Day lily phen(omen)ology

Neighborhood day lilies have started to bloom. That means it’s time to watch (out) for fawns, goslings and wild turkey poults. A couple of days ago we had two does and four spotted fawns scampering around behind the house. Goslings are down the road at the Sunrise River pools along county road 36. The Better Half has seen poults as she drove to the barn where the Daughter Person’s horse is boarded. I’m hoping to see some in the back yard any day now. Signs of any kind of normalcy are very much appreciated and valued these days.

whitetail fawn in flower-dotted field behind our house

Photo by J. Harrington

This month's weather has been almost as bad as the Washington regime's "governing." It's been wickedly rainy or humidly wet and/or windy and either well above or below normal temperatures. The bad news is: the weather has hindered getting out fishing. The good news is it's hindered yard cleanup and mowing. I think I'd prefer to deal with the tradeoffs created by better weather.

I'm not sure if it's a result of the weather or what, but this summer we've had two, maybe three, male Baltimore orioles at the feeders, together with a mob of male rose-breasted grosbeaks and a flock of male goldfinches. All more than I remember from past years. 

All-in-all, it wouldn't take much to make for a major improvement in folks' lives around here. Then, again, there's the old saying that "Things always look darkest just before they go totally black!" but I much prefer a line I wrote years ago: "It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness!"

Praise the Rain

By Joy Harjo

 

Praise the rain; the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

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It’s about de clutter

I’m not happy with the presumed choices in presidential candidates this election, but the odds are strongly against my vote going anywhere except the Blue column. Do I care enough to vote in the local (state) primary? We’ll see. At the moment I’m not aware of any contests that affect my legislative, congressional, or statewide races. My thinking is that the Democrats have made such a mess of things that I’ll give them a vote but no more dollars. In fact, I’m contemplating going beyond that reduction.

Some years ago, a writer named Seth Godin claimed we now live in an “attention economy.” Several out-of-state Democrats have been spamming my email box with requests for donations. I keep reporting them as spam but the messages continue to arrive, doing no more than pi** me off at the sender candidate, the Democratic Party, and all politicians in general. I am officially, as of today, withdrawing my attention from the political economy until about November 5th or whenever I get around to early voting.

picture me wading here

Photo by J. Harrington

No matter what I do, the political system is unlikely to reform itself. It is, therefore, my responsibility to prevent it from doing unnecessary damage to my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I intend to take the time I’ve been spending looking at news and doom-scrolling social media doing things that are of more immediate relevance to my life and much more capable of bringing joy into my existence. Mostly, that’s going to involve participating in, reading about, and enjoying fly-fishing, environmental healing, and similar themes.

A former Speaker of the House, from my home state of Massachusetts, Tip O’Neil once noted that “All politics is local.” I’ve been active in local issues and opportunities, it’s time to become more so. My life needs decluttering and this feels like the best time and theme on which to start. The political world, especially, is full of more bitching and moaning than I can (under)stand.

The Stolen Child

W. B. Yeats
1865 – 1939

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

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This May work out

Daybreak today brought a crescent moon hanging in a shades of fading deep blue sky. It was about the prettiest dawn and sunrise I’ve ever seen. As the sun rose and the moon disappeared, the season’s first bluebirds arrived to check out both nesting boxes in front of the house. For a little while we had bluebirds twittering, squirrels skittering, and dew-covered grass gleaming. Locally it was indeed enough to make me think: what a wonderful world. It’ll probably be a few days or more until we learn if either bird house has been deemed suitable for raising a bluebird family.

female bluebird on bare, leafless branch

Photo by J. Harrington

A purple finch (or house finch?) was briefly at the seed feeder yesterday. Most of our visitors have been goldfinch, chickadees and woodpeckers. Now that the bluebirds are here, I’ll fill and hang a nectar feeder for hummingbirds and orioles. Maybe a grape jelly feeder would serve as an additional enticement. Then I have to remember to bring each feeder in every night so the bears don’t think we’re serving them a free lunch.

I suspect that sometime later this month the temperature will exceed 85℉. Then, after a brief cool down, it will jump to 90℉ or more and then stay at summer levels pretty much through September. Let’s watch and see what really happens as we go about enjoying our road repair season.

