Cycles of transition

Today is National Recycling Day. Although we sometimes think we’re wasting time, we cycled through similar seasons time and again, until we weirded the climate. The big picture pattern is based on the relationship between the sun and the earth, so the solstices and equinoxes should stay pretty much the same, but what happens between those key events may well change a lot unless we do.

We’re halfway through November. It’s just slightly more than five weeks until Winter Solstice, which occurs locally at 3:48 pm on December 21. From then until March 20 at 4:24 pm it will be astronomical winter, which will last for 88 days, 23 hrs, 36 minutes. Spring will then last 92 days, 17 hrs, 33 mins, followed by summer at 93 days, 15 hrs, 52 mins. I suppose we can claim this is proof that Mother Nature is merciful since summer is five days longer than winter, but that would probably get a number of Minnesota’s winter lovers on our case. On the other hand, we’re only 60% of the way through autumn and it’s been snowing for the past three days in a row, so winter lovers get no sympathy here.

sandhill cranes at Crex Meadows

Photo by J. Harrington

Small or shallow ponds are once again getting iced-in. Canada geese are feeding in harvested corn fields. Minnesotans are again proving that, over last summer, they forgot how to drive in the snow, and I’m embarrassed I never realized how many sandhill cranes flock into (onto?) Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in November. This year set a record we've read. We missed an autumn trip to Crex Meadows in Wisconsin this year, but that makes the prospect of a trip next April even more appealing, although we may have to defer until May if we want to diminish the chances of getting caught  in a spring snowstorm.

The pumpkins we dumped under the pear tree a couple of days ago have disappeared. I’ve not been up there to check for tracks, and the persistent snowfall has probably filled in whatever tracks might have been left, but I’m betting some local deer enjoyed a nice snack. We’ve seen none to speak of on the property for weeks now.

How Soon

By Gordon Henry Jr.

The story goes from in a rainfall

to sister walking a field

browned autumn. And when she arrives

winter has come, so the old man

rises from his chair, picks up

matches, pipes and tools, and

walks out to begin again.

 

The sculptures grow by the day,

birds in ice, recognizable

eagles, a bear who began

as a man in a moment of dance.

He does this in ice, all

winter carving at dawn,

carving at dusk.

 

And sister after walking a field

browned autumn, arrives, watches

from the east window, waits,

goes out to him in spring,

taps him on the shoulder

and points to the pools

of water he's standing over.

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