When will we ever learn?*

Many decades ago, when I was in college, a sociology professor teaching one of the courses I took noted that technology changes much faster than the ability of humans to adapt to those changes. It seems to me the times we are living in confirm the validity of that sociological assessment, scaled almost to global dimensions. I also remember, from somewhere or other, encountering the concept of running faster (and faster) to remain in place. Does that feel about right to you?

how vulnerable is our infrastructure?

Photo by J. Harrington

We arrived home yesterday evening after visiting the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter, to discover there had been a power outage (the garage door was unresponsive to the remote opener signal) plus our internet service was down. The power had been restored just before we returned home and our internet connection was restored mid-morning today. This all makes me wonder if electric and internet service are so essential to contemporary life, and getting made more so by the powers that be, why they aren’t made more reliable. Both the power and the Frontier phone and DSL have been down a couple of times in the past month or so. All of this reminds me of yet another saying from my younger days: “We have created a world with no one in charge.” If internet service is important enough to be subsidized as infrastructure and for those with limited incomes, why isn’t it important enough to be better regulated by local, state and/or federal government entities?

If child care costs and availability have become essential to support our labor force, why not extend and expand child care services as part of the school systems. Isn’t economy of scale supposed too be one of the benefits of a capitalist-industrial economy? At least so far, I’ve not seen any proposals to outsource child care overseas to take advantage of lower labor rates.

Forgive me (or don’t) for yet another rant. Today is George Orwell’s birthday and, it appears to me, we’ve been busy creating a society that incorporates the worst aspects of both Animal Farm and 1984. Someone seems to have failed to realize both books were intended as fiction, not as operating manuals.

*with apologies to Pete Seeger and Where have all the flowers gone?

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry


Original Language English

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

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We’re in summer mode!

Today I think I discovered we have some yellow butterfly weed growing on the rise behind the house. As far as I know, all the butterfly weed I’ve seen previously was orange. I was today year’s old when I learned there is a yellow butterfly weed (or I may have it confused with hoary puccoon). Two of the regular, orange, butterfly weed plants appear to have survived the winter and are now blooming. Almost all the poison ivy I sprayed a week or ten days ago is looking very sickly. Once we get a cooler, drier spell, I’ll spray some that I seem to have missed or that grew since I sprayed.

Butterfly-weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that we’re living in a city (Chisago), that was annexed from the township (Lent) we used to live in, the city started mowing roadsides today in our area. (It’s not legal before August first outside a city.) Most of the township merged with Stacy and even though we ended up in Chisago, our mailing address remained in Stacy. Go figure!

Anyhow, today is the day I trimmed around our mail box, because the city skipped mowing close to it. Getting the weed whacker started in the heat and humidity was a treat, but once started it worked fine. (Another reason to convert to all electric yard tools.) I’ll whack around some flower beds tomorrow and the day after, if it’s not raining. All the rain that’s fallen the past several weeks has the Anoka Sand Plain section behind our house bursting with wildflowers. I don’t recall it ever looking so pretty in the quarter century we’ve been here.

Since I wore myself out with unaccustomed yard work this morning, I’m signing off until tomorrow. It’ll take awhile for me to get acclimated to the heat and “homditty.”

Wildflowers

By Reginald Gibbons

Coleridge carefully wrote down a whole page

of them, all beginning with the letter b.

Guidebooks preserve our knowledge

of their hues and shapes, their breeding.

Many poems have made delicate word-chimes—

like wind-chimes not for wind but for the breath of man—

out of their lovely names.

At the edge of the prairie in a cabin

when thunder comes closer to thump the roof hard

a few of them—in a corner, brittle in a dry jar

where a woman’s thoughtful hand left them to fade—

seem to blow with the announcing winds outside

as the rain begins to fall on all their supple kin

of all colors, under a sky of one color, or none.

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Time to stop clowning around

June is almost gone, taking the first half of 2024 with her. My favorite season, autumn, lies ahead. I need to work harder to keep politics from spoiling what should be the better half of the year. (It would be the best half but it doesn’t include spring’s snow melt, Father’s Day, nor my birthday.) My inbox keeps refilling with messages from democrats informing me that the world will end if tRUMP and the GOP win in November. I don’t necessarily disagree with them but would much prefer to learn what wonderful things will happen to make the world a better place if democrats prevail. I’m not holding my breath.

