Of fish, food, and farming foolishness

Shortly before we began writing this post, the outside temperature was a little more than 20℉ and the windchill made it feel like 13℉, even in today's bright sunshine. Walking the dog at mid-day was NOT a pleasure. Better days, or at least better weather, lie just ahead, we hope. We're looking forward to doing some gardening and fly-fishing. Recently, we've been gaining some insights into how closely water quality and food production have become linked.

A recent article in modern farmer, notes "About 54 percent of American cropland is rented, according to the USDA, and those renters are in a very precarious situation."

Investors in farmland often have different perspectives on the need for, and desirability of, conservation measures than farmer owner-operators. As described in Barriers For Farmers & Ranchers To Adopt Regenerative Ag Practices In The US

Changing the mindset of NFLOs [Non-Farming Land Owners] and empowering them to make changes with their tenants and land managers is a complex and challenging process. Recent research by American Farmland Trust reveals that if farmers and landowners start talking and are provided with the right resources, NFLOs are willing to support the implementation of conservation practices on rented lands.

 If you follow the lack of conservation practices across the land and downstream, you often find a multitude of instances of the kinds of problems Trout Unlimited and conservation partners have been working on for a number of years in the Driftless Area of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. It may seem like a radical idea, but since hunters and anglers have, for years and years, been supporting wildlife conservation through excise taxes on their equipment, perhaps it's time to consider a comparable tax on farming equipment, farmland owned by investors, or even commodity crops such as corn and soy beans. Take a look at reports about the environmental damage being inflicted by farming practices on the preponderance of acres and see if a tax to encourage conservation practices doesn't seem wise and needed.

Testament of a Fisherman ~ Robert Traver

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

Frog concert time #phenology

Last night the Better Half noticed a chorus of peepers and wood frogs. After she told me about it, I stepped onto the deck and heard Spring's first frogs in Minnesota's East Central North Country. Frog mating "songs" may have been heard earlier elsewhere [the calendar is based on the Driftless Area], but Springsong croaked last night in our neighborhood.

Several years ago we were surprised and delighted to discover a tree frog on the screen porch screens on March 30th. It seemed very early but that year was probably warmer than usual. Today's temperatures are about half of what yesterday's were and the "breezes" are even stronger. Tomorrow, temperature-wise, March will leave like a lion (cub) with highs just barely above freezing. Then it's an April Fool's joke with more cold and Spring finally returns by week's end. We are truly looking forward to the kind of weather that's actually a pleasure to be out in. Maybe the end of windchill season will settle for April 1st this year. That'd be nice and we bet the frogs would enjoy not getting covered by skim ice each night, too.

March 30: tree frog on screen

Photo by J. Harrington

Frog. Little Eden.

By Wendy Battin

Amphibious, at home

on the surface

tension, in

over my head, not

out of my depth, not deep

deep deep,

not in far. Not

high and dry, not

even in treetops,

where I sing water

into the root-hairs.

It seeks me, will not

forsake me.

Hand over hand it climbs.

It breaks

the first law of water,

all for my song.

Into the trunk and up, it greens

the leaves that the leaves may be

-emerald me.

The leaves breathe it out and I drink,

then sing

lest the water forget to rise

and the world be kindling.

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

Of farms and food

For several months now we've been pondering and reading and pondering about food and farms and air quality and water quality and human health and the climate crisis. We believe key factors can be found in these reports:

• Farming Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis


• Barriers For Farmers & Ranchers to Adopt Regenerative Ag Practices In The US


• Building Bioregional Food Systems Post-COVID 19: The Northeast Healthy Soil Network & the power of regional food system reform consortium work


• Duluth Citizens' Climate Plan: Food and Agriculture Actions

commodity corn: answer or problem?

Photo by J. Harrington

And, because we are a recovering planner, we feel obligated to share the American Planning Association's knowledge base resources on:

• Food Systems

This morning we managed to confirm at least part of the value proposition behind organic food, which is a central element of many of the food system improvements needed:

• Human health implications of organic food and organic agriculture


• Mayo Clinic: Organic foods: Are they safer? More nutritious?

