A circle game?

Much of the local field corn is now harvested. Many of the local trees are bare of leaves, except for the oaks which  will be shedding leaves until bud burst next Spring starts a new cycle. I hope to finish raking, hauling and mulching this coming week, maybe even by mid-week Veterans' Day on the 11th.

are we at the dawn of a new era?

Photo by J. Harrington

Election Day brought most of the results I hoped for. Now we need leadership that believes accountability involves more than strongly worded letters and private meetings with oligarchs and wannabes. Do you think the Alaska and Mississippi senatorial elections will be resolved before the 2028 presidential elections? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had more elected folks (and political parties) who put governance ahead of politics?

Once upon a time, before Citizens United, and maybe even pre- pre-C.U., I used to be able to feel comfortable voting for a candidate and letting it go at that. My mail box and email inbox weren't daily filling with requests (demands) that I contact my members of Congress to get them to vote for or against various bills. The concept of representative democracy has been severely complicated by the question of who (not what) is to be represented. Corporations are legal persons. I'm surprised that the Supreme Court that determined money is analogous to speech didn't also decide to award non-natural legal persons a right to vote! This should get really interesting as real persons and voters begin pushing harder for Green Amendments establishing the Rights of Nature. I believe we are now living in one of those "interesting times" that have been referred to as a curse.

Meanwhile, it's finally stopped raining. Temperatures are running slightly above seasonal "normals." The upcoming week brings a holiday and we're in the first weekend of local deer hunting season with firearms. We experiennced the first hard frost of the season this past Friday and there's no sign yet of the northern waterfowl migration. If I were younger and still an active waterfowler, I suspect I'd be mightily agitated and disappointed. Climate channge strikes again?

For Calling The Spirit Back From Wandering The Earth In Its Human Feet

by Joy Harjo

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that

bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel

the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and

back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were

a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the

guardians who have known you before time,

who will be there after time.

They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people

who accompany you.

Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought

down upon them.

Don’t worry.

The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises,

interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and

those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few

years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and

leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the

thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning

by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call yourself back. You will find yourself caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It will return

in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be

happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and

given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who

loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no

place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

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Time to Welcome October

For quite a few years now, we've planted half a dozen chrysanthemums along the northern edge of the driveway. This year, for the first time, as much as I can recall, someone's been eating the flowers, mostly the bright yellow ones. A quick internet search suggests that deer, rabbits, and / or squirrels are the most likely culprits. I don't see any hoof prints, so I'm guessing one or both of the latter two but have no more evidence to consider, although a number of flowers continue to lie on the ground around many of the plants.

wedding decoration pumpkins

Photo by J. Harrington

Archery season for deer is now open so there's a number of vehicles wandering the neighborhood and parking in the road ditches. Some of them may be hunting squirrels or rabbits instead of whitetails. That would explain the gun shots I've been hearing while walking Harry the beagle, who is sometimes gun (shot) shy.

Leaf color continues to develop and has been joined by a noticeable increase in leaf drop this past week. Time to start mulch-mowing and blowing so there's not a thick cover when snowfall starts. I'm working on convincing myself that I'm caring for the earth and not just wasting my time. Wish me luck. At least with the drought, grass mowing hasn't been needed nearly as often as during a "normal" summer.

Eleven years ago we were in the midst of preparations for a back yard wedding of the Daughter Person to our soon-to-be Son-In-Law. Leaf colors that year were more fully developed than now. Meanwhile, this year it's time to go pumpkin shopping and check out the snow blower for the season that comes after autumn.

Finally, please be sure to VOTE EARLY, VOTE BLUE [but don't vote often]. Our democracy (and our sanity) depends on you, and me, and each of US!

Vote

by Nikki Giovanni

It’s not a hug
Nor mistletoe at Christmas

It’s not a colored egg
At Easter
Nor a bunny hopping
Across the meadow

It’s a Vote

Saying you are
A citizen

Though it sometimes
Is chocolate
Or sometimes vanilla
It can be a female
Or a male
It is right
Or left
I can agree
Or disagree but
And this is an important but
I am a citizen

I should be able
To vote from prison
I should be able
To vote from the battlefield
I should be able
To vote when I get a driver’s license
I should be able
To vote when I can purchase a gun
I must be able
To vote
If I’m in the hospital
If I’m in the old folks’ home
If I’m needing a ride
To the Polling Place

I am a citizen

I must be able to vote

Folks were lynched
Folks were shot
Folks’ communities were gerrymandered
Folks who believed
In the Constitution were lied to
Burned out
Bought and sold
Because they agreed
All Men Were Created Equal

