Approaching Samhain

This Friday morning past, the wind was finally calm after a hard frost night. I watched the maple trees in front of the house drop leaves like oversized snow flakes. Soon, what passes for our front lawn was colored yellow. Today we mulched the lawn's leaves. Yesterday and today we had collected windrows of leaves along the south side of the driveway and dumped several garden cart loads at the wood's edge behind the house. Most of the oak leaves are still hanging on. Autumn is my favorite season except for leaf fall.

While emptying one cart load of fallen leaves, I tripped over what at first I thought was a dead branch that turned out to be a mouse-eaten four-point antler, shed from a white-tail buck that would have been an eight-pointer. First time in my life I've come across an antler shed. It's now a keepsake.

may only friendly spirits visit you

Photo by J. Harrington

From what I've noticed during my recent drives, all of the soy beans and most of the corn has been harvested. Fields and treetops are looking more and more bare by the day. As we approach Samhain at month's end we recognize we're entering the dark half of the year. The cycle continues through the Circle of the Year. I was contemplating some of those kinds of thoughts and accompanying feelings when my Jeep's music system started playing Joni Mitchell's fantastic song The Circle Game. All the thoughts and feelings mixed together were enhanced because our granddaughter had recently celebrated her fifth birthday.

It seems to me that we would do well to live so that we are more aware of the passing seasons and what's seasonal. Such an adjustment might help us to more readily live in the moment. Ms. Mitchell captured the essence of that in her song Big Yellow Taxi. "Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got / Till it's gone...."

You''re right, I've stayed away from politics and world events in this posting. remember the old advice about not saying anything if you can't say something good? Now is the time for me to share below these much better than good lyrics and thoughts from Ms. Mitchell and wish US all a Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain.

The Circle Game

by Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like when you're older must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

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Approaching Samhain

Great clouds of leaves have floated away from their homes of origin. They now clutter the ground and complicate the last grass cutting of the past growing season. Bare branches begin to dominate country skylines. Halloween / Samhain arrives Thursday. Candles are lit at dinner time. Autumn is here and next weekend we begin to anticipate celebrating Thanksgiving in hope that “our fellow Americans(?)” will leave US something to celebrate after November 5.

All Hallow's Eve visitors

Photo by J. Harrington

Not only was Halloween itself more fun when I was a kid, I didn’t know enough in those days to worry about elections and outcomes. An example that getting older doesn’t always mean getting wiser? Anyhow, I’m anticipating that, again this year, we’ll have at least one Trick or Treater, our 4 year old granddaughter. I think she’s the only one that’s shown up in the 25+ years we’ve lived here. I’ll spend some time over the next few days debating whether to bring in our political signs for the haunted evening rather than leave them subject to pranks or vandalism.

Flocks of Canada geese and sandhill cranes are still to be seen in our local airways. So far there’s still plenty of food and open water so no reason for them to head south. The Son-In-Law has captured some pictures of a nice buck oor two on his trail cam. I tried deer hunting off and on over the years. I just don’t enjoy sitting that still for that long to get good at it. When I was younger, I’d rather bust brush for grouse or fiddle with decoys for ducks than sit in or on a deer stand. If I had had an enclosed stand, I’d probably been guilty of too much napping. This reminds me, after Samhain, I need to send Santa a letter asking for more accommodating weather next fly fishing season.

Samhain

By Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother's mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

"Carry me." She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

********************************************
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Welcome, Native American Heritage Month

Today marks the start of Native American Heritage Month. Minnesota’s Governor, Tim Walz, has issued an official proclamation. In a similar vein, President Biden has issued a national proclamation. There are a number of Minnesota events honoring Native American Heritage listed here. A recent US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, as her signature project, compiled Living Nations, Living Words, “a sampling of work by 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.” During the rest of the month, from time to time, we’ll add additional resources and expand on the theme.

Although I’m sure it wasn’t a conscious decision on my part, Harjo’s approach to her project, recognizing the connections among the poets, has influenced how I’ve been choosing which poets I want to read next during the past few years. I look for poets who are connected to poets I’ve already enjoyed reading and, although it doesn’t always pan out, it has helped me find several volumes, poets, and publishers that are very much to my taste. Homebound Publications is one example.

