On the transformation of plants

It’s time for the weekly report on our community supported agriculture [CSA] share. Here’s what was in our box this morning:

• Broccoli Raab
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes
• Green beans
• Onions
• Cucumbers
• Carrots with tops
• Parsley

Meanwhile, a messy field of weeds that was growing along the northern side of our driveway a couple of days ago has become a beautiful field of wild flowers that’s attracting several butterflies who enhance the attractiveness of the blossoms. One of the advantages of being a procrastinator is that it sometimes keeps me from making horrible mistakes. The “weed field” now looks like this:

our transformed "weed field"

Photo by J. Harrington

The picture, and the flowers, remind me of the paintings in our copy of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide. As I recall, some of the a field guide entries include recipes for wildflowers good enough to eat. I wondered if anyone had focused a field guide on edible wildflowers when I remembered we used to have a copy of Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus. A quick online search revealed the existence of several more recent volumes of a similar nature but they also cover wild plants rather than primarily wildflowers. This may be fun to explore some rainy day (or next winter).

Wildflowers

By Reginald Gibbons

Coleridge carefully wrote down a whole page

of them, all beginning with the letter b.

Guidebooks preserve our knowledge

of their hues and shapes, their breeding.

Many poems have made delicate word-chimes—

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

out of their lovely names.

At the edge of the prairie in a cabin

when thunder comes closer to thump the roof hard

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

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

seem to blow with the announcing winds outside

as the rain begins to fall on all their supple kin

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

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It’s National Poetry Month

In honor of #NationalPoetryMonth, the Better Half and I headed off to what has become a delightful and wondrous nature book store, Prairie Restorations in Scandia, where I purchased, inter alia, a book of poetry, Cold Spring Hallelujah, by local author and poet, Heidi Barr. Among other acquisitions today was a small bag of wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) seed that will be planted this spring to improve, enhance, and beautify the field behind the house. At least that’s the plan. We’ll see if, and by how much, reality differs. Remember what oft' happens to the best laid plans of mice and men. Perhaps we should have waited on the seeds until after April Fools’ Day.

a field of wild bergamot in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

National Poetry Month

Elaine Equi

When a poem
speaks by itself,
it has a spark

and can be considered
part of a divine
conversation.

Sometimes the poem weaves
like a basket around
two loaves of yellow bread.

"Break off a piece
of this April with its
raisin nipples," it says. 

"And chew them slowly
under your pillow.
You belong in bed with me."

On the other hand,
when a poem speaks
in the voice of a celebrity

it is called television
or a movie.
"There is nothing to see,"

say Robert De Niro,
though his poem bleeds
all along the edges

like a puddle 
crudely outlined
with yellow tape

at the crime scene
of spring.
"It is an old poem," he adds.

"And besides,
I was very young
when I made it."

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A philosophy for the times

Late yesterday I started playing with some of my fly-fishing gear. Today the Better Half [BH] provided navigation to Bob Mitchell’s Fly Shop at their current location. (The BH has been to the current location before but I hadn’t.) My speculation yesterday was correct. Spending some time in a fly shop further perked up my drooping spirits that had started perking while playing with a couple of reels yesterday. It’s reassuring to be reminded that, although it may seem so on occasion, winter in the North Country isn’t actually interminable and there are things to do to make it more passable.

From what I read, this year may well be a tough one. As a way of enhancing my self care activities, I’m going to focus more on fly fishing’s enjoyment and experiences. Previously, we’ve shared our admiration for John Voelker / Robert Traver’s Testament of a Fisherman [below] from his wonderful Anatomy of a Fisherman.

Testament of a Fisherman

The perspective in Testament is, I believe, a healthy one for any time and the more difficult the times become, the healthier that perspective becomes. I have drifted too far from appreciating all that’s involved in the concepts above and hope to spend this year adjusting course. Perhaps you might want to consider something similar? If we don’t take care of ourselves, we’re not much good to much of anyone. Although I didn’t buy anything today at the fly shop, the selection of flies I don’t have and haven’t fished made me feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store. That’s a feeling I want more of and am not likely to get scanning the headlines.

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.

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Will we soon be able to give thanks for peace?

