A modest proposal for improving our water quality

 It’s been 50 years since Congress passed and overrode a  presidential veto to enact into law the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972. If one considers the current state of Minnesota’s waters, we have failed miserably in attaining one of the basic goals of that act, “as an interim goal and where possible, water quality that is both “fishable” and “swimmable” by mid-1983.” As of 2022, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has identified impaired (red, gold) waters as shown below.

Impaired Waters 2022

Lots has been learned about managing our common resource of water since the 1972 framework was enacted. In particular, the work of Elinor Ostrom has shown us how to avoid “The Tragedy of The Commons.” 

Ostrom identified eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:^[38][39]

1. Clearly defined the group boundaries (and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties) and the contents of the common pool resource;
2. The appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;
3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;
7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; and
8. In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.

A quick examination of Minnesota’s water management framework indicates that none of the design principles have been acknowledged, let alone followed. We have a fragmented non-system that is failing to protect a resource as essential to life as renewable energy.

As the effects of climate breakdown become more and more prevalent, precipitation is expected to become more variable and intense. Our current systems, both institutional and infrastructure, are far from optimum to respnd to such change. We suggest serious consideration be given to using Ostrum’s principles, at least on a pilot basis, foundational to managing water and land resources to minimize nonpoint source pollution in agricultural regions. All farms and farmers within a watershed would be held collectively responsible to meeting water quality standards within the watershed in order for any of the agricultural operations to be eligible for any federal or state agricultural subsidies, including crop insurance.

In a future posting we’ll share some examples of alternative approaches that have been or are being tried to help agricultural operations improve their environmental performance. For now, we speak as a recovering planner when we note the planning dictum that “more of the same never solved a problem.“

I Commit

By Matthew Zapruder

I commit to vote because

I'm pretty sure I grab

whatever I need from the world

and place it in my mind

which is getting incrementally

like the commons

undeniably more toxic and sad

yes I too walk around

considering my intractable problems

complaining it's too late

for more sonatas

everything is already too beautiful

music and anger won't save us

yet I commit to talking

earnestly with Sarah

about the school board

it will be night and we will be sitting

shoulder to shoulder 

at the old table we love

each holding a pencil

like grade school children left alone at last

then in the morning

before our son wakes

I commit to holding

this tiny bit of quicksilver

(quick in the sense of living

in its very molecular nature

it wants to usefully combine with yours)

in my palm and to walking

up to the blue mailbox

I pass most mornings

in that familiar silence

under those nameless little trees

when all things that surround me wait 

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There’s a fungus among us!

The other day I mentioned the abundance of mushrooms that have recently erupted in our woods. The Better Half and I haven’t yet collaborated on identification, but the latest issue of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer magazine came partially to the rescue with an article about ‘shrooms. The tentative identification below is based on the photos in that article. Only one seemed to align with the MCV pictures. Photos without an identification are still under study. If you want to offer suggestions, feel free to submit a comment.

chicken of the woods(?)

Photo by J. Harrington

It would be nice if the Minnesota Mycological Society offered suggestions to a field guide or even provided one online. From a different source, there are a couple of recommended field guides here. The Minnesota Seasons web page on fungi has lots of missing photos so that may not be the best place for identification assistance.

unidentified mushroom

Photo by J. Harrington

unidentified mushroom

Photo by J. Harrington

unidentified mushroom

Photo by J. Harrington

unidentified mushroom

Photo by J. Harrington

Mushrooms

by Mary Oliver

Mushrooms

Rain, and then
the cool pursed
lips of the wind
draw them
out of the ground -
red and yellow skulls
pummeling upward
through leaves,
through grasses,
through sand; astonishing
in their suddenness,
their quietude,
their wetness, they appear
on fall mornings, some
balancing in the earth
on one hoof
packed with poison,
others billowing
chunkily, and delicious -
those who know
walk out to gather, choosing
the benign from flocks
of glitterers, sorcerers,
russulas,
panther caps,
shark-white death angels
in their town veils
looking innocent as sugar
but full of paralysis:
to eat
is to stagger down
fast as mushrooms themselves
when they are done being perfect
and overnight
slide back under the shining
fields of rain. 

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Meteorological summer’s last Monday this year

 For the record, female ruby-throated hummingbirds are still coming to the sugar water feeder. Yesterday, or maybe the day before, a male ruby-throat was seen at the feeder on the front window. I’m not sure if it’s lack of attention on our part or if males rarely visit the big feeder on the deck. In any event, I won’t be surprised if this morning’s batch of sugar water turns out to be the last for the year. We’ve not seen Baltimore orioles for something like a couple of weeks, so the hummers aren’t likely to finish off the feeder’s contents before they head south.

