It's the start of spring phenology season

Our morning's snow is typical for this time of year in the North Country, but it triggered a small setback in our gradually brightening outlook. That's when we remembered Greta Kaul's delightful An illustrated guide to the signs of Minnesota spring. It begins with maple sap flowing around mid-March but notes the earliest observation was on today's date in 1987 and the latest start was only the year prior, 1986. We suppose if the weather and climate and phenological observations all occurred on or about their average date, we'd start complaining about boredom.

By late March, we should be able to enjoy the mating chorus(es) of wood frogs, boreal chorus frogs, spring peepers and Northern leopard frogs. A handful of salamanders may also have begun breeding, presuming we've lost most of our snow cover by then. Just anticipating the return of spring noises and activities makes us feel better.

The hyacinths in the downstairs window well are looking ok and the crocuses on the dining room table upstairs are coming into bloom. There's no way either of these plants would be rising through our current snows so we'll hope to enjoy them twice this year, now and in late April or early May in folks' yards?

two of our three male cardinals

Photo by J. Harrington

The other day we finally managed to get a picture of two of the three male cardinals that are hanging around. This morning we noticed one of the males was chasing another. Signs of spring and mating season no doubt. Time to defend territories. The whiteish dragonflies in the picture are decals on the walkout glass. Part of an effort to keep birds from flying into our windows (and doors).

Spring

by Mary Oliver

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her -—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

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There's a season for that!

 You probably know that there's meteorological and astrological seasons. There's also the Eightfold Wheel of the Year. Here in the Midwest, especially in Minnesota, we have a different set of folklore seasons. In Minnesota, the two most basic seasons are road construction and winter. We recently came across a broader, but, we believe, still incomplete, list of seasons. We're going to work on a set of definitions for them and add a few to make the list more encompassing and accurate. Please feel free to offer suggestions in the comments.

• Winter
• Fool's Spring
• Second Winter
• Spring of Deception
• Third Winter
• The Pollening
• Actual Spring
• Summer
• Hell's Front Porch
• False Fall
• Second Summer
• Actual Fall

Now a quick review makes it clear the preceding doesn't include Mud Season, nor Indian Summer, nor planting season nor harvest season nor sugarbush season and, no doubt, a number of other seasons. For example, the Ojibwe and Lakota had a number of different names for the full moon, depending on what was observed happening in a region. We observed and photographed the full moon (below) this morning.

Ojibwe Namebini-giizis (Suckerfish Moon)

Photo by J. Harrington

We're going to play with some phenology wheel guides and see what we come up with for arranging the various seasons. It'll give us a pleasant way to pass the time during this year's Third Winter. (We believe we're currently in the Spring of Deception.)

Mud Season

Tess Taylor

stave the winter’s tangle.
Sad tomatoes, sullen sky.

We unplay the summer’s blight.
Rotted on the vine, black fruit

swings free of strings that bound it.
In the compost, ghost melon; in the fields

grotesque extruded peppers.
We prod half-thawed mucky things. 

In the sky, starlings eddying.
Tomorrow, snow again, old silence.

Today, the creaking icy puller.
Last night I woke

to wild unfrozen prattle.
Rain on the roof—a foreign liquid tongue.

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It's almost (meteorological) Spring!

While out walking the dog at mid-day, we took a couple of deep breaths and could almost smell Spring, or at least Monday's beginning of March, in the air. The breeze was strong and out of the South and cold! As we sit writing this post, the oak tree tops are doing what looks like a samba.

crows, we think -- maybe ravens?

Photo by J. Harrington

Neighborhood crows have gotten noisy over the past week or so. It's getting to be mating / breeding time for them. Tomorrow night is February's full moon, according to our Minnesota Weatherguide calendar, it's known as the Sucker Moon by the Ojibwe and the Popping Trees Moon by the Lakota. Tomorrow is also when we again reach more than 11 hours of daylight.

forced leaf out on red osier dogwood

Photo by J. Harrington

With a little luck, and if our second vaccine shot doesn't hit us too hard, soon we'll start spending lots more time outside. There's some branches to be pruned and red osier dogwood stems to be foraged so we can see some leaves emerge. Perhaps we'll even get lucky enough to be able to enjoy some fires in the fire pit sometime next month. After all, meteorological Spring begins on Monday!

Kyoto: March

By Gary Snyder

A few light flakes of snow

Fall in the feeble sun;

Birds sing in the cold,

A warbler by the wall. The plum

Buds tight and chill soon bloom.

The moon begins first

Fourth, a faint slice west

At nightfall. Jupiter half-way

High at the end of night-

Meditation. The dove cry

Twangs like a bow.

