Walking the path

Some years ago I encountered the phrase “the path is made by walking.” At the time, I don’t believe the inspiration for or source of that phrase were known to me. Recently, I’ve found a poem that looks suspiciously like a basis for the phrase, although it doesn’t use the term “path.”

can you see the path?

Photo by J. Harrington

As I recall, the path phrase came up in the context of a conversation about the existence of many paths through the woods. The conversation occurred among proponents of various green building certification programs and included a debate about which was “best.” It turned out that we failed to define the basis of best. Did we mean least negative environmental impact? Maximum benefit for minimum cost? Was there an inexpensive way to compare options? Would the answers be the same fo single family and multi-family housing? Would the same strategies work as well in an urban, suburban, exurban and rural setting?

The debate / conversation did ultimately resolve into an acknowledgement that there are indeed many paths through the development and construction woods and that those paths were made by walking. We also noted that, as important as any other point, it’s critical to walk the talk, i.e., no “greenwashing.” 

All of the preceding is by way of background I’m expecting to find useful as we wend our way between now and the elections of 2024. The best ideas aren’t very helpful if they can’t be implemented. (Speaker McCarthy is overly familiar with this problem.) Solutions and changes need to be part of a system or they may end up being counterproductive by cancelling each other. Integrating separate solutions can often produce synergistic benefits, something we rarely, if ever, attain with our current political system. Solutions or changes that are focused primarily on near term benefits are no longer adequate. We really need to change not only the actors, but also much of our political system if we hope to leave our descendants a sustainable planet on which they can thrive. Last (for now), and far from least, we need to relearn how to listen to each other as we walk into our shared future.

When the colonists were drafting a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution, they incorporated (cultural appropriation?) a number of concepts from the Iroquois Confederacy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Native Americans didn’t have numerous concepts that could help US find a better way forward for the next seven generations.

Now, here’s what I think was the source of the path made by walking phrase:

[Traveler, your footprints]

By Antonio Machado
Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney

Traveler, your footprints

are the only road, nothing else.

Traveler, there is no road;

you make your own path as you walk.

As you walk, you make your own road,

and when you look back

you see the path

you will never travel again.

Traveler, there is no road;

only a ship's wake on the sea.

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Food for the mind and body

Sunday is the start of October. The first week of October is Banned Books Week. As I reviewed some of the American Library Association’s materials, I noticed that, perhaps because of my increasing dotage, I seem to be slipping. I haven’t read a banned book for at least several years. That won’t do. The theme for this year’s Banned Books Week is “Let Freedom Read.” (I suppose we can hope for a number of visits to book stores and libraries from Freedom Readers?) I’m planning on making at least one trip to a couple of my local, independent book stores to see which banned books they have for sale. If it’s clean, i.e., washed, I’ll wear my ACLU “Banned Books Club” sweatshirt.

Although it’s now an American classic, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was initially “Banned in Boston.” We have a copy around the house and I should again try reading it. Maybe this time I’ll get beyond the first few pages. Since I grew up in Boston, I’m familiar with the strategy of getting a book banned there as a way to get on the national best seller lists.

In addition to feeding our minds, we need to feed our bodies to give our souls somewhere to live. Here’s what was in this week’s Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share we just picked up:

• ACORN SQUASH
• TENDERSWEET CABBAGE
• APPLES
• PEPPERS
• INDIGO APPLE TOMATOES
• CHARD, and
• GREEN ONIONS

As the days shorten, and, eventually, temperatures cool down, I’m looking forward to a delicious healthy, locally grown meal, followed by curling up with a well written, enjoyable, banned book. A combination like that should help us get through until next spring.

Poetry

Marianne Moore     1887 – 1972

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
   useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the
   same thing may be said for all of us—that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand. The bat,
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base—
   ball fan, the statistician—case after case
      could be cited did
      one wish it; nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
   nor till the autocrats among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”—above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness, and
      that which is on the other hand,
         genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

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Facing the music

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve long been a fan of Donella (Dana) Meadows. She is the author of, among many things, one of my favorite essays, Dancing with Systems. Despite the truth of that sentence, it has recently occurred to me that I’ve not been following the guidance contained in that piece. So, today I’m going to refresh my familiarity with the steps in the dance and commit to taking dancing lessons at least once a week from now through the end of the year in hopes it will help me keep my foot out  of my mouth and llimit the number of times I trip over my own two feet.

