Adaptations to a new reality

In our neighborhood, today's weather makes for one of the top three days this Summer. Starting Sunday we get a week's worth of September, with high temperatures in the low 70's, according to the extended forecast. This week's Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share included, for the first time this year, potatoes. I did some mowing this morning in a continuing effort to shake off the lethargy induced by our spell of hot-humid days and warm-humid nights. I've noticed that getting  off my duff and being active and getting out  in Nature does wonders for my mood and attitude, just like those experts who study such things have been telling us. Imagine that!

Franco, at a younger age

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night we had a bit of excitement. As I let Franco, the Better Half's border collie cross breed, out to relieve himself, I hadn't notice the wild turkey hen lurking out of site at the patio's edge. Franco promptly gave chase and was losing ground but hanging in there when the hen took flight, literally. Franco has learned he can't climb trees as well as squirrels and now he knows there's no way he can fly like a turkey, let alone like an eagle. At that point Franco responded to my bellowing and started back toward the house. On the way he remembered why he was outside to begin with. Dogs!

a turkey temptress

Photo by J. Harrington

How does it feel to be more than halfway through the last day of July and therefore 7/12 of the way through this year, or, if you prefer 213/366 days [it's a leap year], either way about 58% of the year is gone and for many folks, this year can't end soon enough. Meanwhile, Blogger has given us until August 24 to switch to their "new and improved" user interface or they'll do it for us. There are several aspects of the new interface I really don't like so I'm going to have to spend some time considering my options. I realize that I've no real basis for complaints since I'm not paying for the interface nor the storage space. On the other hand, I do pay Apple and used to pay Microsoft and they felt free to make changes without my concurrence. Still do. It's one more reason I've found to shift time and energy spent in this virtual world to the real world. It's possible, leaning toward probably, that, thanks to Blogger, plus the negatives related to social media participation, and other factors, that I'll spend more time outside (fly-fishing anyone?) and more time writing non-blog pieces. I've recently read parts of a couple of essays that have really increased my interest in exploring the relationship between identity and place and I need to think about genre-related questions for that exploration. I'll still post from time to time but the daily posting frequency I've now maintained since 2012 will take a hit.

The Woman of Charm

Alice Duer Miller - 1874-1942

(“I hate a woman who is not a mystery to herself, as well as to me.”—The Phoenix.)
If you want a receipt for that popular mystery
            Known to the world as a Woman of Charm,
Take all the conspicuous ladies of history,
            Mix them all up without doing them harm.
The beauty of Helen, the warmth of Cleopatra,
            Salome’s notorious skill in the dance,
The dusky allure of the belles of Sumatra
            The fashion and finish of ladies from France.
The youth of Susanna, beloved by an elder,
            The wit of a Chambers’ incomparable minx,
The conjugal views of the patient Griselda,
            The fire of Sappho, the calm of the Sphinx,
The eyes of La Vallière, the voice of Cordelia,
The musical gifts of the sainted Cecelia,
Trillby and Carmen and Ruth and Ophelia,
Madame de Staël and the matron Cornelia,
Iseult, Hypatia and naughty Nell Gwynn,
Una, Titania and Elinor Glyn.
            Take of these elements all that is fusible,
            Melt ‘em all down in a pipkin or crucible,
            Set ‘em to simmer and take off the scum,
            And a Woman of Charm is the residuum!
                        (Slightly adapted from W.S. Gilbert.)

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Varmints, vermin, property, damage?

When I started up the tractor this afternoon, a field mouse scurried out from under the engine cowling. The tractor had only been in its parking pace overnight since it had been visiting the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law for a week or so. Last year or the year before a mouse or mice had cost me about $400 to have the wiring harness repaired after they chewed through it and left me with no functional instruments in the dashboard. I've re-baited and returned to their place the mouse traps that now live near the tractor's tires. If the field mice stay in the fields and woods they won't be tempted by the peanut butter on the traps.

our last remaining pear tree, with fruit

Photo by J. Harrington

As far as I know, mice are unprotected animals that may, or may not, be a nuisance. This refers to the piece I posted Tuesday, fussing about the poorly crafted language Minnesota uses to distinguish game animals and birds from unprotected and / or nuisance animals. Then today, I read a blog posting by Angie Hong at East Metro Water, about Gophers and muskrats, oh why?, in which she notes:

... The plains pocket gopher is more common and is often considered a pest when it tunnels through our lawns and gardens. In a native planting or restored prairie, however, gophers should be considered a friend. Their tunnels aerate the soil and provide homes for numerous other wildlife as well. In other words, gophers are just as much a part of the prairie as bison, bluestem, and butterflies. Yes, the prairie will be bumpy instead of flat, but nature tends to be that way.