At dawn Mt. Hiei dusted white

On top; in the clear air

Folds of all the gullied green

Hills around the town are sharp,

Breath stings. Beneath the roofs

Of frosty houses

Lovers part, from tangle warm

Of gentle bodies under quilt

And crack the icy water to the face

And wake and feed the children

And grandchildren that they love.

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On losses and gains

We were saddened today to note the death of Peter Ostroushko. We once saw him perform live at the University of Minnesota Morris campus during a multi-day Symposium on Small Towns we attended back around 2004. If we remember correctly, one of the songs he sang was Dylan's Girl from the North Country. His rendition was / is among our favorite covers of that beautiful song. We also thoroughly enjoy his soundtrack for Minnesota--A History of the Land. He will be missed. Several of his albums are available through Red House Records, if you're interested.

On a brighter note, have you begun to feel any symptoms of Spring fever yet? We're enjoying a string of sunny, warmer than average days that almost compensates for the recent polar vortex visit. One of the tantalizing questions is whether Spring will actually arrive early or if we're just being set up to be dumped on by a series of March/April/May blizzards. If memory serves, July is the only month in which it hasn't snowed in Minnesota. Then again, we're now at the time of year when the average daily high temperature is 32℉. Better yet, effective tomorrow, the normal high temperature is above freezing.

There's no sign yet of open water. We'll start checking the Sunrise River pools more regularly now, in anticipation of arriving geese, ducks, swans and sandhill cranes. Who knows, we may stand a chance of enjoying an actual Spring that lasts for weeks instead of days and a melt season that doesn't yield Spring floods. That kind of return to normalcy would be a wonderful respite from the past four years.

Music

By Juhan Liiv
Translated from the Estonian by H.L. Hix & Jüri Talvet

It must be somewhere, the original harmony,

somewhere in great nature, hidden.

Is it in the furious infinite,

in distant stars’ orbits,

is it in the sun’s scorn,

in a tiny flower, in treegossip,

in heartmusic’s mothersong

or in tears?

It must be somewhere, immortality,

somewhere the original harmony must be found:

how else could it infuse

the human soul,

that music?

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Way too little, way too late! Why?

Slightly more than a year from now, on October 18, 2022, we will observe the 50th anniversary of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, Public Law 92-500, which became effective after the Senate, and then the House, overrode then President Nixon's veto.

National goals were stated in Title I, Section 101, including these:

 " (1) it is the national Goal that the discharge of pollutants into
 the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985;
 " (2) it is the national goal that wherever attainable, an interim
 goal of water quality which provides for the protection and
 propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provides for recrea-
 tion in and on the water be achieved by July 1,1983;
 " (3) it is the national policy that the discharge of toxic pollut-
 ants in toxic amounts be prohibited;

Follow this link to view Minnesota's draft 2020 Impaired Waters List map. According to the Star Tribune, 56% of Minnesota's waters fail to attain water quality standards. It's unnecessary to emphasize that, decades later, Minnesota, and probably all states, are far from attaining any of the goals adopted in 1972.

Sunrise River flowing towards the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

If you wonder why this country, one of the richest in today's world, is failing miserably to meet its commitments on greenhouse gas reduction, adaptation measures to respond to the effects of climate breakdown, or other environmental responsibilities, you need look no further than our abysmal track record at protecting and restoring that with which we cannot live without, water
.

California is considering adopting its own version of the Clean Water Act, since an estimated 95% of that state's waters are in impaired status. Meanwhile, members of the Minnesota legislature continue to insist that our environmental requirements are "most stringent." If that's so, why haven't we attained the 1983 goal and how much longer do we expect it to take? How about a major effort to document, fifty years later, where, precisely we stand and what it will take to belatedly meet those goals. Or, Minnesota could continue to follow the lead of those bastions of progressiveness like Iowa or the Dakotas.

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

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An answer to "the challenge of apocalyptic times..."

As noted in today's Star Tribune:

Beat poet, publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti dies at 101

We grew up on and with the Beat Poets: Kerouac, Ginsberg, McClure and others. The  San Francisco Chronicle, as one would expect, has much more complete coverage of Ferlinghett's remarkable life and talent. The closest we've been able to come to a connection between Minnesota and Ferlinghetti, other than folks like us who have treasured his poetry and his life, is that there was an exhibition of Ferlinghetti's paintings at a gallery on Minnesota Street in San Francisco. If you haven't yet read any of his poetry, you might want to begin with Poetry As Insurgent Art, here's a sample.

Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - 1919-2021

I am signaling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.

If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.

You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words....

