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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