As with mice and wiring harnesses, and the red squirrel that gnawed through our siding around ten years ago, pocket gophers in our reverting to prairie hillside would be safe to happily aerate the soil if they hadn't destroyed, by eating the roots, almost a dozen fruit trees we've planted over the years. (We were trying for a savannah in which fruit trees took the place of oaks.) Now we also have a recently arrived woodchuck that's moved under the brush pile and a chipmunk living under the front stoop. Much as I'd like to live in peaceful coexistence with the critters around here, even with the deer that have eaten to death two of our Aronia (chokeberry) bushes, pocket gopher mounds make it almost impossible to mow and climate change seems to be bringing more ticks every Spring. Ticks don't seem to find short grass a suitable habitat.

I honestly don't know how to reasonably assess when a critter has done, or may do, enough property damage to warrant being terminated with prejudice, nor do I see much chance of being certain that the guilty culprit is the one so terminated. This is one of the quandaries that keeps me from seriously considering becoming a Buddhist. My compassion doesn't appear to extend far enough to let varmints and vermin get a free ride on my dime. Anyone knowing of appropriate and effective solutions to such a conundrum are invited to note such in the comments.

The History of America

By Alicia Ostriker

     —for Paul Metcalf

A linear projection: a route. It crosses

The ocean in many ships. Arriving in the new

Land, it cuts through and down forests and it

Keeps moving. Terrain: Rock, weaponry.

Dark trees, mastery. Grass, to yield. Earth,

Reproachful. Fox, bear, coon, wildcat

Prowl gloomily, it kills them, it skins them,

Its language alters, no account varmint, its

Teeth set, nothing defeats its obsession, it becomes

A snake in the reedy river. Spits and prays,

Keeps moving. Behind it, a steel track. Cold,

Permanent. Not permanent. It will decay. This

Does not matter, it does not actually care,

Murdering the buffalo, driving the laggard regiments,

The caring was a necessary myth, an eagle like

A speck in heaven dives. The line believes

That the entire wrinkled mountain range is the

Eagle’s nest, and everything tumbles in place.

It buries its balls at Wounded Knee, it rushes

Gold, it gambles. It buys plastics. Another

Ocean stops it. Soon, soon, up by its roots,

Severed, irrecoverably torn, that does not matter,

It decides, perpendicular from here: escape.

A prior circle: a mouth. It is nowhere,

Everywhere, swollen, warm. Expanding and contracting

It absorbs and projects children, jungles,

Black shoes, pennies, blood. It speaks

Too many dark, suffering languages. Reaching a hand

Toward its throat, you disappear entirely. No

Wonder you fear this bleeding pulse, no wonder.

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The Year's Wheel is turning

On the drive home from doing some errands this morning, we were startled when we noticed a bright red clump of sumac leaves. That, plus an increasing number of trucks and trailers hauling round bales of straw or hay to and fro through ours and nearby counties, look like early indicators that Summer has begun to slide into Autumn and harvest season.

sumac's sudden splash of Summer red

Photo by J. Harrington

The goldenrod that's recently come into bloom and a few poison ivy leaves turning (prematurely?) red were last week's hints that the Circle of the Year is turning toward the next season. This Saturday is Lughnasadh, "which marks the beginning of harvest time..." according to Druids. Our human calendar, the one that marks seasons that begin and end on certain dates, is a mechanical contrivance which fails to properly portray the organic overlapping that occurs in the real world. It works for kids, for whom Summer lasts from end of school to start of school, but not so much for farmers, naturalists, anglers and others more attuned to nature's rhythms.

goldenrod has started to bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Sometime around a month from now, local apple season begins! My favorite time of year ever since I graduated from school permanently. Back in Massachusetts it also meant that striped bass and bluefish were starting their Southern migration preparations and feeding heavily. Here in the Midwest, it's time to squeeze in a few more trout fishing trips before the seasons close for awhile to let many of the fish (brown and brook trout) spawn in peace. It's also when deciduous tree leaves change color before falling to the ground. Throw in cool nights and warm, not hot nor humid, days and it's hard to beat for a time when we can be glad to be alive after shaking Summer's lethargy.

