Happy Mother's Day

May all Mothers and families enjoy a peaceful day full of warm memories. May we all wish for many happy returns of the day. May this May avoid any more Maydays of the alarming type.

female bluebird perched on bare branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the past few days we've approached full leaf out on most of the area's trees. Rose-breasted grosbeaks, a male Baltimore oriole, and some kind of hummingbird have arrived at the feeders. A bluebird was flitting around the back yard yesterday. The two serviceberry bushes planted last Summer in the field behind the house are in bloom, as is the pear tree. Pocket gophers are creating an unacceptable number of mounds. We'll plan on using a drag harrow on the field next week and then set traps if fresh mounds show up.

Local roadsides and woods are showing more trees and bushes with white flowers than I ever recall seeing. The Better Half suggests concurrent blooming, rather than being spread over several week makes it seem like there's more flowering. Could our anomalous weather pattern roller coaster temperatures account for the compression?

Farmers have many of the local fields prepared for planting. We're holding off on hanging baskets and planting some annuals until frost advisories drop out of weather forecasts. Maybe another week or ten days will do it. All in all this Spring is shaping up to be about as good as this season usually gets hhere in the North Country. It is a noteworthy improvement over the preceding season and mostly avoids the humidity that's no dout coming.

The Raincoat

Ada Limón
1976 –

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

May the Fourth be with you this week! (couldn't resist)

Wild plum and other bushes are in flower. Some farmers have begun field preparation for this growing season. Trees are in various phases of leaf out. We enjoyed a small ceremonial fire to celebrate Beltane last Friday. Dandelions are in bloom everywhere. Pocket gopher activity is obvious in the field behind the house. Deer are shedding their winter coats. Marsh marigolds, which some call cowslips, are blooming. Even though we had a couple of overnight freezes this week past, Spring is peaking as we watch. You are watching, aren't you?

marsh marigolds in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

The next time we post here it will be Mother's Day. We've managed to get organized early this year so we''re hoping to avoid, or at least minimize, last minute panics. We'll see how the count down to and the holiday herself play out. Meanwhile, we hope all Moms everywhere (actual and surrogate) feel loved and appreciated every day.

The Minnesota Legislature is in its final weeks for this session. They look as if they'll be about as productive and useful as Congress. How do we find ways to elect politicians who are more committed to solving problems than to scoring political points. Perhaps we could be better represented if more folks knew about the Center for Effective Lawmaking it could be a start. We're rapidly reaching a stage where a majority party spends most of its efforts trying to undo what was done to them when they were in the minority. That doesn't help most of US most of the time.

As we approach Mother's Day this year, let's think about the Seventh Generation principle and look for ways to make mothers proud of US and our descendants.

On the Fifth Day

Jane Hirshfield
1953 –

On the fifth day

the scientists who studied the rivers

were forbidden to speak

or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air

were told not to speak of the air,

and the ones who worked for the farmers

were silenced,

and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,

began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak

and were taken away.

The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers

that spoke of the rivers,

and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees

continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,

and the rivers kept speaking

of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,

the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,

code writers, machinists, accountants,

lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,

of silence.

—2017

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.