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Is it maple syruping season yet?

If not this week, the syruping season will be upon us soon. Those who inhabited this land before us continue to have rights to harvest maple syrup in many locations. There's an interesting article at Indian Country Today on some of the history of maple syrup and Native Americans teaching the early colonists how to produce it.

sugarbush and sap buckets

Photo by J. Harrington

Today's temperatures have climbed above freezing. We took advantage this morning and went for a ride. We wore a light coat over a vest and regular shoes, not snow boots. It was a delightful change. As we drove around looking at the melting snow and the growing puddles we begin to think about the thaw / freeze cycle needed to get maple sap flowing. As you know, an extended Spring thaw also helps minimize the likelihood of Spring flooding although our local snow cover, so far, presents minimal threat to rivers exceeding their banks.

Climate weirding and global warming are expected to affect maple sugar production, but, by how much, and the extent to which the trees and the syrup producers can adapt is still being researched. In Minnesota, the center of maple tree density has already moved North (#21). That isn't likely to diminish local syrup production, but we may see a loss of the temperature variability needed to generate sap flow if Spring continues too warm. Even someone like yr out svt, who abhors winter, would not want to lose maple syrup and maple candy in exchange for less winter. Plus, less sugar might be related to less colorful Autumns? That would also be terrible.

Apocalypto for a Small Planet

By Tess Taylor

1

 

& the radio reports how in 2050

farming Massachusetts will be like farming Georgia—

all’s flux, no one can say what will grow in Georgia,

 

where maples will grow then or whose fine taps

will sap sugar from the cold in spring. Will we get syrup

from the boreal forest, peaches from Massachusetts?

 

 

2

 

Drone strikes & opium poppies.

Oil spills & poisoned wells.

Drought zone. Famine. War zone.

 

 

3

 

Artisanal, this

 

                                              intervention:

 

what gift

                                              this day.

 

 

4

 

My inner cynic says

don’t bother this is navel gazing

 

& my friend at Yale says my hunger

to be near zucchinis

 

will not save the planet from real hunger

except I remember in the film on gleaning

 

when the priest in his compassion says:

those who glean now out of spiritual hunger

 

also should be fed.

 

 

5

 

Ecosystem of yard or field or mind:

 

these cucumbers are more art than science,

more daydream

 

than global action (if we separate the two).

But digging now I feel an otherness—

 

life, a great inhuman freedom—

here I work a plot that also grounds—

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Does winter's nadir equal spring's cusp?

The local snowmobile trails along the roads and in the ditches are showing more and longer patches of mud. Is their season coming to an end for the year? In a little more than a week, ice houses will have to be off Minnesota lakes in the southern two-thirds of the state. Last year's (2020) fishing licenses expire on February 28. Turkey hunting licenses go on sale March 1. All these are signs that winter will soon become spring, but here in the North Country that trip is often made with a stutter step that sometimes seems to take us "back" into winter for a few days.

purple martin house in Spring snowstorm

Photo by J. Harrington

March 1 a couple of years ago looked like the picture above. That's a martin house (sans martins) with all the snow on the roof. We've probably several weeks to a month (or more) to go until we enter this year's mud season. That's not been the same ever since the  township paved our gravel road a few years ago. We still have very mixed feelings about that little element of "progress."

Somewhere along the way it's become a bit of a tradition to get the Better Half a new fishing license as a birthday present. We'll have a chat with her soon and see if it's possible to pencil in a trip sometime early next month. We'll not announce when because that's all too often an invitation to the snow gods to deliver a blizzard and we certainly can do without such, especially as we try to shake ourselves loose from winter's accumulated crust and cruft.

Why Is the Color of Snow?

Brenda Shaughnessy - 1970-

Let's ask a poet with no way of knowing.
Someone who can give us an answer,
another duplicity to help double the world.

What kind of poetry is all question, anyway?
Each question leads to an iceburn,
a snownova, a single bed spinning in space.

Poet, Decide! I am lonely with questions.
What is snow? What isn't?
Do you see how it is for me.

Melt yourself to make yourself more clear
for the next observer.
I could barely see you anyway.

A blizzard I understand better,
the secrets of many revealed as one,
becoming another on my only head.

It's true that snow takes on gold from sunset
and red from rearlights. But that's occasional.
What is constant is white,

or is that only sight, a reflection of eyewhites
and light? Because snow reflects only itself,
self upon self upon self,

is a blanket used for smothering, for sleeping.
For not seeing the naked, flawed body.
Concealing it from the lover curious, ever curious!

Who won't stop looking.
White for privacy.
Millions of privacies to bless us with snow.

