How can we harvest honorably?

Three books have had a disproportionate influence on me in both my professional and my personal life. They are Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; and, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. Today’s posting explores a section of the third book because I’m in  the process of deciding if I can figure out how, and how much, of the principles of an honorable harvest can actually be applied in today’s world.

deer eat the bushes, birds the berries, we harvest what’s left

Photo by J. Harrington

Here are the principles under consideration:

The Honorable Harvest, a practice both ancient and urgent, applies to every exchange between people and the Earth. Its protocol is not written down, but if it were, it would look something like this:

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last.
Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have been given.
Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.

There are several versions of these principles in publication, but they all convey essentially the same message. As I read them, many, perhaps all of these principles fit much better in a foraging or hunter-gatherer culture than one which depends on industrialized agriculture. But, many (most?) can be applied to small scale agriculture (know your farmer) and foraging and home gardening. (Do any farms have kitchen gardens anymore?) Here are the ones that look to me as if, in one way or another, we could readily do a much better job of respecting:

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
[ecosystem services and biodiversity]
Take only what you need.
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. 
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.
[ecosystem services and biodiversity]

The adaptation isn’t perfect but it does represent a profound transformation in attitude and perspective. It may, or may not, offer an alternative to the Gordian knot of using legalistic standards such as “organic” food and regenerative farming. I’m reminded of a very true assessment in a book I recently finished reading. One cannot force another to love them. If we all do much, much better at learning to love and respect the Earth, we may need fewer regulations and have a better chance of lasting forever.

One final observation for today. Notice that the Honorable Harvest protocol is not written down. Now note that Aldo Leopold informs us that:

“I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written’… It evolves in the minds of a thinking community.” The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac.

We could stand to do a lot more these days to (re?)create “a thinking community.” to help figure out how to harvest honorably, right?

Praise the Rain

By Joy Harjo

Praise the rain; the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

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Time to replace lawyers in politics and government?

Many of the lawyers I’ve known, or known of, prided themselves on their ability to split hairs. Politicians frequently share the same inclinations. I remember a former occupant of the White House noting “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

There are at least two major issues right now where clearer legislation, regulations and judicial orders could have benefited all fo US a great deal. I’m sure you’ve heard something about the Feeding Our Future fraud allegations and the corresponding debate about who said or did what and why. The Star Tribune had  a clarifying article about it, followed by today’s editorial: “Hungering for clarity after food fraud.” I take exception to the editorial calling out Walz and Ellison since the same editorial cites two distinguished, uninvolved, legal talents who imply different assessments of the situation:

David Schultz, a Hamline and University of Minnesota professor and political observer who reviewed but is not involved in the case, told an editorial writer that it looked like a classic administrative law case in which lawsuits are filed to force government agencies to issue permits or licenses or, in this case, approve partner sites promptly.

"I don't see anything that says the court compelled MDE to resume payments," he said.

On the other hand:

Former Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, who also isn't involved in the case, told a Star Tribune reporter this week that although there was no formal order from the judge, she could see why MDE could take Guthmann's comments during the hearing to mean that the agency would be hard-pressed to stop payments.

"The bottom line is that Judge Guthmann did not order them to continue payments. At the same time, it is understandable why the Department of Education felt like they had to continue paying," Gaertner said. "A fair reading of the federal regulations seemed to require it, and more importantly though, they had to feel constrained to not in any way interfere with the FBI investigation."

 

WOTUS or not?

Photo by J. Harrington

The second issue has to do with a piece of legislation that will celebrate its 50th anniversary next month, The Clean Water Act Amendments (of 1972). The piece of legislation failed to clearly define “Waters Of The United States” [WOTUS]. So, in addition to various interpretations over the decades, we now have two federal agencies (Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency) working toward a redefinition at the same time that yet another case is headed toward the current “Supreme” Court. We all know the old definition about what flows down hill but governments and legislatures seem to have a real problems grasping that water, surface, atmospheric and ground, all flows as part of one system. There was a recent article about PFAS being in each drop of rain that falls, as one example. But, in addition to the federal mess, in Minnesota the Supreme Court reached a decision on one “public water” but kicked that can back to the legislature to clarify the broader application questions.