Photo by J. Harrington

Our Halloween record is intact. The only Trick or Treater to arrive at our front door was our granddaughter, leading her mother and father. They left with chocolate bars for the youngest and cheese for the adults, at least that’s how it was supposed to work. If we get lucky, our treat today and tomorrow will be watching the white stuff melt. Today’s poem is one of the few items I can find that reflect Halloween ghouls, snow, and Native Americans.

Windigo

By Louise Erdrich

For Angela

The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.

You knew I was coming for you, little one,

when the kettle jumped into the fire.

Towels flapped on the hooks,

and the dog crept off, groaning,

to the deepest part of the woods.

In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.

Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot

and called you to eat.

But I spoke in the cold trees:

New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still. 

The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.

Copper burned in the raw wood.

You saw me drag toward you.

Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.

You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.

I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.

Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered

from the bushes we passed

until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.

Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full

of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill

all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth

and I carried you home,

a river shaking in the sun.

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’tis a ghastly, ghostly Halloween landscape

Last night and this morning we got flurried on to the tune of a couple of inches of sticky, wet, snow. Unless we get lots of melting this afternoon, it will be hard to spot ghosts this evening but at least, unlike 1991, it’s not going to snow for the better part of three days straight. The dogs were mildly traumatized as they stepped into a newly snow-covered world this morning. It wasn’t there when they went to bed. They’re now sleeping off the shock, napping in the living room.

Getting a dusting of snow on or around Halloween is par for the course [note to self: stop using golf metaphors] in our region, but a couple of inches is more than reasonable. Psychologically, we may be in for a longer than usual winter unless the temps warm up and stay there for the next month or two. Our average high for today is 50℉. The actual high won’t br much more than the normal low of 35℉. I wonder if there’ll be enough snow still covering the driveway this evening to look for ghoul and goblin tracks tomorrow. I have no intention of clearing the mix of snow and leaves from the driveway since there’s a better than fair chance Mother Nature will take away the snow and continue to dump more leaves for a while.

Happy Halloween from the Jack O'Lanterns

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half and I have behaved as responsible adults and foregone (until this evening) eating our special Halloween candy that’s been sitting on the dining table. It’ll be a nice desert starting today. Maybe we’ll be able to stretch it out until almost Thanksgiving. Each adult has one chocolate bar and two chocolate pumpkins. 🎃 

We’re expecting a three year old granddaughter to arrive for a late afternoon Trick or Treat visit and will be surprised if anyone else shows up during the evening, but will leave the front light on. Meanwhile, may you and yours enjoy the magic of Samhuinn. Tomorrow is the traditional Celtic New Year. May it bring US all of what we need and some of what we want.

Chansons Innocentes II

E. E. Cummings     1894 – 1962

hist     whist 
little ghostthings 
tip-toe 
twinkle-toe 

little twitchy 
witches and tingling 
goblins 
hob-a-nob     hob-a-nob 

little hoppy happy 
toad in tweeds 
tweeds 
little itchy mousies 

with scuttling 
eyes     rustle and run     and 
hidehidehide 
whisk 

whisk     look out for the old woman 
with the wart on her nose 
what she’ll do to yer 
nobody knows 

for she knows the devil     ooch 
the devil     ouch 
the devil 
ach     the great 

green 
dancing 
devil 
devil 

devil 
devil 
     wheeEEE 

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on the eve of All Hallow’s Eve

We’ve reached the time of year when there are more leaves on the ground than on the trees. There are more leaves than water in the bird bath. Leaves, like Halloween spirits, daily fly through the air. The moon is, technically speaking, past full, but not so’s you’d really notice. There’s snow in the overnight forecast, with a prospect that it will have melted before Trick of Treaters start their rounds. Tomorrow’s the big night and the Better Half has a Treat bowl ready in the front hall and, as usual, has masterfully carved a Jack O’Lantern. (I reserve my fine motor skills for things like tying dry flies to tippets.)

leaves aren’t all that flies through the night air

Photo by J. Harrington

Come Wednesday, November brings Native American Heritage Month, so we’ll be touching on that theme off and on. Explore Minnesota has a web section on the state’s Native American heritage. I’m assuming the Governor will again issue a proclamation on November 1. In the interim, feel free to read up on land acknowledgements.