No doubt there are those who will continue to claim organic, local / regional is too expensive and unnecessary in a global economy. There are also a distressing number of anti-vaxxers claiming vaccines are unsafe or unnecessary. Having read, or at least skimmed, the preponderance of the linked material, we believe the current industrial agriculture system is responsible for overproducing at least as much harm as good. It needs to be replaced or transformed into something better suited for maintaining healthy humans and human communities in a healthy environment. There are several legislative proposals at the federal level which help move US in that direction. One example is Representative Chellie Pingree's [D-ME-1] Agriculture Resilience Act [H.R.5861]. (Full disclosure: we haven't read H.R.5861 carefully enough to be sure if it incorporates what we believe is an appropriate level of performance requirements.) There is also Senator Booker's Farm System Reform Act of 2019 [S. 3221 (116th)]. With enough public interest and pressure, food system transformation will not be left like the weather (climate) where everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

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

Be forewarned, change is in the air!

 Today's northwest wind is cold and the temperature doesn't help much. It doesn't feel like Spring but it is early Spring and Winter hasn't yet conceded. Nevertheless, sometime during the next week or so we intend to decommission the snow blower and take the backblade off the tractor. This may, or may not, trigger an April snow storm of greater or lessor magnitude. In either case, the odds are very high that whatever falls will melt soon thereafter.

early April snow storm

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is Palm Sunday. Passover began yesterday. Next Sunday is Easter. In between this Sunday and next is April Fool's Day, which feels like a highly appropriate day on which to complete the two chores identified above, unless it's actually snowing on April 1. As of this week coming up, we move into the time of rebirth on earth. April is the month of marsh marigolds in the wetlands, of bluebirds returning, of bloodroot and hepatica in the woodlands and fields.

mid-April bloodroot

Photo by J. Harrington

Today's full moon is called the Snow Crust moon by the Ojibwe and the Snow Blindness moon by the Lakota. This year, uncharacteristically, neither of those is a good fit. Had the full moon occurred three weeks ago, either name would have characterized the landscape and its effects. Spring is a time of transition.

Thinking of Madame Bovary

Jane Kenyon - 1947-1995

The first hot April day the granite step
was warm. Flies droned in the grass.
When a car went past they rose
in unison, then dropped back down. . . .

I saw that a yellow crocus bud had pierced
a dead oak leaf, then opened wide. How strong
its appetite for the luxury of the sun!

Everyone longs for love’s tense joy and red delights.

And then I spied an ant
dragging a ragged, disembodied wing
up the warm brick walk. It must have been
the Methodist in me that leaned forward,
preceded by my shadow, to put a twig just where
the ant was struggling with its own desire.

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

Do we need an Agricultural Code of Ethics?

This morning I received a very pleasant surprise, the work of one of my long time environmental heroes was cited in a very recent editorial in the Times of Storm Lake Iowa [Editorial: Reaching our limits]. After spending a number of paragraphs describing Iowa's agricultural pollution and its consequences, Art Cullen, the Storm Lake Times editor, notes:

This was all foreseen more than 70 years ago by native Iowan Aldo Leopold, who predicted that all our chemicals and engineering would destroy us as we destroyed the land. He suggested in a key 1949 essay, The Land Ethic, while at the University of Wisconsin that we develop conservation agriculture as our ethos. Everything he suggested came true: the rivers have lost their former lives, the soil is washing down them, and in dominating the landscape we diminish ourselves. He suggested that we live as citizens of the land rather than over it. 

In the decades since we moved to Minnesota, we've observed a growing number of instances in which our adopted home has chosen to participate in races to the bottom with contenders such as Iowa. That's part of the problem resulting from the consolidation of economic, and consequently political, power.

agriculture in the Driftless Area

Photo by J. Harrington

A truism that's been with us since New Testament times is that “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” Perhaps that helps explain why Leopold's Land Ethic [Aldo Leopold Foundation The Land Ethic] is not acknowledged and followed more in the restorative agriculture sector.

Unless we are missing a significant distinction between "ethic" and "ethics," which is all too possible, we would quibble with Leopold's thinking and writing when he asserts that “I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written.’ Our experience with ethics has been in the context of the codes of conduct they articulate. For example, there's the Boone and Crockett Club's statement on hunter ethics and fair chase and Trout Unlimited's Code of Ethics. Maybe what we need is the broad, overarching Land Ethic from which we could derive an Agricultural Code of Ethics. What should that look like and encompass?