Is this the best we can expect when we elect amateurs to represent US in at the state and federal level? A mishmash of conflicting interpretations of legislative intent compounded by a failure to agree upon the facts of a case? There are other examples that I’ll save for another day. For now, remember this other piece of advice to lawyers from a journalist and poet who must have watched lawyers carefully:

“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell”

― Carl Sandburg 

 

If we got rid of the lawyers in government, we could be better served by replacing them with poets, but that seems like a sorry misuse of the talents of such a wonderful class of people. Do you have any suggestions on how we can “cut to the chase”  instead of splitting hairs?

The Abracadabra Boys

By Carl Sandburg

The abracadabra boys—have they been in the stacks and cloisters? Have they picked up languages for throwing into chow mein poems?

Have they been to a sea of jargons and brought back jargons? Their salutations go: Who cometh? and, It ith I cometh.

They know postures from impostures, pistils from pustules, to hear them tell it. They foregather and make pitty pat with each other in Latin and in their private pig Latin, very ofay.

They give with passwords. “Who cometh?” “A kumquat cometh.” “And how cometh the kumquat?” “On an abbadabba, ancient and honorable sire, ever and ever on an abbadabba.”

Do they have fun? Sure—their fun is being what they are, like our fun is being what we are—only they are more sorry for us being what we are than we are for them being what they are.

Pointing at you, at us, at the rabble, they sigh and say, these abracadabra boys, “They lack jargons. They fail to distinguish between pustules and pistils. They knoweth not how the kumquat cometh.”

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Time to chill out!

Only a few days left in September. There was a skim of ice on the bird bath this morning. Frost covered the low spot in the back yard and most everywhere else in sight too. That should be it for local frost advisories for the next ten days and maybe more. I’d rather cope with intermittently covering the plants than cleaning up after a hurricane. One of the nice things about Minnesota is that very few hurricanes reach us.

bird bath with ice cover

Photo by J. Harrington

We took a drive today to do some errands and can confirm that the MNDNR Fall Color Finder map is accurate, although  we’d lean toward the lower end of their 10% - 25% peak color estimate around here. Most of the oaks are still very green. Maples, sumacs and others are showing more color by the day.

This morning’s predawn dog walk reminded me of just how cold it’s likely to get four or five months from now. But, before that happens we get to enjoy Samhain / Halloween; Thanksgiving; and, Solstice / Christmas. I’ve not yet tackled the 72 seasons a year we mentioned awhile back, but neither have I forgotten about it. Maybe we’ll save that up for an upcoming snow day!

Leaves

Lloyd Schwartz - 1941-

                        1 

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony 
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its 
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far 
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
        the trees don't die, they just pretend,
        go out in style, and return in style: a new style.





                        2 

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far 
enough away from home to see not just trees 
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high 
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were 
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks 
like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, 
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the 
most color last year, but it doesn't matter since 
you're probably too late anyway, or too early—
        whichever road you take will be the wrong one
        and you've probably come all this way for nothing.






                        3 

You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last, you don't want it to last. You 
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop. 
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll 
        remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt
        or something you've felt that also didn't last.

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Frost, freeze, frozen...

This is Minnesota, North Country. Although we’re a few days away from the end of September, I’ve seen a couple of reports of snow in the vicinity of the Boundary Waters. Tonight there’s a freeze warning that reaches into the Twin Cities metropolitan area (the Census version). A frost advisory looks like it extends to and beyond the state’s southern border. Last night we covered many of our vulnerable plants to protect them from frost. We’ll repeat the drill tonight and throw in some crossed fingers.

woolly bear September 26, 2022

Photo by J. Harrington

To speculate again, or more, about what kind of winter we can expect, yesterday I finally spotted a woolly bear caterpillar crossing the road. The brown bands predominate which portends a milder winter. But, the folks at NOAA have a high confidence that we’ll experience a La Nina autumn and early winter, which could mean a colder, snowier winter than whatever we consider “normal” these days. Perhaps the most reasonable approach is to take it a day at a time and look out the window to see what the weather is doing.