The Dance

1. Get the beat.
2. Listen to the wisdom of the system.
3. Expose your mental models to the open air.
4. Stay humble. Stay a learner.
5. Honor and protect information.
6. Locate responsibility in the system.
7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
8. Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable.
9. Go for the good of the whole.
10. Expand time horizons.
11. Expand thought horizons.
12. Expand the boundary of caring.
13. Celebrate complexity.
14. Hold fast to the goal of goodness.

Today’s theme has been prompted by my increasing frustration with our political “system” and its growing number of failures. I’ve reached a point where I’m inclined to discard the idea that there’s any wisdom worth listening to in that system. But then I remember that we’ve come aways from a foundation in which women and persons of color weren’t allowed to vote. Democracy, I believe, has to be based on a balancing of rights and responsibilities. Too many of US appear to have lost track of the second part of that balancing act. One of the most fundamental responsibilities of congress is to fund the government. We’ll know in a few days how well that responsibility has been fulfilled. (When and if congress again meets its obligations to the American people, I’ll return to capitalizing the institution. Right now, I’m in contempt of congress.)

even bees and butterflies dance

Photo by J. Harrington

It looks to me as though many of our national problems can be attributed to our failure to get the beat and follow steps 9, the good of the whole; 12, expanded boundary of caring; 13, celebrate complexity; and, 14, the goal of goodness. I wouldn’t be shocked to find that my personal failure to perform those steps on a regular basis helps explain some of my own frustrations and dissatisfactions.

Although I never personally knew Donella Meadows, everything I’ve read by and about her makes me believe I would have enjoyed having her as a friend who was often ready with good advice. As long as it’s still warm enough to expose our mental models to the open air without freezing them, let’s try it and see if we can get our systems working better than they have for awhile.

Dancers Exercising

By Amy Clampitt

Frame within frame, the evolving conversation   

is dancelike, as though two could play   

at improvising snowflakes’

six-feather-vaned evanescence,

no two ever alike. All process

and no arrival: the happier we are,

the less there is for memory to take hold of,   

or—memory being so largely a predilection   

for the exceptional—come to a halt   

in front of. But finding, one evening   

on a street not quite familiar,

inside a gated

November-sodden garden, a building   

of uncertain provenance,

peering into whose vestibule we were   

arrested—a frame within a frame,   

a lozenge of impeccable clarity—

by the reflection, no, not

of our two selves, but of

dancers exercising in a mirror,

at the center

of that clarity, what we saw

was not stillness

but movement: the perfection

of memory consisting, it would seem,   

in the never-to-be-completed.

We saw them mirroring themselves,   

never guessing the vestibule

that defined them, frame within frame,   

contained two other mirrors.

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Approaching October

We have accomplished the only specific goal we set for ourself this week: pumpkins have been acquired and are posted along the driveway. In an abundance of exuberance, we also picked up a couple of handfuls of small gourds for table(?) decorations. The place is beginning to look like autumn, although we’re headed back to summer-like temperatures later this week.

There are three pumpkins so far, two of the traditional round, orange shape and a pale grayish-blueish “decorative” sort of turban shape. One ore more may eventually get carved as a Jack O’Lantern. I think next week we may set a goal of acquiring a stash of Halloween candy, just in case someone shows up at our door in the midst of a blizzard late next month. With a government shutdown all but assured, will the months and seasons progress as usual, or will time be furloughed along with nonessential government workers?

full October moon rising

Photo by J. Harrington

It’s raining again. We’ve been enjoying light showers off and on all day. I noticed that the creek up the road once more has water where, a week or so ago, there was only mud and a plethora of yellow flowers. The flowers have faded but the water is now bright and shiny. Speaking of shiny, next month’s full moon occurs on October 28, so it will be very close to full for Halloween. That could make for an even more interesting Samhain than a typical thinning of the vails between the worlds.

I think I’ll add another personal goal, to begin a list for the Cailleach to take “the unwanted aspects of our personal year away, so that these too might be transformed.” I wonder if it will include ending a government shutdown and transforming those who caused it.

Sheep to Sweater

By Drew Gardner

Considering the frequency

with which I take people’s words

out of context, lie through my teeth and smear

anyone who doesn’t hew to my philosophy

of division and contempt,

I’d prefer my candidate of choice to stay

on the high road, but there’s a certain element

of fighting fire with dilemmas,

not just for me, but for any candidate.