Ethics

by Linda Pastan

In ethics class so many years ago 
our teacher asked this question every fall: 
if there were a fire in a museum 
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting 
or an old woman who hadn't many 
years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs 
caring little for pictures or old age 
we'd opt one year for life, the next for art 
and always half-heartedly. Sometimes 
the woman borrowed my grandmother's face 
leaving her usual kitchen to wander 
some drafty, half imagined museum. 
One year, feeling clever, I replied 
why not let the woman decide herself? 
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews 
the burdens of responsibility. 
This fall in a real museum I stand 
before a real Rembrandt, old woman, 
or nearly so, myself. The colors 
within this frame are darker than autumn, 
darker even than winter — the browns of earth, 
though earth's most radiant elements burn 
through the canvas. I know now that woman 
and painting and season are almost one 
and all beyond saving by children.

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

Ah, Spring! Ah -- Spring?

If you watch carefully (not while driving, please) you should start to notice a tinge of fresh color appearing across the crowns of deciduous trees in our North Country. On most the color will be a faint shade of green; on some, pinkish, maroonish, or redish; and on others, yellowish tones. Leaf buds are bursting. The slightest edges of leaves are beginning to appear. Winter's drab browns and grays are being overpainted with Spring's fresh coats of living color.

late April leaf development

Photo by J. Harrington

The real change won't occur for another four to six or more weeks. By then leaf out will be well along and trees will again look more clothed than naked. During that period, we may, or may not, get one or more significant snowfalls. We haven't seen any analysis yet, but have the impression that our weather patterns are definitely getting more volatile. That can be difficult to adapt to. Ask a local farmer.

Spring in the North Country is an unsettled season at best. Climate breakdown seems to be making it more so. We spent almost all morning waiting for the temperature to rise above freezing. Next week the forecast daily high temperatures will double over a three or four day period from mid-30s to mid-70s. Remember the old saying about "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, it'll change?" We think it was first uttered in Springtime in Minnesota.

Crossings

Ravi Shankar

Between forest and field, a threshold 
like stepping from a cathedral into the street—
the quality of air alters, an eclipse lifts, 

boundlessness opens, earth itself retextured 
into weeds where woods once were.
Even planes of motion shift from vertical

navigation to horizontal quiescence:   
there’s a standing invitation to lie back 
as sky’s unpredictable theater proceeds. 

Suspended in this ephemeral moment 
after leaving a forest, before entering
a field, the nature of reality is revealed. 

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

The growth of Spring #phenology

We have a few, very few, patches of green showing up in the duff in front of the house. It's not clear what's growing in one location although the Better Half believes they may be dame's rocket. The second spot includes violets and wild strawberry plants that are encroaching on what used to be lawn. We've decided we prefer the more natural look.

dame's rocket? perhaps

Photo by J. Harrington

violets and wild strawberry leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The buds on the red maples have begun to swell noticeably. If we get a string of sunny days, a big if, we expect hope to see the start of leaf out in a week or three. That brings us to the point where we feel obliged to call your attention to the classic Spring Is a New Beginning. After all, from where we sit typing this, we can almost see the beginning of April.

This morning the deck sparkled with frost and much of the pond north of the house was covered in skim ice. Despite such temporary setbacks, we know that warmer days and greener landscapes will arrive on unspecified but inevitable future days. We're doing our part by slowly but surely letting a little more optimism slip into our outlook every day. There's not much point in carrying old baggage to a new beginning.

April Come She Will

Lyrics:

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks, she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning of her flight

August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old

© 1965 Words and Music by Paul Simon

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

Is there a phenology of migration triggers?

Yesterday afternoon we drove a circuit on the local roads around a large chunk of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area in Chisago County. We were looking for robins and red-winged blackbirds. Not a feather of either was to be seen, although we did see an osprey and two turkey hens on the northern leg, plus the waterfowl we've been reporting, and the Better Half spotted a cluster of pussy willows near a wetland on the southern leg.