Yesterday when I looked out the window, I noticed we still have flowers in bloom. In fact, when I actually went outside and got closer, I noticed a bee on each of two blossoms on one of our plants. Again today as I walked by, I noticed there was a bee on each of two blossoms. Were they the same two bees? We'll probably never know. Two bees or not two bees, that is the question.

busy bees belaboring blossoms

Photo by J. Harrington

So, we now have enhanced volatility and uncertainty in the stock market, the climate, maybe the global economy and also in international and national politics. If we get a Halloween Blizzard this year, it may just remind us of the “good old days.”

When the Frost is on the Punkin

James Whitcomb Riley - 1849-1916

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!...
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

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Daughter’s Day, splitting the difference

Yesterday was National Daughters Day. September 28 is World Daughters Day. I’m splitting the difference and posting today in honor of my daughter, referred to occasionally in these postings as The Daughter Person.

If it’s unclear from those postings, I love The Daughter Person, and her daughter, our Granddaughter, a whole lot. I find it fascinating to have an adult child whom I not only love, but like, a whole lot. She has demonstrated excellent taste in her spouse, her daughter, her mother, her friends, dogs, and, on a good day, her father. Over the years she’s also shown a healthy ability to know when to listen to her old man and when to say “yep” and go and do what she was going to do anyway. [It’s possible she acquired that skill from her mother.] I’m proud of her for that and many other things. May all parents, of whatever type, biological. adoptive, foster, or other, be as lucky as I am. (No, I’m not trying to take all or even most of the credit. The women in this family, as in most that I know of, did and do most of the heavy lifting.)

One of my favorite singer - songwriters, Joni Mitchell, is someone’s daughter [note to self, get and read at least one biography] and has allowed Pete Seeger to augment one of her classics with a verse he wrote, the last one below. It fits today’s theme to a “D.” 

UPDATE: listen to Joni and Pete in a duet.

Both Sides Now 

by Joni Mitchell

Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now 
From win and lose and still somehow 
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

I've looked at life from both sides now 
From up and down and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

[Pete Seeger]
Daughter, daughter, don't you know.
You're not the first to feel just so.
But let me say before I go, 
It's worth it anyway.

Some day we may all be surprised,
We'll wake and open up our eyes.
And then we all will realize
The whole world feels this way.

We've all been living upside down,
And turned around with love unfound
Until we turn and face the sun;
Yes, all of us, everyone.

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Celebrate Rivers! Water Is Life!

Today is World Rivers Day. Here in the US, we have an abundance of rivers but less and less an abundance of clean water, and, with climate change, many of our rivers are running dry.

US Rivers

Yesterday I promised some resources on Minnesota’s rivers. Here they are:

• A Primer on Minnesota’s Rivers
• Minnesota’s federal Wild and Scenic River
• Minnesota’s Rivers and Streams resources
• Minnesota’s Watershed Districts

Watersheds often form the core of a bioregion.

Rivers and watersheds are the responsibility of an extremely fragmented array of governmental entities, making holistic management almost impossible. As our environmental crises continue to become more serious, fragmented approaches will become more problematic in adapting to and minimizing those crises.

In the US, the American Rivers organization and Trout Unlimited are doing an abundance of good work to protect, restore, reconnect, and sustain our rivers and streams.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is responsible for the water quality in our rivers and streams. There’s lots of room for improvement. The screen shot below identifies in red the rivers and streams that fail to meet water quality standards.

Minnesota’s Impaired Waters

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

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Enjoying Autumn?

Summer’s gone. By week’s end, September will join the past and October will hold the near future. Tomorrow is World Rivers Day and this morning I stumbled into some river resources I should have known about but didn’t. I’ll share them tomorrow.

