Today we say "Welcome, Spring!"

Tomorrow is May 1, May Day, also know as Beltane to those who celebrate. Yesterday our maple tree buds exploded and doubled or tripled in size. The Better Half, aided and abetted by Yr. Obt. Svt., planted three rose bushes and, unaided, a couple of other plants. Last night, today, and tomorrow the rains are helping the new plantings take root in their new homes. Next week promises warmer days and maybe even sunshine. We will be watching, impatiently, for leafout and the season’s first dandelions.

Yes, April was not like real Spring

One of our milder springs must have occurred back in 2012, because the day lilies in the picture below were that high on March 24. The leaf height is about double this year’s emergence as of April 30. All told, it looks to us like spring in our North Country can have a five or six week swing in its effectiveness. This suggests the problem may lay with our expectations more than the weather, April of 2018 was more miserable, but who can remember that far back with all the other craziness going on?

March 24, 2012: day lilies

Photo by J. Harrington

Since today is the last day of National Poetry Month, and tomorrow is the beginning of May, we think today’s poem handles the bridge nicely. Perhaps Minnesota could consider following the Celtic tradition and acknowledging only two seasons. Not winter and road construction, as accurate as that is, but winter and summer. Most springs are not what one thinks of as spring, and last autumn was an unusual bust. To borrow from the big band era, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that spring!"

 

May and the Poets

By Leigh Hunt

There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior,
May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May’s in all the Italian books:—
She has old and modern nooks,
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
In happy places they call shelves,
And will rise and dress your rooms
With a drapery thick with blooms.
Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
May’s at home, and with me still;
But come rather, thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.

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

Sheep highlight similarities between dreary weather and politics

 Our CSA share was ready this morning. The Better Half will turn these basic ingredients into delicious fare for the winter, spring and summer weather we’ll probably experience over the next week. The box contained:

• Arugula
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Red potatoes
• Spinach
• Watercress, and
• Yellow onions

On our way home, we slowed enough to grab some quick pictures of the lambs at one of the farms we drive past regularly. I count about a dozen in the picture below and there were several handfuls outside the frame that wouldn’t fit. There were few gamboling about today. Most, as you can see, were resting from breakfast and morning dashes as they marshaled their strength for lunch.

spring lambs at rest

Photo by J. Harrington

Once we got home, the dogs were fed and walked and a loaf of sourdough bread is baking as this is being written. Slowly I’m coming to accept that the best way to deal with our continually dreary weather is to try to ignore it, since we can’t easily change it. I wonder if the same approach to politics is the way to go.

Sheep to Sweater

By Drew Gardner

Considering the frequency

with which I take people’s words

out of context, lie through my teeth and smear

anyone who doesn’t hew to my philosophy

of division and contempt,

I’d prefer my candidate of choice to stay

on the high road, but there’s a certain element

of fighting fire with dilemmas,

not just for me, but for any candidate.

Is it more important to lose honorably,

or to get into the gutter with your own particularity

when so much is the answer?

I love the pumpkin idea.

I will definitely use that and I also plan

on making the “kielbasa launcher.”

I already have a guacamole rifle

and it’s the same thing, I just need

to figure out how to do it.

If you have ideas for that please help.

Also on the splitting heads thing they

have that hydraulic wrench that

rips the brain chunks out of the

head you can do that so much

easier just get the fishing line attached

to the fragments and then fill 

a two to three liter soda bottle

with sand and throw it in the opposite

direction your life is going.

To see the results of this oscillatory combustion

phenomenon between the acoustics of the

cavity and the pyrolysis of the propellants

which were used in irreproducible ignition

which I never liked much anyway.

I couldn’t decipher myself.

Too bad. I have typed out some abbreviated remains

where my old life used to be, but I’m still

living in them as if they were a book.

I spent the afternoon reveling

and wondering what

I need to do to get my own sheep.

I saw sheep herding and shearing,

admired the baby lambs, and followed

the “from sheep to sweater” interpretive trail.

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

Is pronking a gambol?

It was a busy day. Due to some unhelpful weather and human miscommunication, we drove off this afternoon to pick up our first CSA share only to discover it/they won’t be packed until tomorrow morning. We did stop on the way home to visit the Daughter  Person, Son-In-Law, and, especially, the Granddaughter. Since they live only a couple  of miles from the CSA farm, it was a classic “we were in the neighborhood” visit.

springtime at the CSA shed

Photo by J. Harrington

On the way home, we paused at a sheep farm to watch what looked like a couple of dozen of this spring’s lambs gambol and pronk and generally enjoy life outside the womb. It was close to the high point of the day but was, of course, outdone by the visit with the Granddaughter. Blood is thicker than springtime frolics.

