Late June phenology

Sometime yesterday, or early today, the township mowed the shoulders of roads in our neck of the woods. It appears such efforts are consistent with recent (2022) legislation about providing "enhanced roadside habitat for nesting birds and other small wildlife....” The mower missed most of the patches of orange day lilies that are beginning to bloom along the roads. Although I’m far from expertise on this topic, I believe the day lily is classified as invasive, but not noxious, in Minnesota but a USDA plant database search of invasive/noxious in Minnesota by scientific name results in a null answer. I have no idea what’s going on.

orange day lilies

Photo by J. Harrington

For the past week or ten days, I’ve seen more birds than I ever remember before, especially male goldfinches and downy woodpeckers, going at each other in an effort to establish “pecking order(?).” It’s like watching micro fighter planes having dog fights minus machine guns. Meanwhile, the rose-breasted grosbeaks seem to be getting along, as are the red-winged blackbirds and nuthatches, and the red-bellied woodpecker just helps himself to the feeder whenever he wants.

I’d be upset that, again this year, we missed having a brush pile (bonfire) burn in honor of summer solstice, but it’s been so hot and dry I’m figuring it’s just as well we didn’t try. Plus, we used that time and energy to collect some book shelf kits and got one of the two kits assembled. We’re making progress but it’s too early to claim success in bringing order to our piles of books stacked hither and yon. If only I didn’t find so many topics of interest and so many poets worth reading. But then I’d probably be grumping about being bored much of the time.

The Tuft of Flowers

Robert Frost    1874 – 1963

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name, 
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me here the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together.’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

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