Don't we melt it?
Aren't we human dark with sugar hot to melt it?
Anyway, the question—

if a dream is a construction then what
is not a construction? If a bank of snow
is an obstruction, then what is not a bank of snow?

A winter vault of valuable crystals
convertible for use only by a zen
sun laughing at us.

Oh Materialists! Thinking matter matters.
If we dream of snow, of banks and blankets
to keep our treasure safe forever,

what world is made, that made us that we keep
making and making to replace the dreaming at last.
To stop the terrible dreaming.

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As Winter's cold fist unclenches

This morning we briefly glimpsed the East end of a West bound deer. A couple of days ago we drove past two tom turkeys as they walked from the roadside ditch into the woods. Today, the Better Half [BH] told us she heard the black-capped chickadee's Spring song -- fee-bee. Early next week we should/could see some melting. Yesterday, for the first time in months, we saw puddles on the road. The sun's strength has again reached a point where it can warm the black-topped roadway to a temperature that melts some of the snow and ice covering. Even our own Eeyore-ish gloom and doom attitude and perspective is beginning to brighten and, we can see the end of February from here.

bare-branched chickadee

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we baked a loaf od artisan sourdough bread with a dash of kernza. It makes the house smell wonderful while baking and tastes great with late Winter / early Spring's mix of soups and stews. Tomorrow the BH is making her delicious french onion soup and we'll enjoy "fresh" bread to sop up the dregs in the soup bowls.

February whitetail

Photo by J. Harrington

Soon we hope to be able to safely retire our YakTrax until next winter and trade our winter parka for a spring rain jacket and sweater. We've almost, but not quite, made it through another winter. We bet that's also what the folks in Texas thought last week and those out East were hoping was true a few days ago. Please repeat after us "dumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere has already lead to climate weirding."

Horoscope

Maureen N. McLane

Again the white blanket 			
icicles pierce.
The fierce teeth
of steel-framed snowshoes
bite the trail open.
Where the hardwoods stand
and rarely bend
the wind blows hard
an explosion of snow
like flour dusting
the baker in a shop
long since shuttered.
In this our post-shame century
we will reclaim
the old nouns
unembarrassed. 
If it rains 
we'll say oh
there's rain.
If she falls
out of love
with you you'll carry
your love on a gold plate
to the forest and bury it
in the Indian graveyard.
Pioneers do not
only despoil.
The sweet knees
of oxen have pressed
a path for me.
A lone chickadee
undaunted thing
sings in the snow.			 
Flakes appear
as if out of air
but surely they come
from somewhere
bearing what news
from the troposphere.
The sky's shifted
and Capricorns abandon
themselves to a Sagittarian
line. I like
this weird axis.
In 23,000 years
it will become again
the same sky
the Babylonians scanned.

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Our world's at risk

Back in 2007, a book entitled The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, was published. A Second Edition has since been printed. We believe it would be incredibly wise if more people read it. We wonder if, and hope that, both Biden and Harris have read it. It's pretty clear to us these days that the folks in Texas should have been more familiar with its premise and that season by season, year by year, farmers are finding more and more black swans landing in their fields. This latter assessment is based on reading Tom Philpott's Perilous Bounty, the Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It.

our only home
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

The importance of the preceding was heightened yesterday when we became aware of a recently published United Nations report, Making Peace with Nature. Many of the themes parallel those of Taleb's book.

Key Messages 

Summary 

•    Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution add up to three self-inflicted planetary crises that are closely interconnected and put the well-being of current and future generations at unacceptable risk.   

•   Ambitious and coordinated action by governments, businesses and people around the world can prevent and reverse the worst impacts of environmental decline by rapidly transforming key systems including energy, water and food so that our use of the land and oceans becomes sustainable. 

•   Transforming social and economic systems means improving our relationship with nature, understanding its value and putting that value at the heart of our decision-making.

We haven't yet read the full report, but we suspect there are few references to profit maximization or lean supply chains. Back in the days when we were a practicing planner, before we became a recovering planner, we tried to always remember the dictum "More of the same never solved a problem." And yet, that seems to be the best our current political and business "leadership" can offer. It reminds us of the joke about the problem that can arise with a skewed reliance on faith in miracles.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier (after Wallace Stevens)

Craig Santos Perez

I

Among starving polar bears, 

The only moving thing 

Was the edge of a glacier.

 

II

We are of one ecology

Like a planet

In which there are 200,000 glaciers.

 

III

The glacier absorbed greenhouse gases. 

We are a large part of the biosphere.

 

IV

Humans and animals 

Are kin. 

Humans and animals and glaciers 

Are kin.