Today is, among other things, National Public Lands Day. I sent emails to my congressperson and two US senators asking them to support additional funding for national wildlife refuges. The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists 21 facilities in Minnesota. The Star Tribune, several years ago, published a guide to 13 national wildlife refuges in the state. Full disclosure: almost all of my Minnesota goose hunting has been done at a state wildlife area/refuge, Lac qui Parle, in western Minnesota.

Carlos Avery, Canada geese, 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota’s regular waterfowl season opened today. I didn’t hear much shooting this morning, which isn’t a surprise since I’ve not seen many birds around Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, which is, literally, in our back yard.

Since today is Public Lands Day, I’m going to close with the full version of a Woody Guthrie classic, but not until I’ve noted that the indigenous inhabitants of this land were driven from their homes to make public lands. Treaties Matter.

This Land Is Your Land

Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters; 
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway 
I saw above me that endless skyway; 
I saw below me that golden valley; 
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps 
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts; 
And all around me a voice was sounding;
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling, 
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, 
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting: 
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." 
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, 
By the relief office I seen my people; 
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking 
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me, 
As I go walking that freedom highway; 
Nobody living can ever make me turn back 
This land was made for you and me. 

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Happy First Full day of Fall!

During this morning’s round trip to pick up this week’s Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share box, I saw two separate, large flocks of turkeys, four whitetail deer does, two singles and one pair, a large flock of Canada geese feeding in a hay field and a solitary goose in the air. I made the trip before today’s rain had begun and returned with:

• BUTTERNUT SQUASH
• JALAPEÑOS
• KALE BOUQUET
• RED POTATOES
• SWEET PEPPERS
• TOMATOES, and
• YELLOW ONION

Since our first full day of autumn is cloudy, rainy and unseasonably cool, I'm reheating the Better Half's Wednesday’s chili for tonight’s supper. And yes, the furnace is on!

My trip this morning came close to being magical. There was a thin layer of clouds overhead and a darker bank of storm clouds off to the West. That gave the sunlight that occasionally broke through an enhanced quality. The shuffled play list in the Jeep, midway to the CSA pickup, began playing Joni Mitchell’s marvelous autumn song, the Urge for Going. This came after a handful of songs that started with her wonderful Both Sides Now. By the time I arrived home with an armful of vegetables (in a reusable plastic bag) I was feeling more than a little mellow and nostalgic. I could definitely use more morning trips like today’s as a counterbalance to much of what’s going on in the rest of the world.

One way to begin to address what’s wrong with the world is to elect a better class of politicians. With very few exceptions, Democrats are better than Republicans. As someone noted on social media this morning:

GOP "platform" bans

Early voting in Minnesota starts today. Please remember the above when you fill out your ballot.  We should help the GOP to an

Urge For Going

by Joni Mitchell

I awoke today and found 
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky 
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold 
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row...

I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go

I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I had a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
And bully winds came around
and pushed them face down in the snow...
He got the urge for going
And I had to let him go

He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

Now the warriors of winter give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying all that lives is gettin' out
See the geese in chevron flight 
Flapping and racing on before the snow...
They've got the urge for going
And they've got the wings to go

They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I'll ply the fire with kindling now
I'll pull the blankets up to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out
And I'll bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime
And have her stay for just another month or so...
But she's got the urge for going
So I guess she'll have to go

She gets the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empire's falling down
And winter's closing in.

And I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is Falling Down.

This lyric has been formatted exactly as Joni preferred it to appear (capitalization, punctuation, line breaks, changes in wording, etc). Joni collaborated with Lisa and John Sornberger by making these changes for presentation in their book, Gathered Light.

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Autumn, astronomically speaking, begins today

It’s officially and fully autumn, or will be come 8:03 pm locally. It will then remain autumn for the next 89 days, 20 hrs, 44 mins. YMMV. The sugar water feeders for the hummingbirds and orioles are cleaned and stored until next spring. We won’t need to plug in the heater for the bird bath for another week or two. Wasps and hornets are searching for places to spend the winter. Temperatures will peak at or below the low 70s for the next week or ten days.

autumn’s colors emerging

Photo by J. Harrington

Chlorophyl is slowly fading from deciduous leaves, exposing their underlying yellows, oranges, scarlets, russets, etc. Political signs are popping up in yards and along roadsides faster than asters and mums. Soon pumpkins will prevail, and then, jack-o’lanterns.