After last night’s rain, today’s weather is cool and dry, with a definite pre-autumnal feel to it. Warmer temperatures are in the forecast for the balance of the week. All the rain we’ve experienced over the past few weeks hasn’t brought us out of a moderate drought status, but it has triggered an explosion of mushrooms in our front yard woods. We’ve got some pictures, but haven’t yet tried to identify what they’re of, so you’ll have to wait until I can induce the Better Half to work with me on potential id’s. I can tell you that, compared to other year’s pictures, the fruiting(?) is at least a week or two earlier this year.

watch for grasshoppers or crickets in the grass

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s another tidbit I came across in the Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar that I want to share because it came as a surprise to me. Minnesota is home to several species of cricket. I’ve never considered that possibility before. To me a cricket is a cricket is a.... But no, there’s “snowy tree crickets, ... black field crickets and Carolina ground crickets.” The University of Minnesota Extension lists field crickets, camel crickets and house crickets. Minnesota Seasons’ list is much longer:

• Allard’s ground cricket (Allonemobius allardi)

• camel cricket (Ceuthophilus spp.)

• fall field cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus)

• snowy tree cricket (Oecanthus fultoni)

• spring field cricket (Gryllus veletis), and

• striped ground cricket (Allonemobius fasciatus)
  

We've now reached a time of year at which a number of “field crickets” endeavor to become “house crickets.” Our usual tactic is to place a clear plastic cup over the errant insect, then slide a piece of paper under the cup, and transport the critter back outside. The same approach works for spiders which often look for a warmer place to spend the winter. This is also a time of year when a cricket of a grasshopper fly can be very effective on your local trout stream, especially if it flows through grassy fields and the wind is blowing.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

By John Keats

The Poetry of earth is never dead:    

  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,    

  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run    

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;    

That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead       

  In summer luxury,—he has never done    

  With his delights; for when tired out with fun    

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.    

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:    

  On a lone winter evening, when the frost      

    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills    

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,    

  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,    

    The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

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How can you tell a healthy stream or lake?

I did not know until this morning that there’s an organization devoted to “PROTECT, PRESERVE, AND RESTORE WILD NATIVE FISH POPULATIONS THROUGH STEWARDSHIP OF THE FISH AND THEIR HABITATS.” It’s the Native Fish Coalition and it has chapters in a number of states, mostly along the east coast with a few southern chapters. No chapters yet in Minnesota or Wisconsin which I find surprising since brook trout are native to both of those states and are facing significant challenges related to the effects of climate change.

It is the belief of Native Fish Coalition that no stream, river, pond or lake is truly healthy or “restored” until its full complement of native species is intact and it is devoid of nonnative species and hatchery-raised fish.  While clean water and healthy riparian zones are a necessary foundation for establishing healthy aquatic ecosystems, they are not an absolute indication of overall ecological health.

 

Northern Minnesota brook trout water?

Photo by J. Harrington

If you read this posting and are interested in exploring the establishment of a Minnesota Chapter of the NFC, please add a comment so we can get in touch. I happened to come across the NFC web site while I was checking out the Sea Run Brook Trout coalition web site. The watershed association of my home waters in Massachusetts is working on the restoration of native fishes in the North and South Rivers. That’s a wonderful improvement over the situation when I lived there decades ago. Perhaps there are reasons to be hopeful.

The Disappearance of the Duwamish Salmon

By Duane Niatum

How long have they laid buried

in the sludge and grime of industry

erasing the river's breath

and almost erasing the Duwamish people

who once paddled their canoes down

its current swift as the wing of kingfisher?

Walking beside the river in 2009 you can

still hear the dreams and laughter

of children picking serviceberry

with their grandmother teasing a crow

stealing berries from her basket.

You might glimpse ancestral villages,

longhouses yards from the riverbank

before settlers burned them to the ground ,

drove the small tribe to the city's outskirts.

Seattle, too easily the age slipped a false-face

mask on you, a glass and concrete fashion cone

to give roaches the run of skyscrapers.

Although an alien in Salish country,

you were destined to become Raven's cousin,

Killer Whale's distant, ambivalent friend,

the many-mountains'-on-both-sides

adopted daughter when just an agate cut

from volcano and sea.

Seattle, my old salmonberry moon under a sky

as light as a tossed net, who remains,

leaping with salmon for old emotions?

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The last week of “summer"

Next weekend is Labor Day, the official start of meteorological autumn and the unofficial end of summer vacation season. Our bur oak has already started dropping leaves. More trees are showing hints of autumn colors but hummingbirds are still coming to the sugar water feeders. We haven’t seen any dragonflies for weeks now. I hope it’s because we haven’t been paying enough attention in the right places but suspect the drought and the variable rain patterns may be contributors.