Still no sign of marsh marigolds in the ditches. Maybe next week, after it warms a little. We double-checked today and confirmed that temperatures regularly in the 50’s means we can clean up the leaf piles without disturbing any pollinators that overwintered, although the good Bee folks at UMN suggest waiting until we’re seeing 60’s is even better. In part, that’s going to be determined by the rain/sunshine ratio over the next few weeks. We’re not inclined to do yard work when it’s cold and wet.

The Necessity

By Alice B. Fogel

It isn't true about the lambs.

They are not meek.

They are curious and wild,

full of the passion of spring.

They are lovable,

and they are not silent when hungry.

Tonight the last of the triplet lambs

is piercing the quiet with its need.

Its siblings are stronger

and will not let it eat.

I am its keeper, the farmer, its mother,

I will go down to it in the dark,

in the cold barn,

and hold it in my arms.

But it will not lie still—it is not meek.

I will stand in the open doorway

under the weight of watching trees and moon,

and care for it as one of my own.

But it will not love me—it is not meek.

Drink, little one. Take what I can give you.

Tonight the whole world prowls

the perimeters of your life.

Your anger keeps you alive—

it's your only chance.

So I know what I must do

after I have fed you.

 

I will shape my mouth to the shape

of the sharpest words,

even those bred in silence.

I will impale with words every ear

pressed upon open air.

I will not be meek.

You remind me of the necessity

of having more hope than fear,

and of sounding out terrible names.

I am to cry out loud

like a hungry lamb, cry loud

enough to waken wolves in the night.

No one can be allowed to sleep.

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

How late will spring be? #phenology

Early yesterday evening, one of the local farmers hauled his disc harrow southbound on our road. Today, none of the fields I drove past had seen the start of planting, although a couple of fields were showing green from the emergence of what looked like small grains. The roadside ditch where we usually see marsh marigolds has a few blades of grass greening up, but that’s it. Winter’s browns and tans still prevail in much of our North Country. Spring is quite late this year.

Skim ice again covered the creek pool east of our road this morning. The larger, deeper(?) pool on the west remained open water. Numerous flocks of songbirds are heading north along roadside bushes and trees.

maple tree bud burst, 4/8/2014, 4/27/2022

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve finally seen bud burst on the front yard maples. They’re looking about the same as the photo above which was taken on April 8 several years ago. Spring this year definitely seems to be about three or four weeks behind what we laughingly call normal around here. The combination of rain and/or windchill has  me continuing to defer getting serious about yard chores. Maybe next week? I foresee conflicts arising between being responsible about yard work or going fishing when, and if, the weather finally improves. Since there appears to be no end to yard work, and the seasons have become quite unreliable, I bet I know which side will prevail, especially if the Better Half gets invited to come along.

May to April

Philip Freneau - 1752-1832

Without your showers, I breed no flowers,
    Each field a barren waste appears;
If you don't weep, my blossoms sleep,
    They take such pleasures in your tears.

As your decay made room for May,
    So I must part with all that’s mine:
My balmy breeze, my blooming trees
    To torrid suns their sweets resign!

O’er April dead, my shades I spread:
    To her I owe my dress so gay—
Of daughters three, it falls on me
    To close our triumphs on one day:

Thus, to repose, all Nature goes;
    Month after month must find its doom:
Time on the wing, May ends the Spring,
    And Summer dances on her tomb!

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

Republicans = Grand Oligarch Party

 Here’s the basic problem as I see it, Sam Rayburn was too correct when he said “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” The Republicans, as the party of oligarchs, have an easier job of kicking down barns. Meanwhile, the Democrats can but wish they were as good carpenters as they think they are. So, if the Grand Oligarch Party does little more than cause chaos and confusion, they’re winning. If Democrats and Independents get so disgusted with the ineptness of the Democratic response to Republican misinformation and disinformation, as well as any outright lies, Republicans win because they want to destroy democracy, the working class, the middle class and leave but oligarchs, peasants and serfs. If you disagree with this assessment, take a look around at the headlines and social media.

Are you ready to VOTE?