Midsummer

William Cullen Bryant - 1794-1878

A power is on the earth and in the air,
  From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,
  And shelters him in nooks of deepest shade,
From the hot steam and from the fiery glare.
Look forth upon the earth—her thousand plants
  Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize
  Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze;
The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;
For life is driven from all the landscape brown;
  The bird hath sought his tree, the snake his den,
  The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men
Drop by the sunstroke in the populous town:
  As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent
  Its deadly breath into the firmament.

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Are Minnesota's woodchucks a protected animal?

There's an abode in the neighborhood that would be described as, at best, a "fixer-upper." A new neighbor has moved in sometime during the past week or so. We've not spoken yet but today we got a picture as s/he was bringing in some of the materials to make the place more homey.

our new neighbor, Mr. / Ms. Woodchuck

Photo by J. Harrington

According to Minnesota's St. Croix Valley and  Anoka Sandplain, A Guide to Native Habitats, there's no record of woodchucks in Isanti County  (really?), but they are recorded in the other five counties covered, including Chisago. I was surprised to find woodchucks listed under "Squirrels" and not under "Pocket Gophers and Pocket Mice." I was also surprised to find no listing of either woodchuck or gopher in the book's index. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources web site page on woodchucks informs us that they are deemed an unprotected wild animal but, when following the links on the page to the statute language, we learn that gophers, not woodchucks, are listed as unprotected. Further, the linked page on the DNR site is to a historic language version. The Revisor's Office most current (2019) language for the relevant section doesn't list either gopher or woodchuck as an unprotected animal. (There seems to be a similar problem with red squirrels, which don't appear to be listed as either protected nor unprotected.)

one of many red squirrels that live in the neighborhood

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm not sure how much the sources of this confusion lie with the DNR, with whichever legislator(s) were the chief authors of the bills in the House and Senate, or with the Revisor's Office staff. I am sure that it doesn't take a genius to realize that conflicting, vague, ambiguous statutory language doesn't incline the public to respect the regulatory agency involved nor it's employees who are expected to enforce such poorly constructed laws. If you think this posting is unfair, take a look at DNR's own web page guidance on Taking a nuisance animal. Feel free to comment if you find woodchucks, red squirrels or groundhogs listed there. Whatever you do, don't search for Minnesota gophers on Google, Duck Duck Go or any other internet search engine. You'll find yourself trying to drain an athletic swamp.

A Drumlin Woodchuck

One thing has a shelving bank,
Another a rotting plank,
To give it cozier skies
And make up for its lack of size.

My own strategic retreat
Is where two rocks almost meet,
And still more secure and snug,
A two-door burrow I dug.

With those in mind at my back
I can sit forth exposed to attack
As one who shrewdly pretends
That he and the world are friends.

All we who prefer to live
Have a little whistle we give,
And flash, at the least alarm
We dive down under the farm.

We allow some time for guile
And don’t come out for a while
Either to eat or drink.
We take occasion to think.

And if after the hunt goes past
And the double-barreled blast
(Like war and pestilence
And the loss of common sense),

If I can with confidence say
That still for another day,
Or even another year,
I will be there for you, my dear,

It will be because, though small
As measured against the All,
I have been so instinctively thorough
About my crevice and burrow.

-Robert Frost

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A matter of perspective

Have you ever thought about all the things that could go wrong during the day, but don't? A tornado that missed your property by yards; a lightning bolt that struck a nearby tree instead of the house; an auto crash avoided by seconds and feet? Don't most of us, most of the time take such metaphorical bullet dodging for granted? I've been pondering such questions  for the past few days, ever since one of last week's storms brought down a good-sized part of an oak tree that borders the back yard. It didn't destroy anything although it did come within about 20 feet  of the compost tumbler. But...

this is where most of the Three Sisters garden would have been planted

Photo by J. Harrington

Remember, if you visit regularly, that I was thinking about doing a Three Sisters garden this Summer, one that never got started due to weather, delayed repairs to the tiller, and other  complications? Guess where a large part of that unplanted garden was slated to be planted. You're right, precisely where the downed part of the oak tree landed. Now, I don't much care that there's a bunch of oak branches laying on top of grass and feral oregano. I would be mightily upset if, at this time of the growing season, it had flattened about two-thirds or three-quarters of the Three Sisters garden. The squash might have survived but the  beans, growing up the corn stalks, and the stalks themselves would have been wiped out.

at least it didn't flatten the compost tumbler

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm pretty sure there's some sort of message in this set of circumstances but, rather than try to figure it all out, I'm simply going to adopt a mantra written years ago by Samuel Beckett:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

That fits nicely with another observation I've come across a couple of times during the past few days. "It's not a failure if you haven't quit trying." Next year we'll try a Three Sisters garden on the hill away from the woods' edge.

