au revoir, (meteorological) Spring! #phenology

Tomorrow is the first day of meteorological Summer. That makes today the last day of meteorological Spring (for this year). I hope we're not in for a long, hot, humid, violent Summer, but I fear my hopes may be dashed by idiots in uniforms or in governmental executive offices, or both.

dame's rocket in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

On a cheerier note, this morning I noticed, for the first time this year, dame's rocket in bloom. Although Minnesota Wildflowers lists this plant as invasive, I can't find it in the Minnesota Noxious Weeds identification guide.

red columbine in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Red columbine has bloomed in several places around the house. There's been an explosion of hoary puccoon along the roadside south of the property. I'm trying to keep in mind, and apply to my own  life, the Lao Tzu quotation  “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

Not hurrying relates to the time I've spent recently trying to get the tiller to start so we can plant a three sisters garden and "shopping" at dealers and manufacturers web sites trying to find an appropriate trailer so we can move the tractor with the mower deck mounted. One web site (we won't name the dealer) states "not responsible for any typos, errors, or misprints found in our ads." We found inconsistencies between their ads and the manufacturers load capacity. That doesn't help instill confidence in the dealer so we won't be shopping there but that kind of thing eats up lots of time. Meanwhile, I have important things, like practicing my fly casting, to attend too. Those things will just have to wait until Summer.

In light of the events so far this year, including but not limited to, a pandemic, the nationwide protests against police killing black people, accompanying curfews of various kinds, plus a lack of meaningful progress on addressing any number of longstanding issues suck as inequality, racism or climate change, the following poem by Seamus Heaney seems to fit our change of seasons as well as "O tempora, O mores."

Anything Can Happen

Seamus Heaney - 1939-2013

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven’s weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

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My country 'tis of...?

Today we saw our first "real" butterfly of the season. We think it was a Viceroy. Milkweed plants are only about eight or nine inches tall and there have been few sightings of Monarchs in our neck of the woods. So, we'll log our observation as a mimic and continue to look forward to seeing the real thing sometime soon.

Summer Solstice: Monarch

Photo by J. Harrington

Although we're all in support of natural, organic living, we make an exception when it  comes to poison ivy, especially since we have so damn much of it growing on the property and nearby. Today we sprayed poison ivy killer along much of the eastern edge of the property. The vines we had sprayed with regular "grass killer" a week or so ago looked a little peaked but  still basically healthy. We'll watch and see how soon, if at all, wilting is observable. An "organic" method we found online suggests pouring boiling water on the vine roots. It didn't explain very well how one is to safely expose the roots so the boiling water can take effect.

Next week daytime high temperatures are forecast to be in the mid-80's all week. Meteorological Summer begins on Monday, so that seems to be fitting together nicely, although average daily highs have historically been in the mid-70s. Our temps have been roller-coastering much of this year, running above or below seasonal averages by 5 or 10 degrees for days at a time.

We hope that tonight brings peace and calm to the (citizen) protests and (police?) riots that have been occurring the past several nights in the Twin Cities. We've seen a number of reports and photos of police escalating the aggressiveness of their response, including a drive-by macing of the crowd, to what had been peaceful protests against the killing of George Floyd by a uniformed officer while in he was in police custody. We've also read reports that much (all?) of the arson was perpetuated by white supremacists from out of Minnesota. It seems to us that it's not in the best interests of Minnesotans to provide any opportunity for the orange idiot in the White House to "federalize" the situation. It's past time to fulfill promises of equity while arresting lawbreakers promptly. That's a balancing act we should be able to handle.

Let America Be America Again

By Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free. 

(America never was America to me.) 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above. 

(It never was America to me.) 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe. 

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years. 

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free." 

The free? 

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today. 

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again. 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

America! 

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be! 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

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Are police in the US "trigger happy?"

A Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of killing a woman used a firearm, not his knee. The most recent killing "in the line of duty" in Minneapolis involved a police officer turning his knee into a deadly weapon on the neck of a citizen in custody. While recently, in Louisville, KY, "Woman shot and killed by Kentucky police in botched raid, family says." The Guardian newspaper has published a series of articles under the  title The Counted: People killed by police in the US. One of the articles notes that By the numbers: US police kill more in days than other countries do in years.