Is it more important to lose honorably,

or to get into the gutter with your own particularity

when so much is the answer?

I love the pumpkin idea.

I will definitely use that and I also plan

on making the “kielbasa launcher.”

I already have a guacamole rifle

and it’s the same thing, I just need

to figure out how to do it.

If you have ideas for that please help.

Also on the splitting heads thing they

have that hydraulic wrench that

rips the brain chunks out of the

head you can do that so much

easier just get the fishing line attached

to the fragments and then fill 

a two to three liter soda bottle

with sand and throw it in the opposite

direction your life is going.

To see the results of this oscillatory combustion

phenomenon between the acoustics of the

cavity and the pyrolysis of the propellants

which were used in irreproducible ignition

which I never liked much anyway.

I couldn’t decipher myself.

Too bad. I have typed out some abbreviated remains

where my old life used to be, but I’m still

living in them as if they were a book.

I spent the afternoon reveling

and wondering what

I need to do to get my own sheep.

I saw sheep herding and shearing,

admired the baby lambs, and followed

the “from sheep to sweater” interpretive trail.

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Tumble grass time

Temperatures cool down for a few days, then climb back to summer-like levels. Winds, which are more southerly much of the summer, begin to shift to the winter’s northwest and back. The start of leaf fall occurs. Shifting and strengthening winds loosen the tan, spiky seed heads of Eragrostis spectabilis (Purple Lovegrass) also know as tumble grass.

lovegrass in the wind

Photo by J. Harrington

Here at the eastern edge of the Anoka Sand Plain is prime habitat for tumble grass. The field behind our house is full of it, as are the fields in front of both neighbors to our east. Ditches and sheltered corners have been filling with tumble grass heads the past few days.

One of my favorite characteristics of lovegrass is the way it captures autumn dew and shines magically as the sun rises on September mornings. The fields surrounding us look as if they’re full of clouds that were resting for the night on beds of grass before rising with the warming air of the day.

Thanks to an abundance of pocket gophers and drought this summer, our fields are much the worse for wear. Either this fall or next spring, we’ll do more reseeding with some drought tolerant ground cover that does well in sand. If the lovegrass reseeds itself, so much the better. One nursery is offering seeds at $450/lb (no, I didn’t miss the decimal point), which is too rich for my taste.

The Grass

By Jeffrey Yang

Bouteloua black

grama grass red

chino side-

oats blue grama grass

hairy buffalo-

grass toboso three-awn

land’s dawn 旦 sun

over sand, tumble

wind-

mill witch- cup- saltgrass

plains love- indiangrass, prairie

cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle-

top green knotroot

bristle, bluestem, tangle-

head, sacaton

panicles

open, golden drop-

seed blooms desert winter-

grass, awns twist, un-

twist, such

syllables flicker

out of grass

: Nanissáanah

thirst, ghost dance

native

spirits, active

roots, footstalks

to soil as to site, stems

bend, range-

lands wave, seiche

fields sway, clouds

pass over-

grazed grass

staked, fenced

dries, weakens, dies,

fallen

crowns, the grasslands

what

comes to pass, ranch-

hand lands, live-

stock livelihood

wildlife gone, displaced, migrations

impeded, scales im-

balanced

the years

spread, each itself

hitched to everything else

in the universe

nodes

hollowed, drought-

land years, drops

on the hardpan

nature

is endless

regeneration

trichloris, muhly, switch-

grass, wind misses

沙 沙 shasha through the pass-

es, whispering seeds

will pass, will pass

within leaves

listening

grasses, not only

the revelation

but the nature behind

to sustain it, over-

land grasses seeds

spread and grow, rhizome,

stolon to sod, curly

mesquite cotton-

top, draft

to draft 草

ten thousand

grasses, 草 dancing

culms 草 of grass

florescence, sheaths

and blades whorl

flower to

flower, wild

grass, knowing

wind strips, slips

of time, the leaves

words weave, un-

weave the

grass

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Before the season leaves

Except when rain has fallen heavy and loud, it’s been a quiet, mostly peaceful day in the neighborhood. I’ve been reading more of our druidry booklets, placing an order for more free COVID tests, and drinking coffee.