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m not the only one with this gloomy outlook. Take a look at this review in The Guardian of the book Last Best Hope review: George Packer on the state we’re in – and how to fix it. It's the last part that has me particularly interested.

Packer offers more hope by using the last part of the book to remind us of the power of extraordinary individuals to bring about positive change.

He gives us brief portraits of Horace Greeley, the abolitionist editor of the New York Herald; Frances Perkins, the extraordinary social warrior who was Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of labor and the author of about half of the New Deal, including social security; A Philip Randolph, who pressured FDR into issuing an executive order banning discrimination in the federal government (though he failed to get the armed forces integrated during the second world war); and his young lieutenant, Bayard Rustin, the great gay civil rights leader who was the mastermind behind Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963.

We will need a dozen new leaders of their caliber to accomplish Packer’s other goals – a reinvigorated anti-trust policy to break up the tech giants, a revival of American unions and a new generation of journalists more like their muckraking predecessors in the 20th century.

For a different perspective, without reading the actual book, take a look at this review in The Washington Post. We’ve already entered the early stages of the 2022 midterm election campaigns. We strongly suggest, nay, implore, you to look for and support “extraordinary individuals,” those who know which end of a hammer to hold; who know to raise both the roof and taxes on the wealthiest 1%; and, most importantly, who aren’t jackasses with no greater ambition than to kick down a barn, as long as it’s not their barn.

Of course, we all know that extraordinary people are that because there aren’t very many of them. One way to compensate is to bring our better selves to the voting booth and everywhere else we go. Together with insisting on exercising our individual rights, we must do better at fulfilling our collective responsibilities to our families, communities, fellow citizens and country, because

We Are of a Tribe

By Alberto Ríos

We plant seeds in the ground

And dreams in the sky,

 

Hoping that, someday, the roots of one

Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other.

 

It has not happened yet.

We share the sky, all of us, the whole world:

 

Together, we are a tribe of eyes that look upward,

Even as we stand on uncertain ground.

 

The earth beneath us moves, quiet and wild,

Its boundaries shifting, its muscles wavering.

 

The dream of sky is indifferent to all this,

Impervious to borders, fences, reservations.

 

The sky is our common home, the place we all live.

There we are in the world together.

 

The dream of sky requires no passport.

Blue will not be fenced. Blue will not be a crime.

 

Look up. Stay awhile. Let your breathing slow.

Know that you always have a home here.

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

YES to No Mow May!

I’ve never been much in favor of doing yard chores. Every time I mow the grass, it just grows back. Every time I trap a pocket gopher, within weeks another one takes its place. When we lived where most of the trees were maples, raking leaves was a once a year affair. With mostly oaks around our house these days, leaves are dropping about six months a year and blown around even more than that. Fortunately, for me and those like me, pollinators may well rescue us but it means developing an increased tolerance for a yard that looks less than tidy and manicured. I think I can handle that but only time will tell. We’ll now defer cutting grass until May has come and gone, although, at the rate spring is arriving here in the North Country this year, we’ll be surprised if the grass has grown at all by the beginning of summer.

unmowed, grass becomes violets

Photo by J. Harrington

As is often the case, however, we’ve encountered a slight complication. This year we’re planting a “bee lawn” in front of the house. That means we do need to do some raking and harrowing to prepare the ground for seeding. We’ll leave some of the yard cleaning until June, but have no way of knowing which, if any of the leaf covered areas were actually used as overwintering habitat by pollinators. All of this means that we’re going to have to pay more attention to what’s actually going on in nature instead of following routine chores by rote, like cut the grass every two weeks.

I’m not sure we’ll ever forego burning the brush piles we accumulate over the course of a year or more, but we’re burning them less frequently, and dumping more of the leaves and twigs into the woods. The buckthorn we pull definitely gets torched every so often. If anyone knows of books about maintaining a natural landscape instead of hiring a lawn service, please mention the titles, authors and leave a link in the comments. Thanks.

Against Lawn

By Grace Bauer

The midnight streetlight illuminating

the white of clover assures me

I am right not to manicure

my patch of grass into a dull

carpet of uniform green, but

to allow whatever will to take over.

Somewhere in that lace lies luck,

though I may never swoop down

to find it. Three, too, is

an auspicious number. And this seeing

a reminder to avoid too much taming

of what, even here, wants to be wild.

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

Spring? I remember one of those, years ago!

