Were fossil fuels just a bridge?

July certainly has been an interesting month this year: record-setting heat waves, wide-spread drought, smoke-filled skies from hundreds of wildfires in Canada, and a third surge of the COVID-19 virus, Delta variant this time. Now that the Democrats are letting the federal eviction ban expire, the homeless population is likely to expand or we'll see a strange case of musical chairs, but, as I've read, landlords are hesitant to rent to those who've been evicted so I can't begin to guess how that may play out.

Is it possible that  we've reached a point at which the  new normal is that there is no normal, and won't be for some time? A dictionary definition if normal is "conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine." Do you foresee a near future in which  we can characterize anything as usual, typical or routine? The "rock" is the need to transform our society and economy to become carbon-neutral within a generation or so. The "hard place" will be found as the consequence of not rapidly completing those transformations, plus the continuing disruptions to what was considered normal during  the last millennium. We're caught between them. Some may think we are approaching the time of the rapture or the end of days. I'm wondering if genesis might not be a better model to consider.

Western "civilization" is being cast out of its paradise founded on fossil fuels, which supplied energy to do the work of moving and warming things between the time of feudalism and whatever comes after where we are. We may have initially responded to the discovery of how to use oil in a manner similar to that of animals no longer constrained by predators or food shortages. [See, e.g., Kaibab Deer Herd and table below] 

World population milestones in billions (Worldometers estimates)
Population	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Year	1804	1927	1960	1974	1987	1999	2011	2023	2037	2057
Years elapsed	—	123	33	14	13	12	12	12	14	20

 The question now becomes, will we exhibit enough sense and cooperation and collaboration to structure a soft landing, or will we resolve our  imbalances through a devastating crash. The choice is ours.

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

I'm old enough to remember Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb. I found the approach and analysis in Limits to Growth to be more persuasive. In fact, "In 2020, analysis by Gaya Herrington (Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States but in a personal capacity) found that current empirical data is broadly in line with the 1972 projections.^[50][51]" Unfortunately, our "world leaders" seem more interested in contesting who's going to get to be the captain of our Titanic earth as it sinks, rather than checking the radar screen and the rearview mirror. As Yogi Berra has told us, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

Olympic Drive

By Kyle Dargan

Los Angeles

Across from the gorgeous dog park,

men dream against poodle-pissed trees — 

their pillows made from breath captured

in milk cartons. Only arid, temperate

climate offers respite. Let us suppose

they have tales, here in this city

where filmed stories turn a mint.

All around, one wide screen — the dark hills

due north pixel-pocked with villa lights.

Below, streets hemmed with haggard

brown men — jack-in-the-box bodies

ever unfolding. Who is pitching

this script? Title: “The Child of 1968.”

Voiceover: After the Integration Apocalypse,

one man must find his way in a land

where the sole survivors who look or speak

like him are those rendered disturbed

and indigent. Assume the Motion Picture

Association eager to levy a “Rated R,”

then remember that those who judge

violence never shared your definition

of savagery. A culling is all your eyes

decipher — your herd thinned. No urban

wildlife anywhere to be found,

yet hunger for a hunt remains.

Tagline: A hero must choose — 

between starving or bartering one’s own

skin. Plot: Amidst the solar famine, bio-

electric studies revealed melanin’s subtle

charge — the brown population gone

mad from being sapped like CopperTops.

Imagine The Matrix without the extra-

terrestrial machines. Imagine that among us

there have lived men churning statistics,

devising a human harvest, a brutal method

to subsist off fellow men and leave their bones

for the gnawing of next century’s mutts.

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Time to extinguish a few crises

So, yesterday's good news is that I had enough sense to begin wearing a COVID-19 face mask while outside for any period of time in the smoke-filled air of east-central Minnesota, such as when walking the dogs. We all know the bad news, that we're setting Minnesota records for bad air quality from forest fires to our north and others to our west. If face masks are a means to help keep teeny, tiny virus particles out of my airways, they should also work to reduce inhalation of smoke and/or fine particles (PM 2.5).

this time last summer, spotted horsemint was more abundant

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, the drought continues; the current administration continues to avoid the implications of not suspending or revoking the permits allowing  construction to continue on Enbridge's new Line 3 tar sands transport pipe; folks are beginning to suffer whiplash from "adjustments" to indoor mask "guidelines" related to the delta variant of COVID; and, in a much lesser vein, I became thoroughly embarrassed to learn that Minnesota's sharp-tailed grouse range extends much further east and south than I ever knew. (I know about the Northcentral zone and have almost since I moved to Minnesota. Somehow, the East-central zone has stayed off my radar screen until this morning.)