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” ― Gaylord Nelson

Photo by J. Harrington

Most years I make a contribution to our local DFL senate district committee. This year I’m hesitating because of stuff like this: Environmental groups call for hearings over MPCA issues. Even with democrats controlling the executive and legislative branches, the environment, and therefore the public, keeps losing to “business" interests. As an aside, has anyone seen any studies about how much peoples’ health could improve, and health costs drop, if environmental regulations were rigorously enforced? Instead, we get reports such as: Research reveals toxic PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ accumulate in testes.

Does anyone really expect the presidential debate to engage in a substantive debate of significant issues? I think it would be a totally unexpected and therefore a very pleasant surprise. Speaking of presidents and debates, have we yet reached agreement on “what the meaning of is is?” My expectations for the debate between the sitting president and a convicted felon who once pretended to fill that office is about what I would expect of a debate between Buffalo Bob and Clarabell. I’ll probably watch some just to see if it’s as bad as I fear, but I doubt very much I’ll enjoy it and it certainly isn’t likely to affect my vote. Now I think it’s time to go listen to one of my favorite Judy Collins’ recordings, Stephen Sondheim's Send in the Clowns.

Send in the Clowns

Judy Collins version

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can't move
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns

Just when I'd stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer
Losing my timing this late
In my career?

But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year...

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the moon in June is the berries

Yesterday’s full moon, which was completely cloud covered around here, is called the Strawberry Moon by the Ojibwe and the Good Berries Moon by the Lakota. The community supported agriculture [CSA] share we picked up this morning included the season’s first container of strawberries. Coincidence? I think not!!

Strawberry moon of 2013

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s a full list of this week’s CSA share:

• RHUBARB
• STRAWBERRIES
• ASPARAGUS
• GARLIC SCAPES, and
• LETTUCE

We almost collected a load of venison on the way to the farm. Just after we had rounded a sharp curve on a township gravel road, a couple of whitetail does came barreling out of the brush on the right-hand side of the road. Fortunately, the curve had caused us to slow enough that we could promptly brake and let the critters safely pass in front of the Jeep. In fact, there were surprising numbers of deer standing at or near the side of various roads this morning.

The day length today is 6 seconds shorter than yesterday, which was 1 second less than the solstice. It will take awhile before we really notice, but the days are getting shorter already. For those trapped under a heat dome, autumn probably can’t come soon enough. Some of us beleaguered by mosquitos and teeny little flies are already looking forward to the first frost. Plus, grocers this summer are selling peaches that look ripe but are firm as a rock and don’t soften sitting on the counter at home. Another case of mis- or dis-information?

I am pleased to announce that I baked a boule of high-hydration sourdough and it turned out to be one of the best loaves I’ve baked in a long time. If you’re looking for some good guidance on baking sourdough, let me recommend (again) Emilie Raffa’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.

Strawberrying

May Swenson
1913 – 1989

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbird’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He’s left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We’re picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Here and there,
their squishy wounds . . . . Flesh was perfect
yesterday . . . . June was for gorging . . . .
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

“Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,”
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. “Don’t step on any. Don’t
change rows. Don’t eat too many.” Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfuls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this thick begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cows when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the backs of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed—too soft—
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems—
families smothered as at Pompeii—I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

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It’s the stupid system, stupid

Where we live, today is the first full day of Summer. We’re expecting rain and/or thunderstorms all afternoon, which may, or may not, be part of a new normal. Flooding and road washouts are reported all around the state, but not a sign of a hurricane to be seen. It’s almost like the climate’s been broken, but I’m sure if that were the case, world leaders would all be doing everything possible to fix it. Right?

no rainbow without some rain

Photo by J. Harrington

Don’t mind me today. With all the real issues the world is facing, I’m disheartened to have read in The Guardian that Missouri attorney general to sue New York over Trump prosecutions. I mean really? Each time I think the world can’t get much crazier, I’m proven wrong! We’ve reached the point at which I’m desperately clinging to Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. What I’m unable to resolve is whether the level and types of human stupidity have increased markedly or the level of reporting of stupid acts and behaviors has increased markedly, or both. Perhaps it’s a consequence of all the microplastics and forever chemicals and whatever else our bodies are absorbing that don’t belong there.

It seems to me that being stupid is better than being evil since it doesn’t involve the perpetrator’s intentions. Also, it may be that we’re so stupid because we haven’t been around long enough to have learned any better. But that begs another very important question. Do you know what it is?