 If I were off fly fishing today, I’d be standing around for 30 or 45 minutes, or more, between casts thanks to the gusty winds. That explains why I’m not off fly fishing this afternoon. I’ve not the patience to stand around that long between casts. If I’m going to stand around and do nothing but wait, I’ll do that during duck season, when the winds might well stir up some flocks and cause them to look for a quieter place to loaf.

trout stream tributary to the St. Croix River

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday, I began to pick up the winter’s collection of dead branches that had fallen along the drive. Today there are more dead branches where yesterday they had been collected. It’s demoralizing but not overwhelming. I’ll not even try to burn them in the fire pit until the wind calms by a lot.

Temperatures all next week are forecast to continue well below normal. No signs of local farmers starting planting season yet. With  the bird feeders down because of avian flu, we’ll miss most or all of the migrants passing through and the locals won’t have any reason to stop by and say hi! All in all this has been, and continues to be, one of the most dismal springs in the five decades or so we’ve lived in Minnesota.

At least we’ve lucked out by discovering, and acquiring, a couple of wonderful books about trout fishing and the country and people involved with it. We’ve just started reading Ted Leeson’s Jerusalem Creek: Journeys into Driftless Country. Much of what he writes about, coming to intimately know a stream or river, reminds me of the North and South Rivers back in Massachusetts, which I came to know as well as I’ve known anywhere. I’m still looking for someplace to learn comparably well in my current bioregion. That means it would probably have to be in or around the St. Croix River watershed. At least the search is pleasant and rewarding in and of itself. The other book is a volume of poetry, Daybreak on the Water, by Gary Lark. We’ll get into that in a future posting.

FISHING

By Gary Lark                      

                                                

Standing thigh deep

in the Yachats river

the fly drifting under a shadow

I wear my father's shirt.

His body in mine

I in his shirt

our hands move

in similar patterns.

                                                

I've the turn of his mouth

in my reflection.

Our language is mostly silence,

but somehow from his father

to me there comes this patchwork

of sensations.

                                                

The river swirls

around my knees

tugging me downstream 

under the trees.

A long quiet pool.

A cutthroat takes the fly

and three arms set the hook.

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

Signs of (wild)life! #phenology

 Late yesterday afternoon, or early evening if you prefer, the back yard was visited by half a dozen whitetail deer in two groups of three each. Their coats looked kind of scruffy as winter hair is being replaced by summer pelage. The visit was a short one since there isn’t much to eat back there, nor anywhere else this time of year. Not much has greened up or budded out in our neighborhood.

April wood ducks

Photo by J. Harrington

The pond and its feeder creek up the road are ice free again. Maybe this time for the season? (Below freezing overnight temps are forecast to return midweek.) The open water looked appealing enough that a pair of mallard drakes were loafing on the creek’s waters and a drake wood duck skittered off the pool as the dogs and I walked by late this morning. It’s hope-raising to see signs of wildlife after a long winter broken only by a visit from Santa.

The buds on the maples in front of the house haven’t really broken yet, although we noticed bud burst on a number of the local poplars. Despite the tardiness of spring this year we’ve hung hummingbird feeders. Regular feeders with sunflower chips are down thanks to avian bird flu. Rarely do we see more than one or two hummers at a time so we’ve got our fingers crossed that the nectar feeders are okay.

This weekend or next week spring chores will have to get started or we’ll be doing spring chores all summer, although that’s often the way it works around here. More and more dead branches keep dropping during the storms and winds we’ve been having. They’ll need to get collected and burned before we clean up some of the oak leaves that need to be tidied so we can seed some bee-friendly lawn and cross our fingers the birds don’t eat most of the seeds before they germinate and root. Meanwhile, we’re looking forward to picking up our first community supported agriculture spring share come Friday. Despite contrary weather, life can be good if we let it.

April Clean-up

by Hayden Carruth

He isn’t quite a eunuch but that’s 
what he calls himself, this old
two-beat codger on this spring
afternoon picking up the winter’s 
crop of twigs and bark from the lawn
to make it “look nicer” and to supply
the house with kindling next winter
for himself or his heirs, meanwhile coughing
and gasping, cursing the pain in his back,
thinking always of the days when 
each year after the run-off he was in
the woods with the early trout lillies
and violets and with his ax, saw,
and canthook, doing a man’s work 
that has no connection with sex at all. 