I once thought a solution to police violence would be to follow more of the English approach where  the Bobbies are basically unarmed. That wouldn't have helped in Minneapolis recently.

Today's Star Tribune has an editorial under the  heading: To end pattern of violence, a tangible reform agenda is needed. None of the recommended actions included demilitarizing the police. If police were not trained to dominate encounters with civilian/citizens (you know, the rest of us), might a number of those who encountered the police be alive today?

Far be it from me to suggest in the slightest that there is not a disgusting amount of racism in our society, and that it doesn't affect how laws are enforced. Evidence of such can be found in how the Minnesota state police treated two CNN news crews in Minneapolis covering the unrest. One had a reporter of color, the other white. Guess which one was arrested while displaying news credentials. I do want to raise a concern that, while the Star Tribune published opinion piece stated in a subhead "We must end police killings of black men." it could, I believe, be much better framed as "We must end unnecessary police violence, especially killings."

If you have not yet read Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric, an excerpt follows. I strongly recommend you find a copy and read the entire book.

from   Citizen: “You are in the dark, in the car...”

By Claudia Rankine

/ 

You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there.

You think maybe this is an experiment and you are being tested or retroactively insulted or you have done something that communicates this is an okay conversation to be having.

Why do you feel okay saying this to me? You wish the light would turn red or a police siren would go off so you could slam on the brakes, slam into the car ahead of you, be propelled forward so quickly both your faces would suddenly be exposed to the wind.

As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn’t include acting like this moment isn’t inhabitable, hasn’t happened before, and the before isn’t part of the now as the night darkens 
and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going.

/
 

When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists a medical term — John Henryism — for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the build up of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in 
silence you are bucking the trend.

/
 

When the stranger asks, Why do you care? you just stand there staring at him. He has just referred to the boisterous teenagers in Starbucks as niggers. Hey, I am standing right here, you responded, not necessarily expecting him to turn to you.

He is holding the lidded paper cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. They are just being kids. Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say.

Now there you go, he responds.

The people around you have turned away from their screens. The teenagers are on pause. There I go? you ask, feeling irritation begin to rain down. Yes, and something about hearing yourself repeating this stranger’s accusation in a voice usually reserved for your partner makes you smile.

/
 

A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. He’s okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger’s arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. And yes, you want it to stop, you want the black child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet and be brushed off, not brushed off  by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself.

The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of  bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.

/
 

The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.

At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard?

It’s as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that’s right. I am sorry.

I am so sorry, so, so sorry.

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approaching Summer #phenology

While walking SiSi at mid-day, we noticed that the goat's beard (Tragopogon dubius) flower buds are developing. Blossoms soon! More hoary puccoon has come into flower. Multitudes of dragonflies continue to cruise the fields. If the breeze settles down, tomorrow will be dedicated to picking up our Community Supported Agriculture share box and, when  we get home, spraying the poison ivy.

goat's beard in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

We've not yet planted the Three Sisters Garden, nor have we foregone that  option for this year. Maybe  we'll be able to get the tiller started tomorrow and create three or four mounds and get some corn planted. We've noticed that many of the local row crop farmers have sprouted corn a couple of inches or more tall. Remember the old saying about  corn being "knee high by the Fourth of July?" Here's what the Farmers' Almanac says about that. It appears that little, if anything, is very sacred in the fields of folklore these days (or much of anywhere else for that matter).

late June corn, no knee high by 4th of July

Photo by J. Harrington

In hopes of actually getting to wet a line some day soon, we added a few more dry flies to our collection. We've been trying to go exploring several days this week and have been rudely subjected to John Lennon's lyrics "Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans." (We discovered today that Lennon wasn't the first to use such a phrase.) It's possible we may be forced to reduce some of our interests due to the complications provided by COVID-19, weather volatility, and other factors of life in the 21st century. Does anyone want  to offer some recommendations on cheery science fiction novels of life in an alternate universe?