Cool nights for sleeping; warm days for walking. Autumn must be close to an ideal season, especially as it leads to Thanksgiving and the Yuletide. Unfortunately, we are then faced with the depths of winter during January and February. Maybe I should have learned to hibernate when I was young. Either that or migrate south for the winter.

At least I have a stack of good to great books to read. And there’ll be the ponderings and cogitatings about what the results of the upcoming elections will mean for the future of our country, our children and ourselves. Don’t you think politics is too important to be left primarily to politicians and pundits? Isn’t politics how we govern how we govern ourselves? If we make aa mess of the former, then ...

Autumn

By T. E. Hulme

A touch of cold in the Autumn night— 

I walked abroad, 

And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge 

Like a red-faced farmer. 

I did not stop to speak, but nodded, 

And round about were the wistful stars 

With white faces like town children.

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“The path is made by walking"

 A couple of days ago I again started reading Thoreau’s Walking. (I prefer his content to his writing style.) While sitting in the dentist’s waiting area yesterday, I made it as far as a section that I found extremely helpful, especially in today’s world.

...Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If you would go to the political world, follow the great road, follow that market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it willl lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean field into the forest, and it is forgotten....

will you follow a path or make your own?

Photo by J. Harrington

Even though, in some sense, everything is political, between spam and robot calls and social media and news, I often feel enveloped by politics and I don’t like it. Plus, there doesn’t seem to be much of a break between election seasons any more. To accompany Meadows’ Dancing with Systems [see yesterday’s posting], I need to learn from Henry David how to walk away from politics by spending more time physically walking. Does such a course have any appeal to you?

True confession: this was written minutes after installing a couple of yard signs for local candidates for Congress and the Minnesota House. “Do as I post, not as I do”?

Walking on Tiptoe

By Ted Kooser

Long ago we quit lifting our heels

like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—

though we thrill to their speed

as they flee. Even the mouse

bearing the great weight of a nugget

of dog food is enviably graceful.

There is little spring to our walk,

we are so burdened with responsibility,

all of the disciplinary actions

that have fallen to us, the punishments,

the killings, and all with our feet

bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.

But sometimes, in the early hours,

we can feel what it must have been like

to be one of them, up on our toes,

stealing past doors where others are sleeping,

and suddenly able to see in the dark.

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Shall we dance?

Today I’m sharing a long excerpt from something I need to reread more frequently, Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems. I continue to revert to efforts to control one or more system. If I don’t soon behave better, I may need to make myself copy the entire essay 500 times.

People who are  raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are  likely  to make a terrible mistake. They are likely  to assume that here, in systems analysis, in interconnection and complication, in the  power of the computer, here at last, is the key to prediction and control. This mistake is likely because the mindset of the industrial world assumes that there is a key to prediction and control.

I assumed that at first, too. We all assumed it, as eager systems students at the great institution called  MIT. More or less innocently, enchanted by what we could see through our new lens, we did what many discoverers do. We exaggerated our own ability to change the world. We did so not with any intent to deceive others, but in the expression of our own expectations and hopes. Systems thinking for us was more than subtle, complicated mindplay. It was going to Make Systems Work.

“But self-organizing, nonlinear feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They  are understandable only in the  most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what  you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never  fully  understand our world, not in the way our reductionistic science  has  led us to expect. Our  science itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos,  leads  us into irreducible uncertainty. For any  objective other than the most  trivial, we can’t optimize; we don’t  even know what  to optimize. We can’t keep  track of everything. We can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each  other, or the institutions we create, if we try  to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.

“For  those who stake their identity on the role of omniscient conqueror, the uncertainty exposed  by systems thinking is hard to take. If you can’t  understand, predict, and control, what is there to do?

If you want to answer that question, follow the link above and read Meadows’ entire essay for a start.

how many systems do you see here?