We’ve noted elsewhere in these postings that, as near as I can tell, we live very close to what was once a boundary or buffer region between the territories of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. I’m still looking for resources that may help me better understand the history of the land on which we’re living.

Samhain

By Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother's mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

"Carry me." She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

********************************************
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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Enjoy it while we can

Our North Country can be, and often is, a very interesting place to live. The weather forecast for the upcoming week provides a fascinating example. Tuesday we’re expecting a high temperature of 67℉ and thunderstorms. Four days later, Saturday brings a high of 43℉ and snow showers. Of course, snow showers have already come and gone several times in the extended forecast, se we’re just going to wait and see, although the forecast looks like a pretty solid hint it’s time to start swapping seasonal wardrobes.

October’s North Country beauty

Photo by J. Harrington

Since deer firearms season opens soon (November 4), it’s also time to dig out florescent orange hats. vests and jackets and put away bug repellant shirts. I’ll try to make it until after Christmas before I start looking forward to again putting away winter coats etc. Although Ireland and northern England are generally warmer than our North Country, the fact that Imbolc, earliest of Celtic spring festivals, occurs about February 1 offers at least psychic relief while we still seem to be, and probably will be, in the depths of winter. The bug shirts will still be sleeping in the closet for several more months.

Closer to now we’ll celebrate Samhain/Halloween. Once again the prospect of having no Trick or Treaters except those in the family hangs over the holiday. One of the downsides of country living is that, in more than 25 years, all treats have stayed in the family, although the local raccoons or bears are good for occasional tricks involving scattering the contents of trash cans.

It will be many months before we again enjoy autumn’s vibrant colors. Let’s focus our attention this week on nature’s exuberance before she climbs under the covers to mostly sleep a season away. Perhaps next weekend we’ll watch snowflakes falling under a full moon.

Beginning

By James Wright

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.   

The dark wheat listens.

Be still.

Now.

There they are, the moon's young, trying

Their wings.

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone

Wholly, into the air.

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe

Or move.

I listen.

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,

And I lean toward mine.

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Mid-October #phenology

Lots of local farmers beat the storm we’ve had the last couple of days and got their crops in before the fields turned to mud. From what we’ve noticed driving around the last day or so, most of the soy bean fields and many of the corn fields have been harvested. The corn that’s still standing is looking shop worn, if that term can be applied to row crops.

St. Croix valley fall color

Photo by J. Harrington

Phase two of leaf color peak is well underway. Late September and early October brought many maples, perhaps those that had been stressed by drought and heat(?), into scarlet, yellow, and orange. Some windy days stripped those leaves and now we’re about halfway to peak color, with oaks lagging as usual. It’s hard to document, but it feels as though fall color is developing slower than normal this year, except for the early burst.

Still no signs of woolly bear worms. And, although some years we’ve had a barred owl as an October visitor in our woods, not yet this year. Also, if there’s been any major movement of waterfowl, we’ve not seen any signs around here. It is early for snow and ice, although some years we’ve had the bird bath freeze by now. It may not fit typical phenological observations, but we now have our Halloween candy in stock, although I’ll be really surprised if we get more than one Trick or Treater. Barring Halloween blizzards, we’re expecting a visit from a 3 year old Granddaughter late afternoon or early evening on the 31st.

Maybe one day next week I’ll feel energetic enough to gas up the snow blower and change the oil. I meant to last week but it seemed as if that might just be asking for trouble. At least I’m not going to leave seasonal chores hanging on having the Republicans select a Speaker of the House. That may be this year’s biggest Trick and/or Treat by Halloween.

October

By Jacob Polley

Although a tide turns in the trees 

the moon doesn't turn the leaves, 

though chimneys smoke and blue concedes 

to bluer home-time dark. 

Though restless leaves submerge the park 

in yellow shallows, ankle-deep, 

and through each tree the moon shows, halved 

or quartered or complete, 

the moon's no fruit and has no seed, 

and turns no tide of leaves on paths 

that still persist but do not lead 

where they did before dark. 