Bluebird

Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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Sheep highlight similarities between dreary weather and politics

 Our CSA share was ready this morning. The Better Half will turn these basic ingredients into delicious fare for the winter, spring and summer weather we’ll probably experience over the next week. The box contained:

• Arugula
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Red potatoes
• Spinach
• Watercress, and
• Yellow onions

On our way home, we slowed enough to grab some quick pictures of the lambs at one of the farms we drive past regularly. I count about a dozen in the picture below and there were several handfuls outside the frame that wouldn’t fit. There were few gamboling about today. Most, as you can see, were resting from breakfast and morning dashes as they marshaled their strength for lunch.

spring lambs at rest

Photo by J. Harrington

Once we got home, the dogs were fed and walked and a loaf of sourdough bread is baking as this is being written. Slowly I’m coming to accept that the best way to deal with our continually dreary weather is to try to ignore it, since we can’t easily change it. I wonder if the same approach to politics is the way to go.

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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Rescue dogs on the job!

Many of the forsythia stems in our two vases have leafed out. Seeing fresh, new green is encouraging, since I just finished clearing four or five inches of snow from the drive. If it really does warm up next week, I want to help Mother Nature as much as I can to move through the icy driveway phase. Other accomplishments for today include ordering new glasses, dropping off the tax organizer and documents with our tax preparer, and reading to our granddaughter for awhile. A day full of more accomplishments than many this winter.

Maybe the fact that I was too busy in the real world to spend time on social media helps explain the fact that I’m in a better mood than I have been for weeks. Maybe the promise of warmer weather and a spring thaw has a lot to do with it. Maybe the fact that I’m beginning to reengage with a conservation organization I’ve belonged to for decades is a contributor. It’s been a pleasant change from the business as usual mode of the past few months.

friends: SiSi (left), Harry (right)

Photo by J. Harrington

I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that our two rescue dogs, I belong to SiSi on the left, Harry on the right owns the Better Half, bring a little aggravation and a lot of joy into our lives. They’re no doubt looking forward to once again having a chance to play in their run without getting frostbitten paws. I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how rejuvenating it is to visit a person a little less than 18 months old who finds joy in exploring and testing everything about her. She’s a classic example of zen mind, beginner’s mind, not so full of everything there’s no room to learn more. A model I should take to heart more.

What a lot of today’s posting amounts to is my recognition that learning to enjoy what I have is as important, perhaps more important, than working toward new, improved, bigger, better, more! I’ve recently been fretting about the dogs spending as much time sleeping as they do. Then I thought about the fact that their food and shelter is taken care of, and they’re learning how to play together without wrecking the house, so most boredom is self-inflicted. That helped me realize that spending less time sitting on my duff fussing about the state of the world would increase my chances to enjoy and work toward saving or improving those parts of that world that are important to me. Maybe after I’ve relearned this fact another couple of dozen times it will begin to sink in.

Yes! No!

by Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like
small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

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There’s beauty and then, there’s beauty

One year ago today, our front yard was snow covered, and not just a dusting. The past couple of nights we’ve been bringing in the hanging baskets and covering the potted plants by the front steps. Here in the North Country, our weather seems to be getting more volatile, not that it was ever that dependable. The lesson to be taken: pay attention to what’s going on at the moment because it may change at any time. (Maybe that’s why and how our sports’ fans manage to keep coming back for more: anticipation of a change for the better?)

October 23, 2020 snow cover

Photo by J. Harrington

After looking at some past years’ photos, I’m estimating that this year’s leaf color development has been running about ten days to two weeks behind recent years, but don’t plan on running any sort of numerical analysis on our unscientific, limited, statistically insignificant data set. Instead, during the past few days we’ve been joyfully experiencing the quality and beauty of late October afternoon sunlight on the golden and chrome yellow leaves of the birch and aspen trees.

is this pond covered with ice?

Photo by J. Harrington

Returning to a “pay attention” theme, a quick glance at the woodline next to harvested farm fields rarely, if ever, captures the detail of each leaf on a branch trembling in the mildest of breezes, making a tree’s crown look like it’s covered in gossamer-thin gold-leaf foil. We’ve not been able to convince ourselves that the pond up the road was ice-covered by this time last year, but neither have we convinced ourselves that it wasn’t. We’ll leave it up to you to make that call. We’re going to settle for remembering that  we much prefer autumn’s gold to winter’s silver, even as described by Mr. Frost.