Early this morning, the dogs and I saw a beautiful crescent moon almost cradling Venus in the predawn eastern sky. It was beautiful enough to make it worthwhile to be up and out at that hour walking the dogs. Perhaps an even bigger surprise was that the sky was finally clear enough to see the moon and Venus and the stars. Even the wind had a temporary lull in its howling. A rare moment of peace in our corner of the world. Would that others could share moments like that for even longer periods.

Tamaracks have turned golden. Many have shed half or more of their needles. Our local swamps, bogs and wet lands are looking somewhat shorn and forlorn but ice free so far. The local big box grocery store already has Christmas greenery for sale. (They might have had it on display before today but I’ve not been there for a week or more.) Thanksgiving is two weeks from today so the greenery is almost in season. Not only have I not started Christmas shopping, I’ve barely begun a Christmas list for me.

may all enjoy the peace of Nature

Photo by J. Harrington

Looking ahead, one of my wishes for the season, and a great reason to get a jump on the season, is for peace on earth, good will toward men, especially in the region where Christ walked the earth, and anywhere else ravaged these days by war or hatred. Although we’re still in the phase where days get shorter, may those with good will hope for a solstice that brings not only longer, but truly brighter days for all. That would obviously be something for which men of good will would give thanks. That’s how we can tell if they’re men of good will.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

Joy Harjo     1951 – 

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

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Earth, rise!

 

Earthrise, taken on December 24, 1968, by 
Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders

That’s our home planet pictured above. The only one we have. It’s also our “Planet B,” as in there is no place we can move to if we burn down our house. From Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, through the Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, to the multitude of reports from the IPCC on climate disruption, we have thus far failed to sufficiently respect and respond to the guidance of those who would lead us to a sustainable future.

One of the "rules of thumb” I learned long ago goes something like “the proper definition of a problem is half the solution..” I continue to fail to understand why we continue to fail to follow the precautionary principle or even acknowledge the truth of Pogo’s observation from years ago:

"we have met the enemy..." - ©Walt Kelly

Did Pogo get it wrong? I don’t think so. Another old saying I remember my mother using to describe me is “too smart for his own good.” That may well be true of all of us who don’t have enough smarts to get out of our own way and to stop choosing to follow those who place their best individual interest ahead of our collective good. No, I’m not promoting Ayn Rand. Why is it, do you think, that more of us aren’t promoting Elinor Ostrum’s work about managing our commons?

Or, you could read Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. If you’ve read it once, reread it. If you want or need something with pictures, try Bimaadiziwin Nibi - Water is Life. Why? Look again at Earthrise. That gray, lifeless area at the picture’s lower section is the moon, which is lifeless as far as we’ve been able to .tell. It’s also pretty much waterless. Have you heard about desertification? Hard to picture after the local winter we’ve had but Minnesota (and California) are undergoing a really tough solution to their recent droughts. Our weather is getting more volatile as we disrupt our climate. Now, go back and reread the first paragraph in today’s posting. How soon do you think you could move to Mars? Does that really seem like a better idea than restoring Earth?

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.

The music of Spring

Will the temperatures stay warm enough locally that we’ll get all rain; mostly rain with some snow; rain, snow, and freezing rain; and how many inches of snow tomorrow night? That is the question making us more pensive than usual over the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours. When all is said and done, come Palm Sunday, April 2, will we have gained (bare) ground or lost to increased snow cover? Will the roads become icy or not? The answer, as with so many things these days, is “It depends.” 

In our part of the North Country, April is the month we experience Winter into Spring. George Winston has a wonderful album by that title. If you’re tired of a winter that won’t remove her bony, ice-cold fingers from our throats, follow the link above. Then listen. Do it even if you’re not fed up with winter. It’s beautiful music and I believe we all need more beauty in our lives. In fact, I believe we’d all be better off if entrepreneurs put as much  effort and as many resources into increasing the beauty in the world as they do into growing Artificial Intelligence. Then again, I doubt there’s such a thing as Artificial Beauty, right?

Canada geese calling: Spring music

Photo by J. Harrington

Even for those of us who have grown increasingly impatient with winter’s leave taking lasting even longer than Minnesotans saying good-by at the end of an evening visit, there’s a beauty in the inevitability of longer days eventually becoming warmer days which will arrive in a foreseeable future.