Failures in Infinitives

By Bernadette Mayer

why am i doing this? Failure

to keep my work in order so as

to be able to find things

to paint the house

to earn enough money to live on

to reorganize the house so as

to be able to paint the house &

to be able to find things and

earn enough money so as

to be able to put books together

to publish works and books

to have time

to answer mail & phone calls

to wash the windows

to make the kitchen better to work in

to have the money to buy a simple radio

to listen to while working in the kitchen

to know enough to do grownups work in the world

to transcend my attitude

to an enforced poverty

to be able to expect my checks

to arrive on time in the mail

to not always expect that they will not

to forget my mother's attitudes on humility or

to continue

to assume them without suffering

to forget how my mother taunted my father

about money, my sister about i cant say it

failure to forget mother and father enough

to be older, to forget them

to forget my obsessive uncle

to remember them some other way

to remember their bigotry accurately

to cease to dream about lions which always is

to dream about them, I put my hand in the lion's mouth

to assuage its anger, this is not a failure

to notice that's how they were; failure

to repot the plants

to be neat

to create & maintain clear surfaces

to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down

and not a table

to let a table be a place for eating & not a desk

to listen to more popular music

to learn the lyrics

to not need money so as

to be able to write all the time

to not have to pay rent, con ed or telephone bills

to forget parents' and uncle's early deaths so as

to be free of expecting care; failure

to love objects

to find them valuable in any way; failure

to preserve objects

to buy them and

to now let them fall by the wayside; failure

to think of poems as objects

to think of the body as an object; failure

to believe; failure

to know nothing; failure

to know everything; failure

to remember how to spell failure; failure

to believe the dictionary & that there is anything

to teach; failure

to teach properly; failure

to believe in teaching

to just think that everybody knows everything

which is not my failure; I know everyone does; failure

to see not everyone believes this knowing and

to think we cannot last till the success of knowing

to wash all the dishes only takes ten minutes

to write a thousand poems in an hour

to do an epic, open the unwashed window

to let in you know who and

to spirit thoughts and poems away from concerns

to just let us know, we will

to paint your ceilings & walls for free 

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Deer me, a-pear-ances can be deceiving

Earlier this Summer it appeared that we'd have no pears on the pear tree this year. I couldn't see any signs of bees or other pollinators flying around while the tree was in bloom. There are no other pear trees nearby to provide cross-pollination. I thought pears were a lost cause in our back yard. I was wrong.

whitetail doe under pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday, the Better Half mentioned that there are pears on the pear tree. I looked carefully and observed a number of golden-brown pears hanging from the branches. Some day soon we'll take a closer look and see if we want to claim some for ourselves. The rest will ripen, over-ripen and drop to keep our neighborhood whitetails happy. Watching them and taking some pictures makes us happy, too.

five pear-picking whitetail deer

Photo by J. Harrington

Also yesterday, for the first time in the quarter century or so that we've lived here, I saw what I think was a groundhog / woodchuck in the back yard. The last sighting was just before s/he disappeared under the brush pile. We'll watch for it when we fire the brush pile around the end of this month. Meanwhile, yesterday's inspection didn't reveal any fresh mounds from the pocket gophers. I'm not sure why.

Green Pear Tree in September

By Freya Manfred

On a hill overlooking the Rock River 

my father’s pear tree shimmers, 

in perfect peace, 

covered with hundreds of ripe pears 

with pert tops, plump bottoms,  

and long curved leaves. 

Until the green-haloed tree 

rose up and sang hello, 

I had forgotten. . .  

He planted it twelve years ago, 

when he was seventy-three, 

so that in September 

he could stroll down  

with the sound of the crickets 

rising and falling around him, 

and stand, naked to the waist, 

slightly bent, sucking juice 

from a ripe pear.

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When "Enough!" becomes too much

[UPDATE: background for the posting below. note esp. the phrase:

"to really see people like Trevor and get at their politics: their clear understanding of the past, their fierce determination to hold on to their class and race advantages, and their equally firm resolve to blow everything up if they don’t win."]

I've been unsubscribing from a number of email lists the past few days. I don't believe signing petitions will change much of anything. I don't accept that each and every time something else goes foul it's a world-ending crisis that can only be solved by making a donation to the organization that sent the email. I absolutely refuse to be in the least impressed by emails or Tweets by Democrats declaring the latest and greatest tRUMP action is an outrage and must be stopped, but the message fails to specify how, specifically, the outraged politician plans to do something, or what that something is.