 

V

We do not know which to fear more,

The terror of change

Or the terror of uncertainty, 

The glacier calving

Or just after.

 

VI

Icebergs fill the vast Ocean

With titanic wrecks. 

The mass of the glacier 

Disappears, to and fro. 

The threat

Hidden in the crevasse

An unavoidable cause.

 

VII

O vulnerable humans,

Why do you engineer sea walls?

Do you not see how the glacier

Already floods the streets

Of the cities around you?

 

VIII

I know king tides, 

And lurid, inescapable storms; 

But I know, too, 

That the glacier is involved 

In what I know.

 

IX

When the glacial terminus broke, 

It marked the beginning 

Of one of many waves.

 

X

At the rumble of a glacier

Losing its equilibrium, 

Every tourist in the new Arctic

chased ice quickly.

 

XI

They explored the poles 

for offshore drilling. 

Once, we blocked them, 

In that we understood 

The risk of an oil spill

For a glacier.

 

XII

The sea is rising.

The glacier must be retreating.

 

XIII

It was summer all winter. 

It was melting 

And it was going to melt.

The glacier fits

In our warm-hands.

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Bread and hyacinths

T'is another cloudy, dreary, day in February. Snow showers, or flurries, does anyone know if there's an actual difference, are falling off and on. We're beginning to think about open water and fishing seasons, although it's premature to get this year's licenses. Give us another couple of weeks.

a hyacinth to feed the soul

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, we have a couple of hyacinths in the window well downstairs that have begun to blossom and share their aroma. They triggered a vague memory about an old saying -- hyacinths to feed the soul -- so we turned, as we often do, to an internet search engine.

First we encountered, on goodreads, what purports to be a quote from Mohammad:

“If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one and buy hyacinths, for they would feed my soul.” 

The web page was unsatisfactorily absent any additional information about the source so we checked out other leads. The Paris Review yielded a delightful article, Lost and Pound, which explores several variations of a poem, attributable to Ezra Pound, and others, on the theme of bread and hyacinths. We'll share a couple of them. You should follow the link and read the entire article.

Hast thou 2 loaves of bread
Sell one + with the dole
Buy straightaway some hyacinths
To feed thy soul.

 *******************

If thou of fortune be bereft,
And thou dost find but two loaves left
To thee—sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

These passages clearly are in the vein that "man does not live by bread alone," something many of us too often seem to forget. We're trying to find some sort of sustainable balance between bread and hyacinths in our personal life. The plants need regular watering. The sourdough starter needs feeding on a regular basis. Some days baking bread makes the house smell wonderful, but quite different than a hyacinth's aroma. According to wikipedia, "Hyacinth bulbs are poisonous; they contain oxalic acid. Handling hyacinth bulbs can cause mild skin irritation." However, we discovered that there is a hyacinth bean that, in some forms, is considered edible. There's also water hyacinths, which some suggest may be eaten.

a loaf of Irish bread fresh from the oven

Photo by J. Harrington

Before we began today's post, we had never put hyacinth plants, hyacinth beans and water hyacinths together in the same thought. After our quick reads, we think we'll stay with the idea that bread is to feed our body and the beauty and aroma of hyacinths are, indeed, meant mostly to feed our soul, unless we get very brave and creative. Stay tuned in case we get serious about foraging. Meanwhile, we're pleased to report that earlier today, in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, we ordered several packages of King Arthur Baking's Irish Bread mix. When baked and dusted with powdered sugar, it's also beautiful enough to feed a soul.

Heaven for Stanley

Mark Doty - 1953-

For his birthday, I gave Stanley a hyacinth bean,
an annual, so he wouldn't have to wait for the flowers.

He said, Mark, I have just the place for it!
as if he'd spent ninety-eight years

anticipating the arrival of this particular vine.

I thought poetry a brace against time,
the hours held up for study in a voice's cool saline,

but his allegiance is not to permanent forms.
His garden's all furious change,

budding and rot and then the coming up again;

why prefer any single part of the round?
I don't know that he'd change a word of it;

I think he could be forever pleased
to participate in motion. Something opens.

He writes it down. Heaven steadies
and concentrates near the lavender. He's already there.

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Signs of the seasons' magic

Well, today's forecast of snow showers has been accurate. We hope that bodes well for the accuracy of the thaw forecast for the weekend. Beginning over the upcoming weekend, and continuing through midweek next, daily highs are forecast to reach above freezing and maybe even to 40℉. There was a February thaw a few years ago. It left local fields looking like the photo below, since the still frozen ground couldn't absorb the water:

February thaw, puddled field

Photo by J. Harrington

Not only are we anxious to put all signs of this year's polar vortex behind us, we're also really looking forward to the return of waterfowl, geese, ducks, cranes and shorebirds. Most years that occurs about a month from now, but some years even earlier. We are rapidly approaching the time when the sun's warmth daily overpowers what's left of winter's snow-covered, frozen country and spring will soon emerge.