It's no doubt timely for information affecting hunters and hunting seasons to begin to be released by the Department of Natural Resources in late July, since Sunday, two days from now is Lughnasadh, the beginning of Gaelic harvest time in the Druid Way. As we continue toward autumn, may the wildfires and their smoke be contained and extinguished; may all of US who can safely do so get vaccinated, extinguishing the COVID virus; and may the state and/or federal governments extinguish the Line 3 permits and honor the treaties which Line 3's construction fails to honor.

Tiger Mask Ritual

By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

When you put on the mask the thunder starts.

Through the nostril’s orange you can smell

the far hope of rain. Up in the Nilgiris,

glisten of eucalyptus, drip of pine, spiders tumbling

from their silver webs.

The mask is raw and red as bark against your facebones. 

You finger the stripes ridged like weals

out of your childhood. A wind is rising

in the north, a scarlet light

like a fire in the sky.

When you look through the eyeholes it is like falling.

Night gauzes you in black. You are blind

as in the beginning of the world. Sniff. Seek the moon.

After a while you will know

that creased musky smell is rising

from your skin.

Once you locate the ears the drums begin.

Your fur stiffens. A roar from the distant left,

like monsoon water. You swivel your sightless head.

Under your sheathed paw

the ground shifts wet.

What is that small wild sound

sheltering in your skull

against the circle that always closes in

just before dawn?

Note

The poem refers to a ritual performed by some Rajasthani hill tribes to ensure

           rain and a good harvest.

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It's Earth Overshoot Day! even for Minnesota!

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. In 2021, it falls on July 29.

Explore ecological footprint by country

Minnesota's 2015 ecological footprint, plus that for other states, can be found here. One of the critical elements of  an ecological footprint is a carbon footprint. Minnesota's carbon footprint is almost identical with the United States' average, but it's total ecological footprint exceeds the country's average.

where do our footprints lead?

Photo by J. Harrington

Once upon a time, Minnesota had a state planning agency and that agency, among other things, produced a report called Minnesota Milestones. We no longer  have the benefit of either the agency nor the tracking of progress against our stated common goals. Instead we have things like the Environmental Review Process which is finally beginning to consider if the state should consider greenhouse gas emissions as part of a proposed project's environmental impact.

We have heard reports that, at its September meeting, the Environmental Quality Board will consider deferring for a year implementation of recommendations to estimate project GHG  emissions, due to cost and complexity. We have not seen explanations of why or how such inclusion will be less costly a year from now and, we note, doing the estimations is not rocket science. There is abundant guidance available.

Minnesota has been failing to meet the climate goals of the 2007 legislation. Deferring implementation of GHG estimates as part of the environment review process can, in no way, improve that situation. In our opinion, the state should have started including GHGs in  any projects subject to environmental review after 2007. If it had, we might be a skosh closer to meeting the goals of that legislation and the reductions now required to maintain a habitable atmosphere on Earth suitable for humans to thrive would be more readily attainable.

[Traveler, your footprints]

By Antonio Machado
Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney

Traveler, your footprints

are the only road, nothing else.

Traveler, there is no road;

you make your own path as you walk.

As you walk, you make your own road,

and when you look back

you see the path

you will never travel again.

Traveler, there is no road;

only a ship's wake on the sea.

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It's seventh generation time

This morning, crossing the road near the front of our house, we saw two wild turkey hens, each with a handful of poults, one group small, the other very small. We hope they found a relatively  safe and dry spot to shelter from the late morning, early afternoon storms. There were a couple of downpours with some marble-sized hail mixed in during each. The young turkeys looked to be small enough they could have been injured by a direct hit from one or two hailstones.

turkey hens with broods of poults, early  August

Photo by J. Harrington

Usually, by this time in the summer, we're seeing chicks that are more than twice the size of the ones we saw this morning. [See photo above.] That strongly suggests incubation occurred later in the spring for at least some clutches. Under these circumstances, it would be irresponsible of us not to point out "better late than never." [That no doubt proves we've never been pregnant.] Unfortunately, too little, too late may be a more accurate description of how Minnesota, and other governments, are approaching greenhouse gas reductions and mitigation of the effects of climate breakdown. From the state's climate web site home page, we read:

We must redouble our efforts to meet our goals. In 2007, Governor Tim Pawlenty signed the Next Generation Energy Act (NGEA), which outlined a series of goals for reducing carbon emissions and supporting energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy in Minnesota. The NGEA, which had bipartisan support in the state legislature, set statutory goals to reduce GHG emissions in the state by 30% by 2025 (from 2005 levels) and by 80% by 2050. But Minnesota did not meet its 2015 goal of 15% reduction, and is not on track to meet the 2025 goal.