Spring arrival, male red-winged blackbird

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we had to drive the southern leg of the same loop to run an errand, picking up heart worm and flea & tick meds for the dogs. Blond SiSi showed the season's first tick the day before yesterday. On our way to get the meds, we noticed two robins and two or three red-winged blackbirds. Where were they yesterday? Did they just arrive overnight? Was the time of day a significant factor? We'll probably never know, but their recent appearance puts the season's migration phenology back into a more usual framework.

Elsewhere, Journey North shows that both robins and blackbirds have been arriving in much of Minnesota only within the past week or two, while monarch butterflies and ruby-throated hummingbirds are still well south of our North Country. According to All About Birds:

The mechanisms initiating migratory behavior vary and are not always completely understood. Migration can be triggered by a combination of changes in day length, lower temperatures, changes in food supplies, and genetic predisposition.

Redwing Blackbird

Feet firmly perch 
thinnest stalks, reeds, bulrush. 
Until all at once, they attend my 
female form, streaked throat, brownness.

Three fly equidistant 
around me, flashing. 
Each, in turn, calls territorial 
trills, beckons ok-a-li, ok-a-li! 

Spreads his wings, extends 
inner muscle quivering red 
epaulet bands uniquely bolden. 

Turn away each suitor, 
mind myself my audience. 
Select another to consider, 
He in turn quiver thrills. 

Leave for insects. 
Perhaps one male follows. 
Maybe a few brood of young, 
line summertime. 

Silver Maple samaras 
wing wind, spread clusters 
along with mine, renewing Prairie. 

As summer closes, I leave 
dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, 
mosquitoes, moths, spiders, crickets for 

grain, see, Sunflower; 
join thousands to flock Sky— 
grackles, blackbirds, cowbirds, starlings— 
Swarming like distant smoke clouds, rising.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke 

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

Any day now ...

We're pleased to report that both ponds up the road are now ice free. Open water season is beginning. We've seen speculation that ice out on area lakes may be a week or ten days earlier than usual this year, The pond on the West side of the road held a pair of wood ducks this morning. Perhaps it's the same pair that set up housekeeping somewhere in the neighborhood last year.

early April flock of wood ducks on a local pond

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we managed to prune several dead branches from a large pine tree in front of the house, plus three or four branches from an oak behind the house. The oak branches kept catching the ROP bar on the tractor every time we tried to mow under them. That wasn't good either for the tractor or the branches and we wanted to be sure to finish that chore, and any related oak pruning, before the oak wilt unsafe season begins in April.

We've not yet seen hide nor feather of a red-winged blackbird nor a robin, nor any pussy willows. Perhaps, if we go for a local drive this afternoon...? It seems as if the sudden outburst of warmer than usual temperatures, coming close on the heels of a polar vortex, caught many of the Spring transitions off-guard, although we've read reports and seen pictures of huge flocks of snow and white-fronted geese moving north across western Minnesota and large flocks of sandhill cranes heading north over western Illinois and central Wisconsin. We've seen a few small flocks of cranes, don't expect to see any snow geese in our neck of the woods, and believe (hope?) the bulk of the waterfowl migration will arrive soon.

Spring

In the north country now it is spring and there 
Is a certain celebration. The thrush 
Has come home. He is shy and likes the 
Evening best, also the hour just before 
Morning; in that blue and gritty light he 
Climbs to his branch, or smoothly 
Sails there. It is okay to know only 
One song if it is this one. Hear it 
Rise and fall; the very elements of you should 
Shiver nicely. What would spring be 
Without it? Mostly frogs. But don’t worry, he

Arrives, year after year, humble and obedient 
And gorgeous. You listen and you know 
You could live a better life than you do, be 
Softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will 
Be able to do it. Hear how his voice 
Rises and falls. There is no way to be 
Sufficiently grateful for the gifts we are 
Given, no way to speak the Lord’s name 
Often enough, though we do try, and

Especially now, as that dappled breast 
Breathes in the pines and heaven’s 
Windows in the north country, 
Now spring has come, 
Are opened wide.