Although the moonstruck pond stares hard 

the moon looks elsewhere. Manholes breathe. 

Each mind's a different, distant world 

this same moon will not leave.

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Tricky treats

This morning we headed off to St. Croix Chocolates in Marine-on-St. Croix to get our Halloween/Samhain painted chocolate pumpkins. We arrived a few minutes after opening time. The store was full of little, and not so little, old, and not so old, ladies. What it did not have, yet, were painted pumpkins. They were still drying although the Better Half [BH] had been assured by one of the owners that restocked pumpkins would be available by opening time today. BH asked the sales staff to hold four pumpkins for us when they were ready and we proceeded to Stillwater to look at books at Valley Bookseller. Plus, I had seen something about Stillwater having reorganized their parking requirements and I was curious since BH and I used to shop Stillwater fairly frequently prepandemic.

gourds and painted chocolate pumpkins

Photo by J. Harrington

Stillwater’s “new and improved” parking arrangements are sufficiently confusing and annoying that we will not be returning to shop unless absolutely required. We lucked into an empty 30 minute parking space in front of the book store, but what used to be free spaces next to the book store and behind the River market co-op are now designated paid parking or market patrons only. I ended up with a couple of books as treats for me and BH bought some treats for the Daughter and Granddaughter persons. Between travel time and browsing time, and time searching for a parking space, we thought enough time might have elapsed that it would be worth checking back at the chocolate shop to see if the paint on our pumpkins was dry. Sure enough, it was. So, our trip was sometimes frustrating but overall successful and I later figured out that, along with allowing us to gather our Halloween treats, the fates also provided us with several tricks of the season.

I’m not sure if you know about the great Yogi Berra and his (in)famous quotations, but today’s travels definitely reminded me of one of them: "No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” 

The Problem

By Jane Hirshfield

You are trying to solve a problem.

You’re almost certainly halfway done,

maybe more.

You take some salt, some alum,

and put it into the problem.

Its color goes from yellow to royal blue.

You tie a knot of royal blue into the problem,

as into a Peruvian quipu of colored string.

You enter the problem’s bodegas,

its flea markets, souks.

Amid the alleys of sponges and sweets,

of jewelry, spices, and hair combs,

you ponder which stall, which pumpkin or perfume, is yours.

You go inside the problem’s piano.

You choose three keys.

One surely must open the door of the problem,

if only you knew only this:

is the quandary edible or medical,

a problem of reason or grief?

It is looking back at you now

with the quizzical eyes of a young, bright dog.

Her whole body pitched for the fetch,

the dog wants to please.

If only she could ascertain which direction,

what object, which scent of riddle,

and if the problem is round or elliptical in its orbit,

and if it is measured in foot-pounds, memory, or meat.

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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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🎃🦇🎃 On Oíche Shamhna 👻🦇👻

This is a good time of year to honor my Irish ancestry and let the history of the day speak for itself.

Samhain Merges With Halloween

Neither new holiday [All Saints Day, All Souls Day] did away with the pagan aspects of the celebration. October 31 became known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween, and contained much of the traditional pagan practices before being adopted in 19th-century America through Irish immigrants bringing their traditions across the ocean.

 

Samhain prayer to ancestors:

This is the night when the gateway between

our world and the spirit world is thinnest.

Tonight is a night to call out those who came before.

Tonight I honor my ancestors.

Spirits of my fathers and mothers, I call to you,

and welcome you to join me for this night.

You watch over me always,

protecting and guiding me,

and tonight I thank you.

Your blood runs in my veins,

your spirit is in my heart,

your memories are in my soul.

With the gift of remembrance.

I remember all of you.

You are dead but never forgotten,

and you live on within me,

and within those who are yet to come.

 

magical beings in flight through the veil

Photo by J. Harrington

Samhain prayer for children:

Samhain is here, cold is the earth,

as we celebrate the cycle of death and rebirth.

Tonight we speak to those through the veil,

the lines between worlds are thin and frail.

Ghosts and spirits in the night,

magical beings rising in flight,

owls hooting up in a moonlit tree,

I don't fear you and you don't fear me.