Birches

By Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

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This Summer Day #phenology

I checked in my copy of the Minnesota Weatherguide Engagement Calendar this morning. Sunrise is now about forty-five minutes later than it was on the Summer solstice. Sunset has shrunk by about the same amount. We're now enjoying an hour and a half less daylight than we did about eight weeks ago.

butterfly and bee nectaring

Photo by J. Harrington

We have lots of goldenrod in bloom around the "wet spot" in the back yard. The swamp milkweed is attracting butterflies and bees. Today's temperatures and humidity have dropped enough that it's a pleasure to have windows and doors open around the house to let a very pleasant breeze waft through. In response to the lower humidity and temps, I'm beginning to show a few indications of ambition but nothing serious enough  to warrant concern.

I have no idea what species they were, but today, while doing some outdoor chores, I noticed two different dragonflies in the back yard. There are several dozen possibilities for this time of Summer, according to the cheatsheet I created from Kurt Mead's Dragonflies of the North Woods, but it's been awhile since I've noticed any dragonflies flying about. Maybe I need to pay more attention and spend more time outside.

spotted horsemint

Photo by J. Harrington

The first tumbling seed heads from the purple love grass started bouncing across the fields today. Or, today was the first time I saw any pretending to be tumbleweeds. Late afternoon sun has the grass stems glowing pinkish-purple. If it was growing closer to the spotted horsemint's green-tinted white leaves, the combination would be spectacular.

Earlier today it dawned on me that, as I've written these posts over the years, I've identified quite a few different plants that are growing on our property, but haven't tried to list them all in one place. That probably means I know more than I know I know. I'm going to start a consolidated listing as a way to focus on what I've learned rather than how much there still is to discover. I suspect that will let me feel at least a little better about the state of my own little world. It has more biodiversity than I've acknowledged.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

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Watch for spots before your eyes

Yesterday morning, as we neared the pick-up location for our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share, I noticed movement on the right-hand side of the road ahead and slowed down. As we approached, a spotted fawn looked toward us, lifted its head, looked ahead, across the road, and scampered in front of the jeep. We stopped and waited for it to cross the road and enter the woods. It did and we proceeded.

August: spotted fawn time

Photo by J. Harrington

Not two hundred yards beyond the fawn, a buck, its antlers in velvet, bounded across the road and into the woods. We saw no sign of a doe, which is unusual with a fawn out wandering around. Another hundred yards or so and we rolled into the drive of the CSA pick-up barn. No harm, no foul.

We collected our share box, put the contents in the jeep, and started the return trip. At about the same place we saw the fawn enter the woods earlier, we noticed it had returned and was lurking behind a roadside bush. Driving slowly, we eased past the fawn and then picked up some speed, but not too much. A mile or so down the road, as we approached a sweeping left hand turn on the gravel road, I noticed a whitetail doe standing at attention in the ditch on the passenger side of the jeep. I doubly slowed, once for the turn and once for the doe, just in case she did something foolish like dash in front of the jeep just as we were about to pass her. Fortunately, she stayed in the ditch until we got close and then bolted into the woods on her side of the road.

From now until about Thanksgiving you should expect deer to, as Harry Potter fans would say, "apparate" in front of you, often at a distance too short to enable avoiding a serious collision. For the sake of the deer, especially cute, young, fawns, and your sheet metal and air bags and passengers, reducing your travel speed to something well this side of sane would be a good idea. Spots in front of your eyes are much easier to deal with at a reasonable distance.

Here, now, gone

Bob Hicok

We’re standing in the road
looking at a dead fawn. His truck facing town,
mine headed toward home. It appears to be sleeping
on the double yellow, curled as if in tall grass
or on a down comforter in a video someone has posted
on YouTube about her pet deer. No sign of collision
or gunshot, garroting, heart attack: nothing but spots,
cuteness. The name on his door means he works
on the natural gas pipeline that’ll run
from West Virginia to North Carolina.
The company that pays him has a reputation for ruin
worse than syphilis. Employees have been told
to stay away from locals. They stick to a hotel
near the freeway with a decor I’d call modern roach,
drink there, hone boredom, look at stars.
We both crouch to make sure the fawn is dead.
“What the fuck,” he says, staring at the desert
of my face, where there’s no rain or hope,
only cactus, as I search the dry lake-bed of his.
He looks back at the fawn, brings his hands together
as if waiting for a Communion host,
makes a scooping motion with his hands,
then slides his eyes to the side of the road:
I’m being asked to help save a dead fawn
from the bonus carnage of traffic, the shredding
that suggests life isn’t just delicate
but deserves to be erased.
We are the briefest couple
joined by common cause, move the fawn
and stand briefly as men who have respected loss
for sentimental reasons. Then nod, become ghosts
of a moment we are the custodians of, holders
of the unholdable, wind telling the story of itself
to itself.