Mary Oliver

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

What's our clean water worth? #WorldWaterDay

 

Today is:    World Water Day and, at the Minnesota Legislature, it's Protect Pollinators Day. Without clean water and healthy food, we humans wouldn't be around for long. Will common sense ever become common? The graphic below is a screen capture from the Minnesota Pollution Control Ageny's Impaired Waters List map viewer. Water that  fails quality standards is red. What does it say about how much Minnesotans value clean water?

Meanwhile, Minnesota's regulatory agencies have had several permits, needed for unproven copper sulfate mine projects, suspended or overturned by the courts. [Full Disclosure: we'd rather support nonprofit environmental agencies than pay taxes to fund dysfunctional (regulatory capture) state "environmental protection" agencies.]

There's a current proposal to reduce existing water quality standards, which would make it easier to get a permit to discharge pollutants. Loosening standards might even make some of those red waters go away. They wouldn't be less polluted, you understand. The amount of pollution allowed before they're coded red would simply have been increased. Is that really what Minnesotans want as a "strategy  to protect the environment?" You can follow the MPCA rule-making process at this page. You can also learn what the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy thinks about the proposed revisions at this page. Next election, you might want to ask if the candidate you're thinking of supporting really supports clean air and clean water and healthy Minnesotans.

Water

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

The water understands 

Civilization well; 

It wets my foot, but prettily, 

It chills my life, but wittily, 

It is not disconcerted, 

It is not broken-hearted: 

Well used, it decketh joy, 

Adorneth, doubleth joy: 

Ill used, it will destroy, 

In perfect time and measure 

With a face of golden pleasure 

Elegantly destroy.

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

Spring -- cleaning the leaves

Oak leaves that have hung on all winter are being stripped from their branches today. The breeze is blowing at 25 mph and gusting up to 40+ mph at the same time warmer temperatures are causing the leaf buds for this years leaves to swell, loosening the holdfast at the base of the old leaf stem. By the end of the upcoming week, the branches should be bare and ready for a new season's growth. Meanwhile, we try to not get demoralized by oak leaves that fall from October or November through March, but the dogs persist in trying to eat some and the humans keep tracking some into the house, and the flower garden keeps getting buried under layers of fallen leaves. Would that our woods held many more maple trees than oaks. We'd have home made syrup and leaf fall that only occurred once a year.

Spring's green sprouts pushing up through oak leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

On the other hand, oaks provide mast (acorns) that helps feed squirrels (red and gray), chipmunks, turkeys, deer, and the occasional bear. The shape of burr oaks is often enchanting and the metallic hues of autumn's oak leaves are stunning. Perhaps we don't know as much about what "our" woods should hold as we think we do.

mid-Summer acorn

Photo by J. Harrington

The Oak

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

 

. . . It is the last survivor of a race
Strong in their forest-pride when I was young.
I can remember when, for miles around,
In place of those smooth meadows and corn-fields,
There stood ten thousand tall and stately trees,
Such as had braved the winds of March, the bolt
Sent by the summer lightning, and the snow
Heaping for weeks their boughs. Even in the depth
Of hot July the glades were cool; the grass,
Yellow and parched elsewhere, grew long and fresh,
Shading wild strawberries and violets,
Or the lark's nest; and overhead the dove
Had her lone dwelling, paying for her home
With melancholy songs; and scarce a beech
Was there without a honeysuckle linked
Around, with its red tendrils and pink flowers;
Or girdled by a brier-rose, whose buds
Yield fragrant harvest for the honey-bee
There dwelt the last red deer, those antler’d kings . . .
But this is as dream,—the plough has pass’d
Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked
On the green twilight of the forest-trees.
This oak has no companion! . . . . 

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

Welcome to this year's Vernal Equinox

In the Northern Hemisphere, it's the first day of Spring. The lack of snow cover is making us giddy. Plus, March is known for being a windy time of year and that's what we've got today. We've joined the crew in the Hundred Acre Wood for a blustery day. All told, despite the breezes, the weather is nice enough  that we saw a couple of motorcycles being ridden on the local roads.

late March bud burst

Photo by J. Harrington

Soon we'll be watching for and then enjoying the greening of the countryside. Undoubtedly, we'll try again  this year to get some wildflowers to grow on our Anoka sand plain hillside. In fact, we're hoping against hope 🤞that one or two of the pasque flowers we planted several years ago may actually bloom again. The dogs will soon start to enjoy longer walks since wind chill should no longer be part of the daily forecast. It remains to be seen if we'll actually get any sort of bud burst this month. Even in the North Country, that's been known to happen from time to time, although it's not a regular feature of March, unlike the little lame  balloon man.