As the sun goes down, far to the west,

my ancestors watch over me as I rest.

They keep me safe and without fear,

on the night of Samhain, the Witches' New Year.

Samhain
By Annie Finch
(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother's mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
"Carry me." She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.

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

On the Eve of All Hallow’s Eve

 At  Christmas, stockings are hung. For Halloween, pumpkins are carved. The Better Half, better particularly when it comes to artsy type stuff, has done a crafty-artsy rendition of faces for this year’s jack-o’-lanterns. See for yourself. She carved each one free hand.

this year’s Jack-O’-Lanterns

Photo by J. Harrington

The weather forecast assures us there’s no blizzard in store for Halloween / Samhain this year, at least around here. There are tricks galore in the attack ads on tv. In fact, if I paid attention, I’ve no doubt I’d also see ghouls, goblins, trolls and witches therein. I won’t accept that “we’re better than this” when we keep letting the pols and trolls pile the same crap on US every election cycle. I’ve gotten fed up enough with the socio-politico-economic nonsense that I’m looking for solutions in the following places, among others:

• Sacred Nature ~ Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World
  (currently reading)


• Ecocide: Kill the Corporation Before It Kills Us


• Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet – and What We Can Do About It


• Doughnut Economics


• Chokepoint Capitalism

I’ll not say whether any or all of these are treats or tricks. You should check out each one, and similar works, and then decide for yourself. As a Tweet, by @carbon_truth, I recently read notes “ Paraphrasing a well-known Montana author, on November 8 Americans will choose whether they want cheap gas or whether they want democracy.” On November 8, and thereafter, lets choose the treat of democracy and not get tricked into autocracy and fascism. ‘Kay?

 

All Hallows’ Eve

By Dorothea Tanning

Be perfect, make it otherwise.

Yesterday is torn in shreds.

Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes

Rip apart the breathing beds.

Hear bones crack and pulverize.

Doom creeps in on rubber treads.

Countless overwrought housewives,

Minds unraveling like threads,

Try lipstick shades to tranquilize

Fears of age and general dreads.

Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies,

Don’t take faucets for fountainheads.

Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise

You and the werewolf: newlyweds.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Will Mother Nature trick us after treating us?

Today is a classic autumn day in the North Country, although perhaps a little warmer than normal. The Better Half is displaying another of her creative facets by carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns. I was assigned responsibility for securing the candles required and have precipitously completed said assignment. Tea candles galore are now available, hauled from the stash in the storage closet.

our house, come Halloween

Photo by J. Harrington

We ended up in Minneapolis earlier today and dropped by Birchbark Books. It appeared that about half the city was out and about the lakes, enjoying a glorious ending to October. I’m continuing to honor my myth that I can’t die as long as my tsundoku stacks are large enough. I bought three books as Halloween treats for myself. The Better Half wanted to pick up a copy of the latest volume of a mystery trilogy and succeeded. On the drive home I was struck by the realization that a store we used to visit several times a year pre-COVID, we had visited for the second time in the past two years. We’ve essentially foregone eating out or grabbing coffee at the local coffee shop. Our quality of life has indeed been diminished by the pandemic, but at least so far we’ve survived it. That’s a combination Trick and Treat, sort of, right?

I’ve neglected mentioning another recent treat for a couple of days now. Late this past week I noticed a freshly bloomed dandelion growing in the roadside ditch. Is that a message of hope? Of persistence? Of foolish foolhardiness? Of evolutionary experiment? All of them? How can we tell some treats and tricks apart? Does today’s poem help?

A January Dandelion

By George Marion McClellan

All Nashville is a chill. And everywhere

Like desert sand, when the winds blow,

There is each moment sifted through the air,

A powdered blast of January snow.

O! thoughtless Dandelion, to be misled

By a few warm days to leave thy natural bed,

Was folly growth and blooming over soon.

And yet, thou blasted yellow-coated gem,

Full many a heart has but a common boon

With thee, now freezing on thy slender stem.

When the heart has bloomed by the touch of love’s warm breath

Then left and chilling snow is sifted in,

It still may beat but there is blast and death

To all that blooming life that might have been.