Planting the Meadow

By Mary Makofske

I leave the formal garden of schedules 

where hours hedge me, clip the errant sprigs 

of thought, and day after day, a boxwood 

topiary hunt chases a green fox 

never caught. No voice calls me to order 

as I enter a dream of meadow, kneel 

to earth and, moving east to west, second 

the motion only of the sun. I plant 

frail seedlings in the unplowed field, trusting 

the wildness hidden in their hearts. Spring light 

sprawls across false indigo and hyssop, 

daisies, flax. Clouds form, dissolve, withhold 

or promise rain. In time, outside of time, 

the unkempt afternoons fill up with flowers.

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'Tis time dragons fly! #phenology

I'm guessing it will be a couple of weeks (midish-June) before we see flowers, but the beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus) is growing nicely. Not to get too technical, but we got a bunch of rain overnight. The mosquitos are as thick as flies so the hatch of dragonflies now hovering over our  fields is more than welcome. As they move quicker than we can see, we're again guessing that many of the recent arrivals are four-spotted skimmers.

look for beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus) in bloom late next month

Photo by J. Harrington

We took the emergence times from our dragonfly field guide and plotted them on a chart. (There's a Phenology Flight Chart in an appendix but we haven't yet organized ours that way. Maybe that's a project for a rainy Summer day.) It's been our experience that knowing who might be flying around helps narrow down the options to check for the names of the dragons we see flying around.

The guidebook is organized by Family rather than chronologically.  Dragonflies of the North Woods includes these families:

• Darners (Family Aeshnidae) 
• Clubtails (Family Gomphidae)
• Spiketails (Family Cordulegasteridae)
• Cruisers (Family Macromiidae)
• Emeralds (Family Corduliidae)
• Skimmers (Family Libellulidae)

ruby meadowhawk, Family Libellulidae

Photo by J. Harrington

It's been six months or so since we've given any serious thought to dragonflies. Now it's time to refresh our memory by reviewing  the field guide again. This type of knowledge, like so many other types, falls into our category of use it or lose it and, much as we're fascinated by and enjoy dragonflies, we have too many interests for our own good. There are few dragon flies to observe in Minnesota for about half the year. We're really happy they're back in numbers.

Fly, Dragonfly!

By Joyce Sidman

Water nymph, you have

climbed from the shallows to don

your dragon-colors.

Perched on a reed stem

all night, shedding your skin, you dry

your wings in moonlight.

Night melts into day.

Swift birds wait to snap you up.

Fly, dragonfly! Fly!

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Going local?

I just read a Tweet to the effect that Target has placed its products on Instagram Checkout (whatever that is). While we were out this morning doing essential errands I saw an electric sign at the  credit union that people can deposit their checks via a mobile app. (Some of the essential errands involved depositing checks, plus getting some cash.) I started pondering about  the longer term implications of moving as much of our lives into the  online universe as we're proceeding to do. If banks need fewer, or none, branch offices; if big box stores all move online; what happens to the local property tax base? Will there be a retail version of Rust Belt cities?

storefront window at the Open Book building

Photo by J. Harrington

I've long been an advocate of shopping local. Even after an annoying sequence of events today, I'm still of that mind, but more open to a "Both,  And" approach. Our local poison ivy vines are emerging with vigor. Spraying them with ordinary grass killer seems to be equivalent to offering them Gatorade instead of the infamous Jamestown kool aid. Of two local hardware stores, one local farm and garden shop, and two nearby big box chain outlets, only one had in stock the product I wanted and even that was a second choice option. No one had what I really wanted in the container I wanted it in. Even Amazon noted that they'd send me an email if it came back in stock. So, I came as close as I could to buying local but was forced into a big box to do so. Every place I checked in person had multiple types and brands of grass killer still sitting on their shelves, but not poison ivy killer in the size and disposal option I wanted. Most web sites offered an order online deliver to store or home with various wait times and / or delivery fees or both. So, if commerce is becoming e-commerce, how is one to chose one web site over another? Will local stores adjust to not being overstocked in popular items while providing little, if any, shelf space to occasional sales items? Is the (first) world going to become more complex but no more rewarding? I know that, for me, shopping has rarely been a desirable recreational activity. As the world adjusts to the implications of COVID-19 and its successors, will it become even less so?

Fortunately, the local veterinarian practice seems to have adapted to social distancing reasonably  well. Make an appointment, pull into the parking lot, text them and their staff comes and takes your dog(s) in and does what's needed. The number to text is on signs at the head of each parking space. If today hadn't been as warm (our first 80℉ of the year) and humid, it would all have worked just fine. Next time we'll know enough to wait outside the Jeep with the dogs.