After I’ve posted today’s blog musings, I think I’ll dig out and play a Beatles’ song that’s also appropriate for this time of year, although I admit I am partial to the Richie Havens’ version of Here Comes the Sun. And then I think I’ll follow that with Simon and Garfunkle’s April Come She Will. This music should help me ignore the snow that’s just started falling outside and is expected to continue for several hours. Maybe it will even help me repress the screams I feel building inside.

Spring Storm

William Carlos Williams - 1883-1963

The sky has given over 
its bitterness. 
Out of the dark change 
all day long 
rain falls and falls 
as if it would never end. 
Still the snow keeps 
its hold on the ground. 
But water, water 
from a thousand runnels! 
It collects swiftly, 
dappled with black 
cuts a way for itself 
through green ice in the gutters. 
Drop after drop it falls 
from the withered grass-stems 
of the overhanging embankment.

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Transience of beauty; beauty of transience

We live in a beautiful part of the world. If it had stonewalls, an ocean (specifically, the northern Atlantic), and were more blue than purple, it would be close to ideal. This morning’s drive to pick up this week’s Community Supported Agriculture share, in the midst of the  season’s first snow showers, was absolutely delightful, and I don’t like winter. I had enough sense to take my good camera. Enjoy some of the results.

always scenic red barn

Photo by J. Harrington

whitetail doe in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

ridges near the St. Croix river

Photo by J. Harrington

three sandhill cranes in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

The snow is all gone. Colder than normal temperatures remain for now. If you’re familiar with the debate about not confusing correlation with causation, you can decide for yourself whether our calling out the prospect of snow earlier this week was coincidence (correlation) or it triggered the weather gods (causation). I’m glad we got to enjoy the beauty and equally glad for the melting. Snow is not anything to which I want to become acclimated. I’m already starting to look forward to next year’s road construction season.

Early October Snow

By Robert Haight

It will not stay. 

But this morning we wake to pale muslin 

stretched across the grass. 

The pumpkins, still in the fields, are planets 

shrouded by clouds. 

The Weber wears a dunce cap 

and sits in the corner by the garage 

where asters wrap scarves 

around their necks to warm their blooms. 

The leaves, still soldered to their branches 

by a frozen drop of dew, splash 

apple and pear paint along the roadsides. 

It seems we have glanced out a window 

into the near future, mid-December, say, 

the black and white photo of winter 

carefully laid over the present autumn, 

like a morning we pause at the mirror 

inspecting the single strand of hair 

that overnight has turned to snow.

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Feeding body and soul

I have a loaf of sourdough in the oven. The dough was much tackier (sticky) than I anticipated. Once I had shaped the boule and put it in the ‘fridge to proof, I went online to see what I might learn about why my dough was sticky and what I might do about it. I ended up at a web site I haven’t visited for months. If you’re interested in baking artisan bread, I suggest you spend some time visiting The Fresh Loaf, A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts. Another site I find helpful and interesting is Emilie Raffa’s The Clever Carrot, Sourdough tips, videos & recipes. Now that we’ve taken care of feeding the body....

early Spring, wood ducks

Photo by J. Harrington

We are lucky to live someplace that varies from pretty to beautiful to stunning. We’re in the Minnesota watershed of the wild and scenic St. Croix River. Several years ago, Craig Blacklock published a book of his photographs of the St. Croix and Namekagon. The photo gallery from the book is now online for all to see. Although not every part of our neighborhood is as gorgeous as the pictures, it’s helpful to be reminded from time to time that we should be more attentive to our surroundings. We might be missing much of the beauty that surrounds us.

The peace of wild things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the Peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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A lovely day here on Turtle Island

Why did the turtle cross the road?    To lay her eggs!

This may be the week that rewards us for living here the other 51. [I hope I haven’t jinxed us.] The weather is a delight. The air is full of dragonflies feeding on the swarms of mosquitos. Yesterday a painted turtle visited the front yard. We have no idea whether it’s still hunkered under the front stoop, where she was last seen disappearing.