[in Just-]

By E. E. Cummings

in Just- 

spring          when the world is mud- 

luscious the little 

lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 

running from marbles and 

piracies and it's 

spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 

old balloonman whistles 

far          and             wee 

and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it's 

spring 

and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 

far 

and 

wee

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

au revoir, Winter

Today is the last day of the Winter season of 2020 -- 2021. We are not sorry to see it go, especially after the mid-February visit from a polar vortex. However, before we get too terribly excited about enjoying Spring in our North Country, let us remind you that the average last frost date for our area is mid-May, although hardy vegetables and the like may be planted as early as April, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. We also remind you that early April can bring noteworthy snowfall as pictured below from 2014.

early "Spring" snowfall

Photo by J. Harrington

So, despite what the calendar tells us, Winter will return next December 1 for meteorologists, on Winter solstice for the rest of us, and almost anytime between now and then, depending on Mother Nature's whimsy. With a little luck, we should get to enjoy at least a few warm, sunny days between now and next Winter.

is mid-April too early to emerge?

Photo by J. Harrington

As we reviewed some photos of past years' waterfowl migrations, we convinced ourselves that the main body of the Northern migration probably hasn't reached us yet. At least we have some pictures of lots more swans, geese and ducks than are evident at the moment. In part, we suspect that's because many of even the smaller ponds, and about all of the larger lakes, are still ice covered. That limits the ability of waterfowl to spread out and claim nesting places. Next week's warmer days and rainfall should help open the local surface waters although the median ice out date for Forest Lake is April 9.

Putting in the Seed

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

You come to fetch me from my work to-night 
When supper's on the table, and we'll see 
If I can leave off burying the white 
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. 
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, 
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) 
And go along with you ere you lose sight 
Of what you came for and become like me, 
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. 
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed 
On through the watching for that early birth 
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, 
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes 
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

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

To honor Women's History Month, do we need a "Human Future Month?"

The Sunrise River pools at Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area are more water than ice these days. A variety of waterfowl seem to believe Spring has come early, since they've returned to the North Country. Some until Autumn migration, others just to rest before continuing North. Today we saw trumpeter swans, Canada geese, plus several varieties of ducks, from large (mallards) to small (teal?). Nesting will begin soon for those remaining here.

mixed waterfowl on Sunrise River pools

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we had some business at our credit union, which brought us within a mile or so of one of our favorite bookstores, so, of course, we were obliged to stop in. There was a fascinating display of books by women authors, presumably in honor of Women's History Month (we didn't look for an explanatory sign). Included were three books we've been thinking about for awhile, so we used up the last of a Christmas gift certificate and brought home:

• Everything Comes Next, Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye


• World of Wonders, In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and


• The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

The first is a book of poetry by one of our favorite poets; the second a book of essays by a poet whose poetry we've not yet begun to read; and the third a new novel about which we've read very good things. We're about a quarter of the way through World of Wonders, intermittent insomnia increases reading time. It's a joy to read and a delightful alternative to studying about regenerative agriculture and valuing ecosystem services, which we've been doing for several weeks now. All in all, we feel very much as though we were blessed by the luck of the Irish on this St. Patrick's Day, especially since it looks as though much of next week will be rainy, which may keep us indoors instead of outside searching for pussy willows and red-winged blackbirds.

We've noticed that much of the contemporary work we find most compelling these days has been done by women, which, we know, is not to be taken as "women's work." We've been (re)reading for several years Robin Wall Kimmerer's writings on integrating traditional ecological knowledge with western science and the linkage between language and perspective toward the world. Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics provides an essential framework for rethinking alternatives to perpetual growth on a finite planet. Naomi Klein has, for many years, been informing us about the dark sides of capitalism and how it changes everything. It wouldn't be difficult to argue that women are likely to be more critical to our having a future than a history. In fact, we think there should be a Human Future Month starting next year.