Stores

By David Huddle

Fifteen I got a job at Leggett's, stock 

boy, fifty cents an hour. Moved up—I come 

from that kind of people—to toys at Christmas,

then Menswear and finally Shoes. 

                                                  Quit to go 

to college, never worked retail again, but 

I still really like stores, savor merchandise 

neatly stacked on tables, sweaters wanting

my gliding palm as I walk by, mannequins 

weirdly sexy behind big glass windows, 

shoes shiny and just waiting for the right feet. 

So why in my seventies do Target, Lowes,

and Home Depot spin me dizzy and lost, 

wanting my mother to find me, wipe my eyes,

hold my hand all the way out to the car?

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Memories on Memorial Day 2020

On this Memorial Day, we remember with gratitude the lives and sacrifices made by our predecessors so that a bigoted mad man, and his allies, would be stopped from their attempt at world domination, and the slaughter of innocents reduced if not eliminated. In our immediate family [the Better Half and I], heartfelt thanks goes to two fathers [hers and mine], one who served at sea [hers] and the other in the air [mine], plus an uncle [mine] who served on the ground.

We find ourselves pondering how, within the lifetime of some who served in WWII, we have drifted so far from the ideals we espoused prior to and during those years of devastating fighting:

In the face of obstacles - COURAGE

a careless word... A NEEDLESS LOSS

I'm not quite old enough to remember rationing and Victory Gardens, but I remember hearing about them. This Memorial Day much of what I'm hearing is about how inconvenient it is to wear a mask or keep out of crowds in order to help protect our own health and that of those more vulnerable. Almost half the population believes a "president" who lost the popular vote is doing a good job combatting a pandemic in which the US ranks #1 in virus-related deaths. That appears to indicate a massive failure in our public education system and a breakdown in what used to be more shared values about community and what it means. This is not a Memorial Day on which I can honorably honor the current state of the "leadership" of this country.

may this Memorial Day bring the dawn of a better era

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps it's a hopeful sign that, among my morning readings was the poem below. It captures my mixed feelings surprisingly well. Let's work hard so that, by Memorial Day 2021, we can remember how much better we're doing than we have for the past three+ years, so our ancestors haven't sacrificed in vain.

Thanks

W. S. Merwin - 1927-2019

Listen 
with the night falling we are saying thank you 
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings 
we are running out of the glass rooms 
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky 
and say thank you 
we are standing by the water thanking it 
standing by the windows looking out 
in our directions  

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging 
after funerals we are saying thank you 
after the news of the dead 
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you 

over telephones we are saying thank you 
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators 
remembering wars and the police at the door 
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you 
in the banks we are saying thank you 
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you 

with the animals dying around us 
our lost feelings we are saying thank you 
with the forests falling faster than the minutes 
of our lives we are saying thank you 
with the words going out like cells of a brain 
with the cities growing over us 
we are saying thank you faster and faster 
with nobody listening we are saying thank you 
we are saying thank you and waving 
dark though it is

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Spring's gains and losses #phenology

[UPDATE: we tardily wish Happy Birthday! 🎂🎂🎂 to Minnesota's own Robert Zimmerman! 👏👏]

Between being retired and following the COVID-19 safety measures, we've not been driving as much as in former years. That might  account for our lack of turtle sightings this year. Or, perhaps the turtles egg-laying has been delayed? Anyway, we've missed the brief encounters this Spring that we've enjoyed most years by this time.

painted turtle crossing gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

Hoary puccoon has started to come into flower. Several online sources mention Native American uses of this plant, but I've found no mention of it in Mary Siisip Geniusz Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask | Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings.

hoary puccoon beginning to bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

The pear tree blossoms' petals, like last Winter's snowflakes, have been lost to seasonal changes. The breezes of this past week disbursed them into the taller and still growing grass stems. In fact, about all the trees around the neighborhood have reached a stage of full leafout. There are few, if any, open spaces left in the treeline, but many trees like crab apples are still in flower. If wildflowers and trees were in bloom year round, would we then come to take their beauty for granted?