Photo by J. Harrington

Intellectually, I continue to acknowledge that our world has become (always was?) too complex to attain success through a command and control scheme. These days I have a hard time keeping track of my smart phone, let alone “everything.” I’m again reminded of a joke that emerged from a computer game I used to play. The game was Sim City. The punch line of the joke is “The reason god gave us free will is she got tired of reminding us to go to the bathroom.” Or something like that.

Anyhow, through the course of much reading and cogitating, I’m starting to wonder if the kind of mindset or attitude we I need is to be found in the reciprocity reflected in the world views of many Native American nations. This is another theme to explore in times to come.

Remember

by Joy Harjo

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.

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United we stand, despite our differences?

There are 50 days until Election Day. The amount of trashy attack adds in increasing. The adds may diminish after the election but will the attacks? Early voting starts in four days. Are you ready to decide? Some are planning to vote a straight  party ticket, regardless of candidate qualifications. Those voters make me concerned about the emphasis placed on our “right to vote.” Aren’t rights supposed to be accompanied by responsibilities? Shouldn’t voters be responsible for knowing whether the candidates for whom they’re casting a vote are capable and qualified to fulfill the office?

For example, according to “Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” 

Those are pretty sparse qualifications for such a significant position. Look at some of the consequences that’s brought about. People with memories so short or faulty they don’t even remember, or didn’t know, the Constitution they swore to uphold got to be chief executive of one of the most powerful countries to ever exist.

should farmers only grow corn and soybeans?

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re facing comparable problems in Minnesota with statewide positions and many of the Legislative and Congressional races. There are more and more folks who no longer support separation of church and state. There are those who fail to understand that “might makes right” is antithetical to living under a government of laws, not men. They seem to forget that pendulums swing in both directions, right and left. Intolerance for others tends toward monoculture. Increasing numbers of studies demonstrate that loss of diversity weakens an ecosystem. Isn’t it likely something similar is true of a country, state, or community? Would you want to eat vanilla ice cream, three times a day, forever?

Trail of Tears: Our Removal

By Linda Hogan

With lines unseen the land was broken.

When surveyors came, we knew

what the prophet had said was true,

this land with unseen lines would be taken.

So, you who live there now,

don't forget to love it, thank it

the place that was once our forest,

our ponds, our mosses,

the swamplands with birds and more lowly creatures.

As for us, we walked into the military strength of hunger

and war for that land we still dream.

As the ferry crossed the distance,

or as the walkers left behind their loved ones,

think how we took with us our cats and kittens,

the puppies we loved. We were innocent of what we faced,

along the trail. We took clothing, dishes,

thinking there would be something to start a new life,

believing justice lived in the world,

and the horses, so many,

one by one stolen, taken by the many thieves

So have compassion for that land at least.

Every step we took was one away from the songs,

old dances, memories, some of us dark and not speaking English,

some of us white, or married to the dark, or children of translators

the half-white, all of us watched by America, all of us

longing for trees for shade, homing, rooting,

even more for food along the hunger way.

You would think those of us born later

would fight for justice, for peace,

for the new land, its trees being taken.

You would think

the struggle would be over

between the two worlds in this place

that is now our knowledge,

our new belonging, our being,

and we'd never again care for the notion of maps

or American wars, or the god of their sky,

thinking of those things we were forced to leave behind,

living country, stolen home,

the world measured inch by inch, mile by mile,

hectares, all measurements, even the trail of our tears.

With all the new fierce light, heat, drought

the missing water, you'd think

in another red century, the old wisdom

might exist if we considered enough

that even before the new beliefs

we were once whole,

but now our bodies and minds remain

the measured geography.

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What did we know; when did we know it?