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We've been here before, haven't we?

[UPDATE: Back to the Future? 1968, Chicago, Democratic Nation Convention]

As governance continues to deteriorate, while the #FakePresident, aided and abetted by the Republican Party, undermines the Postal Service in an effort to steal the upcoming election, it became clear to me that we're facing a "Constitutional Crisis..., a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve." 

I know about the Civil War but was surprised to see how many other constitutional crises the US has faced, including a couple so far within my lifetime. The upcoming election appears to offer a significant potential to rate among the top two or three, and maybe even top the list, depending on how events play out over the next several months. Thats why today I was both dismayed and heartened to come across

Preparing the Public for a Contested Election

I firmly believe it will be worth your while to click on the link and read the piece. I also fervently hope I'm providing lousy, as in unnecessary, advice. But, as they say in the airline industry, Fasten your seatbelts, please, there's turbulence ahead. Of that I have few, if any doubts.

Politics

By Randall Mann

This is what he dreams of:

a map of burned land,

a mound of dirt

in the early century’s winter.

 

A map of burned land?

A country is razed

in the early century’s winter.

And God descends.

 

A country is raised

because of industry.

And God descends,

messengers rush inside

 

because of industry,

in spite of diplomats.

Messengers rush inside

to haunt the darkened aisles.

 

In spite of diplomats,

the witnesses know well

to haunt the darkened aisles,

experimentally—

 

the witnesses know well

that ushers dressed in black

experimentally

lurk by the cushioned seats.

 

That ushers dress in black

should tell you something:

lurking by the cushioned seats,

the saved and the terrible.

 

I should tell you something:

this is what he dreams of,

the saved and the terrible—

a mound of dirt.

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for #InternationalWomensDay ♀

As I hope you already know, today is International Women's Day, a day on which, more than others, we pay attention to "Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality." In addition to my mother, grandmother, aunts, wife, and daughter, there have been several women who have made major beneficial contributions to my life. Those who have visited here a few times may have discovered that one of my favorite writers is Donella (Dana) Meadows. I first encountered her work in the 1970's when I read Limits to Growth. Her web site has a wonderfully expanded, full version on her paper on

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints).
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
3. The goals of the system.
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.
1. The power to transcend paradigms.

Another woman, whose work I must become more familiar with, is a Nobel Laureate who has researched and published on one of my favorite topics, our commons. Her book, Governing the Commons, The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, seems like a useful supplement to Meadows' dictums. I mention these two women in particular because of my belief that, for women to attain equity, the system must be changed and the system in question is one of the world's commons. Ostrum has proposed eight principles for managing the commons:

1. Boundaries of users and resource are clear
2. Congruence between benefits and costs
3. Users had procedures for making own rules
4. Regular monitoring of users and resource conditions
5. Graduated sanctions
6. Conflict resolution mechanisms
7. Minimal recognition of rights by government
8. Nested enterprises

The preceding eight principle and twelve places proposed by two women appear to offer a framework for changing the current system so that women share equity. However, I think it wise to conclude with another observation from Dana Meadows:

“An important function of almost every system is to ensure its own perpetuation.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

Although I've tried to avoid using it today, that quote brings us to one by Frederick Douglas that, I believe, must be taken into consideration to have an equitable system.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

How to Triumph Like a Girl

Ada Limón - 1976-

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let's be honest, I like
that they're ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don't you want to believe it?
Don't you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it's going to come in first.

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Prairie poem published!

I am excited, delighted, and thrilled to be published in such company as Gary Paul Nabhan. One of his books sits on our shelves. I  thank those at the Center for Humans and Nature for including one of my poems (Prairie Grasses) in Minding Nature, Vol. 13. No. 1 (Winter 2020). Perhaps, indeed, it is true that "Spring is a New Beginning." Feel free to follow the preceding link to read the poem and check out the rest of that issue. That is all for now.

