Planting seeds of knowledge

Will today be the last time it snows before the beginning of October? I sure hope so. I have no idea how our local plants adapt to the seasonal volatility of warm then freezing temperatures. A freeze-thaw cycle that leaves local roads suffering "frost heaves" can't be all good for buds that start to blossom or leaves that begin to emerge. In fact, there's little sign of life in the oak tree leaf buds and the maples seem to have gone into some sort of coma.

maple buds look about  like these

Photo by J. Harrington

I know that maple trees need warm days and below freezing nights to produce a good sap run, but we've been getting warm days followed by freezing days followed by more warm days etc. By the weekend temperatures are forecast to return to highs in the 50's and 60's. A long, slow walk in the sun, without a howling wind from the North Country, could go a long way toward cheering me up.

Between the weather pattern and the "Stay-At-Home" orders, we don't have a whole lot new to report. I'm hoping that, when Spring returns, it will be time to dig some holes, or till some mounds, or both, to plant the Three Sisters Garden we're going to play with  this year. I had forgotten  that Robin Wall Kimmerer has a wonderful chapter in Braiding Sweetgrass on the Three Sisters. The following paragraph I find especially heartening these days:

The Three Sisters offer us a new metaphor for an emerging relationship between indigenous knowledge and Western science, both of which are rooted in the earth. I think of the corn as traditional ecological knowledge, the physical and spiritual framework that can guide the curious bean of science, which twines like a double helix. The squash creates the ethical habitat for coexistence and mutual flourishing. I envision a time when the intellectual monoculture of science will be replaced with a polyculture of complementary knowledges. And so all may be fed.

Based on where we live, and  who some of our neighbors are, I wonder what Native Americans did to protect their gardens from deer and pocket gophers and similar critters. A quick search on the internet yields lots of links about three sisters gardens, but little about protecting them from feeding other than human persons. That's something that may be interesting to do more research on some day soon.

Daily

Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952-

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips
 
These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares
 
These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
 
This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out
 
This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky
 
This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again
like flags we share, a country so close
no one needs to name it
 
The days are nouns: touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world

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