(s)No! vember?

Some Novembers deer come at night and eat the driveway pumpkins and the Jack O’Lantern faces. Other years I dump the pumpkins under the pear tree behind the house and the deer come day or night to fill their stomaches. We’re waiting to see which happens this year.

unofficial deer feeding station

Photo by J. Harrington

It’s definitely looking like November outside, although the snow and ice mixed with leaves on the driveway isn’t as attractive as the usual “light dusting” of snow we get at this time of year. A male cardinal appeared on the back deck after sunset the other night, the first cardinal we’ve seen in months. Suet feeders will get hung in a few weeks, after we’re sure the bears have settled down for a long winter’s nap. That should bring a pileated woodpecker or two to visit. No juncos in sight yet.

Looks like this will be a year without sightings of woolly bear caterpillars, so we’ll just take “winter" as it comes, one day at a time. The Celtic approach of dividing the year into only two seasons, winter and summer, simplifies what to call these transition periods when the calendar claims it’s one season and the weather disagrees.

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, I want to bring to your attention Chris La Tray, a Métis storyteller and Montana poet whose writing I’ve been enjoying for several months. He even has a connection to Minnesota since Milkweed Editions will be publishing Becoming Little Shell next year.

Umpaowastewin

By Margaret Noodin

Ode’iminibaashkiminasiganke

She makes strawberry jam

ginagawinad wiishko’aanimad, waaseyaagami

mixing sweet wind and shining water

miinawaa gipagaa nibwaakaa,

with thick wisdom

bigishkada’ad, dibaabiiginad

pounding, measuring

gakina gaa zhawenimangidwa

everything we’ve cared for

gakina gaa waniangidwa

everything we’ve lost

nagamowinan waa nagamoyaang

the songs we have not yet sung

miigwanag waa wawezhi’angidwa

the feathers yet to decorate

ezhi-zhoomiingweyaangoba

and all the ways we’ve smiled

mooshkine moodayaabikoong

into jars filled to the brim

ji-baakaakonid pii bakadeyaang.

to be opened when we are thin.

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