The Good God and the Evil God

By Kahlil Gibran

The Good God and the Evil God met on the mountain top.
 
The Good God said, “Good day to you, brother.”
 
The Evil God did not answer.
 
And the Good God said, “You are in a bad humour today.”
 
“Yes,” said the Evil God, “for of late I have been often mistaken for you, called by your name, and treated as if I were you, and it ill-pleases me.”
 
And the Good God said, “But I too have been mistaken for you and called by your name.”
 
The Evil God walked away cursing the stupidity of man.

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It’s Alban Hefin!

That’s what Druids call Summer Solstice, which occurs in our neck of the woods at 3:50 pm today. The persistent rainy days we’ve been experiencing, broken by cloudy days with less rain, make it hard to accept that this is the time of maximum light. We are about to enter the waning half of the year, as we in the Northern Hemisphere do every year after Alban Hefin. South of the equator, our wane is their gain.

magical summer sunrise in June

Photo by J. Harrington

I have discovered that an excess of books to read, coffee to drink, munchies to snack on and great company [Better Half and two dogs] to share the days with are insufficient respite to those of us who experience seasonal affective disorder during the shorter days of winter. Lack of sunlight in June isn’t much different than lack of sunlight in December or January, except that, so far, I’ve not had to shovel the precipitation.

I’m adjusting my focus to concentrating on surviving this dreary spell in hope and expectation that thriving may well follow, but not without survival. Meanwhile, the Better Half and Daughter Person are checking out several local riding instructors and stables. I’m starting to make a dent in (re)organizing my stacks of books into something more coherent. When the rains abate, I’ll be off to a local trout stream in an effort to thrive. Meanwhile, it looks like this isn’t going to be the year I try planting a three sisters garden. As Minnesota’s sports fans get to say all too often, “Maybe next year!!” In today’s poem, the late Jim Harrison has nicely captured the times we’re living in.

Solstice Litany

By Jim Harrison

      1

The Saturday morning meadowlark

came in from high up

with her song gliding into tall grass

still singing. How I'd like

to glide around singing in the summer

then to go south to where I already was

and find fields full of meadowlarks

in winter. But when walking my dog

I want four legs to keep up with her

as she thunders down the hill at top speed

then belly flops into the deep pond.

Lark or dog I crave the impossible.

I'm just human. All too human.

      2

I was nineteen and mentally

infirm when I saw the prophet Isaiah.

The hem of his robe was as wide

as the horizon and his trunk and face

were thousands of feet up in the air.

Maybe he appeared because I had read him

so much and opened too many ancient doors.

I was cooking my life in a cracked clay

pot that was leaking. I had found

secrets I didn't deserve to know.

When the battle for the mind is finally

over it's late June, green and raining.

      3

A violent windstorm the night before

the solstice. The house creaked and yawned.

I thought the morning might bring a bald earth,

bald as a man's bald head but not shiny.

But dawn was fine with a few downed trees,

the yellow rosebush splendidly intact.

The grass was all there dotted with Black

Angus cattle. The grass is indestructible

except to fire but now it's too green to burn.

What did the cattle do in this storm?

They stood with their butts toward the wind,

erect Buddhists waiting for nothing in particular.

I was in bed cringing at gusts,

imagining the contents of earth all blowing

north and piled up where the wind stopped,

the pile sky-high. No one can climb it.

A gopher comes out of a hole as if nothing happened.

 

      4

The sun should be a couple of million miles

closer today. It wouldn't hurt anything

and anyway this cold rainy June is hard

on me and the nesting birds. My own nest

is stupidly uncomfortable, the chair

of many years. The old windows don't keep

the weather out, the wet wind whipping

my hair. A very old robin drops dead

on the lawn, a first for me. Millions

of birds die but we never see it—they like

privacy in this holy, fatal moment or so

I think. We can't tell each other when we die.

Others must carry the message to and fro.

"He's gone," they'll say. While writing an average poem

destined to disappear among the millions of poems

written now by mortally average poets.

      5

Solstice at the cabin deep in the forest.

The full moon shines in the river, there are pale

green northern lights. A huge thunderstorm

comes slowly from the west. Lightning strikes

a nearby tamarack bursting into flame.

I go into the cabin feeling unworthy.

At dawn the tree is still smoldering

in this place the gods touched earth.