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

Some ponderings on #EarthDay 2022

 It seems clear to me that, over the years since 1970, the environmental movement has lost considerable momentum. Many of the Earth Day messages I’m seeing this year are trying to get me to buy something to celebrate Earth Day. I consider those messages to be a form of greenwashing. There’s another, better way to celebrate Earth Day, we can and should honor and acknowledge those who helped establish the first Earth Day,

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”  ― Gaylord Nelson

Photo by J. Harrington

April is, among other things, National Poetry Month. I wish the Academy of American Poets would do more to take advantage of the annual overlap between Poetry Month and Earth Day. Here’s some suggestions for your reading pleasure. See if your local library has a copy of any of these volumes.

• Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Field Guide to Nature Poems, John Felstiner 

•  The Ecopoetry Anthology, Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street, Ed. 

•  Imagining the Earth: Poetry and the Vision of Nature, John Elder

If you’re among those who much prefer prose to poetry, we offer for your consideration Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey: Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac by Julianne Lutz Newton.

Restoring the earth, and protecting the little that we’ve not harmed yet, is not a technical nor economic challenge. It is a challenge to which our hearts and wills must rise. We must remember how much we are dependent on earth for all that we need. The earth is the only home we have. It IS OUR PLANET B!

Remember

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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

For Earth Day 2022, let’s mine our own business

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Today, in honor of tomorrow, I urged my Congressman (Republican) and my two US Senators (Democrats), to support reforms to the 1872 Mining law. The kind of reforms I want to see, and that I think we all deserve, include:

• Establish meaningful Tribal consultation and Indigenous resource protections.


• Protecting special places from mining


• Strengthening environmental standards


• Fiscal reforms
• unlike all other extractive industries, hardrock mining pays no royalty for minerals taken from public lands;
• for $5 an acre, mining interests have patented (purchased) an area roughly equivalent in size to the state of Connecticut containing minerals valued at more than $300 billion.

• Enforcement, inspection, and bonding


• Abandoned mine reclamation fund

It’s the only home we’ve got
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

In Minnesota, proposed hardrock mines threaten water quality in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Mining employment has been declining in the iron mining sector and miners have been clamoring for jobs that support their way of life. I don’t know of any employment sector that offers such protections, do you?

One of the organizations to which I’ve long been a member is Trout Unlimited. They’ve been working for several years on behalf of responsible mining.

At the center of Trout Unlimited’s work on responsible hardrock mining is a commitment avoiding the mistakes of the past. To this end, we approach new mines on a case-by-case basis. We work directly with mining companies, as well as state and federal permitting agencies, to apply policy and practices to mitigate the impacts of new mines on coldwater fisheries. In the case of a wrong mine in the wrong place, Trout Unlimited will strongly advocate in opposition. Location is everything and when the threat of groundwater depletion, acid-mine drainage and potential for spills cannot be responsibly mitigated, Trout Unlimited reserves the right to say no.

They also are advocating for A “Good Samaritan” bill in Congress would make it easier for conservationists and partners to tackle abandoned mines polluting Western waters .

Personally, I believe it would be fantastic if mining reform legislation were combined with Right to Repair, enhanced incentives for recycling electronics waste, and requirements that all metals used in products sold in the US be produced in accord with the standards of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance and be ISEAL certified.

It’s been more than fifty years since the first Earth Day. We’ve made too little progress protecting our only life support systems. That’s why we’re in the trouble we’re in. We can and must do better. Mining is a global industry that should be required to meet stringent global standards for protecting the environment, affected communities and those who do the actual mining.

An Earth Song 

Langston Hughes - 1901-1967

It's an earth song,—
And I've been waiting long for an earth song. 
It's a spring song,—
And I've been waiting long for a spring song. 
    Strong as the shoots of a new plant 
    Strong as the bursting of new buds
    Strong as the coming of the first child from its mother's womb. 
It's an earth song, 
A body song, 
A spring song, 
I have been waiting long for this spring song. 

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

What is a “thinking community?"

 It was late April several years ago that the Better Half and I made a pilgrimage to Wisconsin’s Sand County and visited Aldo Leopold’s “shack.” If you’ve not read A Sand County Almanac, you’ve been deprived of enjoying one of the better pieces of “nature writing” that’s been written.

Aldo Leopold’s “shack"

Photo by J. Harrington

Later today I’ll be Zooming into the first session of an online nature writing course I’ve registered for, but first I want to pose a challenge, based on Leopold’s land ethic.