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Almost to mid-season

The Better Half [BH], while we were walking the dogs this morning, noticed a flock of five swans at about treetop height. They were silent and I, who was not next to BH at the time, never saw a thing. Seeing them would have been wonderful. Seeing them with my camera ready to shoot, even better. That gives me one more thing to still look forward to. I have many pictures of swans on the water. None of them in the air.

some fancy pumpkin carving

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re but a weekend away from Halloween. So far, we’ve not had any creative pumpkin carvers, but there’s still some time. About a week after the big H, we’ll be halfway through autumn and well on our way to Thanksgiving. Despite all the trials and tribulations in today’s world, I’m hopeful that we’ll have much to be thankful for and that between Halloween and Thanksgiving we’ll enjoy more treats than tricks.

This morning I cleared lots of leaves from the stoop and the garage doors. There are still many, many leaves on the trees around the house. As usual at this time of year, it’s a contest of whether I’ll get leaves cleared before they’re covered in several inches of snow. Wet leaves clog up the snow blower so we often just drive on and compact the snow until there’s a coating of an inch or so, which turns into ice next March. That’s an element of phenology I’ve become too familiar with. I’m less familiar with when pollinators and others head for the leaf piles to overwinter. If anyone has good information on the critters lurking in the leaves all winter, please share in the comments.

Halloween Is Coming

© Fiona Halliday

Creeping, crawling creatures scurry in the night,
Rats and bats and spiders, nibble, out of sight,
Don’t look too carefully,
You’ll get a nasty fright!

Monsters in the bathroom, witches in the hall,
Hairy beasts and demons climbing every wall,
You won’t want to catch them,
When they start to fall!

Vampires’ stealthy footsteps cross the wooden floor,
Werewolves howling fearfully, beyond your kitchen door,
Don’t look outside now,
You won’t want to find out more!

Zombies with their wild eyes and their soulless grins,
Skeletons with their bony cheeks and their missing skins,
Listen for their rattling sounds,
But do not let them in!

Halloween is coming, what a scary night,
Ghosties, ghouls and goblins dancing in the light,
Here they are all coming now, feel the spooky beat,
If you listen, hear ‘em shout:

“TRICK OR TREAT!” 

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One Treat; Two Tricks, so far

Here’s a report on the Treat:    I went off to get some errands done today. As I drove past the Sunrise River pools in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area I saw several flocks of American Coots floating on the water. It’s the most waterfowl I’ve seen in one place at one time since the spring migration.

Although we haven’t been specifically watching for the fall migration, we live close enough to the  resting pools that we usually see birds if they’re around. Even though I’ve not hunted waterfowl for several years now, I still get a thrill from watching them come, raise a family, and go.

bigger swallows smaller: it’s monstrous!

Photo by J. Harrington

Now for the Two Tricks:

1. We recently learned that our local trash and recycling provider has been bought by one of the big, national corporations. We’ve already been informed that several items, such as used oil, will no longer be collected as part of the recycling service. We’re waiting to see what other changes may be in store, and our expectations are not very positive.


2. The local auto dealerships where the Better Half and I each bought our Jeeps have been bought by one of the two huge Twin Cities auto conglomerates: Luther Automotive, Morrie’s Auto Group. I stopped by today to schedule an oil change and buy four new tires. The service advisor informed me, as I was standing in the service bay, that I would have to call or schedule the service on line. This is a new and unwelcome change, since the tires I want, which were original equipment brand, are specifically excluded from a MOPAR coupon. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to sort that out on line or over the phone without having to dig out the specifics on the tires make, model and size. If I have to go to that much trouble, I might as well see where else I want to do business.

It’s probably no more than a sign of just how old I’ve become, but I remember waaay back to when “the customer is always right” days and businesses would do their best to make it convenient to do business with them. Apparently, with  alll the “progress” we’ve made using information technology, we’re close to returning to the days when you could buy a Ford in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

I'll try to not let the corporatization of local economies and businesses get to me too much unless we also experience belated tricks and the Democrats lose control of Congress and/or the statewide offices in Minnesota.