The next international climate change conference, schedule for this coming October, informs us that "The world needs to halve emissions over the next decade and reach net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century if we are to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees." Unless I've missed something significant, a net zero goal is notably more rigorous than an 80% reduction. Governments and politicians continue to shuck and jive US even when pretending to be transparent about bad news. I suspect a big part of the problem is that most political leaders are likely to be long gone before the worst case scenario catches up with them.

We would all be better served if our leaders followed the seventh generation principle or philosophy of the Iroquois nation as described below:

... In all of your deliberations in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self interest shall be cast into oblivion.  Cast not over your shoulder behind you the warnings of the nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law which is just and right.  Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground -- the unborn of the future Nation."

The Heart of the Tree
Henry Cuyler Bunner - 1855-1896

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
   The shaft of beauty, towering high;
   He plants a home to heaven anigh;
      For song and mother-croon of bird
      In hushed and happy twilight heard—
The treble of heaven's harmony—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
   And years that fade and flush again;
      He plants the glory of the plain;
      He plants the forest's heritage;
      The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
   And far-cast thought of civic good—
   His blessings on the neighborhood,
      Who in the hollow of His hand
      Holds all the growth of all our land—
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.

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Weathering the times and mores

I've managed to exceed even my normal levels of grumpy-old-manness this summer. If  I were much more irrational and mean and ornery and short-sighted, they'd make me an honorary Republican. [That's honorary, not honorable. There's only about two honorable Republicans I can think of at the moment.]

Weather forecasts keep promising heat, humidity and thunderstorms, but only deliver the first two. When I was young, sometime in the second half of the last millennium, my mother used to warn me to stop wishing my life away. That's one of a long list of things on which I should have listened to her more intently. Meanwhile, after another scorcher tomorrow, cooler temperatures are supposed to visit, at least for awhile. Depending on how badly we've broken the climate, that may, or may not, begin a longer downward trend from summer's peak to winter's nadir. As a potential means of cheering myself up, I looked it up on the internet. Here's what we can expect if we approximate what used to be normal.

Monthly: 1981-2010 normals - averages, St. Paul

Next month average precipitation increases and average high and low temperatures drop. That's to the good for the next several months. If we follow the historical pattern, it won't be my mother's voice that may be haunting me, it may be those of the nuns who used to regularly inform us grade schoolers that we weren't "sugar plums that will melt in a little bit of rain." To avoid those voices from the past, I'll be getting out and about to limber up for the best three months of the year.

[If you didn't notice, today's title is a play on the Latin phrase "o tempora! o mores!"]

Walking To Oak-Head Pond, And Thinking Of The Ponds I Will Visit In The Next Days And Weeks

by Mary Oliver

What is so utterly invisible
as tomorrow?
Not love,
not the wind,

not the inside of a stone.
Not anything.
And yet, how often I'm fooled--
I'm wading along

in the sunlight--
and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead--
I can see the light spilling

like a shower of meteors
into next week's trees,
and I plan to be there soon--
and, so far, I am

just that lucky,
my legs splashing
over the edge of darkness,
my heart on fire.

I don't know where
such certainty comes from--
the brave flesh
or the theater of the mind--

but if I had to guess
I would say that only
what the soul is supposed to be
could send us forth

with such cheer
as even the leaf must wear
as it unfurls
its fragrant body, and shines

against the hard possibility of stoppage--
which, day after day,
before such brisk, corpuscular belief,

shudders, and gives way.

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Are our CAFO regs all wet?

During the past several days, we've had a chance to see severe flooding affect parts of China, England and the U.S. Meanwhile, a multitude of wildfires are burning in Canada and the western U.S. It's obvious, if we stop to think about it, that our built environment, and much of our "managed" natural environment, are neither constructed nor operated to minimize the climate and weather related hazards to which we are now exposed.

storms get more intense even in farm country

Photo by J. Harrington

This would be of less concern if we had the slightest idea what should be used for new or improved design standards or building codes. But, if what once was a 1,000 year storm now has a return frequency of a couple of decades, due to increased weather and storm volatility and other climate crisis related factors, when and under what conditions should floodplain identification be modified; setbacks be expanded, pipes and lagoons be oversized, etc.? Shouldn't these kinds of questions be raised and answered before new or expanded confined animal feeding operations [CAFOs] be allowed? The Environmental Working Group, five years or so ago, released a report on North Carolina's "fields of filth." To my knowledge, there hasn't been a comparable evaluation of Minnesota's requirements, despite the growing impacts of climate breakdown. Would we not be better served to have a review before the situation gets much worse? In the climate change world, I believe such  an approach is referred to as adaptation. For most of US it needs to become common sense, especially in the Midwest, where, according to this data, both Minnesota and Iowa rank ahead of North Carolina in hog production.

Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.

Wallace Stevens - 1879-1955

It is true that the rivers went nosing like swine,
Tugging at banks, until they seemed
Bland belly-sounds in somnolent troughs,

That the air was heavy with the breath of these swine,
The breath of turgid summer, and
Heavy with thunder’s rattapallax,

That the man who erected this cabin, planted
This field, and tended it awhile,
Knew not the quirks of imagery,

That the hours of his indolent, arid days,
Grotesque with this nosing in banks,
This somnolence and rattapallax,

Seemed to suckle themselves on his arid being,
As the swine-like rivers suckled themselves
While they went seaward to the sea-mouths.

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Business as usual? Really?

This morning I finally finished reading What Is Life?: five great ideas in biology, by the Nobel laureate, Paul Nurse. At the risk of being a spoiler, I want to share the books penultimate paragraph. I hope the reason for sharing becomes self evident.

Our planet is the only corner of the universe where we know for certain life exists. The life we are part of here on Earth is extraordinary. It constantly surprises us but, in spite of its bewildering diversity, scientists are making sense of it, and that understanding makes a fundamental contribution to our culture and our civilization. Our growing understanding of what life is has great potential to improve the lot of humankind. But this knowledge goes even further. Biology shows us that all the living organisms we know of are related and closely interacting. We are bound by a deep connectedness to all other life: to the crawling beetles, infecting bacteria, fermenting yeast, inquisitive mountain gorillas and flitting yellow butterflies that have accompanied us during our journey through  this book, as well as to every other member of the biosphere. Together, all these species are life's great survivors, the latest descendants of a single, immeasurably vast family lineage that stretches back through  an unbroken chain of cell divisions into the far reaches of deep time.

With the preceding paragraph as background, please now follow this link and read  A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news.

read the whole report

I believe it  is critical to be aware that the authors of the 1972 study did an update in the early 1990's that reiterated the key themes of the original study. Please read carefully:

The book was interpreted by many as a prediction of doom, but it was not a prediction at all. It was not about a preordained future. It was about a choice. It contained a warning, to be sure, but also a message of promise. Here are the three summary conclusions we wrote in 1972. The second of them is the promise, a very optimistic one, but our analysis justified it then and still justifies it now. Perhaps we should have listed it first.

1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his or her individual human potential.

3. If the world’s people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success. (Meadows et al., 1972)

We, the  world's people, are now facing strong reticence to change from those with vested interests in continuing business as usual and much  to gain if the status quo is maintained. If those interests prevail, it may well be at the expense of life on Earth as we know it. Think about that, then act appropriately!

If you are  looking for additional information on the limits to growth, you can start here. Type limits to growth in the search box.

American Future

By Peter Bethanis

In 1963 the morning probably seemed harmless enough

to sign on the dotted line as the insurance man

talked to my parents for over an hour

around a coffee table about our future.

This roof wasn't designed to withstand meteors

he told my father, who back then had a brush haircut

that made his ears stick out, his moods

still full of passion, still willing to listen,

my mother with her beehive hairdo,

smiling back at him, all three of them

wanting so much to make the fine print

of the world work. They laughed

and smoked, and after they led the man

politely to the door, my parents returned

to the living room and danced in the afternoon light,

the phonograph playing Frank Sinatra,

the green Buick's payments up to date,

five-hundred dollars safely in the bank—

later that evening, his infallible common sense

ready to protect us from a burst pipe or dry rot,

my father waded up to his ankles in water,

a V of sweat on the back of his shirt.

Something loomed deeper than any basement

on our block, larger than he was,

a fear he could not admit was unsolvable

with a monkey wrench or a handshake and a little money down.

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Saving the place we grew up

Lat night's (this morning's?) rain amounts were highly variable. The city to our south got about 0.5 inch; to our east about 1 1/4 inches; to our north about 1.5 inches. That means we probably got 1 to 1.5 inches here. SiSi, my rescue dog, needed her paw held for awhile about 2:45 am while the thunders and lightnings were booming around. We were fortunate that the storms continued east before it was time for our early morning walk.

robins in driveway puddle

Photo by J. Harrington

A couple of robins enjoyed splashing and playing in the driveway's large puddle this morning. The drive is again covered in dead oak branches, broken by the storm's winds. It appears there may be more than a little validity to the climate scientists' claims that our climate crisis is triggering more volatility in our weather. 😉 Climate breakdown doesn't cause these storms and heat waves, it makes them more intense when they do occur. Plants and animals may find it difficult to impossible to adapt to extended periods of drought interspersed with intense, excessive precipitation episodes. Look at New York's and China's recent flood examples to see what's happening to our built environment. Unfortunately, even the Democrats are not responding to GHG emission reductions as if they thought "climate change"  was the crisis it is, nor are adaptive actions moving expediently enough. Today's Republicans, on the other hand, are as useful now as they were during the original New Deal. May they suffer the same fate!

