Mid-May update #phenology

There are few places left where the sky is visible through the leafed-out oak trees. Roadsides are beautified by fruit trees in bloom. Lilacs are thinking about coming into bloom. Trillium are preparing for their moments on center stage. It must be mid-May in the North Country.

I keep thinking that, instead of doing spring chores, I should be on a local trout stream, and then I read several more reports of high, and rising, or falling, water almost everywhere from the St. Croix to the Boundary Waters. That makes me feel not quite as bad about getting the yard squared away before I start wading into the real waters nearby.

Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Photo by J. Harrington

The warmer weather and the explosion of green and flowers in and on the landscape does lighten spirits despite the socio-politico and environmental debacles that persist. My belief is that each and every one of us would come out ahead if we focused on managing transitions and/or mutual accommodations rather than fighting about climate weirding, COVID responses, loss of biodiversity and Red versus Blue.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that I have too many interests and not enough time or energy to enjoy them all. I’m not sure how I’ll resolve the conflicts that arise, such as a shortened spring stealing time and compressing what’s left to get spring yard chores done, bake bread, go fishing, eat, sleep, waste time on social media, read, write, pay bills, etc. You get the picture.

We’re already in oak wilt season so I shouldn’t be pruning dead branches from our oak trees. Oak wilt season ends just before we get into the winter holidays like Thanksgiving so there are other activities that compete for time and, with the leaves down, it’s harder to be sure which branches need pruning. That’s just one example. Another has to do with figuring out an efficient and effective way to manage oak leaves. Once upon a time we had a riding mower and yard vac that cleaned them up quickly. Both the mower and the vac are now leading other lives. The vac is no longer being manufactured so parts for repairs might not be available and it doesn’t readily fit the subcompact tractor we got to replace the riding mower that Toro had stopped making. We’d need lots more storage space if we followed the old saying about “if you find something you like, buy two before they stop making them.”

Trying to live a sustainable, environmentally neutral or even positive life seems to be much more complicated than we think it should be. Speaking of which, it’s time to go lay out the proposed three sisters garden by placing piles of compost where each of the plantings will go. Efficiently and effectively making compost is another skill set we’ve not yet mastered. Fortunately, we’ve recently found an approach we’re going to work on. Here’s a sample:

Rewilding the spaces around us doesn’t need to be complicated. We can start small, make mistakes and learn a lot along the way.

Wild Life

By Grace Cavalieri

Behind the silo, the Mother Rabbit

hunches like a giant spider with strange calm:

six tiny babies beneath, each

clamoring for a sweet syringe of milk.

This may sound cute to you, reading

from your pulpit of plenty,

but one small one was left out of reach,

a knife of fur

barging between the others.

I watched behind a turret of sand. If

I could have cautioned the mother rabbit

I would. If I could summon the

Bunnies to fit him in beneath

the belly's swell

I would. But instead, I stood frozen, wishing

for some equity. This must be

why it's called Wild Life because of all the

crazed emotions tangled up in

the underbrush within us.

Did I tell you how

the smallest one, black and trembling,

hopped behind the kudzu

still filigreed with wanting?

Should we talk now of animal heritage, their species,

creature development? And what do we say

about form and focus—

writing this when a stray goes hungry, and away. 

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