This morning I noticed the beardtongue buds are beginning to turn into flowers. Also this morning I noticed a different painted turtle crossing a gravel road a couple of miles from the house. She hunkered at the road’s edge as I drove past slowly in the Jeep. Columbine flowers are blooming in scattered sites around the yard.

painted turtle crossing gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

My presumption is that each of the turtles I saw is a female on an egg-laying mission. It is that time of year. As we noted the other day about whitetail fawns, it’s heartening to see reproductive success being sought or delivered as the countryside greens up.

local turtle crossing sign

Photo by J. Harrington

All of this reminds me of what’s probably my all time favorite origin story. It’s embedded in an essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer in emergence magazine. The title is Ancient Green: Moss, Climate, and Deep Time. It’s worth your time to read if you want to know about Turtle Island.

Ode to Langston

By Dawn Quigley

Langston, we too, sing  Turtle Island.

We are the 574 Nations.

They want to hide us

In the past tense,

Yet we love,

And dream,

And are still here.

Today, now,

We are at the oval table

As our women lead.

Nobody can ever

Say to us,

“Natives lived, Natives ate, drank, led.”

We are present tense.

Because,

They will know what we’ve always known

And be humbled—

We, too, sing  Turtle Island.

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Is constant change a balance?

In about a month or so, with luck, maybe less, dogwood stems will brighten to a warmer red. I’m looking forward to that. Then it will be time to collect a handful of stems and put them in water at home and watch leaves emerge. Extended weather forecasts claim next month may be warmer than average and March may be very much warmer than average for our region. As one who has lived in this North Country for most of his adult life, I can only reply “We’ll see!” If nothing else, the prospect of a warmer spring raises hopes that can get us through Valentine's even if the ultimate result is disappointment in the accuracy of long range weather forecasts.

late February, dogwood stems bright red

Photo by J. Harrington

The view of the fields behind the house hasn’t changed much for weeks, other than some days are cloudy and others full of blue skies. The snow shows a few tracks left by wandering whitetail deer and the scampering footprints of a cottontail or two. Getting an inch or three of snow once or twice a week keeps filling in last week’s tracks so it all looks pretty constant. I’ve found that, no matter how pretty or beautiful a scene may be, after awhile I want it to change. Just as I really like red beans and rice, I wouldn’t want to eat it every day, week after week.

Then again, the temperature roller coaster ride we’ve been on this month is hard to adapt to. A day or two above freezing followed by three or four days of below zero, coupled with widely varying humidity levels, can make for too much change too often.

I wonder if anyone has found the Goldilocks equivalent of a beneficial balance to change in our daily and weekly lives, not too much, not too little, but just right to keep us satisfied and content for a season or two. If you’ve any thoughts on this theme, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

from constant change figures

By Lyn Hejinian

constant change figures

the time we sense

passing on its effect

surpassing things we've known before

since memory

of many things is called

experience

but what of what

we call nature's picture

surpassing things we call

since memory

we call nature's picture

surpassing things we've known before

constant change figures

experience

passing on its effect

but what of what

constant change figures

since memory

of many things is called

the time we sense

called nature's picture

but what of what

in the time we sense

surpassing things we've known before

passing on its effect

is experience

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Without trust, we have ...

Moonset was beautiful this morning, very cold, but beautiful. It looked a lot like the photo below, which was taken in December several years ago.

winter moonset

Photo by J. Harrington

I wish I could train myself to spend more time enjoying the good things in life and less time focused on what’s wrong. That would mean I’d spend more time enjoying life instead of fretting about what I want but don’t have at the moment. In the current example, that would be spring and warmer weather. If I were more accepting of what is, in winter I would not complain about walking dogs in bitter cold weather, nor spring’s rain and ice and mud, nor about summer’s flies and mosquitoes. Instead, I’ve limited the potential enjoyment of much of three seasons, not because of pain but because of discomfort, irritation or aggravation. I don’t believe this kind of dissatisfaction is what Robert Browning had in mind when he wrote 

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”

Alternatively, Jane Hirshfield has said:

I have been given this existence, these years on this Earth, to accept what has come into my lifetime — wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness. I must take them. I must find a way to live in this world. You can’t refuse it. And along with the difficult is the radiant, the beautiful, the intimacy with which each one of us enters the life of all of us and figures out, what is our conversation? What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed? How can I meet this in a way which both lets me open my eyes the next day and also, perhaps, if I’m lucky, can be of service?