Leopold also recognized that the relationship between people and each other and people and land was a complex one, and an evolutionary process. Near the end of the essay, he explains:

“I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written.’ Only the most superficial student of history will suppose that Moses ‘wrote’ the Decalogue; it evolved in the minds of a thinking community, and Moses wrote a tentative summary of it for a ‘seminar.” I say tentative because evolution never stops. The evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual as well as an emotional process.” 

Spend a little time scanning headlines or doom scrolling on social media, and I believe it will become apparent that today’s “thinking community” is not as large as it should be to support the wide-spread adoption of the land ethic we so desperately need. The challenge is: How do we first enlarge a thinking community to encompass those for whom thinking is a new and unusual experience? Or, do we expect to see evolution, over its own time scale, diminish the number of unthinking members through pandemics and similar catastrophes?

I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth

Fatimah Asghar

so I count my hopes: the bumblebees
are making a comeback, one snug tight
in a purple flower I passed to get to you;

your favorite color is purple but Prince’s
was orange & we both find this hard to believe;
today the park is green, we take grass for granted

the leaves chuckle around us; behind
your head a butterfly rests on a tree; it’s been
there our whole conversation; by my old apartment

was a butterfly sanctuary where I would read
& two little girls would sit next to me; you caught
a butterfly once but didn’t know what to feed it

so you trapped it in a jar & gave it to a girl
you liked. I asked if it died. you say you like
to think it lived a long life. yes, it lived a long life.

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

Why don’t we have an Endangered Species Act for Rivers? Or, for US?

Today, American Rivers announced the Ten Most Endangered Rivers of 2022. The Mississippi River, our Mississippi River, is Number 6. Here’s the report on the Mississippi. The Friends of the Mississippi River have an Action Alert: Support the Mississippi River Restoration & Resilience Initiative (MRRRI). I look forward to a day when American Rivers can no longer find enough reasons or endangered rivers to publish their list. Until then, we should all do what we can to support those who are protecting our waters. [Full disclosure: I’m a supporter of American Rivers; a long-time member of Trout Unlimited; a volunteer helping raise funds for dam removal and river restoration on the Kinnickinnic River in western Wisconsin; etc.]

In accord with the Endangered Species Act (ESA),

The law requires federal agencies, in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and/or the NOAA Fisheries Service, to ensure that actions they authorize, fund, or carry out are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species. The law also prohibits any action that causes a "taking" of any listed species of endangered fish or wildlife. Likewise, import, export, interstate, and foreign commerce of listed species are all generally prohibited.

Something along those lines seems like just what we need to protect our rivers from our activities that endanger them. We have failed unconscionably in our efforts to meet the goals and objectives of the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972. About half of our waters fail to meet required standards. In Minnesota, almost 90% of our waters are impaired with fish consumption advisories [p44].

Now that  we’re on the subject of endangered rivers and species, if I interpret the recent IPCC report correctly, we should seriously consider getting Homo sapiens declared an endangered species if we don’t change our ways and learn better how to manage public health and a transition away from fossil fuels. It’s unlikely we’ll be in good enough shape to do a 50 year report in 2072 if we don’t make massive cuts in greenhouse gases in the next few years.

Let Them Not Say

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.

Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.

Let them not say:     they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.

Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.

Let them not say:     they did nothing.
We did not-enough.

Let them say, as they must say something: 

A kerosene beauty.
It burned.

Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.

—2014

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

Snow, melt, repeat,...!

Last week a bluebird was investigating the birdhouse in the back yard. We hope it was found satisfactory for nesting and look forward to seeing fledglings emerge later in spring or early summer.

This morning, in the midst of yet another spring snowstorm, we watched a tom turkey put on a mating display in the back yard.

April snow comes and goes

Photo by J. Harrington

As this is being written, this morning’s snow is slowly melting and adding to the groundwater and the atmospheric humidity.

We’ve just remembered a key piece of meteorology we first learned from Winnie-The-Pooh:

The More It Snows (Tiddely-pom) by A A Milne

The more it snows
Tiddely-pom
The more it goes
Tiddely-pom

The more it goes on snowing
Tiddely-pom

And nobody knows
Tiddely-pom
How cold my toes
Tiddely-pom

How cold my toes are growing
Tiddely-pom
Tiddely-pom
Tiddely-pom
Tiddely-pom

Some time ago, client scientists and folks of that ilk, the misguided ones who referred to climate weirding as global warming, correctly informed us that we should expect highly variable weather with extended periods of dry weather interspersed by extended periods of precipitation. That’s what we’ve been getting for the past year or so. Last year’s drought conditions in Minnesota have been reduced to several areas of abnormally dry and a few very limited areas of moderate drought. Last summer parts of the state were experiencing exceptional and extreme drought.

