wouldn't get too upset if his gloom and doom analyses were proven incorrect, or at least very premature, because the rest of us finally managed to figure out how to pull in the same direction.

Ovid on Climate Change

By Eliza Griswold

Bastard, the other boys teased him,

till Phaethon unleashed the steeds 

of Armageddon. He couldn’t hold 

their reins. Driving the sun too close 

to earth, the boy withered rivers, 

torched Eucalyptus groves, until the hills 

burst into flame, and the people’s blood 

boiled through the skin. Ethiopia,

land of   burnt faces. In a boy’s rage 

for a name, the myth of race begins.

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