Folks vote to make us free

It’s not cookies
Nor cake
But it is the icing
That is so sweet

Good for the Folks
Good for Us

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Music to my ears

Purple loosestrife and wild cucumber are blooming conspicuously around damp and wet areas. Sandhill crane colts have reached nearly full grown size. Many of the deer flies disappeared and mornings are often cooler and less humid than July's. I’m not sure whether it’s tree frogs, crickets, something else, or all of the above that Harry the beagle and I hear chirping on our early morning walks. Minnesota’s primary election has come and gone. With some luck and lots of effort, the general election may produce a blue tsunami come November. “And the seasons, they go round and round” ~ Joni Mitchell -- The Circle Game.

whitetail fawn, back yard, early August

Photo by J. Harrington

My favorite part of the year is coming up. From the Autumn Equinox through Winter Solstice seasonal observations and activities most appeal to my tastes (with an exception for political advertisements). Although I don’t migrate like many birds and dragonflies, I do seem to get more restless in our third season, a condition Ms. Mitchell wonderfully captures in her song Urge for Going.

More and more birds are lining up on the wires between telephone poles.Wild turkey poults are almost the size of chickens. Fawns still have their spots. Some small grain fields have been harvested. Some corn stalk leaves have browned. The elderberry bushes in the wet spot behind the house are covered in berries which are attracting birds as the nearby goldenrod attracts butterflies. Milkweed pods are still green and solid. Minnesota’s wild rice harvest season has begun, as has the Minnesota Vikings preseason football schedule.

Last week a youngish (yearling?) black bear visited our deck at 7:30 am, in bright sunshine, to help him/herself to the bird feeder. I opened the walkout door to the deck and growled/snarled at him/her. The young’un promptly dropped to all four paws and scampered down the stairs and off into the woods bordering the back yard. Country living isn’t all peace and quiet.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

1935 – 2019

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?

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After Independence, what?

Are you familiar with Joni Mitchell's wonderful song, The Circle Game? It's one of my all time favorites. Despite my grumbles, I really enjoy the seasons. Some more so than others. I'm trying to learn to appreciate each season for its own delights, even heat and humidity that gives me a good excuse to stay inside and read or write. For my birthday aa while back, my son gave me a copy of Emergence Magazine Vol. 6: SEASONS. I'm enjoying its reads and the provoked thoughts that accompany. I take too much for granted and fail to appreciate and enjoy the day-to-day beauties and pleasures in my life. Can you relate?

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

Photo by J. Harrington

One of our seasonal beauties recently came into bloom in the wet spot behind our house. Swamp milkweed is in flower. That may help to explain the orange butterflies we're seeing flutter around the property. I wish I were better at distinguishing Monarchs from Viceroys as they herky-jerky around.

Yesterday I was trying to get caught up (as if...) on outside chores, over-deferred due to uncooperative weather and persistent summer laziness. Progress was made but more work lies ahead than behind. Part of the challenge is attributable to dew-wet grasses early that becomes humidity as the grasses dry and the day's heat builds and work outside gets deferred to cooler times.

I missed getting a burn permit in time to have an Independence Day bonfire. Maybe we'll see if we can celebrate Lughnasadh / Lammas on August 1 with a fire. Most of the local corn was well above knee high on the 4th of July. The Better Half did a really creative job for the holiday dinner. She made white(ish) pancakes with embedded blueberries and strawberry slices for a red, white and blue meal that exceeded patriotism with tastiness. Yes, we enjoyed a relatively quiet holiday weekend, thank you for asking.

There are no kings in America

Aileen Cassinetto

 

we are not that kind of country.

We are sanctuary for the hungry,

the homeless, the huddled,

held together by an idea

our immigrant fathers believed in.

Rendered, it meant independence.

Pursued, it kindled war, ordinance,

a fighting chance. Forty thousand

musket balls, by themselves, did not

shape the boundaries on which we

map our days. To draw our borders,

we needed more than firecakes.

More than a pound of meat

with bone and gristle,

or salt fish and a gill of peas.

We needed the faith and grit of people

who were not yet Americans.

To be an American is to

recognize the sacrifice

of the widow and the orphan;

it is to understand the weft of tent

cities expecting caravans,

and the heft of a child in a camp

not meant for children, or sitting

before a judge awaiting judgement.

What do we say to the native

whose lands we now inhabit?

What do we say to our immigrant

fathers who held certain truths

to be self-evident?

Do we now still pledge to each

other our lives, our fortunes,

our sacred honor.

There are no kings in America.

Only gilded men we can topple

again and again.

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Looks like a long, hot summer ahead!