Earlier, during a downpour, I tried to take the dogs for their post-lunch walk. We got out onto the front stoop, they looked at the rain coming down and the puddles all over the driveway and then gave me looks that said “You’re not serious, are you? Can’t you see how hard it’s raining?” We deferred the walk until a later, less wet, moment, at which time SiSi, my yellow lab cross, didn’t even want to get her feet wet.

a small sample of maple leaves’ color

Photo by J. Harrington

All in all, we could have used this rain last month, or the one before that, although I’ve read some opinions that the drought is contributing to this autumn’s really spectacular colors. Maple leaves are blazing into scarlet through orange flames all over our area. At least so far that’s been metaphorical, thank goodness.

So, we can expect peak color some time over the next couple of weeks. The rain is forecast to cease sometime in the next couple of days. I continue to struggle with my middle class compulsion to make the yard look neat, although reports are that messy is better for nature, and we have to wait and see if a Halloween blizzard develops this year. As I learn to relax and enjoy what life offers, there seems to be less exciting news to report here, especially if I stay away from politics. I’ll poke around some more and see if there’s something to natter about some day soon.

The Lesson Of The Falling Leaves

by Lucille Clifton

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

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September song

Today is the first full day of autumn. In a week, we start October, possibly my favorite month of the year. Last night we enjoyed the Better Half’s beef barley soup and some of my artisan sourdough bread for supper. It felt seasonal as the rain came down and the temperatures dropped.

The low spot in the driveway is full of water, a clear indication that quite a bit of rain has fallen. We’re enjoying an interlude with a few breaks in the clouds and an extended spell without precipitation. Showers are supposed to start again this evening and continue all night. The dogs and I were grateful that raindrops didn’t keep falling on our heads during our walks today.

A couple of times over the past few days I’ve seen what I think was a stink bug climbing up the outside of 1) the picture window and 2) the walkout door. Usually, I only see such a critter once it's inside the house, at which point we try to use the old clear plastic cup and piece of cardboard trick to catch the critter and then release it outside. (This works on most spiders too, but not, so far, on the jumping kind.)

September robins bird bathing

Photo by J. Harrington

If we had had our rainy spell a couple of weeks ago, we might again have enjoyed watching migrating robins frolicking in a bird bath in the driveway. According to Journey North, robin migration is more complex than I would have expected. Maybe some will still drop in this year before the puddle dries out.

Autumn

Alice Cary     1820 – 1871

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips
   The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
   And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
   And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
   And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
   Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
   And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire of red—
   The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
   Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,
   Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
   Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn—
   Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides—
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
   Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
   Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
   And live with me the poetry of Spring.

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Happy Autumn, if you Fall for that stuff 🏈 🍁🍁🍁

By the time this is posted, we will have officially attained the Northern Hemisphere’s Autumnal Equinox. I’m sure of that because I control when the daily blog gets posted and today that will be after 1:50 pm CDT. 

woollybear caterpillar (Isabella Tiger Moth)

Photo by J. Harrington

Still no signs of woollybear worms, but the Climate Prediction Center already claims we may have a warmer, drier winter than normal, thanks to El Niño. Of course, their forecast is framed as a 40% to 60% chance. As I figure it, that averages at 50%, which equals a coin toss, which isn’t much of a forecast. In fact, it’s about as helpful as the banding on a woollybear caterpillar, which doesn’t foretell winter’s severity, or lack thereof, according to the U.S. Weather Service. Normally, I’d be heartened by the prospect, no matter how slim, of a milder, drier winter, but, over the past few years, I’ve noticed that warmer winters usually bring more freezing rain and ice storms than we used to get pre-Anthropocene. I can blow snow or scrape wet snow with the tractor’s back blade. Freezing rain leaves me with no tools except prayer that it melts soon.

a nice collection of prior year pumpkins

Photo by J. Harrington

Back to autumn: looking toward the week ahead, one of our goals will be to get a few pumpkins. I saw the first ones for sale yesterday as I drove past a local feed and grain store. When we dropped off the Daughter Person’s CSA portion yesterday, I saw a couple of pumpkins on their front steps and instantly suffered some pangs of jealously. But, as I’ve learned over the years, it’s good to have at least one goal in life.

Football Weather

By Paul Carroll

As a kid I tried to coax its coming

By sleeping beneath light sheets

Weeks before

The funeral of the summer locusts in the yard;

Then when Granny peeled down the crucifix of

     flypaper that dangled from the ceiling of the

     kitchen

Magic wasn't needed any longer

To fill the air with pigskins.   The air itself

Acrid, lambent, bright

As the robes of the Chinese gods inside their

     house of glass

In the Field Museum by the lake.