Without much expectation of success, this morning I once again set traps for pocket gophers. There are fresh mounds in several widely separated locations on the back slope. If I could train gophers to eat buckthorn roots, I'd consider it a fair trade, but the gophers prefer the more open country of our fields where there are no buckthorns. As far as I know, gophers serve a very limited ecological role and have destroyed numerous fruit trees we've planted plus, they seem responsible for the disappearance of several prairie wildflowers we've planted, such as pasque flowers. Although the local deer have killed half of our chokeberry bushes, at least deer offer occasional aesthetic pleasures. Pocket gophers are ugly and out of sight underground most of the time.

Ellen Bass

GOPHERS

I’ve tried to kill the gophers. On stained

knees, up to my elbows in their earthen

tunnels, setting the green toothed trap, my human

scent masked with anise oil, then sweetened

with leaves of the sweet potato vine my neighbor maintains

they can’t resist, a rodent version of caviar and champagne.

But the dead must do some arcane

transmission of wisdom to the living. They’ve eaten

every fleck of leaf, sprung each trap with cool disdain.

They’re marvels, miniature Charlemagnes. Then

suddenly, I hear it—like a tiny microphone’s hidden

under the dirt. You couldn’t mistake this blazon

for anything else, like Louis Armstrong singing

It’s a Wonderful World. But when

the little fists of four leaf clover begin

to tremble, I’m confused not to feel the thrill of the hunt, the cocaine

rush in my veins. I pick up the shovel—I’ve slain

them like this—a hose down the hole, then bash their brains,

but my will wanes. It seems pointless to kill one denizen

when there must be dozens taking the A-train,

just trying to get to Sugar Hill. Listen.

It’s not an Elizabeth Bishop fish thing.

It’s not Galway’s bear or Stafford’s deer on the mountain,

not Kunitz’s whale or Donald Hall’s paean,

scratching the jowls of a cooked pig. I look into the grainy

hole the gopher’s dug with his skinny

incisors, this corridor between

worlds, and it’s the sound that stops me. That unseen

small tearing of the roots on such a serene

morning. I’m watching the grass shiver. I’m leaning

over, straining to hear it again.

—from Rattle #34, Winter 2010

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Signs of Summer #phenology

The feral lilac bushes up the road have just barely started to display flower buds. There are several patches of prairie smoke close to the  lilacs. Their buds have developed but are unopened. Roadside poison ivy is emerging looking unfortunately healthy and robust. The weekend promises to be damp but, perhaps, not a washout.

prairie smoke with closed flower buds

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm unsure of the species, but the fields I walked through to check on the lilacs were full of dragonflies, the first ones I've seen this season. It's possible they were four-spotted skimmers. The arrival of dragonflies is one of my signs of Summer. They seem to have arrived within days of the arrival of the seasons first mosquitoes and, for all I know, the two species emerged concurrently. I think that's how it's supposed to work with predators and prey. Speaking of predators and prey, maybe we'll get lucky this weekend and actually trap one of the  returned pocket gophers. We noticed fresh mounds in the back yard this morning.

the dragonflies in the field looked like this four-spotted skimmer

Photo by J. Harrington

Coolish, damp weather presents challenges in terms of what to wear digging into gopher tunnels and what to eat to restore some strength after eating. (I know, first world problems.) It feels too cool for salads and too warm for comfort food like mac and cheese. We'll just do the best we can to enjoy as much as we can of this COVID-19 affected Memorial Day weekend. We hope you do the same.

Fly, Dragonfly!

By Joyce Sidman

Water nymph, you have

climbed from the shallows to don

your dragon-colors.

Perched on a reed stem

all night, shedding your skin, you dry

your wings in moonlight. 

Night melts into day.

Swift birds wait to snap you up.

Fly, dragonfly! Fly!

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

What's agriculture's main crop?

The lilac blooms in the picture below were well past their prime when the picture was taken on June 1 half a dozen years ago. When we drove past those same bushes today, there wasn't a hint of color visible from the road. A few lilacs in the vicinity have more flowers in bloom, but most are just starting to open their buds. This past Tuesday, when I had to drive into "The Cities" most of the urban lilacs were in full bloom. Similar lilac lags have been noticed in other years. Could it  be attributed to the  urban heat island in Spring?

when will this year's local lilacs bloom?