Prairie smoke (Geum triflorum)

Photo by J. Harrington

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To what are you paying attention?

Yesterday's warmth was delightful, while it lasted. This morning's sunrise was spectacularly golden. Now, midday, we're back to our usual cloudy skies, below freezing temperatures, and, despite our efforts to clear the meltwater and slush, our driveway is a skating rink in serious need of a Zamboni. Nevertheless, we drove across it with the Jeep to get to the dentist and spend a couple of hours in the chair. We'll see about taking some driveway pictures later but it looks disgustingly similar to the way it did back in late December, except fewer leaves and more frozen.

remember when Minnesota Winters weren't like this?

Photo by J. Harrington

In the midst of my morning meditations today, one of the readings included a story, attributed to Redbook, about Helen Keller. Here's a version:

“One July afternoon at our ranch in the Canadian Rockies I rode toward Helen Keller’s cabin.  Along the wagon trail that ran through a lovely wood we had stretched a wire, to guide Helen when she walked there alone, and as I turned down the trail I saw her coming.

I sat motionless while this woman, who was doomed to live forever in a black and silent prison, made her way briskly down the path, her face radiant.  She stepped out of the woods into a sunlit open space directly in front of me and stopped by a clump of wolf willows.  Gathering a handful, she breathed their strange fragrance:  her sightless eyes looked up squarely into the sun, and her lips, so magically trained, pronounced the single word “Beautiful!”  Then, still smiling, she walked past me.

I brushed the tears from my own inadequate eyes.  For to me none of this exquisite highland had seemed beautiful.  I had felt only bitter discouragement over the rejection of a piece of writing.  I had eyes to see all he wonders of woods, sky and mountains, ears to hear the rushing stream and the song of the wind in the treetops.  It took the sightless eyes and sealed ears of this extraordinary woman to show me beauty and bravery.”
–    Frazier Hunt

As we move through the clamorous political season now underway, as the thaw-freeze-thaw-freeze cycle toward Spring in the North Country continues to present ambulatory challenges, as I continue to age and deal with the less pleasant aspects of that, as life goes on, I'll do my best to remember this story and to turn my focus toward what's going right in my life, and the world, and do less fussing and fuming about what's wrong. I only need to be hit over the head a couple of times with a figurative 2" X 4" to begin to pay attention and see the error of my ways. How about you? What's beautiful in your world? Have you noticed lately?

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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Beginning to see the light

Today we enjoy the full wolf moon (although I prefer the phrase wolf full moon). It's January's full moon. We watched one version early this morning as we walked SiSi. If the clouds thin and break enough, we'll see another this afternoon and tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm never sure whether the full moon is counted from moon rise or moon set times or if that makes no difference. If I cheat and look it up, it appears the official full moon occurs between this morning's setting and this afternoon's rising. Now I'm even more confused. Time to just relax and enjoy the beauty.

wolf full moon with cloud ring

Photo by J. Harrington

Something I've noticed about Winter, even with our distressing number of dreary days, is that, when there is sunlight, its quality is often more attractive that I've noticed in Summer. I think that has to do with the lower angle of the sunlight. Here's an example from a few years ago.

sunlight looks different in Winter

Photo by J. Harrington

A different example, that we no longer enjoy since we've replaced the windows along with the siding some years back, is frost on windowpanes. Although the increased warmth is desirable, from time to time I miss the old fashioned beauty of frost on the glass. Some tradeoffs are tough to make.

sunlight highlighting frosted windowpane

Photo by J. Harrington

If you can manage to slow down or take even a brief break from today's consistently hectic pace, take a look and see if you notice a different quality of light during the days of these darker months. By the way, we've gained almost 16 minutes of daylight since last December's shortest day. Soon we'll be able again to see sunshine on open water.

John Denver

"Sunshine On My Shoulders"

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a day that I could give you, I'd give to you the day just like today.
If I had a song that I could sing for you, I'd sing a song to make you feel this way.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a tale that I could tell you, I'd tell a tale sure to make you smile.
If I had a wish that I could wish for you, I'd make a wish for sunshine for all the while.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high. Sunshine almost always:

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Happy New Year! May your daze be full of beauty!