Even practice could be fun—

The way, say, even sepia photographs of old-time

     All Americans could be pirates' gold

Like my favorite Bill Corbus, Stanford's "Baby-

     Face Assassin" crouching at right guard, the

     last to play without a helmet on—

And the fun of testing muscles out 

Like new shoes; the odor of the locker room

     pungent

As the inside of a pumpkin;

And the sting of that wet towel twirled against

     bare butt by a genial, roaring Ziggy, Mt.

     Carmel's All State tackle from Immaculate

     Conception Parish near the mills;

And then the victory, especially the close shaves,

     could feel

Like finally getting beneath a girl's brassiere

She'll let you keep

Unhooked for hours while you neck

Until the windshield of your Granddad's Ford V-8

Becomes filled by a fog

Not even Fu Manchu could penetrate.   Jack,

Next football weather my son Luke will be in high

     school,

Bigger than I was and well-coordinated—but

Couldn't care a plenary indulgence

If he ever lugs a pigskin down the turf

Or hits a long shot on the court.   At times, I wish he

     would.

So he might taste the happiness you knew

Snagging Chris Zoukis' low pass to torpedo nine

     long yards to touchdown

And sink archrival Lawrence High

45 years ago come this Thanksgiving Day.   Still,

He has his own intensities

As wild as sports and writing were for us:

Luke's the seventh Rolling Stone,

His electric guitar elegant and shiny black

As a quiet street at night

Glazed by rain and pumpkin frost.

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Autumn Equinox Eve

In less than 24 hours, we in the Northern Hemisphere will observe this year’s Autumn Equinox. It occurs tomorrow at 1:50 pm CDT where we live. In recognition of the upcoming cold and flu season, this morning I got a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination. Flu shot and COVID booster are still pending.

autumn leaves drift by my window

Photo by J. Harrington

Mother Nature is honoring the seasonal change by shifting the wind. It’s now blowing out of the north and littering the ground with the first real batch of falling leaves this season. Our first weekend this autumn is forecast to be a rainy one. We need it. Some of the Arrowhead is abnormally dry but most of Minnesota is experiencing drought, almost a quarter of the state, extreme drought.

Today is another community supported agriculture [CSA] pickup day. In a little while we’ll head off to get our weekly share, this week comprised of:

• DELICATA SQUASH
• EGGPLANT
• ONIONS
• POTATOES
• ITALIAN PARSLEY, and
• BROCCOLI

A batch of sourdough is proofing in the refrigerator until tomorrow. A quiet, rainy day with the smell of baking bread filling the house while I drink coffee and read something mellow seems like a wonderful, peaceful way to begin a new season that, all too soon, will end with the hecticness of Christmas holiday preparations.

Thinking of Frost

Major Jackson     1968 – 

I thought by now my reverence would have waned,
matured to the tempered silence of the bookish or revealed 
how blasé I’ve grown with age, but the unrestrained
joy I feel when a black skein of geese voyages like a dropped 
string from God, slowly shifting and soaring, when the decayed 
apples of an orchard amass beneath its trees like Eve’s
first party, when driving and the road Vanna-Whites its crops
of corn whose stalks will soon give way to a harvester’s blade
and turn the land to a man’s unruly face, makes me believe
I will never soothe the pagan in me, nor exhibit the propriety
of the polite. After a few moons, I’m loud this time of year,
unseemly as a chevron of honking. I’m fire in the leaves,
obstreperous as a New England farmer. I see fear
in the eyes of his children. They walk home from school,
as evening falls like an advancing trickle of bats, the sky
pungent as bounty in chimney smoke. I read the scowl
below the smiles of parents at my son’s soccer game, their agitation,
the figure of wind yellow leaves make of quaking aspens.

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Autumn #phenology

Once again I find myself wondering, if leaf color kept changing every season except bare branch winter, would we still find it as attractive as we do in autumn? I’ve noticed that, near the end of August, the green that was so exciting back in April and May has kind of overstayed its welcome. Is it just me or are we humans restless creatures always wanting more or different or both? As Wallace Stevens notes:

V

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

Even the pine tree along the drive has needles that are about half gold. They’ll drop and new ones will grow. I’ve not paid much attention to the tamarack swamp recently but when I looked within the past couple of weeks, those needle/leaves were still green. Their gold will come soon and, as Robert Frost informs us: Nothing Gold Can Stay.

leaf color is coming on

Photo by J. Harrington

As long as we’re mentioning not staying, today we saw numbers of flickers, probably those from Canada on their way to warmer, more southerly climes like here, east central Minnesota. (Things I never expected to write.) There are fewer, and fewer, hummingbird females and juveniles at the feeders this week. The males left earlier this month. It couldn’t have been the weather because we’re once again in the 80's today.

