In some cultures, Spring is almost here

We've entered what is typically the coldest period of the year here in the North Country. I'm hoping Mother Nature and the Fates will be kind this year so we don''t have to wait until Spring for ICE OUT. Meanwhile, paperwork that let's us know we've entered tax season has started to arrive, along with junk mail. Can you tell this is not my favorite time of year? On the other hand, at least there's lots to look forward to during in January and February, like the return of melting and growing and waterfowl. We just have to hang in there.

winter is also sourdough bread season

Photo by J. Harrington

In the interim, the Better Half has three (Christmas) amaryllis plants with multiple blossoms now on two of them and the third coming along more slowly. Plus, one of her windowsill orchids is flowering! But, the lavender plant I got for Christmas seems "under the weather" due to lack of sufficient sunshine and ambient indoor temperatures five to ten degrees cooler than ideal. (Our downstairs is always cooler during heating season since heat rises.) I honestly can't remember an extended period of cloudiness like we've had for the past several months. I'd move the lavender upstairs but the sunny windowsills are full already with amaryllis and orchids.

If we were wise enough to follow more of the old Druid traditions, in a couple of weeks we'd be celebrating Imbolc on February 1. That's the first of three "Spring" festivals and arrives a couple of weeks ahead of Valentines Day. I'm going to polish my ""of Irish extraction" credentials and get ready to celebrate and enjoy Imbolc this year. That feels like it fits nicely with rereading Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild, as I started to do yesterday.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus said each morning at roll call on Hill Street Blues: "Let's be careful out there," especially as long as Minnesota is territory occupied by hostile forces.

Imbolc by Damh the Bard

As the dark, cold morning gives way to light,
And the world shows its face dazzling in her nakedness,
So the twigs and leaf-bare branches,
Bow to the passing dance
Of old Jack Frost.
His crystal breath on the earth,
And the corners of houses weep icicles of joy.
But where is the Sun’s warmth?
Where is life?
A small flower, delicate and pure-white,
Looks to the earth,
As if talking to the waiting green,
“Not yet,” it seems to whisper.
“When I fall, then you can return.”
And she nods her head,
as the Lady passes by,
Leaving more flowers in Her wake

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

May you enjoy the luck of the Irish

The Irish soda bread has been baked, and partially consumed. Corned beef and cabbage are on the back burners of the stove. I’m wearing a dark green chamois shirt over a light green t-shirt over jeans over dark green socks and olive shoes. When I finish posting this, the latest Altan CD will be set to play on the stereo system. St. Patrick’s Day even brought a few snow showers this morning to remind us that we’re in the North Country, not on the Emerald Isle, more’s the pity.

I’ve been skimming through internet material on fly-fishing in gleeful anticipation of warmer, less windy, days soon to be spent along a local trout stream where I hope to enjoy “the luck of the Irish” as I watch the greening of the countryside around here. With the temperatures forecast for this week coming, I’m grateful and lucky to have a couple of warm, Irish fisherman’s knit sweaters to wear and expect to wait for the greening to prevail.

soon our trees will again begin wearing their green

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re at a time of year when normal high temperatures reach the mid-40s as night-time lows drop into the upper 20s. That’s pretty much what next week looks like, with mixed precipitation late in the week. After all, we’re rapidly nearing the “April showers” time of year. Sounds good to me. Now, please enjoy an Irish poem about trout fishing. It says much about why we spend the time we do trout fishing or wishing we were. Apples of silver or gold are magical and we are lucky to have an opportunity to pluck them.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

By William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

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

’Tis the start of the season of greening

Record or near record warmth today and over the weekend, tempered by howling, gusty winds!!: is March coming in like a lamb or a lion? In either event, I spent much of the morning fiddling with fly fishing gear, mostly cleaning lines. It felt incredibly good to be doing something other than sitting and bitching about world issues. Next week, or shortly thereafter, we’ll purchase new fishing licenses for this year. Frequent nature bathing along a trout stream should soon do wonders to improve this grumpy old man.

When listing March happenings in yesterday’s posting, we included St. Patrick’s Day but missed listing that March is Irish American Heritage Month. Shame on us. To make amends, we’ll bake an extra loaf of Irish soda bread and play our Irish music a few “extra" times and get back to our Druidry readings ASAP.

fresh-baked Irish soda bread

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m debating with myself whether it’s worthwhile to vote in Minnesota’s primary. On the Democratic side I doubt there’s any question that our current President will win. On the other hand, if everyone thinks like me and stays home, some incompetent pol might squeak by, and we don’t want that since it’s what we can expect from the other party. I suppose, unless we get a blizzard, Tuesday’s primary will get my vote and, I hope, not my goat.

Politics

By William Butler Yeats

'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.'

                                                                                            THOMAS MANN.

How can I, that girl standing there,

My attention fix

On Roman or on Russian

Or on Spanish politics,

Yet here's a travelled man that knows

What he talks about,

And there's a politician

That has both read and thought,

And maybe what they say is true

Of war and war's alarms,

But O that I were young again

And held her in my arms.

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

On St. Patrick’s Day

 I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned that I am now officially studying Druidry, but this St. Patrick's Day seems a good time to confirm that it's so. I’m looking for a non-exploitive relationship with Earth and want to avoid cultural appropriation concerns that could emerge from trying to follow Native American spiritual paths. I’m “of Irish extraction,” as the saying goes, so Druidry seems to offer a viable option. We’ll see how it goes.

Irish soda bread

Photo by J. Harrington

About a week ago, in anticipation, I baked a loaf of Irish soda bread (from a mix). The two potted oxalis (shamrocks) are still alive on a shelf in the sun. Nevertheless, we can’t properly celebrate this day without sharing an Irish Blessing, so here’s one I’m fond of:

May love and laughter light your days,

and warm your heart and home.

May good and faithful friends be yours,

wherever you may roam.

May peace and plenty bless your world

with joy that long endures.

May all life's passing seasons

bring the best to you and yours!

Now, let's close for today with a Nobel Laureate Irish poet I'm also fond of, and a poem as fitting for our times as Yeat’s Second Coming, but a little more upbeat:

Anything Can Happen

Seamus Heaney - 1939-2013

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven’s weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

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

’Tis The Day of Himself

☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘

May love and laughter light your days,

and warm your heart and home.

May good and faithful friends be yours,

wherever you may roam.

May peace and plenty bless your world

with joy that long endures.

May all life's passing seasons

bring the best to you and yours!

In my younger days I marched in several St.Patrick’s Day parades, some in spitting snow, others in shining sun. Boston, and the south shore of Massachusetts, have always been “home.” Slowly, over many years, Minnesota has become a home away from home.

Today the roadside ditches, or about half of them, are running full of snowmelt. Many farm fields have large ephemeral ponds or wet spots, none of which this afternoon had attracted waterfowl. In the North Country, mid-March is a bit early to expect to see fresh green anywhere outside, but this year’s rapid thaw should have us looking at mostly bare ground over the weekend. That, along with love and laughter, will warm our heart and home.

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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