HOW DO WE MOST EFFECTIVELY RESPOND TO THE PRESENCE AND PROSPECT  OF EVER MORE FEDERAL MERCENARIES (ICE etc.) BEING SENT TO INTIMIDATE DEMOCRATIC CITIES WHILE THE POSTAL SERVICE (vote by mail) GOES BANKRUPT AND COVID-19 RUNS RAMPANT?

I respectfully offer the following: We (sane humans with even a smidgeon of self-respect) should follow up on the May 1, 2020 United States essential workers general strike by calling for a nationwide General Strike of all those who are fed up with the failure of the current regime to respect the rule of law and the norms of civilized society, including unmitigated and continuing failures to implement appropriate responses to either COVID-19 or the breakdown of earth's climate. Perhaps the Industrial Workers of the World [IWW] could take a lead role. Based on recent events and the lack of action by #MoscowMitch, GOP Senate Majority Leader, on critical legislation to help the ordinary workers of this country, I don't believe we can wait until November to bring counter pressure on the political elements currently destroying what's left of our "representative democracy." Too many of our politicians, of both  parties, are either doing evil or doing nothing. What was once our "free press" has become a hoard of click-hungry toadies.

past time for the dawn of a new era

Photo by J. Harrington

No doubt I'd be even more distraught had I not already reached the age of majority when our recently (2016, how ironic) named Nobel laureate foresaw intimations of today's world and portrayed it for us. (He also wisely and kindly provided us with the answer to the "troubles he foresaw.")

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Written by: Bob Dylan 

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

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Today we spotted almost unspotted fawns

This morning, returning from picking up this week's Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share, we noticed a whitetail doe and two fawns picking their way through a soy bean field. The fawns are the first I've seen this year and neither fawn, that I could see, still had its spots. Were they born early? Most of the fawns I've seen about this time of year still displayed noticeable spots like the ones in the picture below. Since fawns are said to lose their spots as early as three months after birth, the ones we say would have been born in late April or very early May.

whitetail doe with spotted fawns

Photo by J. Harrington

So, this month we have seen both turkey poults and whitetail fawns, but neither so far in the immediate neighborhood. On the other hand, for reasons that I can't begin to guess at, this Summer we've seen more bucks in velvet than ever before. We've also seen more foxes, raccoons and, possibly, sandhill cranes than in past years. (Many years we've seen larger flocks of cranes. This year we've seen singles, pairs and families in many more locations than in past years.) From that perspective it's been a good Summer so far.

With luck, today might be our last 90℉ high temperature of the year. I must admit I'm looking forward to getting back to flannel and chamois shirt weather and ripe, local apples to eat. So far I've been surviving eating our half of the CSA veggies, thanks to the creative cooking of the Better Half. I'm more a "meat and potatoes" type and tolerate, but rarely enjoy, vegetables. I'm also the one who keeps pushing to support local food systems which means not only buying but eating produce. To compensate, I've also started to source some of our meat directly from a producer. We've enjoyed the pork we bought in bulk and are now looking for a supplier for beef and, maybe, lamb. It's the core of my personal effort to eliminate a market for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations [CAFOs].

farm field wild with Monarda fistulosa

Photo by J. Harrington

That's about it for today, except to mention that I've very jealous of the dense fields of Monarda growing around the pick-up barn for our CSA. I hope I can figure out how to create something comparable in the fields behind our house.

The Place I Want to Get Back To

The place I want to get back to
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let’s see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can’t be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

Mary Oliver

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Of milkweed and monarchs

This year, as most years, we have quite a few milkweed plants growing in our fields. Most appear stunted. At least, that's how they look to me, and perhaps to the neighborhood monarch butterflies. SiSi and I have been taking a look as we enjoy our mid-day walks and haven't seen any monarch eggs or caterpillars on the milkweed plants we walk past.

stunted(?) milkweed in July

Photo by J. Harrington

We confess that we avoid getting down on hands and knees so we can more thoroughly check the undersides of milkweed leaves, which is where we've most frequently seen caterpillars in the past. Are we having a slight mismatch between the arrival of monarch butterflies and the blooming of milkweed flowers? Are there not enough other wildflowers to attract more monarchs? Are our expectations at a mismatch with reality and we have as many caterpillars as the habitat can support?

monarch caterpillar on the underside of milkweed leaf

Photo by J. Harrington

I reviewed the Xerces Society's resources for managing natural lands for monarchs and couldn't readily find anything that covers East Central Minnesota, where we live. There's a booklet for the Central United States, another for the Northern Plains. Neither includes our area. Using the search function I found a booklet for the Great Lakes Area plus Pollinator Conservation in Minnesota and Wisconsin, A Regional Stakeholders Report and a report on interceding wildflowers in grasslands, which pretty well describes much of our small acreage. I'll read them over the next few days and see if it's possible to put together a realistic program for an Autumn planting activity. Wish us luck.