 Yesterday we began an exploration of shifting baselines and some questions surrounding what’s normal. This morning my email inbox provided a fantastic example of such shifts. Emergence magazine shared a story on The Great Tree Migration:

Let’s step back to about 14,600 years ago, near the end of the Pleistocene, that phenomenal age of mile-high ice, when glaciers ebbed and flowed over the land. We might notice that as the Laurentide Ice Sheet begins its slow retreat as temperatures warm, spruce trees are flowing up from the south: we watch as pointed evergreens with splays of emerald needles work their way across present-day Maine and southern Quebec, spreading farther into Canada, settling along the rocky slopes and poorly drained soils that were recently carved from the ice. Fast-forward 3,000 years to the beginning of the Holocene. The climate is warmer and drier; the ice sheet is vanishing further; the range of the spruce is now shrinking as the trees are pushed farther northward and replaced by pine to the south. Then, in the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years later, there is a period of drought. Much of the eastern hemlock disappears as the lack of water leaves the trees stressed and vulnerable to the infestation of a pest that overtakes the population. It takes 2,000 years for the hemlock to return. During this time spruce move southward again, settling into roughly the configuration that we find them in today.

In Minnesota, early voting starts soon

Photo by J. Harrington

Someone who read yesterday’s posting noted the issue of normalization affects politics by pointing me to a story in the Los Angeles Review of Books back in 2017: Against Normalization: The Lesson of the “Munich Post”.

And after Trump’s victory I began to follow the debate over how much deference Trump was owed, how much responsibility he had for the hate speech the alt-right morons cheered. Some found solace in the hashtag #notmypresident. David Remnick seemed to have woken the next morning with an especially felicitous gift of disgust, writing: “The fantasy of the normalization of Donald Trump — the idea that a demagogic candidate would somehow be transformed into a statesman of poise and deliberation after his Election Day victory — should now be a distant memory, an illusion shattered.”

We are clearly living in a time of disruption, strife and turmoil. It behooves each of US to carefully consider what we consider acceptable, tolerable and abnormal. There are no “alternative facts,” although there are often alternative interpretations of the same facts. We’d best be sure whether we’re voting for demagogs or statesmanlike leaders as we complete our ballots. Remember, much of North America was once covered by water, also by ice. Do we consider either of those normal?

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

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It’s getting harder every year to be “normal"

Most of last night’s rain passed us by. We won’t know until about this time tomorrow if tonight’s weather will be a repeat. We get along nicely without thunder and lightning, especially SiSi, but we could use more rain. Last time I noticed, we’re about six inches short of “normal” for the year. Perhaps we’ll catch up with the forecast with a La Nina winter, which is usually cooler and wetter than normal around here.

One of these days I want to explore how we establish what’s “normal.” We know that the global climate has been warming for quite some time, but, per NOAA:

NCEI updates the Climate Normals every 10 years, in accordance with the World Meteorological Organization offsite link, which mandates that each of its member nations compute these 30-year averages and recommends an update each decade. The latest 1991–2020 U.S. Climate Normals are an update to the Normals for the previous 3 decades, 1981-2010. 

However, lest we get concerned that regular updates will mask the effects of climate disruption:

To examine long-term climate change, NOAA uses the 20th-century average (1901-2000). If we compare the 1991-2020 annual temperature Normals to the 20th-century average, we see warming everywhere across the map. No region in the U.S. is cooler than it was during the 20th century, and much of the West and Northeast are one to two degrees warmer. The nation’s midsection — from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes — did not warm as much as other parts of the country due to a 5-to-15% increase in precipitation over the 20th-century average.

All of this has been prompted by my recent adventures exploring “shifting baselines.”  

Coined by Daniel Pauly in 1995, while speaking of increasing tolerance to fish stock declines over generations, SBS also has roots in psychology, where it is referred to as ‘environmental generational amnesia’. Simply put, Shifting Baseline Syndrome is ‘a gradual change in the accepted norms for the condition of the natural environment due to a lack of experience, memory and/or knowledge of its past condition’. In this sense, what we consider to be a healthy environment now, past generations would consider to be degraded, and what we judge to be degraded now, the next generation will consider to be healthy or ‘normal’.

how many “persons” here?