Photo by J. Harrington

At least one of  the  patches of local trilliums have burst into flower sometime during  the past week or so. I noticed lots of them on Tuesday or Wednesday. Trilliums in bloom and goslings along roadsides are two signs that  Spring is fading into full-on Summer. June 1, in a little more than a week, marks the beginning of meteorological Summer. We may get some thunderstorms this weekend. Summer solstice is about a month from now. Despite the disruption COVID-19 has created, the seasons progress pretty much as usual.

trillium, a sign of North Country Summer

Photo by J. Harrington

Without so much as a segue,  please permit a question here. When  you think of farming and agriculture, is food the first thing that  comes to mind? Perhaps that's incorrect, according to some statistics from the 2017 Census  of Agriculture. To use Minnesota as an example, here's how some acreages break out:

Did you see vegetable crops in that list? Just barely, with wheat and sugarbeets, once we take into account that most of the uses of corn  and soybeans aren't direct human consumption. About 75% of soybeans are used as animal feed. With corn, about 40% goes for feed, 30% for fuel ethanol, and 13% is exported. So, the preponderance of agricultural acreages in Minnesota don't directly feed people by growing tomatoes and cabbages. Why then are we subsidizing farmers to grow field corn and  soybeans if it's not to ensure food supply for humans? Corn and soybean animal feed helps support concentrated animal feeding operations [CAFOs]. Please consider that the next time you read or see news about trade wars, farm programs, and tariff battles. Agriculture does not always equal food. It primarily provides industrial feedstock, which ≠ food.

[UPDATE: This is the system that must be changed:
Corn prices keep slumping, and Minnesota farmers keep planting more]

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

~Wendell Berry

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More than one way to "go public"

More and more folks seem to think that "public ownership" is the answer to corporate malfeasance. So, instead of bailing out fossil fuel companies, public ownership should be instituted. Rather than permitting private ownership of an emerging COVID-19 vaccine, we should nationalize the vaccine industry in the US. Such thinking, it seems to me, recognizes a multitude of problems we have allowed to develop and emerge in our corporate oligarchy in part by not exercising anti-trust powers with any frequency, by allowing "too big to fail" firms to develop, by putting our democracy up for sale to the  highest  bidders through Citizens United and dark money. But, those promoting public ownership seem either to be duplicitous or ignorant or both. At the moment, we have a government that is behaving as if it is under corporate control and / or that of foreign powers. (In a global economy, are they the same thing?) To cite an old planning dictum: "More of the same never solved a problem." Corporations should not be treated as persons until and unless they face a death penalty for corporate malfeasance.

almost 40% of corn to feed & residual, almost 30% to ethanol

Photo by J. Harrington

So what are we to do? Give up? Definitely not. There are at least two avenues we should be exploring more vigorously. The first is to carefully consider if Elinor Ostrum's principles for governing the commons offer substantial solutions to our current problems and, if so, how they could be instituted quickly and widely and locally

8 Principles for Managing a Commons

1. Define clear group boundaries.

2. Match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions.

3. Ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.

4. Make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities.

5. Develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior.

6. Use graduated sanctions for rule violators.

7. Provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution.

8. Build responsibility for governing the common resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to the entire interconnected system.

Second, we should look carefully at how open source systems function and are managed. It's been some years since I first read The Cathedral and the Bazaar. I believe that many of the issues raised therein are pertinent today. The Right to Repair movement continues to increase in relevance. This morning, after looking at some regenerative agriculture web sites, on a whim I searched "open source agriculture." There appear to be very interesting developments in that sector. That's encouraging, about as much as a web site promoting regenerative agriculture based on poultry. To purchase a Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share of 3 free range chickens, the cost cited is $45. Let's assume each chicken weighs 3 or 4 pounds, that means chicken costs about $4.00 to $5.00 per pound which seems competitive price-wise.

do they sell "field corn" at farmers markets?

Photo by J. Harrington

If we worked really hard, and cooperatively, we might trigger enough of a confluence of the commons principles with regenerative, open source, agroecological etc. farming to make it even less expensive economically and environmentally than continuing our current course of corporate controlled industrial food production, which appears to have passed the point of diminishing returns.