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Another aspect of equity

I bet you know that the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. It has an interesting and contentious history, as does the country. Did you know there’s also a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some of the reading I’ve been doing recently made me wonder if there is any sort of declaration of human responsibility. It seems to me that the exercise of rights implies certain corresponding responsibilities, kind of like the golden rule. (I remember once upon a time learning of a version of the golden rule that ended “.... but do it first.”) So today I did an on line search for universal declaration of human responsibilities, not expecting to find much.

does a right to vote imply a responsibility to be informed?

Photo by J. Harrington

Indeed, I didn’t find much but did find a version of A Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities. That was encouraging, until I skimmed through it and then searched the page and found no mention of Earth or our environment. At best, I find this short-sighted. Fortunately there are a number of authors, indigenous to America, who have provided the basis for a necessary expansion of our (all humans) responsibilities to the environment of which we are a member and on which we depend for life-sustaining services and goods. One of the better examples that comes to mind is Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Honorable Harvest.

Another aspect of human responsibilities that I found conspicuous by its absence from the Declaration is the issue of decolonizing our society and economy and the integration, or at least acknowledgement, of indigenous and western knowledge and world views. We do seem to be making some progress on those fronts. I hope it won’t end up being a classic example of “too little, too late.”

Covalent Bonds

Gwen Westerman

we are
dream carriers
child bearers
those burdens borne
with hope
and intensity
under the gravity
of responsibility
history and
love
not guilt
love
and hope
for those who
will dream
and share
these burdens born
we do not give up
willingly
but attract and repel
balance and share
stronger
in that bond of
love

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The rain on the plains has become a pain

We are under the second tornado watch declared within the past week. Tornado watches induce a similar level of anxiety in me that thunderstorms and lightning do the dogs. I haven’t yet tried one of their calming hemp seed oil treats, but I’m getting tempted. (Even with a calming treat, my dog, SiSi, was extremely anxious again last night during the midnight storms.) I honestly don’t remember an extended period of weather like we’ve been having the past few weeks during the 50 of so years I’ve lived in this state. It’s almost like we’ve disrupted the climate. If only the climate scientists had warned US that something like this could happen. Oh, wait!!!

backyard Iris versicolor (Harlequin Blueflag)

Photo by J. Harrington

There is some good news from all the rain. We have half a dozen or so blueflag iris blooming in the wet spot in out back yard. Although I don’t have a positive id, I’m going with Iris versicolor (Harlequin Blueflag) since the distribution maps show it in our county and the alternate species isn’t. This is the first time in several years we’ve seen blueflag blooms in the wet spot and the wet “summer” seems to be the major variable. I’ll drop the quotes from the season after the 20th of this month. As I’mmm sure you know, we’re in that shoulder season when the meteorologists have claimed it’s summer but the astronomical calendar hasn’t changed.

I’ve not got a close enough look to be sure which, but either a purple finch or a house finch has been visiting the feeder the past few days. That’s a nice surprise. The dragon flies seem to have thinned out the mosquitos a bit and the winds help prevent them from being able to land on me. I think it may be a good thing that I’m getting better at finding silver linings to our plethora of clouds, but wish I didn’t have so many opportunities to practice silver mining.

Praying

by Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

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The more things change ...

We (the family and I) enjoyed a wonderful Father’s Day yesterday. The Daughter Person wrote a great poem for me about me and her perspective on the job I did helping to raise her. (And here I thought I was the poet in the family.) The Better Half and I visited our son in his group home and, later, had dinner with the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter. We would live in a better, happier world if everyone had a day as satisfying as mine was. If only we could shift some (most) of our rain storms to somewhere that needs rain more than we do! For today and at least part of tomorrow, many of the counties in Minnesota, including ours, are under a Flood Watch until at least late tomorrow. Sigh! That’s not going to help the fishability of nearby trout streams. Maybe if I explore near the headwaters?

storm clouds persist both literally and figuratively

Photo by J. Harrington

I don’t know about you, but I’ve reached the point where I’m vacillating wildly in my daily degree of support for any Democrat and/or all Democrats. Many times I figure the only good thing about them is that they’re not MAGAts. Other times it's more of “a pox on both their houses.” The world, or at least our part of it, was a better place when there was a fairness doctrine that could be enforced on tv and radio and before money became speech. Since I was active on the internet before commercial use was allowed, I can honestly claim that I liked that better in those days too. It’s not only that I’m tired of sorting mis and disinformation, several qualified observers I read have substantially different perspectives on whether our society is responding at all, or appropriately, to the threats we’re facing as a democracy and a country, let alone how to respond.