First, my Motorola

Alexandra Nemerov

Nemerov constructed this poem by simply listing every brand she touched sequentially during a day, from the moment she woke up, until the moment she went to sleep: it's hard to imagine a more accurate contemporary self-portrait. And it doesn't get "sexier", "cooler", or "more accessible" than this.

First, my Motorola
Then my Frette
Then my Sonia Rykiel
Then my Bvulgari
Then my Asprey
Then my Cartier
Then my Kohler
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Braun
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Kohler
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Bliss
Then my Apple
Then my Kashi
Then my Maytag
Then my Silk
Then my Pom
Then my Maytag
Then my Kohler
Then my Pur
Then my Fiji
Then my Kohler
Then my Maytag
Then my Herman Miller
Then my Crate and Barrel
Then my Apple
Then my On Gossamer
Then my La Perla
Then my Vince
Then my D&G
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Moschino
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Lucchese
Then my Apple

Then my Trish McEvoy
Then my Dior
Then my Lancome
Then my Kevin Aucoin
Then my Trish McEvoy
Then my Tarte
Then my Apple
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Jansport
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Adidas
Then my Adidas
Then my Nike
Then my Masterlock
Then my Fiji
Then my Apple
Then my Bang and Olufson
Then my Ito En
Then my Trident
Then my Chiquita
Then my Dole
Then my Motorola
Then my Chanel
Then my Schlage
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Jansport
Then my Motorola
Then my Apple
Then my Trident
Then my Fiji
Then my Apple
Then my Motorola
Then my Jansport
Then my Cosi
Then my Sweetheart
Then my Minute Maid
Then my Jansport
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Mastercard
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Jansport
Then my Motorola
Then my Trident
Then my Apple
Then my Chanel
Then my Jansport
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my W
Then my Adidas
Then my Adidas
Then my Nike
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my D&G
Then my Moschino
Then my Vince
Then my Lucchese
Then my La Perla
Then my Nike
Then my Jansport
Then my Fiji
Then my Masterlock
Then my Fiji
Then my Apple
Then my Bang and Olufson
Then my W
Then my Motorola
Then my Masterlock
Then my Lifefitness
Then my Fiji
Then my Masterlock
Then my Jansport
Then my Fiji
Then my Nike
Then my Adidas
Then my Adidas
Then my Nike
Then my Vince
Then my La Perla
Then my D&G
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Chanel
Then my Chiquita
Then my Trident
Then my Apple
Then my Bang and Olufson
Then my Jansport
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Schlage
Then my Maytag
Then my Zimmer
Then my Gil Ferrer
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Remede
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Braun
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Gil Ferrer
Then my Skintimate
Then my Schick
Then my Bliss
Then my Bliss
Then my Zimmer
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Fresh
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Bliss
Then my Gil Ferrer
Then my Gil Ferrer
Then my Frederic Fekkai
Then my Herman Miller
Then my Pottery Barn
Then my Apple
Then my Hewlett Packard
Then my Apple
Then my La Perla
Then my Petit Bateau
Then my Jill Stuart
Then my Dolce and Gabbana
Then my Wolford
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my H&M
Then my Motorola
Then my Fendi
Then my Kevin Aucoin
Then my Trish McEvoy
Then my Dior
Then my Trish McEvoy
Then my Lancome
Then my Motorola
Then my Estee Lauder
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Motorola
Then my Trident
Then my Schlage
Then my Fendi
Then my Motorola
Then my Dibruno Bros.
Then my Fendi
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Tanqueray
Then my Fendi
Then my Motorola
Then my Fendi
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Fendi
Then my Louis Vuitton
Then my Schlage
Then my Fiji
Then my Hermann Miller
Then my Pottery Barn
Then my Apple
Then my Kohler
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Braun
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Kohler
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Bliss
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Wolford
Then my Dolce and Gabbana
Then my Petit Bateau
Then my Motorola
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my La Perla
Then my H&M
Then my Anthropology
Then my Motorola
Then my Bvulgari
Then my Asprey
Then my Cartier
Then my Frette
Then my Sonia Rykiel
And finally, my Motorola

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A Treat for this Halloween and the holiday season

 Halloween is one week from today. We discovered how we might be able to watch some holiday season classics beginning with It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! It took us about an hour to find this little nugget of information:

Apple TV+ said in a press release that will provide free windows for nonsubscribers to stream the iconic holiday specials. These movies are available to subscribers year-round.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown - Oct. 28-31

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving - Nov. 23-27

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Dec. 22-25

follow the press release link to bigify

I found it more convenient last year to watch on PBS, but that deal isn't in the holiday cards for this year. As my mother used to remind me, "beggars can't be choosers." If this all works well, with minimal irritation and no aggravation, I may even forgive Apple for some of the things they've done over the past year that really annoyed me, to the point I'm seriously considering moving to Linux.