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou - 1928-2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

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

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Irish soda bread with Irish blessing

Photo by J. Harrington

Although the story tells us that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, we believe he could have accomplished much more for the world, and the reputation of Christianity, if he had managed to drive all snakes forever from politics. The Irish, and their emigrant descendants, would be much better off had that happened. Unfortunately for US, St. Patrick did his work well before the American colonies were colonized, so it's far from clear if any such fantasy banishment could have held "across the pond." That helps explain how we now have Republicans in American politics and snakes like tRUMP can get elected. Obviously, if our "luck of the Irish" hasn't run out, it's come too close for comfort.

The good news is that more and more folks, in Ireland, America, and elsewhere, are coming to realize that the wearing of the Green, e.g., the Green New Deal(s), and turning the world economy into a green doughnut may bring back much of the luck we'll need to continue as a species among others on this earth. Would that the famous photo of earth had been labeled a "pale green dot," or that someone had turned the distant oceans green just before the photo was taken.

In lieu of a poem today, in honor of St. Patrick, we'll leave you with one of our favorite Irish Blessings.

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life’s passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

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

A convocation of Cardinals

At dusk yesterday, as the late Winter, very early Spring snow fell, our feeders were visited by five cardinals: three males and two females. Cardinals being as twitchy as they are, we couldn't get all five in the picture at the same time but we were delighted to see each of them.

male and female cardinals on deck railing

Photo by J. Harrington

male cardinal perched above deck

Photo by J. Harrington

male cardinal seen through deck balusters

Photo by J. Harrington

We ended up with about 2 inches of fresh snow, not enough to do anything about except let it melt, unless you're our township, which no longer seems to have, or to follow, a policy of only plowing when the snowfall exceeds three inches. The fresh snow has made it obvious that we have a very active pocket gopher in the field behind the house. There are three new, fresh gopher mounds appearing almost black against the white snow. Time to dig out the gopher traps and long-handled spade!

We know that it's not officially astronomical Spring until Saturday, but the roller coaster weather keeps us on edge with its tantalizing false promises. We keep forgetting that Lao Tzu has noted that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" and that observation is certainly true as we await real Spring in the North Country.

Red Bird Explains Himself

“Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bringing sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.

But don’t stop there, stay with me: listen.

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed there, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body.  Do you understand?  for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul.  And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.”

from Red Bird, Mary Oliver, Beacon Press, © 2008 by Mary Oliver

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

Some stories of Spring

Yesterday, we watched three sandhill cranes land in a nearby stubble field. This morning we noticed a flock of four cranes flying  toward the marshes surrounding the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area Sunrise River pools. The pools themselves are hosting growing numbers of waterfowl. Before you conclude that Spring has actually arrived in the North Country, let us point out that this afternoon's weather forecast includes several hours of snowfall, continuing well into the night. If anything ever consistently demonstrates the pattern of "two steps forward, one step back," it's Springtime in the North Country.

sandhill cranes in Carlos Avery marshes

Photo by J. Harrington

As we've been writing this, we've also been baking some Irish Soda bread in preparation for St. Patrick's Day on Wednesday. The house smells wonderful. Fortunately, we promised the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law that we'd bake a loaf for them, and we'll bake another loaf later this week for the Better Half [BH] and "himself." (That's me!) If we time it well, the house should smell a bit like a kitchen in "the old country" for the rest of the week, since BH is planning on serving corned beef and cabbage on Wednesday.

Still no sightings of robins, red-winged blackbirds or pussy willows. If we don't get too much snow this afternoon and tonight, tomorrow might be a good day to go poking around for awhile to see what we can see. Or, to enjoy the luck o'the Irish, we can wait until Wednesday.

Unlike objects, two stories can occupy the same space

By Charles Peek

Out along the last curve in the brick walk

the grass has begun to green,

with the freezing cold and coming snow

its certain fate.

The cranes make the same mistake,

fields of red capped heads attest their arrival

just before the worst blizzard of winter

makes it impossible to tell the field from the river.