I’ve recently been waxing nostalgic which prompted me to do a quick search for today’s “poem.” Five or six decades isn’t a long time in evolutionary and geological terms, but I do find it frustrating that these lyrics, that I first heard in my much younger days, are as relevant today as they were then.

Ally, Ally Oxen Free

Rod McKuen

Time to let the rain fall without the help of man
Time to let the trees grow tall. God, if they only can
Time to let our children live in a land that's free
And ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free

Time to blow the smoke away and look at the sky again
Time to let our friends know we'd like to begin again
Time to send a message across the land and sea
Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free

Strong and weak, mild and meek, no more hide and seek

Time to see the fairness of a children's game
Time for men to stop and learn to do the same
Time to make our minds up if the world at last will be
Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free
(Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free)
Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free
(Ally, ally, ally, ally, oxen free)

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It’s BLOOMing Father’s Day

This year Father’s Day coincides with Bloomsday which, according to The Writer’s Almanac:

... James Joyce fans all over the world are celebrating. It commemorates the day on which the events of his novel Ulysses take place. Joyce chose June 16th, 1904, for the setting because it was the day of his first date with Nora Barnacle, his future wife. Even after the novel's success, Joyce himself did not call June 16th "Bloomsday." Nor did he really celebrate the day, though publisher Sylvia Beach organized a celebratory Parisian luncheon on June 16th, 1929 — years before the book was legal in the English-speaking world.

Much as I identify with my Irish heritage, today honoring my father, and all fathers, takes precedence. I do my best and hope my shoulders are broad and strong enough to do for my children and grandchild what my father did for me: teach me to care about and for others, and to think for myself. Today’s poem says it even better. If we’re not here to take care of each other and, especially, our children, why are we here?

Shoulders

Naomi Shihab Nye
1952 – 

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

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Recent sightings

On the way to pick up our box of community supported agriculture [CSA] shares this morning, there were several whitetail deer browsing along the side of the road, including one fork horn buck in velvet. Also sharing the road, ditches and adjoining fields were pheasants, turkeys, and a multitude of songbirds. Last night the Better Half and I sat patiently in the Jeep as a hen pheasant and more than a dozen chicks single filed across the road in front of us. There’s also been more than the usual number of cottontails and kits scampering along and across the road the past week or so.

In case it’s of interest, here’s what was in the CSA box this week:

• GREEN TOWERS ROMAINE
• KOHLRABI
• SPINACH
• BABY CARROTS
• MIXED RADISHES, and
• ARUGULA & CILANTRO BUNDLES

a woodcock enjoying the driveway puddle

Photo by J. Harrington

The thunderstorms earlier in the week refilled a puddle that lives in a low spot in our driveway. That puddle has recently been discovered by a handful of goldfinch males in bright yellow mating colors. Watching them thrash at water's edges and erupt into the trees has been an occasional source of beauty and pleasure. The same birds don’t seem particularly interested in the bird bath mounted on the deck railing, perhaps because it gets deeper too quickly?

The strangest sighting of the week came close to, in fact occurred inside, home. We’ve no idea where they came from, but yesterday I captured and released outside two bumblebees that were crawling sluggishly across the floor in the downstairs family room. Then, an hour or two later, I did the same thing with a third bee that was in almost the same spot as the first one. All I can say is “Go figure!”

While I have been writing this, rain has started falling again. It seems to be benefitting much of the local flora and fauna, particularly the non-human species. If I really wanted to live in this kind of climate, I would have moved to the northwest coast long ago. But, even such as I can only spend so much time sitting and reading. I’m looking forward to brighter days.

What Is June Anyway?

By David Budbill

After three weeks of hot weather and drought,

           we've had a week of cold and rain,

just the way it ought to be here in the north,

            in June, a fire going in the woodstove

all day long, so you can go outside in the cold

            and rain anytime and smell

the wood smoke in the air.

 

This is the way I love it. This is why

           I came here almost

fifty years ago. What is June anyway

          without cold and rain

and a fire going in the stove all day?