Slowly, very slowly, I’m trying to adjust to being cheated out of spring this year. We need the moisture. The cooler temperatures and replenished groundwater may help keep water temperatures more tolerable in local trout streams. I may even begin to ignore the lack of ideal conditions and go fishing anyhow (except for howling winds).

Since April is National Poetry Month, it seems appropriate to close today’s postings with an observation and poem from Robert Frost.

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”

A Hillside Thaw

by Robert Frost

To think to know the country and now know
The hillside on the day the sun lets go
Ten million silver lizards out of snow!
As often as I've seen it done before
I can't pretend to tell the way it's done.
It looks as if some magic of the sun
Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor
And the light breaking on them made them run.
But if I though to stop the wet stampede,
And caught one silver lizard by the tail,
And put my foot on one without avail,
And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed
In front of twenty others' wriggling speed,- 
In the confusion of them all aglitter,
And birds that joined in the excited fun
By doubling and redoubling song and twitter,
I have no doubt I'd end by holding none.

It takes the moon for this. The sun's a wizard
By all I tell; but so's the moon a witch.
From the high west she makes a gentle cast
And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch,
She has her speel on every single lizard.
I fancied when I looked at six o'clock
The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast.
The moon was waiting for her chill effect.
I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock
In every lifelike posture of the swarm,
Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect.
Across each other and side by side they lay.
The spell that so could hold them as they were
Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm
To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir.
One lizard at the end of every ray.

The thought of my attempting such a stray! 

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

In memory of the late, great(?) spring of 2022 #phenology

This is often a hungry time of year for many wild creatures in the North Country. It’s also the time of year when the root cellar can be mostly empty and, with the season running two to four weeks behind “normal,” it could be even longer than usual before a new season’s harvest offers respite from last year’s preserves. April can be a productive time for foraging, but this year there are few, if any, signs of new growth. Much as I like the idea of a local food system, season’s like this one make me wonder how well a local system can avoid seasonal shortages. But then, with Governors like Abbott of Texas, we can experience shortages as part of a disrupted global system controlled by oligarchs and wannabes.

April 30, 2021

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we visited the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter. On the way home, I slowly drove along a ditch that, by the end of April last year, was bursting with new growth [see above]. I saw no glimpse of green anywhere. It’s going to be interesting to see how spring develops this year since we again have a week of cloudy, cool weather forecast.

North of us the season is at least as far behind according to reports from the KAXE phenology group.

It's a late spring, probably not going to be our latest ever but will fall into the top 10. He reminds us to look for those little signs of spring that bring us all a little bit of hope! In the meantime, check out the student phenology reports from this week- they're a treat!

On the brighter side, our Spring Greens CSA first share is due April 29. I believe they rely on greenhouses for the early season shares. Will we get fresh greens by month’s end? Will the ditches on the way to the farm have marsh marigolds in bloom? Stay tuned!

There Will Come Soft Rains

Sara Teasdale - 1884-1933

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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

Wait for the world to become perfect?

Easter this year is relatively late, but one can’t tell that by the weather. Today would be a beautiful March day and even more so if it were a day in February. Something I’m now curious about is, when spring is running two to four weeks behind “average,” does the phenological pattern get compressed or does the whole year shift? I suspect the latter. I suspect even more that the answer isn’t that simple. What prompted such ponderings is that today is stream trout opener and I’ve been looking at hatch charts. The screen shot below shows what can usually be expected to be hatching at this time of year. Would the weather delay hatches by several weeks? I don’t know but it may be fun trying to research that over the next few days.

Hatch Chart for Southeast Minnesota Trout Streams

Midges hatch year round in southeast Minnesota. Fishing something like a mole fly or a parachute Adams in a smaller size would probably be wise unless there’s an obvious hatch that the fish are feeding on. I confess that, as often as I’ve read about the benefits of watching a stream for ten or twenty minutes before beginning to cast, I’ve yet to reach a fishable stretch  of a stream without already having a fly attached to the end of my tippet. That may well be the result of too many years fishing for panfish and bass and, in saltwater, stripers and bluefish. Finesse was rarely, if ever, needed for that kind  of fishing. Plus, patience is not one of my strong points.