And we, too, have known these mortal mishaps,

miscalculated our time, found ourselves out of step,

arriving too early, staying on too late,

misjudging the nearness, the vengeance of the storm.

The cranes, the grass, they tell us:

this can go on for millions of years.

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

A time full of promise

Six years ago today, the neighborhood looked like the picture below. Spring's beachhead was well established. This year Spring seems to be advancing a week or two behind 2016's timetable. The polar vortex of a couple of weeks ago probably set us back that much. Since we've entered our "senior years," we've noticed that the time between the Ides of March (that's tomorrow) and bud burst feels much longer than the two weeks before Christmas did in our younger days.

open water, mid-March 2016

Photo by J. Harrington

Southern Minnesota may get 6 ± inches of snow tonight and tomorrow. So far, at least, the forecasts have the snow line ceasing South of us. We hope the forecast is correct as far as our area is concerned, although the extended forecast of above normal temperatures through  the end of this month sounds good and should promptly attend to any flakey incursion. Then, again, the normal overnight low doesn't get above freezing until early April in these latitudes.

We still recall our mother warning us that we were spending our youth "wishing our life away." That's an easy habit for the young to develop and support. Some of us oldsters are now learning to enjoy each moment of each day for whatever pleasures we can find. No time and no place has offered better opportunities for learning that lesson than Spring in the North Country, a time when we look toward Mother Nature and exclaim "Promises, promises!"

The Seasons Moralized

Philip Freneau - 1752-1832

They who to warmer regions run,
May bless the favour of the sun,
But seek in vain what charms us here,
Life’s picture, varying with the year.

Spring, and her wanton train advance
Like Youth to lead the festive dance,
All, all her scenes are mirth and play,
And blushing blossoms own her sway.

The Summer next (those blossoms blown)
Brings on the fruits that spring had sown,
Thus men advance, impelled by time,
And Nature triumphs in her prime.

Then Autumn crowns the beauteous year,
The groves a sicklier aspect wear;
And mournful she (the lot of all)
Matures her fruits, to make them fall.

Clad in the vestments of a tomb,
Old age is only Winter's gloom—
Winter, alas! shall spring restore,
But youth returns to man no more.

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

Busy week ahead!

• Tomorrow Daylight Savings Time starts. Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead!

• Wednesday is St. Patrick's Day, a very important feast day for those of us "of Irish extraction."

• Saturday is Spring Equinox, when the astronomical calendar catches up with the meteorological one, and those of us in the Northern hemisphere are again all in the same season. (We're not sure but suspect south of the Equator is a mirror image.)

mid-March pussy willows

Photo by J. Harrington

Between now and equinox we plan to keep our eyes open for pussy willow catkins. Meanwhile, we took advantage of today's unseasonably beautiful weather and cleaned out the martin / swift house and re-closed the drop front on each of the two bluebird houses. The fire pit got dragged out and we atavistically enjoyed burning some of the winter's fallen branches. We also spent some time cleaning up after the dogs. Why has no one that we know of figured our how to train dogs to clean up after themselves? Neither of ours can run the vacuum to clean up dog hairs either! We shouldn't complain, it felt great to enjoy being outside doing something other than walking a dog or blowing some snow.

Some of the neighbors must have felt the same. We saw walkers, joggers, bicyclists, four-wheelers, and a tractor pulling a load of firewood going up and/or down the road in front of the house. It's almost as if, other than the tractor, suburbia is catching up to us out here in the country.

We've still not seen any robins nor red-winged blackbirds although we won't be surprised if one or both are spotted around here some time this week. It's also reached the time of year when we bring in the feeders every evening to limit the temptation offered to local bears awakening from hibernation. They may not yet be up and about but we'd rather be a few days early than a day late with the feeders.

Near Spring Equinox 

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

A ruby crocus near the porch sends up
hope—winter of sorrow is waning
the dire moon of almost-spring rises
full with promise of renewal,
shaming twinkling city lights in its splendor. 

I search for my faith, wonder where
I lost it, find it in deep cinnamon
mud smushing up between my toes.
Across a spent field, a lake in shadow
serenades curvature of earth.
As if on cue, a comet streaks
across somber roiling river of sky. 

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