Rarely, if ever, do I do well with acceptance. Not because I don’t try but because it does not seem to be in my nature to be zen-like. My focus has been much more on the questions “What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed?” Perhaps the issue is one of balance rather than absolutes. 

If your email inbox is like mine, it daily fills with please to help alleviate one crisis after another. Rarely is there an acknowledgement than any given crisis has been abated, even for the moment. Such beleaguerment feeds guilt but rarely accomplishment. But then there’s the story of saving starfish.

If, come November of this year, democracy is extinguished in the US by US, due to indifference and/or incompetence, it will be tragic but, at least for awhile, the world will continue. Chile lost and then restored its democracy under political conditions that seem quite similar to those of our current time and place: a loss of trust between the two major political parties. In our case, compounded by a loss of trust between the each of the parties and many of its proponents.

As a recovvering planner, I well remember the old dictum “More of the same never solved a problem.” We continue to elect people who believe their side is always right, the other side is always wrong and gridlock is preferable to letting the other side look good or a problem get solved. Until we cease repeating that mistake (those mistakes?), nothing we do is likely to improve things very much. If politics is the art of the  possible, then we’ve elected too many politicians who’ve made art impossible. Can we do better?

Trust

By Susan Kinsolving

Trust that there is a tiger, muscular 

Tasmanian, and sly, which has never been 

seen and never will be seen by any human 

eye. Trust that thirty thousand sword- 

fish will never near a ship, that far 

from cameras or cars elephant herds live 

long elephant lives. Believe that bees 

by the billions find unidentified flowers 

on unmapped marshes and mountains. Safe 

in caves of contentment, bears sleep. 

Through vast canyons, horses run while slowly 

snakes stretch beyond their skins in the sun. 

I must trust all this to be true, though 

the few birds at my feeder watch the window 

with small flutters of fear, so like my own.

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It’s quite all white

This morning unseasonably bitter cold brought frost, fog, hoarfrost, haze and/or low clouds. Behind and  through the mist the sun was a pure white circle. Trees encased in white looked like escapees from a fairyland. It was magical and a little disconcerting to any of us conditioned over the years to seeing either thicker clouds or a yellow sun. All in all, nature delivered a beautiful early Christmas present today.

snow-covered fields and frost coated trees

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we enjoyed a different kind of present. A large flock of tundra swans, white against pale gray clouds, flew past the windows. Swans emerging from clouds or silhouetted against them are an occasional winter delight in our  area. There’s a large flock or several smaller ones that  overwinter on the St. Croix river’s open waters. From time to time we see them doing a fly-by as they head for one of the neighborhood’s harvested corn fields to glean what’s left.

Since the dogs seem to be indifferent to the aesthetics of winter’s displays of white on white, they’re just looking forward to the return of seasonable, or above, temperatures during their daily walks. Putting on boots is a lot of trouble and feels weird so we avoid that unless it’s really, really, polar vortex cold. But that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable walking in the snow or on the ice at road’s edge.

Snow White

Katherine Riegel

I dreamt I woke in winter—
even the river
silent, its tongue caught mid-
sentence, like mine
when someone looks at me
too closely. It had been years

since I understood winter
so well I knew it to be inside
my own bone-cage, since I had
smelled that kind of white.

White of the frozen rabbit
my spaniel dragged in from the back
yard, white of horse-breath in the barn,
white of birds so desperate
for seed they pretend colorlessness—

except the cardinal, drop of heat,
too neat to be blood, too brave
to be symbol. I woke in winter

and almost-knew what I had always
almost-known, back in those dark
five o’clock walks home for dinner:

something about loneliness living
in the well of the throat, something
about fur and burrowing
and black eyes
waiting for the thaw.

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A good news day this month

Today’s posting will be short and sweet. There’s some good news to report for a change.

• Paul Hawken’s Regeneration has been released and I’ve already got my copy.