In any event, please feel free to share this information, especially the press release link, as widely as possible. We need to keep the Charlie Brown holiday traditions alive and well throughout the 21st century!

Theme in Yellow

By Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o'-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.

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We’re getting warm again!

I think this is what’s called Indian Summer, but maybe not. We’ve already had a measurable snow fall and the air isn’t particularly hazy. Let’s go with Sandy Griswold’s description [follow preceding link]. I’m feeling more poetical than scientific today.

I appear to have recovered from the ancillary effects of my COVID booster, at least well enough to use the mulching mower to turn much of the leaf fall into mulch for the Better Half’s day lily garden. If I’ve read correctly, the leaf mulch may also serve as an overwintering shelter for caterpillars and creatures of similar ilk. That makes me feel good about getting a twofer or even a threefer out of a couple of hours work today. In the interest of pacing myself (“He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day!”) I left some to tackle tomorrow.

more leaves on the ground or on the trees?

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re at or rapidly approaching the time of year when there are more leaves on the ground than in the getting bare trees. Halloween’s about 10 days away. Election Day is slightly more than two weeks from now. This is about as autumn as it gets. I’m guessing you’ve heard some variation on the story of the Northerner who finally broke down and bought a snow blower, and it never snowed hard all winter? He wasn’t sure, after spending the money, how he felt about that. Well, the Better Half has given me a couple of early Christmas presents, nice warm sweaters. Just after I received the second sweater, the Indian Summer weather began. I promise not to complain if I never need to wear the warmer of the two sweaters all this winter. Let’s see how long our warm spell lasts.

Indian Summer

By Diane Glancy

There’s a farm auction up the road.

Wind has its bid in for the leaves.

Already bugs flurry the headlights

between cornfields at night.

If this world were permanent,

I could dance full as the squaw dress

on the clothesline.

I would not see winter

in the square of white yard-light on the wall.

But something tugs at me.

The world is at a loss and I am part of it

migrating daily.

Everything is up for grabs

like a box of farm tools broken open.

I hear the spirits often in the garden

and along the shore of corn.

I know this place is not mine.

I hear them up the road again.

This world is a horizon, an open sea.

Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.

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Treats, not tricks, on November 8?

Peak color has come, and gone, in our area. In fact, that’s true pretty much statewide. Time to adjust perspectives and get ready for Halloween / Samhain.

almost time for these folks to show up again

Photo by J. Harrington

The Celts considered the darker half of the year to begin with Samhain on November 1. It was the time of the ending and the beginning of the Wheel of the Year. If I’m feeling optimistic, November 8 will bring better days. Otherwise, it may bring a return of the dark times we suffered from 2016 through 2020.

I’ve reached my limit of the emails and snail mails screaming the world will end if I don’t send $50 or $100 or more to this or that group or candidate. What other occupation convinces people to pay for the employee’s job application? Furthermore, I resent elections being pitched as if they were wars or sports contests coming down to the end of the season and two opponents running neck and neck.

I’m going to take a moment to fantasize about two major changes I’d like to see:

1. US politics gets reshaped to bring out the best in all of US instead of what we get now, attack ads ad nauseam.
2. Change the laws so that the only legal type of corporation allowed in this country is a “B” Corp. or equivalent.

B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials.

I'm feeling a little lethargic today, probably as a consequence of yesterday's COVID booster, so I'm going to keep it short. With luck I'll be back to what passes for normal tomorrow.

The End and the Beginning

By Wisława Szymborska

Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

After every war

someone has to clean up.

Things won’t

straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall.

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.

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