Ruby Meadowhawk

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night’s thunderstorms brought more rain but there’s still no water visible in the “wet spot” behind the house, although the Sunrise River pools in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area are really full. It’s an open question whether this fall’s migration will be more trickle down over the whole season or the waterfowl will have food and open water late enough that we’ll see a “grand passage” this year.

More and more folks who participate in fishing and hunting support strategies that help minimize and adapt to climate change and its effects. These are pretty much the same kind of people who insisted congress enact a tax on the equipment they use to help fund conservation efforts. Unlike those who are now complaining about “forgiveness” of some student loan debt, anglers and hunters have long recognized the truth of the late Senator Paul Wellstone’s observation that “We all do better when we all do better.” It seems that too many of us have lost track of the idea that a thriving community, or a country, is more than the aggregation of what’s best for each individual, especially if we also count corporations as people.

Joni Mitchell has written, and recorded, a wonderful song about the time of year we’re entering. It’s also been covered by some other talented singers such as Tom Rush. Not to rush a change of seasons, but to prepare for it, follow the link and enjoy him singing The Urge for Going. Then, please return and read:

Song for Autumn

by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the fires that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

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Summer has gone to the dogs

We enjoyed a delightful trip this morning as we collected our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share. Many fields we drove past glistened with dew-covered grasses. Sandhill cranes were feeding in many farm fields. On our way to deliver the Daughter Person’s share of the share, and again as we headed home, we saw seven whitetail deer in various and sundry locations. First was a nice buck in velvet following what we think was a doe. (We didn’t get a clear look at “her” head.) Then, half a mile or so down the road, there were two deer checking out gardens at the distant end of a long driveway. Another mile or so and a large doe was browsing just off the gravel road. Finally, between the Daughter Person’s and our house we saw a doe and a “wait for me, mom” fawn crossing a different gravel road. This may have set a sightings record for us.

According to our CSA box, local sweet corn has finally come into season. Here’s what was in this week’s box:

• CANTALOUPE
• CUCUMBERS
• GREEN PEPPERS
• SWEET CORN
• TOMATOES and
• ZUCCHINI

 

Since today is National Dog Day, we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge our two four-legged current housemates, each helping to rescue us from dogless doldrums. There’s SiSi (the blond) and Harry (the beagle). They said to say “Hi!!”  [Since there are two of them, of different genders, we’ve taken a minor liberty with today’s poem.]

SiSi (the blond) & Harry (the beagle)

Photo by J. Harrington

 

S/He's Just My Dog

S/He is my other eyes that can see above the clouds;
my other ears that hear above the winds.
S/He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea.
S/He has told me a thousand times over that I am her/his reason for being;
by the way s/he rests against my leg;
by the way s/he thumps her/his tail at my smallest smile;
by the way s/he shows her/his hurt when I leave without taking her/him
(I think it makes her/him sick with worry when s/he is not along
to care for me).

When I am wrong, s/he is delighted to forgive.
When I am angry, s/he clowns to make me smile.
When I am happy, s/he is joy unbounded.
When I am a fool, s/he ignores it.
When I succeed, s/he brags.

Without her/him, I am only another man. With her/him, I am all-powerful.
S/He is loyalty itself. S/He has taught me the meaning of devotion.
With her/him, I know a secret comfort and a private peace.
S/He has brought me understanding where before I was ignorant.
Her/His head on my knee can heal my human hurts.
Her/His presence by my side is protection against my fears
of dark and unknown things.

S/He has promised to wait for me… whenever… wherever, in case I need her/him.
And I expect I will – as I always have.
S/He is just my dog.

by Gene Hill

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In search of better days

It’s the time of year when Agastache foeniculum (Anise Hyssop, Blue Giant Hyssop) comes into its own in our neighborhood. It’s difficult to impossible to see in the photo below, but our plants are literally crawling with small bumblebees. It’s a treat to see pollinators this year. Monarchs have been very few and very, very far between.

Anise Hyssop, Blue Giant Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)

Photo by J. Harrington

Early mornings after a rainy evening or night, walking the dogs is accompanied by a chorus of frog chirps. We’ve not seen any frogs in person yet this summer. Occasionally, a tiny toad will appear somewhere in the yard, like the one that hopped under the brush pile as I mowed past on the tractor the other day. Most summers we’ve been visited by one or two green tree frogs by now. Another piece of what seems like a strange summer this year.