Milkweed

Helen Hunt Jackson

O patient creature with a peasant face, 
Burnt by the summer sun, begrimed with stains, 
And standing humbly in the dingy lanes! 
There seems a mystery in thy work and place, 
Which crowns thee with significance and grace; 
Whose is the milk that fills thy faithful veins? 
What royal nursling comes at night and drains 
Unscorned the food of the plebeian race? 
By day I mark no living thing which rests 
On thee, save butterflies of gold and brown, 
Who turn from flowers that are more fair, more sweet, 
And, crowding eagerly, sink fluttering down, 
And hang, like jewels flashing in the heat, 
Upon thy splendid rounded purple breasts.

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Monarda mystery?

I have encountered, or created in my own mind, a mystery today. There are two plants in the Monarda Genus that are native to Minnesota:

• Monarda fistulosa, Wild Bergamot, and
• Monarda punctata, Spotted Horsemint

The former is more widespread in Minnesota and grows wild along roadsides in the county about 15 or 20 miles North of our property, but I've not noticed any growing in our area. The latter is growing abundantly all over the fields behind our house but only grows in a few counties in the state. The mystery that has occurred to me is "why one and not the other?" in each location. I'm going to see if I can figure out what's going on.

Spotted horsemint behind the house

Photo by J. Harrington

In the process perhaps I'll gain some additional insight into how people can go about learning what's native to their place and broader bioregion. Most of what I can find and have read is much longer and stronger on theory than application. For example, watersheds are considered to be one of the major elements of a bioregion. We live in the Sunrise River watershed of the St. Croix River watershed of the Mississippi River watershed. The first seems too limited to be a bioregional boundary; the second covers several ecoregions or biomes, and the last traverses several bioregions. How is one to determine relevancy?

Chisago County plant hardiness zones

Somewhere in our bookshelves I believe we have a county soil map. That may offer some clues to why we have punctata but not fistulosa growing in our fields. I doubt that there's much difference in annual precipitation in the two locations. There are three hardiness zones in the County and the area where I've been noticing the bergamot is mostly 3b while we're in 4b. That might help explain the distribution, or not. It will be interesting, at least for me, to see how far I can get at accounting for the locations of Monarda mysteries.

The Mystery of the Hunt

By Michael McClure

It’s the mystery of the hunt that intrigues me,

                   That drives us like lemmings, but cautiously—

The search for a bright square cloud—the scent of lemon verbena—

                    Or to learn rules for the game the sea otters

                                      Play in the surf.

                  It is these small things—and the secret behind them

                                    That fill the heart.

                        The pattern, the spirit, the fiery demon

                                That link them together

                      And pull their freedom into our senses,

             The smell of a shrub, a cloud, the action of animals

         —The rising, the exuberance, when the mystery is unveiled.

                                 It is these small things

                   That when brought into vision become an inferno.

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Hope -- not just a "thing with feathers"

If we let the current state of the world depress us to the point it's hard to function, the bad guys will have won before we even get to November. Many days it can be a struggle to see a bright side to what's going on, especially when the weather turns cloudy and gloomy. Fortunately, many (some?) of us have an ability to redirect our focus from what's unpleasant to what can bring us joy. Puppies, kittens, scampering fawns or wildflowers are among the quotidian sights that can bring a needed element of upbeat realization that not all is lost. Here's a picture of some black-eyed Susans to help you perk up.

July's black-eyed Susans in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

If that doesn't do the trick, take a look at the whitetail fawn. The blurry, still picture doesn't exactly show scampering or cavorting, so exercise your imagination a little. Photos, even real life experiences like those shown in these photos, don't make everything ok, but they do show that neither is everything awful and so long as life goes on there's reasons to hope.

a fawn caught between scamper and cavort

Photo by J. Harrington

A well-known author and oral historian, Studs Turkel, wrote a book, published a decade and a half ago, called Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times (aka, Hope Dies Last: Making a Difference in an Indifferent World). Almost as if he could foresee today's United States, because we've been in serious trouble before:

'Hope has never trickled down,' writes Terkel. 'It has always sprung up' - and he gets his title from Jessie de la Cruz, a founder member of the farmers union, who insisted: 'If you lose hope, you lose everything.'