During the depths of winter we saw few, if any, purple finches at the feeders. These days there are a number of them. We see more dead oak leaves on the ground as the leaf buds swell under marcescent leaves, loosening the stems, making way for this year's growth. After all, it's only 30 days until Spring Equinox, and two weeks later it will be Easter, for those who observe that feast. We're not yet ready to pack away our sweaters and parkas. This is the North Country, where it's been known to snow every month except one. We are, though, ready to try on some Spring finery, even if we don't yet get to wear it on a daily basis. If you're not familiar with it, see if you can find a copy of George Winston's Winter Into Spring and play it. It's magical!

To One Coming North

By Claude McKay

At first you'll joy to see the playful snow, 

  Like white moths trembling on the tropic air, 

Or waters of the hills that softly flow 

  Gracefully falling down a shining stair.

 

And when the fields and streets are covered white 

  And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw, 

Or underneath a spell of heat and light 

  The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,

 

Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song 

  Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry, 

And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong, 

  Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky.

 

But oh! more than the changeless southern isles, 

  When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm, 

You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles 

  By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.

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It's "Fat Tuesday"

All too briefly and temporarily we have entered above 0℉ territory today. This being Minnesota, that breakthrough will promptly be followed by (light?) snow tomorrow, we're told. That prompts thrashing between "Beggars can't be choosers" and "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" to reflect reactions to the "improvement" in our local weather.

will Ash Wednesday bring us more snow?

Photo by J. Harrington

On this Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, if times were more normal, lots of folks would be anticipating tomorrow's ceremonies to observe Ash Wednesday. We noted with some surprise that today's Star Tribune has an article referring to "Lent kits," a reflection on our unsettled times. On the other  hand, we suspect all of us could really do with "a six-week period of reflection and repentance," at least we know we could. The past four or five years, compounded and complicated by a year's worth of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the past few weeks of a polar vortex, have severely dampened our once sunnier disposition. Spring thaw should help a lot when it finally arrives sometime near the end of Lent.

We don't recall suspecting our Better Half [BH]of being a student of Machiavelli, but a present she gave us this Christmas past has us wondering if we've misjudged her. The present was a book entitled The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. We've now read it twice. That's not something that happens very often. We wouldn't be surprised if, during a six week period of reflection and repentance, we managed to read it again. If we've peaked your curiosity, you can view a sample of the book at Mr. Mackesy's web site. In any case, the BH has now enticed us into believing there are other ways to go through life, or at least through Lent, than as a grumpy, cynical, old man suffering an overdose of self-pity. We fear that a failure to heed the message(s) in Mackesy's masterpiece may well leave us to spend the rest of our life haunted by our mother's voice reminding us that "You haven't got the brains god gave little apples." If that's not food for reflection and repentance, we don't know what is. Enjoy what you can of what's left of Mardi Gras.

Reflections Irregular

John Rollin Ridge - 1827-1867

I cast a backward look—how changed
       The scenes of other days!
I walk, a wearied man, estranged
       From youth’s delightful ways.
There in the distance rolleth yet
       That stream whose waves my
Boyish bosom oft has met,
       When pleasure lit mine eye.
It rolleth yet, as clear, as bold,
       As pure as it did then;
But I have grown in youth-time old,
       And, mixing now with men,
My sobered eye must not attend
To that sweet stream, my early friend!
The music of its waters clear
Must now but seldom reach my ear,
But murmur still now carelessly
To every heedless passer-by.
How often o’er its rugged cliffs I’ve strayed,
And gaily listened, as its billows played
Such deep, low music at their base—
And then such brightening thoughts would trace
Upon the tablet of my mind!
Alas, those days have run their race,
Their joys I nowhere now can find.
       I have no time to think
            Of climbing Glory’s sunny mount
       I have no time to drink
            At Learning’s bubbling fount!
Now corn and potatoes call me
From scenes were wont to enthrall me—
            A weary wight,
            Both day and night
My brain is full of business matters,
            Reality has snatched the light,
            From fancy’s head, that shone so bright,
And tore the dreams she wove, to tatters!

