As the season turns #phenology

Feeling SAD? Down? a little depressed? lacking motivation? This may explain it. It's a chart/graph provided by the Twin Cities Office of the National Weather Service of hourly observations at MSP airport:

100% cloud cover is at the top

As this is being written, we remain entirely cloudy in the Northern exurbs of the Twin Cities and are watching widely scattered snowflakes descend. Plus, next week it's supposed to turn colder. Sigh!

Other than starting to read several really enjoyable books, plus a couple of personal matters, I can't say there's a whole lot I'll miss about this January. We can hope for improvement next month when things turn red.

are you ready for Valentine's Day?

Photo by J. Harrington

We get to look forward to Valentine's Day with red hearts and poems and similar pleasures. Later in the month, earlier if we get really lucky, red osier dogwood will start to show Spring colors. If our snow cover melts enough, near the end of February we may be able to notice British soldier lichen peeking up from under still brown grasses in the fields behind the house. If you wonder why I'm posting about February while it's still January, look again at the graph above.

red osier dogwood's Spring colors

Photo by J. Harrington

If we get even more lucky the "Impeachment Trial" will have ended. From what I've seen so far, the Senate's behavior makes me ashamed to be a U.S. citizen. It's been too long since we had a number of leaders in whom we could take pride. Will the choices we're presented with come November let us choose anything but the lowest possible common denominator? Can we learn to function again as a community with at least as much in common as what separates us? Who, other than Putin and the global 1%, benefits from our fighting amongst ourselves, as we've come to almost constantly do? As an example, Winter lovers no doubt don't join us in looking forward to the passing of January and taking one or two steps closer to what passes for Spring around here.

Late February

By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

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