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Soggy is as soggy does

It’s wonderful that I have a stack of books to be read because we’re forecast to get almost an inch and a half of rain tomorrow and rain daily for at least the eight days following. This might explain the large wooden boat I saw one of the neighbors building in his side yard. There’s also been lots of animals walking by in pairs recently. I wonder if that could mean something.

a local trout stream in mid-June

Photo by J. Harrington

It looks like I may need to adjust my fishing plans if the local trout streams start flooding. Not much yard work will be doable. I may have to just relax, drink coffee, bake some more sourdough, and read. Could it be that Mother Nature is giving us an extended Father’s Day present? I wouldn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I may squeeze in a reconnoitering trip to personally assess the wadeability and fishability of my home waters. Remember, last year many of us we experiencing drought conditions.

Meanwhile, yesterday and today I managed to make a little progress in restoring the yard to almost manageable conditions. When, if?, the rain stops we’ll get caught up on mowing, leaf cleanup, and torching a burn pile or two. This year is providing lots of opportunities for me to practice shaking my obsessive-compulsive need to get it done, NOW! and to do better at going with the flow (heh, heh). Maybe some of you will get to enjoy a Father’s Day weekend that isn’t too soggy and can share with some of us what that’s like.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón
1976 – 

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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Summer’s thunder songs

We got lots of lightning and thunder and rain last night, but no hail nor tornadoes. As the storm(s) were moving east, the sunset sky took on some of the brightest golden-rose colors I’ve ever seen. We’re filing the whole episode under “Count our blessings!” We hope you were as lucky.

Earlier yesterday, I finished baking a boule of “Everyday sourdough” following the recipe in Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. It turned out to be one of the best loaves I’ve baked in quite some time. Even the Better Half agrees. Sometimes, returning to your roots is helpful when learning to appreciate what you have. Artisan Sourdough was my transition from no knead artisan to sourdough many years ago.

one of this year’s whitetail fawns with mom

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we were gifted with another visit by a whitetail mom and her scampering fawn. This time we managed to grab a quick picture. Enjoy! We hope they become back yard regulars. It’s a treat watching young'uns grow up.

Have you marked your calendar to remember that Summer Solstice is a week from today? If you want to check the local time, try here. At least as important for many of us is Father’s Day this Sunday. All in all, after last night’s stormy excitement, I’m feeling summery lazy and sleepy. Until tomorrow.

Twelfth Song of Thunder [Navajo Tradition]

By Anonymous

The voice that beautifies the land! 

The voice above,

The voice of thunder

Within the dark cloud 

Again and again it sounds,

The voice that beautifies the land. 

 

The voice that beautifies the land! 

The voice below,

The voice of the grasshopper 

Among the plants 

Again and again it sounds,

The voice that beautifies the land. 

Source:The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony

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On a Poet Laureate’s project(s)

You can thank my Better Half for today’s posting. This morning she sent me a gift link to a Boston Globe article about the upcoming launch, this Friday, June 14, of Ada Limón’s You Are Here project at the Cape Cod National Seashore. We’ve been enjoying and sharing her poems for almost a decade now. We’ve already read the poetry anthology that’s also part of her poet laureate project, You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World, and intend to reread it more carefully over the summer. I’m finding it challenging to relate some of the more creative poetry forms to my perspectives on nature and want to decide if the issue is with me, the poems, or the combination. I have a strong predilection for plain-spoke poetry and I think that may be the source of my discomfort with some of the selections.

You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World

As an interesting aside, at least to me, none of the seven poems and poets selected to be installed on picnic tables at the seven National Parks are included in the anthology. Perhaps it’s a spread the wealth, broaden the awareness, strategy. I think I’m going to need to print each of the picnic table poems and add those pages to the back of the anthology. What perfectionist OCD? Me? Nah!

I found it silly,, how happy it made me, to be reading about the event scheduled for Provincetown this Friday. Cape Cod in general, and P’town in particular, are part of “home" to me. I only visited the city on a few occasions, but my friends and I regularly fished for stripers off of Race Point most summers for several years before I left New ENgland. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go read some poems and wax nostalgic. You can take the boy out of the ocean but you can’t take the ocean out of the boy.

Miracle Fish

By Ada Limón

I used to pretend to believe in God. Mainly, I liked so much to talk to someone in the dark. Think of how far a voice must have to travel to go beyond the universe. How powerful that voice must be to get there. Once in a small chapel in Chimayo, New Mexico, I knelt in the dirt because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. That was before I learned to harness that upward motion inside me, before I nested my head in the blood of my body. There was a sign and it said, This earth is blessed. Do not play in it. But I swear I will play on this blessed earth until I die. I relied on a Miracle Fish, once, in New York City, to tell me my fortune. That was before I knew it was my body’s water that moved it, that the massive ocean inside me was what made the fish swim.