Despite my continuing, and growing, frustrations with the Democratic Party, from time to time there are reasons to hope for a better future. This morning I read one such reason, Q&A: 23-Year-Old Rural Organizer Anderson Clayton on Making Change and Coming Home. One part that really  caught my attention is

... what a rural Democratic Party is all about. A party that shows up everywhere, meets people where they are (on their front porch), and cares deeply about the community they call home. This fight isn’t about winning or losing to me, it’s about saving the place where I grew up. And that is going to be a long battle, but one that’s worth fighting each and every day. I don’t have to win rural communities for me to feel we’re making progress in them. But we do have to start speaking up and holding our local government accountable to the people who live there.

The same themes apply at the state and national levels. The place all of US call home is Earth and we all need to "start speaking up and holding our ... government accountable to the people who live there."

Travelling Storm

Mark Van Doren - 1894-1972

The sky, above us here, is open again. 
The sun comes hotter, and the shingles steam. 
The trees are done with dripping, and the hens
Bustle among bright pools to pick and drink. . . . 
But east and south are black with speeding storm. 
That thunder, low and far, remembering nothing,
Gathers a new world under it and growls, 
Worries, strikes, and is gone.  Children at windows 
Cry at the rain, it pours so heavily down,
Drifting across the yard till the sheds are grey. . . . 
A county father on, the wind is all—
A swift dark wind that turns the maples pale, 
Ruffles the hay, and spreads the swallows’ wings. 
Horses, suddenly restless, are unhitched,
And men, with glances upward, hurry in; 
Their overalls blow full and cool; they shout;
Soon they will lie in barns and laugh at the lightning. . . . 
Another county yet, and the sky is still; 
The air is fainting; women sit with fans
And wonder when a rain will come that way. 

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The apples of my eye

Yesterday's rain remains an unfulfilled promise in our area. Tonight's outlook is more promising but we'll  not hold out breath while we wait. Meanwhile, thanks to an inspired suggestion from the Better Half [BH], and the effectiveness of our  air  conditioning, tonight we'll push summer into apple season. I'm going to fix grilled cheddar cheese and sliced apple on sourdough sandwiches. I first discovered the recipe in my copy of The Apple Lover's Cookbook.

a bowl of ripe apples

Photo by J. Harrington

Friday nights are usually my turn to take care of dinner. Many of my standbys have become shopworn and this morning I awoke with an urge to fix grilled cheddar apple sandwiches but no desire to run around to pick up the ingredients. That's when the BH suggested a trip to our local bookstore and the food coop next door. I can only conjecture that the heat and humidity has affected my brain to the extent that such an obvious solution never occurred to me.

So, we now have local food, independent local book dealer, contributions to our local economy, and no subsidy for a billionaire space cowboy, leading to a tasty Friday night meal. After dinner I'll start to read the book I bought at Scout & Morgan, All We Can Save, Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. I am, admittedly, late to arrive at the particular party described in that book but, as we note, better late than never. I continue to vacillate between desires to save our world versus the urge to condemn the world we've created, or allowed others to create on us. As I bounce back and forth, I keep remembering the Japanese saying about resilience: "fall down seven times, get up eight."

A Short History of the Apple

Dorianne Laux - 1952-

The crunch is the thing, a certain joy in crashing through
living tissue, a memory of Neanderthal days.
   —Edward Bunyard, The Anatomy of Dessert, 1929


Teeth at the skin. Anticipation.
Then flesh. Grain on the tongue.
Eve's knees ground in the dirt
of paradise. Newton watching
gravity happen. The history
of apples in each starry core,
every papery chamber's bright
bitter seed. Woody stem
an infant tree. William Tell
and his lucky arrow. Orchards
of the Fertile Crescent. Bushels.
Fire blight. Scab and powdery mildew.
Cedar apple rust. The apple endures.
Born of the wild rose, of crab ancestors.
The first pip raised in Kazakhstan.
Snow White with poison on her lips.
The buried blades of Halloween.
Budding and grafting. John Chapman
in his tin pot hat. Oh Westward
Expansion. Apple pie. American
as. Hard cider. Winter banana.
Melt-in-the-mouth made sweet
by hives of Britain's honeybees:
white man's flies. O eat. O eat.

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A break in the drought?

