Coulee cottage Spring

The cottage we rented is charming and comfortable, there’s internet but spotty cell phone service. It’s in one of the hollows in the Driftless Area, with a trout stream flowing past about a long cast away. Shortly after we arrived and unloaded, we sat and watched, and listened to, our first real thunderstorm of the season, including wind gusts and small, pea-sized?, hail. It was luck, and nothing more, that had us in the cottage instead of half a mile up or down stream when the storm came through.

Spring thunderstorm departing

Photo by J. Harrington

The woods in the area where we’re staying show much more understory and ground cover growth than we’ve seen North of the Twin Cities. Dutchman’s breeches and some small flower that looks a little like snow drops are in bloom. Driving South, we also saw the first dandelions of the year, and the lawn at the cottage is full of violet blossoms. Although, yesterday, near home, we did see one flowering bush being visited by bees and a red admiral butterfly. Yes, Virginia, sometimes Spring does visit the North Country.

Dutchman's breeches and ???

Photo by J. Harrington

Fields surrounding the stream near the cottage are full of red-winged blackbirds and, come evening, swallows were working over the water but we couldn’t see anything hatching.

The earlier storm moved through from West to East in about half an hour or less, followed by a burst of bright sunshine that lit up the newly emerged leaves on the ridges, but we weren’t able to spot any rainbows. As the rain poured down, we fiddled with rigging one of the fly rods and added 18” of tippet to the existing leader. In the process, we noticed that our eyes don’t focus on hair-thin (or finer) monofilament the way they did 20 or 25 years ago. If, one day soon, you see us with one of those jeweler’s loupes or a clip-on magnifying glass, be kind and gentle please.

[NOTE: this was posted a few days after it was written. We neglected to bring the cord that would let us transfer pictures from the camera to the computer.]

Last Spring

By Gottfried Benn
Translated by Michael Hofmann

Fill yourself up with the forsythias

and when the lilacs flower, stir them in too

with your blood and happiness and wretchedness,

the dark ground that seems to come with you.

Sluggish days. All obstacles overcome.

And if you say: ending or beginning, who knows,

then maybe—just maybe—the hours will carry you

into June, when the roses blow.

Notes:
Read the translator's notes on this poem. 

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.