A slow slide into Summer? #phenology

May is better than halfway gone. The start of meteorological Summer is two weeks away. We're still hauling last year's leaves off the grass and out of the flower garden and onto a "compost heap" at the edge of the woods. What we don't finish before this weekend will probably have to wait a week or more until things dry out again. My affections are rapidly transferring from the North Woods to the Prairie, where tree leaves are few and far between. Then again, do any prairie plants produce maple syrup?

scarlet tanager male

Photo by J. Harrington

The oak trees that, for the moment, are the bane of my days, also provide perches for the Baltimore orioles (at least two males this year) and scarlet tanagers (we were excited to see two males yesterday, late), as well as nesting sites for the hummingbirds, rose-breasted grosbeaks and goldfinches. Clearly, at our advanced age, we're still having a hard time accepting the bitter (leaf cleanup) with the sweet (syrup, colorful songbirds, acorns for the turkeys, deer and occasional bear, and, shade from the Summer sun).

oak leaves where they belong, on the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

When we lived in Massachusetts, mid-May is the time we realistically anticipated the return of striped bass to Northern waters. Bluefish usually didn't arrive until June. Although we haven't yet headed South to spot early arrivals of songbirds or waterfowl, we find that our anticipation of the March arrival of ducks and geese and the May arrival of tanagers, hummingbirds and orioles brings about as much anticipation as we enjoyed on the East Coast awaiting migratory fish. Flounder and cod were there year-round, as chickadees, nuthatches and bluejays are here. They're year-round neighbors that we tend to take for granted, not the exciting renewal of a Summer romance with exotic creatures that head out of town before the first ice and snow comes to stay for a few months. A lifetime of living in four seasons probably means we'd never be quite satisfied in San Diego or equivalent. Can sugar maples grow in Southern California? We know stripers have been successfully transplanted from the Atlantic to the Pacific. That still doesn't bring the pattern of four seasons of change though, does it?

Marching

by Jim Harrison

At dawn I heard among bird calls
the billions of marching feet in the churn
and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet
still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid,
and very old halting feet, the feet
of the very light and very heavy, all marching
but not together, criss-crossing at every angle
with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump
into each other, walking in the doors of houses
and out the back door forty years later, finally
knowing that time collapses on a single
plateau where they were all their lives,
knowing that time stops when the heart stops
as they walk off the earth into the night air.

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