• The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, at the direction of the Minnesota Supreme Court, has initiated a contested case hearing on PolyMet’s Permit to Mine. We’ll follow up on this next week we hope.


• Trout Week begins tomorrow


• Orion magazine has an article on Rewilding the Elwha River: Ten Years Later


• While pulling into the drive today, I noticed a small flock of turkeys standing in the  middle of the road.


• The kernza pancake and waffle mix arrived in the mail. We’ll try it next week.

autumn’s beauty is still developing

Photo by J. Harrington

On a much more personal and pragmatic level, the self-tapping screw that somehow became embedded in the Jeep’s left rear tire has been removed and the hole repaired. All seems well.

Autumn

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

No melancholy days are these!
     Not where the maple changing stands,
Not in the shade of fluttering oaks,
            Nor in the bands

Of twisting vines and sturdy shrubs,
     Scarlet and yellow, green and brown,
Falling, or swinging on their stalks,
            Is Sorrow’s crown.

The sparkling fields of dewy grass,
     Woodpaths and roadsides decked with flowers,
Starred asters and the goldenrod,
            Date Autumn’s hours.

The shining banks of snowy clouds,
     Steadfast in the aerial blue,
The silent, shimmering, silver sea,
            To Joy are true.

My spirit in this happy air
     Can thus embrace the dying year,
And with it wrap me in a shroud
            As bright and clear!

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The value of beauty

At least today the weather is a delight although, as usual, I could do with a gentler breeze, unless, of course, I’m trying to burn some of our dead, broken branches in the fire pit. Then a stronger breeze from a consistent direction is helpful. There I go again, reducing nature to its utility function.

Perhaps I’m just displaying my crass, self-centered side, but it seems to me that trying to value, in non-economic terms, the multiple values of nature, including other people, makes more sense than reducing ecosystem services to a dollar value. Where’s the dollar value of beauty? Seeing something beautiful, such as a flock of swans emerging from a cloud-filled sky, makes me feel good, makes me happy. I don’t have to put a dollar value on it. In fact, “paying" for beauty in terms other than time, effort, and attention, might well diminish its value to me.

Recently, I’ve been reading a book by Jackie Morris, The Quiet Music of Gently Falling Snow. It’s one of a number of books she’s written and / or illustrated, including several done to illustrate Robert MacFarlane’s writing, including The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. Each, and work based on them, have had a magical, transformative affect on me and many others.

The pleasure I’ve derived from reading those  books and ...Falling Snow is far greater than their purchase price. Meanwhile, back in the world that could use more magic these days, Morris’ web site shares a current posting about a different kind of purchase price, that for housing and the problems gentrification can create for artists in rural locations. (I suspect many of us are more familiar with the issues associated with urban gentrification.) The entire question of attaining any sort of balance between urban and rural, rich and un-rich, tinkers, tailors, soldiers and spies, seems to become more complex by the day. What ecosystem services do humans provide that there should be so many of us, and why do we keep reproducing at a rate that can’t be sustained? See what the past 50 years look like:

Project Drawdown: Setting the stage

In America, we often teach  children that they can grow up to be anything they want. Now, perhaps it’s time to teach them that they can’t grow up to be everything they want. Maybe, actually, we need to begin by teaching that to the  adults. We’re all in this together, like it or not.

The Lost Words Blessing

Composer & Copyright

Original song by Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux, Kerry Andrew.

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water

Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling,
find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

It's #WorldBeeDay

Most of the blossoms on our pear tree are gone. More and more of the dandelions have turned to fluff and seeds. We're several weeks from day lily blooms but it's peak time for lilacs and some local fruit trees. Since honeybees aren't native to America, I have a hard time getting terribly concerned about them. Then again, I do enjoy cranberry honey in my morning coffee and have read that bee populations are in decline.

late May lilacs in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota, several years ago, began a wild bee survey which now lists more than 400 species. I'm sure you know that Minnesota has an official state bee, the rusty patched bumblebee, as of 2019. Minnesota's chapter of the Xerces Society has lots of information about how to improve life for our pollinators and other critters such as fireflies. We're already most of the way through May, so it won't be too difficult to defer mowing for another week and a half and claim a No Mow May to help create habitat for pollinators and other wildlife. (If only we had more gopher snakes to thin out the pocket gopher population.)

apple(?) blossoms awaiting pollinators

Photo by J. Harrington

Bees Were Better

By Naomi Shihab Nye

In college, people were always breaking up.