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Past time to adopt a Doughnut Economy

 We got some welcome news today, along with slowly rising temperatures. The Ford Motor Company is joining the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) "consistent with Ford responsible sourcing strategy..." As more major manufacturers  move toward electric powered fleets, and responsible (sustainable) sourcing becomes more critical to marketing, cost control, and risk management, is Minnesota putting itself and its industries at a significant disadvantage by weakening its own environmental standards and permitting requirements?

Here are some examples of what we're referring to:

• Auditor slams Minnesota Pollution Control Agency over Water Gremlin pollution (violated its air permit for more than 15 years)


• Big plan to change Minnesota’s water quality rules ("In its comments, the federal Environmental Protection Agency points out that removing numeric limits for various pollutants in Class 3 and Class 4 waters strips those protections from all waters, because they are not currently mentioned in the standards for any other class.")


• Minnesota Court of Appeals sends PolyMet permit back to MPCA


• Minnesota falls further away from greenhouse gas reduction goals but
  (Reclaiming Its Place As America’s Clean Energy North Star Could Add $11 Billion To Minnesota’s Economy)


• The MPCA Citizens' Board met for the last time on June 23, 2015. The board was eliminated through actions of the 2015 Minnesota Legislature.

These are only some of the contentious cases and issues to which the Pollution Control Agency seems to be responding strategically by weakening, or not enforcing, environmental and permit standards. If, as players in a global economy, others follow FoMoCo's lead to seek suppliers certified for responsible mining, how will Minnesota fare? Not well in the long run we suspect.

Doughnut Economy

Have you heard the old saying about "Mother Nature bats last?" Do you suppose it's occurred to anyone other than radical environmentalists that allowing industrial manufacturing the same environmental leniency that has been permitted for industrial agriculture is a relatively sure, short term way to minimize the success of the human race? Has the world economy done a good job of responding to the current COVID-19 pandemic? What makes anyone think it will be any better the next time? It is past time to behave as if we realize that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. The world is not on track to meet the goals set and adopted as part of the Paris Agreement. The most productive soils in the corn belt have already been washed into the Gulf of Mexico. Lip service and con jobs and, especially, regulatory capture will not enable a successful, sustainable, global economy. The current economy is killing its own markets.

Among better ways to measure and track what's needed are Doughnut Economics, as proposed by Kate Raworth and adopted by increasing numbers of governments throughout the world.

Economics

Victoria Redel - 1959-

There were strollers, outgrown, circulated till a wheel fell off.

Anna’s infant RockaRoo went to Francesca then to Sophia

who gave it back to Anna when she had the twins.

Travel cribs traveled between homes and the green vest

Sophia knitted for Ming’s first was worn by all the next babies.

Onesies, drawstring gowns, snap-legged overalls,

snowsuits, sweatpants, jeans, t-shirts, jumpers,

all sorted, washed, boxed then sent on

till they were sorted, washed, boxed and sent again.

Pj’s worn to that silkiest perfection, then worn 

wholly through, reluctantly tossed. A blue dress

with applique lilacs was the favorite of each girl

and who knew where the velvet blazer came from,

but it did the job for more than one holiday concert.

Even this year, a photograph of Francesca’s youngest in
      Prague,

handsome in that hand-me-down wool pea coat. Sophia hit
      reply all:

Our last? No! Well, fits yours better than it ever did mine.

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May you feel the warmth of love this Valentine's Day

We're seeing reports that new low temperature records are being set over much of the North Country. We hope all of you get enough love today to keep your hearts warm and pumping. Beginning tomorrow, temperatures are forecast to slloooowwwwly increase. (We won't say "get warm" until they actually get above freezing.)

may your day be full of sweetness, light and warmth

Photo by J. Harrington

Later today the Better Half gets her very own first shot of COVID vaccine. We've been starting to feel guilty about being the only one in the family selected in the Minnesota lottery for vulnerable / older folks. Now we get to hope we've recovered from any effects of our second shot in time to drive her to her second shot in a month. Stay tuned.

Today's issue of The Writer's Almanac has a not very Valentiney report about today being Carl Bernstein's birthday. (Since he was born in 1944, he is definitely more than the 74 year's listed in the Almanac. Probably a typo.) Since he was one half of the journalist team that broke "Watergate," we find the observation attributed to him quite relevant after yesterday's Senate vote that failed to convict our former (fake) president. You should go read the whole piece, but here's what we find to be the money quote:

In 1992, in a cover story for The New Republic, Carl Bernstein wrote:

“For, next to race, the story of the contemporary American media is the great uncovered story in America today. We need to start asking the same fundamental questions about the press that we do of the other powerful institutions in this society — about who is served, about standards, about self-interest and its eclipse of the public interest and the interest of truth. For the reality is that the media are probably the most powerful of all our institutions today; and they are squandering their power and ignoring their obligation. They — or more precisely, we — have abdicated our responsibility, and the consequence of our abdication is the spectacle, and the triumph, of the idiot culture.”