Naomi Shihab Nye writes of a similar relationship between loss and hope in her wonderful poem.

Yellow Glove

By Naomi Shihab Nye

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?

I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose the yellow gloves.

I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don’t get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.

The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.

Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?

Part of the difference between floating and going down.

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There's madness here. Is there a method to it?

Long, long ago, when I was young and sure of what I knew, I learned that "the Future" was something I needed to prepare for. I studied hard at school, got good grades, thought  about what I wanted to be when I grew up and believed that "the Future" was some separate, independent thing out there. It never included something like COVID-19, although I was a child at the time the polio vaccine was developed, I vaguely remember having some Summer plans disrupted as a precaution.

These days I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that "the Future" is something we create by the actions we take, or fail to take, every day. For someone who is a Type A personality (who, me?) this disrupts a certain preference for a "Command and Control" world. Then, several decades ago, I read a few papers by Donella Meadows. From her writings I learned that systems don't respond to command and control structures, but Type A's can, and should, learn to dance with systems.

I am also learning from her, and others who share the values she espoused, to let go of my cynicism and work to create the future I want for myself and my descendants. I can't do much for my antecedents except honor their memories. In her last Global Citizens column, Meadows put it this way:

There’s only one thing I do know. If we believe that it’s effectively over, that we are fatally flawed, that the most greedy and short-sighted among us will always be permitted to rule, that we can never constrain our consumption and destruction, that each of us is too small and helpless to do anything, that we should just give up and enjoy our SUVs while they last, well, then yes, it’s over. That’s the one way of believing and behaving that gives us a guaranteed outcome.

Personally I don’t believe that stuff at all. I don’t see myself or the people around me as fatally flawed…We are not helpless and there is nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and there’s something wrong with us. All we need to do, for the bear and ourselves, is to stop letting that belief paralyze our minds, hearts, and souls.

This is our "Planet B"

Here I must confess that I haven't yet read the Global Citizens columns nor the Dear Folks Letters, an oversight I will correct this Summer. Meadows is wise, very readable, and, as I look about me these days, increasingly relevant. If you've been paying attention to what's been going on for the past several years, or longer, you have seen evidence of the regime in Washington, D.C. using one of Meadows' observations about systems. I feel better realizing that it's not sheer incompetence driving our ship of state these days. Consistent with and confirmed by the observations of contemporary chroniclers such as Sarah Kendzior in her book Hiding in Plain Sight, some years ago Ms. Meadows pointed out to us that:

“You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

Watch the evening news, read a daily paper, check out social media from time to time and see if that isn't what the tRUMP / Putin gang, aided and abetted by the GOP,  isn't trying to do to us. Now go back and read the second paragraph in italics above, then see if you can answer the following:

13 Questions for the Next Economy 

Susan Briante

On the side of the road, white cardboard in the shape of a man,
           illegible script. A signpost with scrawl: Will pay cash for 
              diabetes strips.
 
A system under the system with its black box.
                     Disability hearing?
a billboard reads. Trouble with Social Security? Where does the
 riot begin?
 
Spark of dry grass, Russian thistle in flames, or butterflies bobbing
as if pulled by unseen strings               through the alleyway.
         
My mother’s riot would have been peace. A bicycle wheel
              chained to a concrete planter. What metaphor
 
              can I use to describe the children sleeping in cages in 
                  detention
centers? Birds pushed fenceward by a breeze? A train of brake
 lights
 
extending? Mesquite pods mill under our feet
on a rainless sidewalk. What revolution            will my daughter feed?
 
A break-the-state twig-quick snap or a long divining            as if
for water? A cotton silence? A death?                 Who will read
 this
 
in the next economy, the one that comes after the one that kills
 us?
What lessons will we take from the side of the road? A wooden
 crucifix,
 
a white bicycle, a pinwheel, a poem
waiting to be redacted:                         Which would you cross out?