We broke up in parking lots,

beside fountains.

Two people broke up

across a table from me

at the library.

I could not sit at that table again

though I did not know them.

I studied bees, who were able

to convey messages through dancing

and could find their ways

home to their hives

even if someone put up a blockade of sheets

and boards and wire.

Bees had radar in their wings and brains

that humans could barely understand.

I wrote a paper proclaiming

their brilliance and superiority

and revised it at a small café

featuring wooden hive-shaped honey-dippers

in silver honeypots

at every table.

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Bread and hyacinths

T'is another cloudy, dreary, day in February. Snow showers, or flurries, does anyone know if there's an actual difference, are falling off and on. We're beginning to think about open water and fishing seasons, although it's premature to get this year's licenses. Give us another couple of weeks.

a hyacinth to feed the soul

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, we have a couple of hyacinths in the window well downstairs that have begun to blossom and share their aroma. They triggered a vague memory about an old saying -- hyacinths to feed the soul -- so we turned, as we often do, to an internet search engine.

First we encountered, on goodreads, what purports to be a quote from Mohammad:

“If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one and buy hyacinths, for they would feed my soul.” 

The web page was unsatisfactorily absent any additional information about the source so we checked out other leads. The Paris Review yielded a delightful article, Lost and Pound, which explores several variations of a poem, attributable to Ezra Pound, and others, on the theme of bread and hyacinths. We'll share a couple of them. You should follow the link and read the entire article.

Hast thou 2 loaves of bread
Sell one + with the dole
Buy straightaway some hyacinths
To feed thy soul.

 *******************

If thou of fortune be bereft,
And thou dost find but two loaves left
To thee—sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

These passages clearly are in the vein that "man does not live by bread alone," something many of us too often seem to forget. We're trying to find some sort of sustainable balance between bread and hyacinths in our personal life. The plants need regular watering. The sourdough starter needs feeding on a regular basis. Some days baking bread makes the house smell wonderful, but quite different than a hyacinth's aroma. According to wikipedia, "Hyacinth bulbs are poisonous; they contain oxalic acid. Handling hyacinth bulbs can cause mild skin irritation." However, we discovered that there is a hyacinth bean that, in some forms, is considered edible. There's also water hyacinths, which some suggest may be eaten.

a loaf of Irish bread fresh from the oven

Photo by J. Harrington

Before we began today's post, we had never put hyacinth plants, hyacinth beans and water hyacinths together in the same thought. After our quick reads, we think we'll stay with the idea that bread is to feed our body and the beauty and aroma of hyacinths are, indeed, meant mostly to feed our soul, unless we get very brave and creative. Stay tuned in case we get serious about foraging. Meanwhile, we're pleased to report that earlier today, in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, we ordered several packages of King Arthur Baking's Irish Bread mix. When baked and dusted with powdered sugar, it's also beautiful enough to feed a soul.

Heaven for Stanley

Mark Doty - 1953-

For his birthday, I gave Stanley a hyacinth bean,
an annual, so he wouldn't have to wait for the flowers.

He said, Mark, I have just the place for it!
as if he'd spent ninety-eight years

anticipating the arrival of this particular vine.

I thought poetry a brace against time,
the hours held up for study in a voice's cool saline,

but his allegiance is not to permanent forms.
His garden's all furious change,

budding and rot and then the coming up again;

why prefer any single part of the round?
I don't know that he'd change a word of it;

I think he could be forever pleased
to participate in motion. Something opens.

He writes it down. Heaven steadies
and concentrates near the lavender. He's already there.

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As autumn falls

The first week of October is now behind us. Locally, leaves have reached peak color. Birches are bright gold; oaks a multitude of metallics including copper, bronze, rusted iron, and gold; maples have flamed in scarlet and orange and are now showing bright yellows. The unseasonably warm temperatures and strong southerly winds are a poor fit with autumn's color cornucopia.