Perhaps I should stop analyzing and try to just enjoy the moment while living in it. That is all we ever really have while we’re here, isn’t it?

Fall Song

by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures. 

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A rising tide of color

I’m sitting looking west, out the picture window, at the trees behind the house. If I watch long and carefully enough, I think I may get to actually see a leaf change color. That thought is based on the phenomenal increase in yellow, orange and scarlet leaves over the past few days. Much of the northern half of the state is approaching 50% peak color. We’re getting close to 25%. Is it possible leaves only change color in the privacy of nighttime, when no one can see them changing?

solitary dandelion

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we saw an orange and black butterfly land on the sole dandelion in the back yard. It was too far away to tell if it was a Viceroy or a Monarch. There still seem to be a few hummingbirds around. I expect them to be headed south by the weekend or shortly thereafter. Waterfowl, on the other hand, will hang around until there’s almost no open water and feeding fields are snow covered.

Moles are still active. I set a trap on a new tunnel yesterday. So far, no action. I’ll move it tomorrow if it’s still unsprung. That will also be a good time to check for fresh pocket gopher mounds. If critters that live under the surface didn’t make such a mess on the surface, I’d be more inclined to live and let live, but ....

We’re just a few days from the Autumn Equinox. The forecast for the weekend is showers and thunderstorms, so the odds are against a celebratory brush pile fire on Saturday evening. There’s always the prospect of curling up with a good book as “Plan B.” Meanwhile, the current temperature is in the low 80s and there’s a nice southerly breeze so it’s feeling more summerish than autumnish. It’s a good time to go enjoy a brief burst of nature bathing and see what’s happening up at the ponds.

I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth

Fatimah Asghar

so I count my hopes: the bumblebees
are making a comeback, one snug tight
in a purple flower I passed to get to you;

your favorite color is purple but Prince’s
was orange & we both find this hard to believe;
today the park is green, we take grass for granted

the leaves chuckle around us; behind
your head a butterfly rests on a tree; it’s been
there our whole conversation; by my old apartment

was a butterfly sanctuary where I would read
& two little girls would sit next to me; you caught
a butterfly once but didn’t know what to feed it

so you trapped it in a jar & gave it to a girl
you liked. I asked if it died. you say you like
to think it lived a long life. yes, it lived a long life.

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Two bee, two bee, doo

It is the season of drowning bees, when many wasps and hornets and bees gather at the sugar water feeders. Some get greedy and force their way through the feeding port guards into the reservoir of sugar water. They can’t fly nor swim so eventually, they drown from too much of a good thing. Most people only notice the critters that sneak into their cans of sugar water through the pop tops. Those often get shaken out.

I spent some time yesterday watching several kinds of wasps or hornets or bees trying to feed at the red hummingbird feeder on a front window. Hummers, with their long bills and tongues, get some sort of nourishment. I have no idea if the buzzers could reach any of the sugar water or not. The feeding ports in the red feeder are just large enough to accommodate a hummingbird’s bill and too narrow to allow even small bees entrance. What also fascinates me is the feeders are rarely visited by insects at other times of the year. This year, in fact, the ants never discovered the feeder hanging from the deck railing.

bee on Blue Giant Hyssop

Photo by J. Harrington

Bees are also availing themselves of what’s left of the season’s flowers. I much prefer seeing them in a more natural setting like the one above, rather than on or at a hummingbird feeder. (The bee is about dead center in the picture.) Both honeybees and wild bee populations are declining at unacceptable rates, even in a state like Minnesota, home to more than 500 species of bees.

Last year we left many of the fallen leaves in place to provide overwintering habitat for at least some pollinators. Then came spring with “No mow May.” The yard has taken on a much more natural look. That’s been compounded by the past summer’s drought. We have our fingers crossed that some reseeding the Better Half did the other day will help create a bee friendly lawn. She had some really encouraging reports on the thyme that’s replacing “bluegrass” and rye in the yard. I think that got planted / seeded last year.