If somehow you’ve missed the memo, Minnesota’s state fair opened today. In the decades we’ve lived here we’ve been only two or three times and, I believe, two of them were work related. Compound my natural aversion to large, unwieldy crowds with my stronger aversion to potentially deadly viruses and pandemics, and you can be sure we won’t be going this year either.

One of the nice aspects of a subprime summer such as the one we’re closing out is that it doesn’t take a whole heck of a lot to really improve things. We realize there are lots of folks who are in much worse shape than we are, at least at the moment, but this summer has seen too much time expended on things that need to get done and not enough on things we want to do. We’re looking forward to falling into a better pattern next month, or, at least shaking off our funky mood. We are definitely overdue for a day or two or three of fishing and apple picking eating.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

W. B. Yeats - 1865-1939

I went out to the hazel wood,   
Because a fire was in my head,   
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,   
And hooked a berry to a thread;   
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,   
I dropped the berry in a stream   
And caught a little silver trout.   

When I had laid it on the floor   
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,   
And someone called me by my name:   
It had become a glimmering girl   
With apple blossom in her hair   
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.   

Though I am old with wandering   
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,   
I will find out where she has gone,   
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,   
And pluck till time and times are done,   
The silver apples of the moon,   
The golden apples of the sun.

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Look carefully. It’s happening now.

What’s happening? In our part of the North Country the color change is. This seems to be a particularly good year for goldenrod. Many roadsides and some fields are bright yellow. That’s an attractive contrast or complement to what’s shown in these pictures I took this morning along one of my favorite country roads.

leaves turned purple

Photo by J. Harrington

Joe Pye weed(?) in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

maple leaves(?) showing color

Photo by J. Harrington

maple leaves showing color

Photo by J. Harrington

These colors weren’t evident a week ago when I drove the same route I took this morning. Often, nature’s changes are subtle and incremental and we miss them if we aren’t paying attention. Especially if we’re looking out a vehicle window at 60 mph. Sometimes nature surprises us with flash floods, volcanos or lightning strikes. Those are hard to miss, especially if we’re nearby when they happen. Change is inevitable, if disconcerting. Attend, adapt, adjust. It’s near impossible to avoid.

Change

By Wendy Videlock

Change is the new, 

improved 

word for god, 

lovely enough 

to raise a song 

or implicate 

a sea of wrongs, 

mighty enough, 

like other gods, 

to shelter, 

bring together, 

and estrange us. 

Please, god, 

we seem to say, 

change us.

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Change of season, change of menu

This week and next will be the last two summer shares from our community supported agriculture [CSA] peak summer phase. The beginning of meteorological autumn is but a little more than a week away. Labor Day is less than two weeks from now. I think we can get away with mowing the yard no more than once or twice and call it quits for that chore until next year. That will free up time for wrangling falling leaves and then, at some point, fallen snowflakes.

The Perennial Kitchen, Beth Dooley

Before we get too far ahead of the seasonal changes, let's take a moment and think about summer being more a time of barbecues and salads while autumn brings us back to soups, stews and other hearty meals season. One source of some recipes I’m looking forward to trying is Beth Dooley’s The Perennial Kitchen. Two of those recipes are Maple Wild Rice Cornbread and Sausage and White Bean Soup. Trying some of the recipes may be a real challenge since some ingredients, such as Mandan Bride corn meal, aren’t readily stocked on the shelves of a local big box grocery. Finding sources will help me appreciate the dishes even more and may even make me feel more like a naturalized midwesterner. Fortunately, Doolittle provides a list of possible sources and resources in the book.

Eating local, natural and healthy is something each of us can work at as a thoroughly enjoyable way to live more sustainably, support local economies and help heal the earth’s wounds. It’s pretty close to being able to have our cake and eat it too.

Applesauce

Ted Kooser - 1939-

I liked how the starry blue lid
of that saucepan lifted and puffed,
then settled back on a thin
hotpad of steam, and the way
her kitchen filled with the warm,
wet breath of apples, as if all
the apples were talking at once,
as if they’d come cold and sour
from chores in the orchard,
and were trying to shoulder in
close to the fire. She was too busy
to put in her two cents’ worth
talking to apples. Squeezing
her dentures with wrinkly lips,
she had to jingle and stack
the bright brass coins of the lids
and thoughtfully count out
the red rubber rings, then hold
each jar, to see if it was clean,
to a window that looked out
through her back yard into Iowa.
And with every third or fourth jar
she wiped steam from her glasses,
using the hem of her apron,
printed with tiny red sailboats
that dipped along with leaf-green
banners snapping, under puffs
or pale applesauce clouds
scented with cinnamon and cloves,
the only boats under sail
for at least two thousand miles.