Making hay while ...?

It rained (again) this morning. Thunderstorms are in tomorrow afternoon’s forecast. Lots of hay fields around here have their first cutting of hay lying in rows to dry or sitting in round bales. All of the above makes me glad I’m not a farmer trying to make hay, cause the sun isn’t shining much these days.

farmer baling hay

Photo by J. Harrington

Cornfields look happy, though it’s dicey if corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July. According to recent reports from the mosquito control district, this is becoming (has become?) a banner year for mosquitos. If the “hot sports” are several counties south of us, I don’t want to know how thick the flocks of the “state bird” are down there.

Since weather is, tragically😉, limiting today’s outdoor chore possibilities, I mixed up a batch of sourdough that’s now rising. Early tomorrow, before the day heats up, we’ll bake a loaf of artisan sourdough using a recipe we’ve neglected for a couple of years now. Slices of that’ll serve as breakfast for several days and help keep me away from too many cookies.

Haymaking

By Edward Thomas

Aftear night’s thunder far away had rolled

The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,

And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,

Like the first gods before they made the world

And misery, swimming the stormless sea

In beauty and in divine gaiety.

The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn

With leaves—the holly’s Autumn falls in June—

And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.

The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit

With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd

Of children pouring out of school aloud.

And in the little thickets where a sleeper

For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper

And garden warbler sang unceasingly;

While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee

The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow

As if the bow had flown off with the arrow.

Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown

Travelled the road. In the field sloping down,

Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook,

Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsook

Out in the sun; and the long waggon stood

Without its team, it seemed it never would

Move from the shadow of that single yew.

The team, as still, until their task was due,

Beside the labourers enjoyed the shade

That three squat oaks mid-field together made

Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut,

And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but

Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean.

The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin,

But still. And all were silent. All was old,

This morning time, with a great age untold,

Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome,

Than, at the field’s far edge, the farmer’s home,

A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree.

Under the heavens that know not what years be

The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements

Uttered even what they will in times far hence—

All of us gone out of the reach of change—

Immortal in a picture of an old grange.

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Now we’re cutting it

I spent much of the morning mowing overly tall, excessively thick, grass in the back yard. It’s not been tended to for weeks, thanks to our rain every day or other day pattern. There’s more to be done but at least we’re now at the beginning of summer mowed (heh, heh). I wouldn’t want anyone to find out, but it felt good to have my butt on a tractor seat instead of in an arm chair. Being outside and noticing what’s sprung up from seeds long dormant due to lack of rain is more fulfilling than doom scrolling on any and all social media and news platforms. Now I just need to remember to pace myself to levels of effort more consistent with my seriously advanced [but unspecified] age. The primary objective for the afternoon is to hit the poison ivy with some Roundup. Rain plus morning dew have hindered those efforts for about a week now.

whitetail doe and fawn

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half is excited because flax seeds that were sown several years ago have finally germinated and bloomed. We’ll see about some photos this afternoon. I’m going to take a chance on jinxing the effort and start to give serious consideration to where the germinated bergamot seeds should get planted. I’m thinking maybe at the top of the hill where the dead apple tree needs to get removed. Someplace that I’m not likely to be tempted to mow plus where we can watch for flutterbyes and bumbling bees.

Perhaps the best and most exciting news of the day is that this morning we enjoyed the first fawn visit of the year. As mom slowly munched her way through the field behind the house, junior scampered and gamboled south, west, east and north at top speed plus. I hope they become regular visitors for the summer and autumn.

Written Deer

Maggie Smith

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
                            —Wisława Szymborska

My handwriting is all over these woods.
No, my handwriting is these woods,

each tree a half-print, half-cursive scrawl,
each loop a limb. My house is somewhere
here, & I have scribbled myself inside it.

What is home but a book we write, then
read again & again, each time dog-earing

different pages. In the morning I wake
in time to pencil the sun high. How
fragile it is, the world—I almost wrote

the word but caught myself. Either one
could be erased. In these written woods,

branches smudge around me whenever
I take a deep breath. Still, written fawns
lie in the written sunlight that dapples

their backs. What is home but a passage
I’m writing & underlining every time I read it.