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Cranes as rural renaissance

No, not the construction cranes that too often make real estate developers and urban economic development practitioners or planners happy. I'm talking about sandhill cranes.

sandhill cranes in a marshy meadow

Photo by J. Harrington

Almost every day for the past week we've seen several adults, sometimes with colts [young sandhill cranes], in the fields we drive past. These sitings have been some of the high points of the week. Sandhill cranes are one of the things Minnesota and the Midwest do moderately well that Massachusetts and the rest of New England don't do at all, much to the chagrin of this native New Englander.

According to the Audubon folks, if we humans somehow manage to limit climate breakdown to 1.5℃ most of the crane's habitat in Western Minnesota will be lost. if, as seems increasingly more likely, climate breakdown leads to an increase of 3℃, almost all of the crane's range in Minnesota will be lost. That would return the county in which I live, Chisago, to the same number of breeding sandhill cranes that were observed during the late 1970's, ZERO! [see p. 5 in the linked report] For those of us who enjoy seeing and watching wildlife, that would be a significant loss of amenity (as the real estate agents say).

“There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.”

― Aldo Leopold

Consider rural development in the twenty-first century. Attractive natural surroundings with lots of opportunities for observing birds like sandhill cranes, plus opportunities for outdoor recreation such as hunting, fishing, or pleasure riding (horses, bikes, ATVs) represent part of a "amenity" package urban areas just can't offer.

I think I first became aware of sandhill cranes many years ago during my initial reading of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. In fact, in one of the chapters of the Almanac, Leopold seems to anticipate a potential role for the cranes as part of a rural renaissance.

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins as in art with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. The quality of cranes lies, I think, in this higher gamut, as yet beyond the reach of words.” Marshland Elegy, A Sand County Almanac.

Cranes in August

By Kim Addonizio

They clutter the house,
awkwardly folded, unable
to rise. My daughter makes
and makes them, having heard
the old story: what we create
may save us. I string
a long line of them over
the window. Outside
the gray doves bring
their one vowel to the air,
the same sound
from many throats, repeated.

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(Re)volution?

This morning, for the first time in  about 25 years, we saw a raccoon in the neighborhood. Actually, we saw 5 or 6 young raccoons at the road's edge near the pond North of the property. Sorry, no pictures, but it was a treat to see them. It will be even more so if they stay away from the bird feeders  and the trash and don't entice one of the  dogs into a chase. We know the bear has been tough on bird feeders, bluebird houses, and patio screens but we believe it's primarily been (unseen) raccoons who have, quite literally, "trashed" the yard a few times over the years.

a mature sandbur plant

Photo by J. Harrington

As more proof we've reached the epitome (or nadir) of Summer, sand bur grasses are putting out their "fruits." As soon as SiSi and I finished our post-lunch walk, I turned around and mowed the entire roadside stretch  where  we had  seen them, with the discharge chute directed toward the road. I'll keep watch  and mow again as many times as need be in an effort to minimize successful maturation of the fruit/burrs. SiSi, from time to time, still gets one of last year's burs in her paw.

Did any of last night's storms cause problems for you? I had thought we had dodged the proverbial bullet until I looked again into the back yard. Something, wind gust or lightning strike? [the tree came down against what are the usual Summer wind directions], took down one of the oaks at the edge of the  grassy / feral oregano area on the Northern edge of the back yard. It's too hot and humid today to go inspect it and, with more storms due tonight, there's the possibility of another unpleasant surprise by morning. Tomorrow looks like a good enough time to see what's what and begin to decide what restorative response may be appropriate. Since our  fireplace still isn't functional, turning the blowdown into fire wood hasn't much appeal. Perhaps dragging the branches into the woods to decompose and return their nutrients to the soil? See if I have any friends that want some free "pick your own!" fire wood?

Final observation for the day. I've been getting more and more frustrated about the deteriorating conditions in this country (and elsewhere in our  climate-broken, pandemic-stricken world) and upset that most of the suggestions about  what to do involve voting come November. I've already voted by mail for Minnesota's primary. It doesn't feel like enough. Today I read an essay that was even more disheartening, until I got to the last paragraph of The planetary climate clock, in human time. That heartened me. After reading that paragraph [see below], why not follow the preceding link and read the whole essay. (please do) It's both well written and important. Here's the paragraph:

So. Read Naomi Klein, Arundhati Roy, George Monbiot, Frantz Fanon, Rosa Luxemburg. Learn to become a revolutionary, get some courage and guts and analysis. Join Extinction Rebellion already (caveat: only the groups that put social & racial justice front & centre, obviously), and/or the Sunrise Movement, and/or Fridays for Future, and/or all of them. Let’s do this. GO.

Once the World Was Perfect

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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