New years come infrequently.

New decades even more so.

Each day, though, begins with a new morning.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives...."

― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life 

Winter dawn

Photo by J. Harrington

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver

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A resolution for the New Year

I'm (in)famous for refusing to make and honor New Year's resolutions. Next year I'll make an exception for the resolution below. Wouldn't the world be a better place, and we all be better people, if each of us remembered?

under which sky were you born?

Photo by J. Harrington

Remember

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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Amongst December's mysteries

Last Spring the Better Half bought four beach plum plants. They arrived bare root stock so I planted them in pots rather than expose them to pocket gophers. Late Autumn I brought the pots into the house and put two on a book case at a West-facing window and 2 in a South-facing alcove window. One of the two plants facing West has dropped all its leaves. The other has a couple of green leaves left. One of the South-facing plants has four or five green leaves and the other has about a dozen.

beach plum: no leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

beach plum: 2 green leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

All plants were potted in the same soil; spent the Summer next to each other on the deck; and were placed randomly at the windows come Autumn. I have no idea why there's such a wide range of green leaves on the four plants. It'll be interesting to see how things develop come Spring 2020 and time for new leaves to emerge.

On another strange happening to report front, something has been creating what looks like a nesting spot in the road ditch snow bank South of the driveway and just north of the field entrance for our property. Before we ended up with permanent seasonal snow cover, there were two similar depressions that, at first, I thought had been made by deer pawing for acorns. Now I'm not sure what's going on since there don't appear to be many deer tracks surrounding the "pawed" area.

beach plum: many green leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

beach plum: 4 or 5 green leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The cold weather has chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers (downy and hairy, pileated has disappeared again) at the suet as well as the sunflower seeds. So far I think the red-bellied woodpecker has only been feeding on sunflower seeds but I'm not positive about that.

We're hoping the weather forecast is accurate and that warmer, actually seasonal, temperatures arrive come mid-week. Meanwhile, we at least appreciate the blue skies and sunshine that's showing up between nuisance snowfalls of an inch or so each day.

Fall Leaves Fall

Emily Brontë - 1818-1848

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; 

Lengthen night and shorten day; 

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, 

Fluttering from the autumn tree. 

I shall smile when wreaths of snow 

Blossom where the rose should grow; 

I shall sing when night’s decay 

Ushers in a drearier day.

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Don't forget to give a Christmas present to yourself

Thanks to the time of year and the weather patterns, I've begun rereading a couple of books of poetry that involve Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison. Kooser wrote Winter Morning Walks: one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison during the last years of the last millennium. Kooser and Harrison collaborated on Braided Creek, A Conversation in Poetry, during the early years of the current millennium. The poems in the latter aren't identified by poet. I have long admired and enjoyed the poems of each writer, and continue in my efforts to discover more details of the long-standing friendship between two poets who seem to me to be very different people, except they both love the Midwest and both are writers.

Next year I intend to once again risk paving part of a road to hell, with my good intentions to return to poetry writing. Kooser put his aside for several months after he'd been diagnosed with cancer, and then began sending postcards to Harrison. I hope to avoid anything as traumatic, but want to slow down and pay more attention to the details in my life, especially as the world around us gets more crazy, at least leading up to early November.

My suggestion: give yourself a Christmas present that lasts all year. Set aside time each and every day for meditation and meaningful reading. Try to stretch you attention span. I know I've shortened mine by spending too much time on the internets and social media. No matter how easy and addictive it may be, we don't have to do things that are unhealthy for our minds, bodies and emotions. In fact, it seems to me that learning to treat ourselves to health is part of the message of the birth and rebirth we celebrate at this time of year.

from “Braided Creek”

How one old tire leans up against
another, the breath gone out of both.

Old friend,
perhaps we work too hard
at being remembered.

Which way will the creek
run when time ends?
Don’t ask me until
this wine bottle is empty.

While my bowl is still half full,
you can eat out of it too,
and when it is empty,
just bury it out in the flowers.

All those years
I had in my pocket.
I spent them,
nickel-and-dime.

Each clock tick falls
like a raindrop,
right through the floor
as if it were nothing.

In the morning light,
the doorknob, cold with dew.

The Pilot razor-point pen is my
compass, watch, and soul chaser.
Thousands of miles of black squiggles.

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