We've held off on igniting the brush pile because of dry windy conditions all week. Maybe next week will offer an opportunity to safely burn. I'm starting to realize how farmers must feel when they can't get into the fields for whatever reason.

a pumpkin patch framed by autumn leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

As we headed off to pick up this week's Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share, we noticed most local farmers have their soy beans harvested but few have begun on the corn yet. We saw one field with many flocks of Canada geese gleaning what's left by the combine. A small flock of pheasants took off from a roadside ditch as we approached. Several fields had horses grazing. All told, it was a bucolic trip past some pumpkin patches awaiting the completion of harvest. Between climate breakdown and pandemics, I wonder if folks will return to building root / storm cellars under their houses.

On a more mundane level, we regularly drive past one farm that's been raising sheep. The Better Half contacted them via email and learned that they hadn't been able to find anyone to handle slaughtering and meat processing, so we're still searching for local meat sources offering pasture raised lamb, beef and/or pork. Many of the better known outfits are sold out until next spring or summer. Finding reliable suppliers, in part due to limited processing services, remains one of the issues hindering development of holistic local food systems.

Fall

Edward Hirsch - 1950-

Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season 
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples 
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves 
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition 
With the final remaining cardinals) and then 
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last 
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground. 
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees 
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever 
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun 
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance, 
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud 
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything 
Changes and moves in the split second between summer's 
Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment 
Pulling out of the station according to schedule, 
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It 
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away 
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet, 
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving 
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us, 
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets. 
And every year there is a brief, startling moment 
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and 
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless 
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: 
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; 
It is the changing light of fall falling on us. 

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Is this the week that autumn peaks?

Isn't today close to a peak autumn day? While doing some outside chores, I found myself waxing nostalgic for the "good old days" when leaves got raked into a pile into which children and puppies jumped and which was later burned, filling the air with a classic autumn aroma of burning leaves.  We get some of that when we light one of our brush piles. This week has been too dry and windy for us to be comfortable torching the pile in the back yard. (Last night the wind blew the aluminum cap off the fireplace chimney.) We hope the burning conditions improve before we have to disconnect the outside hose to keep from bursting a pipe with freeze-up. At least this involves annoyance level issues rather than anything critical.

whose blood is staining the bird feeder?

Photo by J. Harrington

Some time ago, we posted about the mystery of blood splotches on the outside of our deck walkout door. This morning, we noticed a similar pattern on the top of one of the bird feeders that hangs off of the deck. This reinforces our theory that an owl or hawk grabbed one of the red or gray squirrels that are constantly at the bird feeders. We're pretty sure there was no blood last night when we brought the feeders in. We only noticed it later in the morning as we took a break from the aforementioned outside chores.

We've lived in our house for about a quarter century and are still adjusting to the idea that we'll never actually be caught up on chores as we could be when we were much younger, single and living in a small apartment with a landlord to take care of the yard. We had only to take care of our truck, boat, and miscellaneous sporting equipment. As has been true for most of our life, we failed to appreciate just how good we had it at the time we had it so good. At least we know we don't have to look over our shoulders for hawks or owls while we're enjoying dinner or morning coffee.

Autumn

By Adam Zagajewski

Translated by Renata Gorczynski

Autumn is always too early.

The peonies are still blooming, bees   

are still working out ideal states,

and the cold bayonets of autumn   

suddenly glint in the fields and the wind

rages.

What is its origin? Why should it destroy   

dreams, arbors, memories?

The alien enters the hushed woods,   

anger advancing, insinuating plague;   

woodsmoke, the raucous howls

of Tatars.

Autumn rips away leaves, names,   

fruit, it covers the borders and paths,   

extinguishes lamps and tapers; young   

autumn, lips purpled, embraces   

mortal creatures, stealing

their existence.

Sap flows, sacrificed blood,

wine, oil, wild rivers,

yellow rivers swollen with corpses,

the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche,   

gush.

Breathless autumn, racing, blue

knives glinting in her glance.

She scythes names like herbs with her keen   

sickle, merciless in her blaze

and her breath. Anonymous letter, terror,   

Red Army.

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