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Woolly bear watch season is here

A review of the photo archives informs us that I’ve taken pictures of woolly bear caterpillars  in August, September and October. I don’t rely on the folklore about how the width of the reddish-brown band can foretell the severity of the upcoming winter. Then, again, we posted the other day that the farmer’s almanac and the weather service have two opposing forecasts regarding the upcoming winter and whether it will, or will not, be wetter and/or milder than whatever we’re calling normal these days. I’d rather spend some time outside on a sunny, late summer, early autumn day, looking for caterpillars. Besides, having grown up in New England and now lived in Minnesota for decades, I’ve learned that it can be risky relying on tomorrow’s forecast, let alone an estimate for three months from now.

woollybear caterpillar (Isabella Tiger Moth)

Photo by J. Harrington

I think some time last week I promised to report back on the Better Half’s cabbage roll dinner. It turned out much better than I expected, but with cabbage anything my expectations are always tempered. Anyhow, we agreed that the rolls rated “tasty” but didn’t quite make it into the “delicious” category. We’re having leftovers tonight which allows for the possibility that, like many stews and soups, they may taste even better the second time.

A Caterpillar on the Desk

by Robert Bly

          Lifting my coffee cup, I notice a caterpillar crawling over my sheet of ten-cent airmail stamps. The head is black as a Chinese box. Nine soft accordions follow it around, with a waving motion, like a flabby mountain. Skinny brushes used to clean pop bottles rise from some of its shoulders. As I pick up the sheet of stamps, the caterpillar advances around and around the edge, and I see his feet: three pairs under the head, four spongelike pairs under the middle body, and two final pairs at the tip, pink as a puppy's hind legs. As he walks, he rears, six pairs of legs off the stamp, waving around the air! One of the sponge pairs, and the last two tail pairs, the reserve feet, hold on anxiously. It is the first of September. The leaf shadows are less ferocious on the notebook cover. A man accepts his failures more easily-or perhaps summer's insanity is gone? A man notices ordinary earth, scorned in July, with affection, as he settles down to his daily work, to use stamps.

 

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Changing with the seasons

 We have now reached the beginning of my favorite three, maybe four, months of the year. Yes, I celebrate the end of winter when March, or April, or May finally arrives, but that marks an end to bitter cold and snow and ice and suffering and the beginning of mud season which, after a two or three week period, suddenly becomes summer. The transition from summer to autumn, through Thanksgiving those years when we don’t experience a Halloween blizzard, and sometimes up through Christmas, are usually the months when I find most enjoyment.

maple leaves, late August

Photo by J. Harrington

In autumn, the grass has pretty much stopped growing. That eliminates mowing. The by now monotonous green of the countryside picks up colors as chlorophyll fades and yellows, oranges and reds dominate. There’s also the nostalgia of watching summer’s visitors migrate south. Most of the ducks, geese, shorebirds, cranes and swans flock up and fly away before all their food is covered in snow of frozen in ice. A few swans hang around most years and can be found on open water in the lower St. Croix.

The bright colors of pumpkins, squash and apples brighten farm fields, grocery stores and dinner tables. I usually plant a half dozen or so chrysanthemums and a few New England asters to brighten the driveway. Later, Jack O’Lanterns will signal halloween’s arrival. By now I’m sure you get the picture.

It’s going to be interesting this year to see who has how much of what to be thankful for come post election day. Regardless of whether sanity, or lack thereof, prevails, I’m going to focus more on adjusting my attitude and philosophy to be more grateful for the gifts and good things in my life. I’m also going to do more to incorporate transformative changes into my daily life because I’ve accepted, more and more, that “Living well is the best revenge” and no matter how many Democrats win on November 8, I’m still feeling very vengeful toward Republicans and DINOs. We’ll explore what I mean by living well in upcoming postings.

Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer

by Jane Kenyon

We turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire. So much
to be done—the unpacking, the mail
and papers…the grass needed mowing….
We climbed stiffly out of the car.
The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.

And then we noticed the pear tree,
the limbs so heavy with fruit
they nearly touched the ground.
We went out to the meadow; our steps
made black holes in the grass;
and we each took a pear,
and ate, and were grateful.

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Today, especially, I want to Beelieve

Pardon me for playing with part of a basic manifesto for the tv series The X-Files, but it seems to fit really well with today’s celebration of National Honeybee Day. Although honeybees play a significant role in agricultural production, they aren’t native to North America. I lean much more toward supporting most pollinators through the activities of the Xerces Society.