If rainfall can be sparse, that's what's falling as this is written. We have scattered showers with scattered raindrops for the afternoon forecast. At this point in the summer, some is better than none. Maybe the bee balm and the apple tree won't need hand watering today. Now, the question becomes, after a droughtful summer, will autumn get spoiled by excess precipitation that will accomplish little to compensate for summer's dryness? It's beginning to look like there's no "normal" to our new normal weather and our broken climate.

rain clouds? or just clouds?

Photo by J. Harrington

I hope any showers are rain only, not thunderstorms, since there are errands to be run this afternoon, including picking up our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share, and one of the dogs, my SiSi, gets really nervous when it thunders and there's no one around to hold her paw.

As we've been driving the back roads the past few days, we've noticed several whitetail bucks with nice racks in velvet. Sandhill cranes are beginning  to form larger flocks in anticipation of autumn's migration. One  field of soybeans we drove past had a group of a dozen or so plus another group of something like two dozen birds. Parents are teaching sandhill colts to fly and to hunt for food. The  crane colts are growing larger and stronger. Whitetail fawns are also growing and will soon have fading spots. We find joy in living where there's relatively abundant wildlife, even if some of them exhibit destructive nuisance behaviors. [I'm talking about the deer that ate, and killed, a couple of our chokeberry bushes and the gophers that ate the roots of most of the trees we've planted.]

Rain

By Peter Everwine

Toward evening, as the light failed

and the pear tree at my window darkened,

I put down my book and stood at the open door,

the first raindrops gusting in the eaves,

a smell of wet clay in the wind.

Sixty years ago, lying beside my father,

half asleep, on a bed of pine boughs as rain

drummed against our tent, I heard

for the first time a loon’s sudden wail

drifting across that remote lake—

a loneliness like no other,

though what I heard as inconsolable

may have been only the sound of something

untamed and nameless

singing itself to the wilderness around it

and to us until we slept. And thinking of my father

and of good companions gone

into oblivion, I heard the steady sound of rain

and the soft lapping of water, and did not know

whether it was grief or joy or something other

that surged against my heart

and held me listening there so long and late.

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Backyard wildlife

This year there will be no windfall pears under the tree for local whitetails to enjoy. There's not a sign of a single fruit on the entire tree. The blossoms were beautiful back in late spring and early summer, but there seems to have been a lack of pollinators. [I think the tree is one that doesn't need to be cross-pollinated because we've had abundant fruit production in prior years.] Come next spring, we may have to seriously consider planting another fruit tree or two, especially if we manage to seriously diminish the pocket gopher population in the area where we plant the trees. We'll spend more time thinking about it this winter than is good for us, but that will be better than just sitting and brooding. The summer cloud cover, combined with the wildfire smoke, is triggering our seasonal affective disorder in what should be its off-season.

whitetail doe under pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, we had a couple of wild turkey hens wander through the back yard yesterday. We hope they found all the ticks that may still be lurking about after our recent mowing. We're working on a significant attitude adjustment, from treating yard work as a necessary evil to approaching it as a means to create the kind of environment in which we want to live, work and play. It's slow going but seems to be making an improvement in our emotional approach to "chores." Meanwhile, we're failing miserably at really understanding how to naturalize our yard, let the leaves fall where they may and stay there, and still expect to have any kind of ground cover other than leaves. If anyone has suggested references on this theme, please leave a note in the comments.

A Dream of Trees

by Mary Oliver

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company,
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees.
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world's artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day? 

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Planning now for autumn planting

Several days ago we noted the appearance of what we hoped were spotted horsemint blossoms. Today we're happy to report that our hopes have been fulfilled. There are a number of Monarda punctata flowers showing on the far slope behind the house. It may turn out that our drought is suppressing their numbers. Some wetter years have brought an abundance much greater than we're seeing so far this year.

spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata)

Photo by J. Harrington

We've now planted a clump or cluster of bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), which has us hauling a sprinkler can  of water up the slope every day. That may help save the apple tree on the top of the slope, since it somehow caught hell last winter. Now it's getting watered every time the bee balm gets some.

Bee balm (Monarda fistulosa)

Photo by J. Harrington

Admittedly, our track record at getting seeds or plants to grow where we've planted them is abysmal, in large part due to pocket gophers eating roots and creating mounds that make mowing hazardous to the cutting blades. On the other hand, letting nature take its course has made our front "lawn" much more pollinator friendly as creeping Charlie and violets and wild strawberries have invaded the grass and begun to replace it. The Better Half tells me there's also some smooth Solomon's seal in the woods behind the lawn as well as mixed with  the day lilies behind the garage.