[If you haven’t by now recognized today’s title, go listen to Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night.]

Bees, so many bees.

By Anna Jackson

After twenty years of marriage, we walked out

of the bush and on to a rough dirt road

we followed till we saw a pond

we might be able to get to.

The ground was boggy and buzzing.

The pond was thick with weed

and slime. It was not

the sort of pond anyone would

swim in, but we did — picking and sliding

into the water over the bog and bees,

bees we suddenly noticed were

everywhere, were settling on our hair

as we swam, ducks turning surprised eyes

our way. After twenty years of marriage

what is surprising isn’t really so much

the person you are with but to find

yourselves so out of place in this scene, cold

but not able to get out without

stepping over bees, so many bees.

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2 parties or not 2 parties? That is the question!

The last time I was truly excited by a presidential candidate, his name was Robert F. Kennedy. The time before that, John F. Kennedy. It seems more and more obvious to me that our two major party system is consistently making US choose the “least worst alternative.” Here’s a listing (from Wikipedia) of the Democrat and Republican nominees since I was old enough to vote:

Year Democrat Republican 1968 Hubert Humphrey Richard Nixon† 1972 George McGovern Richard Nixon† 1976 Jimmy Carter† Gerald Ford 1984 Walter Mondale Ronald Reagan† 1988 Michael Dukakis George H. W. Bush† 1992 Bill Clinton† George H. W. Bush 1996 Bill Clinton† Bob Dole 2000 Al Gore‡ George W. Bush† 2004 John Kerry George W. Bush† 2008 Barack Obama† John McCain 2012 Barack Obama† Mitt Romney 2020 Joe Biden† Donald Trump

There are a few in the list who have done a decent job, especially among Democrats, but none who truly turned me into a committed “D.” As much as I admire the job President Biden is doing, I’m not looking forward to a rematch of 2020 in 2024. 

I believe that one of the biggest problems we’re facing is that both parties, and most politicians, have become more dependent on the dollars that corporate persons provide than on the votes provided by registered voters. Is there a way we, as citizens, can honor the country and the Constitution while destroying the political parties that currently offer US a choice no better than which eye we want a sharp stick in? If the baby is the Constitution and the parties are the bath water, how do we throw out the latter and keep the former? Remember the old saying “More of the same never solved a problem.”

[UPDATE: Analysis: How the 2016 Election Changed Rural Organizing in the South]

Who’s organizing the rural North?

I, Too

Langston Hughes     1901 – 1967

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides, 
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

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A purview of coming attractions

We're in the last week of the seasonal crossover. On Saturday next, both the meteorological and the astronomical autumns will be in alignment. In a week, we’ll be enjoying less than twelve hours of daylight, and the days will continue to shorten until December 21. Then they’ll get longer by a few seconds on the 23rd and thereafter lengthen more and more.

time for autumn colors to emerge

Photo by J. Harrington

This is a busy time of year for us. I keep feeling that the Better Half and I should have done a more careful management of the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law’s scheduling. His birthday is mid-month September. Their daughter was born near the end of the same month and their wedding anniversary is early October. It sort of replicates my unfortunate circumstances of having been born within a week of Father’s Day. Families and individuals should be authorized to rearrange things so important dates don’t all pile up on each other. Our son is a classic example of bad timing. He was born on Christmas which, while kind of a bummer for him, is the best Christmas present I could ever hope for. We always make sure to end Christmas by noon so the afternoon can be his birthday.

The thunderstorms in the extended forecast make the prospects of a brush pile burn on the equinox look iffy. Living where we do, there’s always the possibility of a blizzard around Halloween. Which reminds me, I need to remember to change the oil and gas up the snowblower. Sigh! If we avoid any significant snowfall before Christmas season begins (or beyond), I’ll have a great Thanksgiving celebration.

In addition to autumn being the traditional harvest season when row crops are combined, we’re entering a period in which, if we’re lucky, we can harvest another crop of wonderful holiday memories of times spent with family and friends, weather permitting.

Untitled [Each crisp autumn]

Rose Styron

Each crisp autumn
there are fewer leaves, more clarity—
light cycles of the haymound
odors of late roses
rivers rushing where we
once meandered
content in the casual chaos of each
season, plotting no espionage
because we did not know
the world as terror then.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.