X Files: I want to believe

From the reading I’ve done, much of the honeybees’ decline can be attributed to agricultural pesticides. So some-to-many farmers seem to be cutting off their noses to spite their faces so to speak. If we focus on creating a world that’s healthier for native pollinators and let bee keepers and farmers sort out their priorities, we’ll probably all benefit.

Bee Whisperer

By Laura Secord

For weeks we’ve seen some wild winds.

Today, I find my hives knocked over.

A season’s honey smeared in rivers

on the ground. I stand their domes again.

The bees are swarming in the trees and fighting

against the gale. I watch one entire colony

trapped by a whirlwind, carried out and up

across the Green. I run to follow and see them

swept over the river and caught in a maple grove.

                  Can anyone call bees?

Alone before the water’s edge,

in desperate worry for my colony,

not knowing what to do, I hold

my arms high, as if to block the wind,

and cry like swarming bees. I speak

about our apple blooms, promise

them acres of blossoms and honey mounds.

                  Your domes are upright, your babies waiting.

Suddenly, in one black cloud, they return

across the water, above my raised

head and waving arms, over the Green.

When I return, almost

horizontal against the raging winds,

I climb to my orchard, and find

the hives filling back

with colonies of bees.

Notes:

This poem is from my historical verse narrative, An Art, a Craft, a Mystery (Livingston Press, 2022), the story of two women who immigrated to the colonies as indentured servants in the seventeenth century and lived along the Connecticut River. They were both healers and victims of the early witch-hunt delusion in colonial Connecticut. In this poem, Kate Harrison speaks about the harassment she suffered after her husband’s death, and her response to the harassment.

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A Thoreau-ly modern issue

Some time ago I managed to download a pdf of a Howard Zinn essay on Thoreau and Civil Disobedience. I don’t believe the essay is still available but you might try poking around. Here’s the basic information:

Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817. To celebrate his 200th birthday, we’re pleased to share this essay by Howard Zinn honoring Thoreau’s life and legacy.

Special thanks to Rick Balkin and Myla Zinn for permission to share this essay, which was originally published as an introduction to The Higher Law: Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform, edited by Wendell Glick (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1973, 2004) and reprinted in Howard Zinn’s, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (San Francisco: City Lights Books 2007).

Copyright ©2007 by Howard Zinn

City Lights Books
261 Columbus Avenue San Francisco, CA www.citylights.com

For today, I especially want to share one of the paragraphs found about midway in the piece.

At the center of Thoreau’s great essay (though he doesn’t make the reference) is that stunning idea expressed in the Declaration of Independence: governments are artificial creations, set up to serve the interests of the people. That idea was quickly overwhelmed by the reality of the Constitution and the establishment of an actual government. Now a small group of powerful men could use the government to advance their own interests, make war, and compromise with slavery. But why should people of conscience defer to such a government and its laws? Why should they not exercise their own moral judgment? When a government supports injustice, it is the duty of its citizens to withhold their support from the government, to resist its demands.

It seems to me that many of those who would govern the rest of US are increasingly in support of injustice and, unfortunately, some of them actually get elected. That means that, according to Thoreau, people of conscience should exercise their own moral judgement rather than defer to such a government and its laws. These days such issues are often further complicated because much of our “government” is actually a corporatocracy rather than a democracy.

“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

Corporations are legal persons, not to be confused with real people and human beings despite court cases to the contrary. Remember, courts are as much artificial creations as the rest of government and the question becomes do court decisions “serve the interests of people?” Please think about these questions and do some more reading before you cast your votes next November.

Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

By Vachel Lindsay

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.

My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.

I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.

I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—

Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.

So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,

Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,

Crying to God in all the polling places

To heal our everlasting sinfulness

And make us sages with transfigured faces.

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Weather or not

 This week it’s raining enough, often enough, that the yard isn’t getting mowed (mown?). Wet grass doesn’t cut well. The purple lovegrass isn’t looking as robust this year as it has in years past. That may mean there’ll be that much less tumblegrass to clean up come autumn. Speaking of the upcoming season, the US Weather Service seasonal forecast suggests Minnesota has a good chance of enjoying above normal temperatures. The Farmers Almanac, on the other hand, expects our autumn temps to be bellow average. It’ll probably turn out that each of them is correct about half the days this autumn.

summer clouds between rain showers

Photo by J. Harrington

The current weather forecast includes “Heavy Thunderstorms” this afternoon/evening; “Scattered Thunderstorms” tomorrow and “Isolated Thunderstorms” Saturday. Maybe we’ll get to mowing late Sunday or sometime Monday. Since the forecast involves thunderstorms and not simple rain showers, we won’t take advantage of the interference with yard work by going fishing. Standing in a river or stream, waving a long graphite fly rod during a thunderstorm might not be the dumbest thing we’ve done in our life, but it could turn out to be the last really dumb thing we’ll do, so NO!