If I can ever manage to let go of or otherwise overcome my middle class compulsion toward neatness and order and control, without yielding to the chuck and chance it approach we've been using in improving our landscapes, we might make more and or better progress. Current projects being contemplated and planned include shade tolerant ground cover on the North side of the house and pollinator wildflowers or "bee friendly lawn" where the gophers have reduced grasses to sand patches. Hot and humid weather is better for planning than planting so late summer or early autumn is when we expect to break ground, literally.

Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now

Matthew Olzmann

Most likely, you think we hated the elephant,
the golden toad, the thylacine and all variations
of whale harpooned or hacked into extinction.

It must seem like we sought to leave you nothing
but benzene, mercury, the stomachs
of seagulls rippled with jet fuel and plastic. 

You probably doubt that we were capable of joy,
but I assure you we were.

We still had the night sky back then,
and like our ancestors, we admired
its illuminated doodles
of scorpion outlines and upside-down ladles.

Absolutely, there were some forests left!
Absolutely, we still had some lakes!

I’m saying, it wasn’t all lead paint and sulfur dioxide.
There were bees back then, and they pollinated
a euphoria of flowers so we might
contemplate the great mysteries and finally ask,
“Hey guys, what’s transcendence?”   

And then all the bees were dead.

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Illegitimi non carborundum

[If you need it, here's a translation of today's title.]

Oliver Hardy noted, in quite a few Laurel and Hardy films, " Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." That phrase occurs to me more and more as I daily scan my Twitter TimeLine and the headlines of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Guardian. To take just a few examples:

• Drought deepens in Minnesota, watering bans more likely (Strib)


• Investors dump stocks, buy bonds as virus fears flare again (Strib)


• ‘It’s chilling what is happening’: a rightwing backlash to Biden takes root in Republican states (Guardian)


• Wind and lightning complicate Bootleg fire as 80 blazes burn across 13 states (Guardian)


• First Person: A Healthcare Reporter Who Asks Questions for a Living Can’t Get a Straight Answer on Her Own Care (Daily Yonder via Twitter)

Fortunately, there are also dribs and drabs of better news such as

• BREAKING: Another PolyMet permit rejected & returned to sender by the courts - this time, it's the air pollution permit for the 2nd time. (Twitter)

Plus, my email inbox today contained a message with  an apt and timely quotation from one of my favorite historians:

Truth Serum

By Naomi Shihab Nye

We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture.

Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence,   

popped it right in.

That frog song wanting nothing but echo?   

We used that.

Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring.

Called upon our ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes   

of summer. Dropped in their names.   

Added a mint leaf now and then   

to hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.   

Orange butterfly between the claps of thunder?   

Perfect. And once we had it,

had smelled and tasted the fragrant syrup,   

placing the pan on a back burner for keeping,   

the sorrow lifted in small ways.

We boiled down the lies in another pan till they disappeared.

We washed that pan.

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Coming into bloom #phenology

We now have about 25 minutes less daylight than we did back at Summer Solstice. Our daylight is now decreasing at 2 minutes or so a day. Personally, I've noticed it more in the mornings than evenings because, for a very brief period, there was light  in the sky when SiSi and I took our early morning walks back in June.

Spotted Horsemint (Monarda punctata)

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier today I was fussing about how, in years past, our fields behind the house were full of spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata) and there's none to be seen this year. Silly me! When I checked the dates on my pictures of the spotted horsemint, they were all taken in very late July to late August. Minnesota Wildflowers web site says Monarda blooms from July - September, and a more detailed chart of what's blooming by week of the month shows it blooming each week of July. This prompted me to take a quick look through binoculars at our fields and I think I saw a few blooms beginning to show. We'll keep an eye open and see what, if anything, develops further. As Minnesota Wildflowers notes "Factors such as temperature and precipitation play a large role in how a plant fares year after year." This year we're ahead on temperature and behind on precipitation.

There's still no sign of swamp milkweed flowering around our wet spot, although there seem to be more common milkweeds flowering in ditches this year than I remember seeing in past years. That may, or may not, explain the increased number of butterflies flittering over and around township gravel roads these days. At a risk of jinxing us, I'll note that the deerfly population seems diminished these days, but then so does the dragonfly population.

Today

Mary Oliver

Today I’m flying low and I’m

not saying a word

I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather.

I hardly move though really I’m traveling

a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.

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Summer: success or failure?