Doors opening, closing on us 

Marge Piercy - 1936-

Maybe there is more of the magical
in the idea of a door than in the door
itself. It’s always a matter of going
through into something else. But 

while some doors lead to cathedrals
arching up overhead like stormy skies
and some to sumptuous auditoriums
and some to caves of nuclear monsters 

most just yield a bathroom or a closet.
Still, the image of a door is liminal,
passing from one place into another
one state to the other, boundaries 

and promises and threats. Inside
to outside, light into dark, dark into
light, cold into warm, known into
strange, safe into terror, wind 

into stillness, silence into noise
or music. We slice our life into
segments by rituals, each a door
to a presumed new phase. We see 

ourselves progressing from room
to room perhaps dragging our toys
along until the last door opens
and we pass at last into was.

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How sweet it is!

It's World Bee Day!

Today bees, pollinators, and many other insects are declining in abundance. This day provides an opportunity for all of us – whether we work for governments, organizations or civil society or are concerned citizens – to promote actions that will protect and enhance pollinators and their habitats, improve their abundance and diversity, and support the sustainable development of beekeeping. 

To bee, or not to bee: that is the question. Paraphrasing Hamlet, the slings and arrows of pesticides, insecticides, mites and land use changes have caused honeybee and other pollinator populations to suffer and encounter a thousand shocks. Minnesota is claimed to be home to at least 455 species of bees. That's many more than the 146 listed in the Minnesota Bee Atlas. Just last year, the rusty patched bumblebee beecame Minnesota's state bee. The University of Minnesota's Bee Lab has a growing abundance of information about our native bees. Bee sure to  check the Learn More page.

bee on yellow flower, not dandelion

Photo by J. Harrington

We saw a few bees, or what we think were bees, on the dandelions today. Still no sign of bees on the  pear tree flowers. There's lots of bushes in bloom, but, except for the dandelions, few flowers have bloomed to provide nectar or pollen. This  afternoon I'll take a look at the bee house we hung last Summer and see if any of the tubes appear to be occupied. Haven't yet seen any monarch butterflies either. None have been reported much North of Milwaukee.

Bees Were Better

By Naomi Shihab Nye

In college, people were always breaking up.

We broke up in parking lots,

beside fountains.

Two people broke up

across a table from me

at the library.

I could not sit at that table again

though I did not know them.

I studied bees, who were able

to convey messages through dancing

and could find their ways

home to their hives

even if someone put up a blockade of sheets

and boards and wire.

Bees had radar in their wings and brains

that humans could barely understand.

I wrote a paper proclaiming

their brilliance and superiority

and revised it at a small café

featuring wooden hive-shaped honey-dippers

in silver honeypots

at every table.

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Season's first mowing

Despite what the countdown timer to the upper right says, Summer unofficially began today. After more fiddling than I wanted, the mower deck mounted on the  tractor and the back yard got its first haircut of the year. In fact, I even worked up a sweat, so it must be post-Spring in the North Country because it's almost never warm enough to break a sweat in our Spring time. We're lucky if the lakes become ice free enough to launch a boat for fishing opener. Remember, the front yard looked like this about a month ago:

there was grape jelly here a minute ago

Photo by J. Harrington

We've confirmed, through simultaneous sightings, there are at least three male  Baltimore orioles. They've been playing "No, it's MY territory" for the past couple of days and eating prodigious amounts of grape jelly. When the feeders get busy, there's a wild color combination among the male orioles, scarlet tanagers, goldfinches and multicolored woodpeckers of two or three species.

'suppose those orioles would notice if I grabbed some grape jelly?

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half transplanted the hanging buckets of pansies into planters next to the drive and added some herbs and other plants. Then she replaced the hanging buckets with some bright red and other flowers that I'll inquire about the names of when we eat dinner. The old home place may not yet be looking spiffy, but it's now looking more lively than it did a couple of weeks ago. If we're not careful, Eeyore and I might end up looking optimistic sometime soon. It hasn't snowed for a couple of weeks or so and though we've yet to see our first butterfly, the season is but young.

mid-April ground cover in the North Country

Photo by J. Harrington

The Tuft of Flowers

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name, 
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me here the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together.’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

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Please be kind to each other while you can.