Photo by J. Harrington

From my long ago course in fundamentals of ecology, I seem to recall that organisms can often adapt to change if the rate of change is more gradual. I doubt that will be of much help to our current cold water fisheries (trout and salmon in particular) as they encounter the stresses of climate change. And, if they were successful at adapting, would they still be what we know today as trout and salmon? We’re starting to get very close to questions such as “If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” The answer to that depends, among other things, on what we mean by “no one,” which, in turn, gets to the definition of who and what we consider persons. 

Recognizing the rights of nature are modern expressions of long-practised Indigenous laws. Indigenous laws are as diverse as Indigenous cultures yet share an understanding that humans are an integral part of the natural world. These laws emphasize respect for all beings and responsibilities to care for lands and waters. Trees, mountains and plants are relatives, not commodities that can be privately owned and exploited.

Could it be that some baselines are shifting in a direction more positive for our home planet and all who live on it?

Personal History

By Kareem Tayyar

This was in the year when

a ship took leave of the water

& floated out across the clouds.

When the clouds became

the opened palms of the angels.

The year when the angels strung

their wings across the telephone lines

like laundry drying in the sun.

Only there was no sun.

Not that year.

That came later,

when the children turned first

into horses & then into ghosts,

when the rain fell in love

with a poet,

when the poet forgot his own name

& then the names for everything else.

That was a good year.

A year without names.

A year when I learned to kneel

without my knees ever touching the ground,

& where the gods all prayed to us.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I should start at the beginning.

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Once we were young and the world was new

We picked up this morning our first autumn share of the Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] program of which we’re members. In the box were:

• BUTTERCUP SQUASH
• COLLARD GREENS
• CUCUMBER
• EGGPLANT
• GREEN PEPPER and
• TOMATOES

[The squash has already been turned into part of Thanksgiving dinner by the Better Half. It’s been processed and frozen.]

A couple of the farm fields we drove past had large flocks of Canada geese feeding in them. They’ll probably hang around our North Country until any possible food is covered with snow, which often happens about the time that almost all open water becomes covered with ice in late November or early December.

late August: drought stress?

Photo by J. Harrington

More maples are showing gold-flame-scarlet leaves. Others, I think beech, have traded green leaves for yellow. Colors are still spotty and sparse overall. Real color will come after Autumn Equinox this season. Last year colors came early due to drought. It’s possible what we’re seeing so far is due to this year’s drought stress.

First Fall

By Maggie Smith

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark

morning streets, I point and name.

Look, the sycamores, their mottled,

paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves

rusting and crisping at the edges.

I walk through Schiller Park with you

on my chest. Stars smolder well

into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,

the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.

Fall is when the only things you know

because I’ve named them

begin to end. Soon I’ll have another

season to offer you: frost soft

on the window and a porthole

sighed there, ice sleeving the bare

gray branches. The first time you see

something die, you won’t know it might

come back. I’m desperate for you

to love the world because I brought you here.

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September’s half gone!

Each day local row crops (corn and soy beans) turn more golden and less green. The cluster of asters up the road, the ones I’ve been concerned the township mower might have murdered, survived. They’re in bloom along the east side of the road about a mile north of our house. That makes me ridiculously happy. Since there’s more than a dozen species of aster growing in the county, and my botany skills are close to non-existent, we’ll not try to identify which asters are growing along our road.

our roadside asters

Photo by J. Harrington

More and more telephone wires are being lined by birds. Large flocks of crows are gleaning harvested small grain fields. Sandhill cranes are hunting through soybean fields. The ruby-throated hummingbirds have become irregular visitors to the sugar water feeders. All signs that pre-migration flocking is underway for some while the resident populations are being opportunistic. The first real cold front of the season is expected next week, beginning, appropriately enough, on the Equinox.

I’ve managed to prove to myself that temperatures in the mid-80’s are too warm for me to get much outside yard work done but with rain forecast for tomorrow and Saturday, some things shouldn’t be put off. If I manage to torch the brush pile on or around the equinox, the weeds I’ve just spread over the top of the pile should be pretty dried out by then and will burn nicely rather than just smolder.

Autumn Fires

Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens
   And all up in the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
   See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over, 
   And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
   The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
   Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
   Fires in the fall! 

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