Since this is Easter weekend, and Passover began recently, let me suggest you lay your hands on a copy of, and promptly read,  A River Runs Through It. If you’ve already read it but it’s been a long time, a reread would be worthwhile. Perhaps a couple of quotations will help convince you of the value and appropriateness of that suggestion, plus, it’s that time when apostles became fishers of men.

“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. […] As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word ‘beautiful.‘”

“Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart—I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.” 

The River

By Jim Harrison

Yes, we'll gather by the river,

the beautiful, the beautiful river.

They say it runs by the throne of God.

This is where God invented fish.

Wherever, but then God's throne is as wide

as the universe. If you're attentive you'll

see the throne's borders in the stars. We're on this side

and when you get to the other side we don't know

what will happen if anything. If nothing happens

we won't know it, I said once. Is that cynical?

No, nothing is nothing, not upsetting just

nothing. Then again maybe we'll be cast

at the speed of light through the universe

to God's throne. His hair is bounteous.

All the 5,000 birds on earth were created there.

The firstborn cranes, herons, hawks, at the back

so as not to frighten the little ones.

Even now they remember this divine habit

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

Whatever happened to ethics?

Tomorrow is stream trout opener in Minnesota, something rarely honored by a Minnesota governor fishing a stream. In fact, the “governor’s opener” is only for walleye, sauger and northerns. Panfish are open year round. Bass open later and at different dates in different parts of the state. THERE IS NO MINNESOTA FISHING OPENER.

The Governor’s Fishing Opener has been a tradition in Minnesota since 1948. The event was designed to promote the development of Minnesota’s $2.4 billion fishing industry, and in recent years, it has served as an iconic kick-off celebration for the summer tourism season. Prior to the pandemic, travel and tourism generated $16.6 billion in leisure and hospitality gross sales in Minnesota annually.

Personally, promoting tourism isn’t what fishing is all about as far as I’m concerned. In fact, today’s Star Tribune reports on fishing-related problems derived from the winter tourism fishing season in northern Minnesota.

Ice fishing trash problems persist on popular Minnesota waters

As the activity soars in popularity, discarding human waste adds to complexity of garbage problem on Red Lake and Lake of the Woods. 

trout stream, northern Minnesota

Photo by J. Harrington

Let’s return to tomorrow’s stream trout opener for a moment. Much of trout fishing is done as fly fishing. Some fly fishing organizations have published a code of ethics.  Fly Fishers International is one such organization. For those readers averse to following links, here’s a

Shortened version suitable to be carried by the angler: 

• Fly anglers understand and obey laws and regulations associated with the fishery.
• Fly anglers believe fly fishing is a privilege and a responsibility.
• Fly anglers conserve fisheries by limiting their catch.
• Fly anglers do not judge fellow anglers and treat them as they would expect to be treated.
• Fly anglers respect the waters occupied by other anglers so that fish are not disturbed
• When fishing from a watercraft, fly anglers do not crowd other anglers or craft or unnecessarily disturb the water.
• Fly anglers respect other angling methods and promote this Code of Angling Ethics to all anglers.

Although not limited to fly fishing, Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources promotes fishing ethics and stewardship, but not as much as tourism promotes the walleye opener. Then again, DNR doesn’t specifically mention not littering or leaving other trash behind as an element of ethics or stewardship. Wouldn’t it be great if the governor’s opener promoted ethics as much as it promotes tourism and commercialism? Isn’t that considered to be leadership?

The River.

By Raymond Carver

I waded, deepening, into the dark water.
Evening, and the push
and swirl of the river as it closed
around my legs and held on.
Young grilse broke water.
Parr darted one way, smolt another.
Gravel turned under my boots as I edged out.
Watched by the furious eyes of king salmon.
Their immense heads turned slowly,
eyes burning with fury, as they hung
in the deep current.
They were there. I fel them there,
and my skin prickled. But
there was something else.
I braced with the wind on my neck.
Felt the hair rise
as something touched my boot.
Grew afraid at what I couldn't see.
Then of everything that filled my eyes—
that other shore heavy with branches,
the dark lip of the mountain range behind.
And this river that had suddenly
grown black and swift.
I drew breath and cast anyway.
Prayed nothing would strike.

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