The rain won’t interfere with tomorrow’s trip to collect this week’s Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share. The magic box this time will include:

• BASIL
• CUCUMBERS
• EGGPLANT
• GREEN BEANS
• RED NORLAND POTATOES
• STIR-FRY GREENS MIX
• SUMMER SQUASH
• SWEET ONION and
• TOMATOES

Tonight, the Better Half is getting creative and using much of last week’s CSA cabbage to make cabbage rolls she claims should be tasty. If so, it will be a first for me but the makings looked promising so I’m hopeful. We’ll report back on them tomorrow.

Heavy Summer Rain

By Jane Kenyon

The grasses in the field have toppled,

and in places it seems that a large, now

absent, animal must have passed the night.

The hay will right itself if the day

turns dry. I miss you steadily, painfully.

None of your blustering entrances

or exits, doors swinging wildly

on their hinges, or your huge unconscious

sighs when you read something sad,

like Henry Adams’s letters from Japan,

where he traveled after Clover died.

Everything blooming bows down in the rain:

white irises, red peonies; and the poppies

with their black and secret centers

lie shattered on the lawn.

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Natural foragers

We have one swamp milkweed in bloom. I just noticed it today while doing some chores. It’s just a few feet away from several clusters of elderberries which may, or may not, be beneficially consumed by humans, depending on which source we give the most weight to. Birds and small mammals are reported to feed on the berries, so they probably won’t go to waste if we don’t cook ‘em.

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, I’ve convinced myself that there are, indeed, a number of milkweed plants without flowers that eventually turn into seed pods. But, despite repeated efforts at internet searches, I can find no mention of the significance or causation of why some plants flower and produce seed pods while others don’t. Feel free to share a resource or two in the comments if you can provide a clue.

The bur oak at the end of the drive has been dropping green acorns for more than a week now. And yet, every other day or so, there are no acorns on the ground. Squirrels? Deer? Chipmunks? The fact that today I noticed several wild turkey feathers around the yard and along the drive provides some clues as to who the primary culprits may be.

We are now in the midst of our second downpour this afternoon. Fortunately, there’s been little thunder so far which means SiSi’s anxiety hasn’t yet been triggered. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the rest of the day continues in a like vein. We’ll also keep them crossed that we continue to be able to schedule our walks between, not during, the downpours. When Dylan wrote A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall he may well have been imagining precipitation like today’s. As I look at the morning headlines these days, I truly wish he hadn’t been so prescient.

Milkweed

by Philip Levine

Remember how unimportant
they seemed, growing loosely
in the open fields we crossed
on the way to school. We
would carve wooden swords
and slash at the luscious trunks
until the white milk started
and then flowed. Then we'd
go on to the long day
after day of the History of History
or the tables of numbers and order
as the clock slowly paid
out the moments. The windows
went dark first with rain
and then snow, and then the days,
then the years ran together and not
one mattered more than
another, and not one mattered.

Two days ago I walked
the empty woods, bent over,
crunching through oak leaves,
asking myself questions
without answers. From somewhere
a froth of seeds drifted by touched
with gold in the last light
of a lost day, going with
the wind as they always did.

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Velvet season

 Late afternoon yesterday, just where the oak trees end and the grassy field begins, a deer stood watching. At first I thought it was a grown fawn, waiting for the doe. Then, at second and third glance, I began to wonder if it was a yearling doe. Finally, the deer stepped away from the shade and shadows and the fading fawn spots became clearly visible. I was looking at this year’s almost grown fawn.

By now I was watching through field glasses and something didn’t look right about the head and ears. Finally, the fawn turned and caught the light just so. I could see antler stubs covered in velvet. The animal was a buck fawn, a “button buck.”

buck with spike antlers in velvet

Photo by J. Harrington

Several years ago we were visited by a spike buck and a forkhorn. This is the first time we’ve seen a button buck. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera handy so we can’t share a picture of this year’s visitor, unless he returns some time when I’m ready for him instead of trying to figure out what I’m seeing.

Tomorrow

By Jim Harrison

I’m hoping to be astonished tomorrow

by I don’t know what:

not the usual undiscovered bird in the cold

snowy willows, garishly green and yellow,

and not my usual death, which I’ve done

before with Borodin’s music

used in Kismet, and angels singing

“Stranger in Paradise,” that sort of thing,

and not the thousand naked women

running a marathon in circles around me

while I swivel on a writerly chair

keeping an eye on my favorites.

What could it be, this astonishment,

but falling into a liquid mirror

to finally understand that the purpose

of earth is earth? It’s plain as night.