Had Mr. Bernstein not been so prescient nor accurate, this would have been a happier Valentine's Day for many of us. Transforming an "idiot culture" requires much more love, patience, forebearance, and other redeeming qualities than voting out one or several idiots. We have work to be done if we love this country  and its ideals.

Idiot Psalm 12

By Scott Cairns

A psalm of Isaak, amid uncommon darkness

O Being both far distant and most near,

             O Lover embracing all unlovable, O Tender

             Tether binding us together, and binding, yea

             and tenderly, Your Person to ourselves,

Being both beyond our ken, and kindred, One

             whose dire energies invest such clay as ours

             with patent animation, O Secret One secreting 

             life anew into our every tissue moribund,

             afresh unto our stale and stalling craft, 

grant in this obscurity a little light.

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On Valentine's Eve

'Twas Valentine's Eve
and lovers, for loveds,
pulled cards, sweets, and flowers
from out of the cupboards

So Valentine's Day
would find all beloveds
enchanted and thrilled
with a visit from Cupid
     ~by Himself

You're welcome! It appears that, should we make it through tomorrow, St. Valentine has an even more wonderful present in store for those of us who have been trapped under an extended Polar Vortex. We get a warming trend right here in our own North Country. We may even break freezing in a week or so. Some of us will offer up a piece or two of chocolate as an offering that the warming trend holds through next October into November or so. No March or April blizzards this year, please! Let's let Mother Nature know we love her and hope she loves us back!

Let's let Mother Nature know we love her too!

Photo by J. Harrington

We are far from a "climate change" denier, but believe science would be well served by much better communications. It's really hard to reconcile a melting Arctic, disappearing glaciers and ice sheets and similar disasters with something like two weeks of well below "normal" temperatures, setting new records for low temperatures or extended cold periods or both. Those of us who have our hearts set on enjoying a better, more loving, tomorrow can do without excessive heat, cold, wet, dry or other weather abnormalities being described as simply "global warming," or "climate change."

God's World

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! 

   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! 

   Thy mists, that roll and rise! 

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag 

And all but cry with colour!   That gaunt crag 

To crush!   To lift the lean of that black bluff! 

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! 

Long have I known a glory in it all, 

         But never knew I this;  

         Here such a passion is 

As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear 

Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; 

My soul is all but out of me,—let fall 

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call. 

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A necessary errand in the cold

The temperature was about -3℉, and the windchill between -25℉ and -30℉, when we headed out a bit ago to get some bird seed. The metal trash can in the garage, that we use for rodent-proof storage, was down to a few crumbs. The cold spell has at least another week to go and we're not sure how many of this winter's seeds the chickadees and their buddies have already cached. It's not an ok time to stop feeding, so off we went for a 50 pound bag of coarse chipped sunflower seeds at the local feed and grain shop.

iced rim of heated bird bath - waterer

Photo by J. Harrington

As cold as it's been, we suspect the open water in the heated bird bath may be at least as helpful as sunflower seeds to the birds and squirrels in the neighborhood. This weekend, in fact, beginning today, it's the Great Backyard Bird Count. We haven't yet decided if we'll participate. We need to get a better idea if our collection of goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, cardinals, woodpeckers, etc. would add anything meaningful. This is, from our perspective, more a case of the mountains (birds) coming to Muhammad (feeders) and that doesn't feel quite right. We did see an all too infrequently glimpsed bird the other day as we were driving near the wetlands along County Road 36, a ruffed grouse. (No, it wasn't a hen pheasant.) There are few grouse around and we'd really like to see more of them and the even more rare woodcock.

White-Eyes

By Mary Oliver

In winter 

    all the singing is in 

         the tops of the trees 

             where the wind-bird 

with its white eyes 

    shoves and pushes 

         among the branches. 

             Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep, 

    but he's restless— 

         he has an idea, 

             and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings 

    as long as he stays awake. 

         But his big, round music, after all, 

             is too breathy to last. 

So, it's over. 

    In the pine-crown 

         he makes his nest, 

             he's done all he can. 

I don't know the name of this bird, 

    I only imagine his glittering beak 

         tucked in a white wing 

             while the clouds— 

which he has summoned 

    from the north— 

         which he has taught 

             to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall 

    into the world below 

         like stars, or the feathers 

               of some unimaginable bird 

that loves us, 

    that is asleep now, and silent— 

         that has turned itself 

             into snow.

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