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... and the livin’ is easy

Forsythia blooms are gone. Lilacs are well past peak flowering. Purple vetch blooms are filling local fields. Butterfly weed, and black- and brown-eyed Susans will be blooming by month’s end or thereabouts. Father’s Day is next Sunday. Summer solstice occurs locally less than a week later, at 3:50 pm on June 20. Our community supported agriculture [CSA] summer shares start next Saturday. We’re sliding into deep summer and the weather patterns so far have left personal priorities' conflicts between catching up on yard work and catching up on fishing as the weather improves.

a field with butterfly weed and black-eyed  susans

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve basically carried “No Mow May” well into June, largely due to persistent intermittent rain making the grass too wet to mow well. If it wasn’t raining, the wind was blowing hard enough to make casting a fly line potentially hazardous. This week we’ll make a dent in the yard clean-up and see if we can squeeze in at least one trip to check out a local trout stream. It looks like water levels are dropping to something close to normal and I refuse to get too bent out of shape about missed opportunities. Controlling the weather is well above my pay grade and my son just gave me an early birthday present that promotes me from codger to curmudgeon. That means I’m officially old enough to legitimately use age as an excuse to sit on my butt and read if I can’t go fishing and don’t wanna mow. It’s not like I’ve got a Home Owners Association breathing down my neck.

Summer

By Carlo Betocchi
Translated by Geoffrey Brock

And it grows, the vain

summer,

even for us with our

bright green sins:

behold the dry guest,

the wind,

as it stirs up quarrels

among magnolia boughs

and plays its serene

tune on

the prows of all the leaves—

and then is gone,

leaving the leaves

still there,

the tree still green, but breaking

the heart of the air.

Notes:

Read the translator's notes on this poem. 

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Step this way, please!

I think I’ve finally figured out a way to spend more time appreciating, enjoying, and being grateful for what I have (instead of focusing on what I want that I don’t already have). Over the course of the summer, I’m going to get my stacks of books organized. They may not end up well organized, but whatever I end up with will be an improvement over the random, mixed stacks lying hither and yon. In the process, I hope to distinguish among those already read, those partially read, and those unread. At the risk of being excessively optimistic, I may also get my fly-fishing gear organized so that, if the wind stops blowing and the rain stops falling torrentially, I may get to go fishing.

these are now overfilled to overflowing

Photo by J. Harrington

It has slowly occurred to me that I can’t try to better organize my personal library until I’ve first organized my personal library. As Lao Tzu noted some years ago “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” My single step is this public announcement of my intent to organize my library. I almost typed “try to organize” until I remembered Yoda “Do or do not. There is no try.”

That’s all for now. I’m going to clean oak catkins out of the gutter so it will stop overflowing onto the front stoop. It will be interesting to see if my strength matches my growing ambitions.

Happiness

By Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

                     It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

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Reason to believe

Many have been honoring the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Others have been receiving unwelcome recognition such as: UN adds Israel to list of states committing violations against children. Kind of makes it difficult to believe that D-Day was the beginning of the end of the Holocaust.

But then, back in my growing up days, when things seemed less complicated, there was a folk singer named Tim Hardin who wrote a number of songs, including one titled Reason to Believe. For the past several years I’ve been haunted by how well his lyrics fit not just personal relationships, but politics, nation-states, neoliberal corporatism, and other aspects of contemporary life. We have become the product corporations and governments are selling to each other, and I don’t want more reasons to believe that. Misinformation and disinformation make it increasingly difficult to believe there is such a thing as truth and facts that are recognized and accepted by humans.

In one of my all-time favorite novels, Dune, the Bene Gesserit "made extensive use of the Gom Jabbar, especially when they tested the humanity of certain individuals.” Perhaps we need politicians willing to submit to such a test as part of their qualifications for office. After all, we don’t want to allow those less than human to be elected to represent US, do we? Or, perhaps and?, we could develop and use a

Truth Serum

By Naomi Shihab Nye

We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture.

Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence,   

popped it right in.

That frog song wanting nothing but echo?   

We used that.

Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring.

Called upon our ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes   

of summer. Dropped in their names.   

Added a mint leaf now and then   

to hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.   

Orange butterfly between the claps of thunder?   

Perfect. And once we had it,

had smelled and tasted the fragrant syrup,   

placing the pan on a back burner for keeping,   

the sorrow lifted in small ways.

We boiled down the lies in another pan till they disappeared.

We washed that pan.

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