After driving past a number of local corn fields during the past few days, it looks like about 40% +/- are now at the tassel stage. Continued drought may well lessen autumn's yield. But, there's many more ruby-throated hummingbirds coming to the feeders than there were a week or two ago. Successful fledglings? Probably. Temperatures are forecast to be in the upper 80's and low 90's for the foreseeable future (ten days or so in real time). It looks as though we've arrived at the dog days of summer. May we enjoy them, savor them, and survive them with few regrets, if any at all.

field of bee balm

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the next week or two we'll see if we can successfully transplant some bee balm from a field or two where we've been given permission to collect a handful and replant them in the field behind the house. We also want to find some butterfly weed and plant it although that may have to be transformed into a spring project if we can't find any plants in the near future.

It looks to us as though the human race, and the earth that produced us, might do well to consider the perspective behind Samuel Beckett's famous quote “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Earth's current state can't be considered a success, nor can the condition of much of the human race this summer. Do you suppose enough folks alive today remember that we had antecedents such as Neanderthals, that failed, they no longer exist? Do enough of our "leaders" realize that  we are not guaranteed exemption from a similar fate? Many of the  younger generations are doing their best to convince their governments that everyone's future is at  stake. Failure to act promptly and vigorously will leave way too many of us with very deep regrets. We need to do better.

The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

           Fredonia, NY

Of course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruit

so red they had to be borne of Summer, and no other season. 

Flip-flops and fishhooks. Ice cubes made of lemonade and sprigs 

of mint to slip in blue glasses of tea. I was dusty, my ponytail

all askew and the tips of my fingers ran, of course, red

from the fruitwounds of cherries I plunked into my bucket

and still—he must have seen some small bit of loveliness

in walking his orchard with me. He pointed out which trees

were sweetest, which ones bore double seeds—puffing out

the flesh and oh the surprise on your tongue with two tiny stones

(a twin spit), making a small gun of your mouth. Did I mention

my favorite color is red? His jeans were worn and twisty

around the tops of his boot; his hands thick but careful, 

nimble enough to pull fruit from his trees without tearing

the thin skin; the cherry dust and fingerprints on his eyeglasses. 

I just know when he stuffed his hands in his pockets, said

Okay. Couldn't hurt to try? and shuffled back to his roadside stand

to arrange his jelly jars and stacks of buckets, I had made

a terrible mistake. I just know my summer would've been

full of pies, tartlets, turnovers—so much jubilee.  

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Hints of the season to come #phenology

Pay attention to the roadsides as you're out and about this weekend and thereafter. The early signs of autumn are beginning to appear. One or two of the poison ivy leaves along our roadside have turned red. Sumac leaves are doing the same thing, only more so. Goldenrod flowers are now appearing. This makes me happy not because I don't like summer (I like it when the temperatures stay well below 90℉) but because autumn has been my favorite season for as far back as I can remember, at least back as far as high school.

poison ivy leaves turned red

Photo by J. Harrington

By  the time Labor Day arrives, I've had enough of heat and humidity and bugs and cutting the grass. Autumn leaves are so much more vibrant than summer's verdant monochrome. Daytime high  temperatures in the upper 60's and low 70's are near perfect. Fresh crops of local apples and pumpkins brighten kitchens and taste buds. Brook trout, in my opinion the prettiest of our native salmonids, begin to spawn in September. Males become even more handsome as they undergo spawning color changes along their lower bodies. If we're really lucky, kitchens frequently are filled with the aroma of baking berry or apple or pumpkin pies.

sumac leaves changing  color

Photo by J. Harrington

Don't let the impending pleasures of autumn interfere with your enjoyment of the second half of summer. Remember, tomorrow, July 17, is mid-summer in meteorological terms. Astronomically it occurs on August 6. So, for the next three weeks or so we're truly in mid-summer, then the season of summer begins to pale and wane as autumn grows stronger.

[UPDATE: First milkweed seed pods visible on a few local plants.]

Autumn

By Grace Paley

1

What is sometimes called a   

   tongue of flame

or an arm extended burning   

   is only the long

red and orange branch of   

   a green maple

in early September   reaching

   into the greenest field

out of the green woods   at the

   edge of which the birch trees   

appear a little tattered   tired

   of sustaining delicacy

all through the hot summer   re-

   minding everyone (in   

our family) of a Russian

   song   a story

by Chekhov   or my father

2

What is sometimes called a   

   tongue of flame

or an arm extended   burning

   is only the long

red and orange branch of

   a green maple

in early September   reaching   

   into the greenest field

out of the green woods   at the   

   edge of which the birch trees

appear a little tattered   tired

   of sustaining delicacy

all through the hot summer   re-

   minding everyone (in   

our family) of a Russian

   song   a story by

Chekhov or my father on

   his own lawn   standing   

beside his own wood in

   the United States of   

America   saying (in Russian)

   this birch is a lovely

tree   but among the others

   somehow superficial

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