She’s willing to sleep with us a little while.

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What’s in a life?

Today is the last day of our 36th year of marriage, Tomorrow, we celebrate our 37th anniversary. I suspect it will be a quiet celebration. We’ll have dinner with the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter and be grateful for the good time and wonderful company.

Irish soda bread

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I lost track of a package of Irish soda bread last March, I’ll bake a loaf for breakfast tomorrow, with hopes that it will continue to bring us the “luck o’ the Irish.” What else we may do during the day will depend, in large part, on the weather, especially temperatures and precipitation.

It’s not often I acknowledge that anything turns out better than I expected. Much of that has to do with my refusal to lower my expectations despite an obvious, and continuing, inability to modify the world to suit my taste. I hereby acknowledge that the past 36 years have been better than expected and much of that is despite my meddling. Fortunately, every once in awhile I have a moment of lucidity that enables me to realize just how lucky I am. Today’s posting is evidence of one such moment. May each and everyone of you reading this be as fortunate.

Anniversary

By Cecilia Woloch

Didn’t I stand there once,

white-knuckled, gripping the just-lit taper,

swearing I’d never go back?

And hadn’t you kissed the rain from my mouth?

And weren’t we gentle and awed and afraid,

knowing we’d stepped from the room of desire

into the further room of love?

And wasn’t it sacred, the sweetness

we licked from each other’s hands?

And were we not lovely, then, were we not

as lovely as thunder, and damp grass, and flame?

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What comes next?

Fog hung thick this morning. By now, mid-afternoon, the sun has come out and skies are clearing. There’s not a drop of fog in sight. Fortunately, we don’t have to choose, because each condition is appealing in a number of different ways. With the fog, more so if one isn’t on open water without a compass or fog horn.

late summer fog

Photo by J. Harrington

Coming back from The Cities, we saw a great blue heron flying through the Sunrise River marshes in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. It’s hard to believe a creature that looks like it should be awkward and unwieldy is actually graceful in the air and on its stilt-like legs.

The heron appeared as the Daughter Person, Better Half and I were returning from the interment ceremony  of a family friend who walked on back in June. He was a member of a Lutheran church in Minneapolis. As I recall from my childhood, Catholics didn’t used to combine funeral services with regular Sunday mass. I don’t know how regular it is for Lutherans to do so, but that’s what we were at.

The Daughter Person drove. I rode in the back seat. The church is located in an area that I had some economic development responsibilities for years ago when I worked for The City. Uncharacteristically, I managed to keep my mouth shut and treat the Daughter Person like the highly capable adult she’s become. I kept my mouth shut as she got us to the church following directions she had downloaded. I would have gone a different way, but I wasn’t driving. This getting older and being a considerate adult is sure a slippery slope once you start down it. I wonder if I need to sign up for skiing lessons for Seniors.

Funerals

By James Laughlin

.

in our village are short and to the point.   

While the mourners are finding their seats   

Etta Andrews plays “Now the Day Is Over.”

No one is ashamed to wipe his or her eyes.   

Then the Reverend stands up and reads   

the Lord’s Prayer with the mourners   

speaking it with him. Then there is a hymn,   

usually “Rock of Ages” or one chosen by   

the wife of the deceased. The deceased,   

I might say, is never present, except for   

an urn prepared by Mr. Torrant, who is   

always squinting. Next there are remarks   

by the Reverend. He is a kind man and   

can be relied upon to say something nice   

about the life of the departed, no matter

how much he may have been scorned or even   

disliked.

The Reverend’s eulogies are so much the   

same, with appropriate readings from scripture,   

that I gave up listening to them years ago.   

Instead, unheard, I eulogize myself,   

the real picture of how I’ve been in   

the village. I admit that I was self-satisfied   

and arrogant. I didn’t go to much pains   

to provide diversions for my wife. When   

the children and grandchildren came for visits   

I lectured them and pointed out their faults.   

I made appropriate contributions to the   

local charities but without much enthusiasm.   

I snubbed people who bored me and avoided   

parties. I was considerate to the people   

who worked in the post office. I complained

a great deal about my ailments. When I’m   

asked how I’m doing, I reply that I’m   

not getting any younger. This inveterate   

response has become a bore in the village.

After the Reverend’s eulogy is over

there is another hymn, and the benediction.   

As they leave everyone, except me, presses   

the flesh of the bereaved with appropriate   

utterances. But I get away as quickly as   

I can. If they don’t bore me I like   

almost all the people in the village.   

But as they go, I tick them off. I’ve   

been to at least fifty funerals. When   

will mine be?

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