Last week we noticed many hay fields had had their first cutting. Several corn fields were showing emergence plus a few of inches of growth. A male scarlet tanager briefly visited the bird bath. I managed to run the mower over some of the back yard, after picking up most of the winter's deposit of dead branches and knocking down lots of pocket gopher mounds with the drag harrow. It wasn't quite a "no mow May" for us, but we came close.

male scarlet tanager next to bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

The lilacs in front of the house are in fuller bloom than I recall in years prior. When I slow down enough to stand near them and take a deep breath, the fragrance is a treat. Summer solstice is three weeks from today, locally at 3:24 am CDT, but summer weather started here a week or ten days ago when daily high temperatures jumped from the mid-60's to the mid-80's and have pretty much stayed there. Plus, it's been very dry locally, with thunderstorms scattered around the state.

The fields behind the house have clusters of blue flax and hoary puccoon in bloom, plus a few other flowers I haven't identified. Last summer's two serviceberry bushes addition now have actual berries. It will be interesting later this summer to see what they taste like. I need to put larger enclosures around them to protect them from rabbits and whitetails. Speaking of deer, it's the season for new fawns. I've not seen any yet but the Better Half claims to have seen one during a trip to or from the barn to help with Daughter Person's horse.

Both political parties are lined up for strongly contested primaries come August, with the Democrats deciding between Craig and Flanagan for senate and the Republicans potentially deciding among several options as their gubernatorial candidate for the general election. Meanwhile the regime in D.C. is hell bent to undermine the integrity and validity of our electoral system. Sigh! It's likely to be a long, summer full of hot air and the best we can hope for is choosing least worst alternatives come November! Even a blue tidal wave is unlikely to clean up enough systemic political flotsam and jetsam to actually improve life for the average voter's family.

What Is June Anyway?

By David Budbill

 

After three weeks of hot weather and drought,

           we've had a week of cold and rain,

just the way it ought to be here in the north,

            in June, a fire going in the woodstove

all day long, so you can go outside in the cold

            and rain anytime and smell

the wood smoke in the air.

 

This is the way I love it. This is why

           I came here almost

fifty years ago. What is June anyway

          without cold and rain

and a fire going in the stove all day?

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Christmas horsing around!

As the Better Half and I approached the tack barn this morning at dawn, the temperature (not the windchill) varied from -21℉ to -23 ℉. It was cold! The Daughter Person's horse needed feeding and the horse's owner was otherwise occupied tending to her daughter, our granddaughter, ill with a cold. A similar routine had occurred twice Saturday, driving to the barn in my Jeep to feed the horse, but the cold hadn't been quite as ferocious. Of possible interest: the horse's name is Quinn and, triggered by the temperatures, I was starting to remember some of the lyrics to Dylan's Quinn the Eskimo. (I wonder if we could get Dylan's "Mighty Quinn" to visit the White House and Congress. Click link, see first verse.)

our Quinn: the horse, not an Eskimo

Photo by J. Harrington

Anyhow, the forecast is that Tuesday's temperature should reach 43℉, a more than 60℉ shift in about half a week. That's insane, but I'm looking forward to an early January thaw after which temperatures for the rest of the month may mostly be more reasonable and seasonable, in the 20's above zero range. Don't forget to celebrate Winter Solstice a week from today!

Much to the joy of my taste buds, and the dismay of my blood sugar, we have entered Christmas cookie season. Daughter person will be dropping off some frosted cookies later today and the Better Half has promised to bake some raspberry jam thumbprint cookies soon. I will do my best to pace myself rather than pig out. I don't want Santa to put me on the naughty list and deliver coal in my stocking, increasing my carbon footprint. I wonder if the IPCC, or anyone, has talked to the jolly old elf about a fossil fuel phaseout? Maybe instead of coal, he could leave naughty kids sand to pound?

This year's Christmas tree has remained upright for the past week, for which we are grateful. It's now decorated but I've not had an opportune time to take pictures.. Maybe this coming week. The outside lighting is delightful and cheery. I've already received an early present, an indoor lavender plant that is now living in a South-facing window well. It gives me something to enjoy from now until Spring green-up. Being "of Irish descent," I do prefer green to white and the color lavender, I think, looks better against a green instead of a white background.

Now, in alignment with today's posting and the season, please enjoy this poem:

Let’s just put it this way: They didn’t start calling him “Jolly” Old St. Nicholas until after he got the reindeer.

Poem by Lorraine Jackson

cc/wickimedia commons

 

‘Twas the night before Christmas,

And all through the stable,

Poor Santa was fretting if his horses were able.

The toys were all ready

But the horses were not.

With his sleigh pullers ailing,

Santa was quite distraught.

All the IVs were hung

on the stall fronts with care,

some legs had been cold-hosed

‘til the vet could get there.

Poor Bella had rainrot

And Gordo had thrush

Jellybean pulled a muscle

When he spooked at a brush

Though sometimes dear Rhoda

Could be very sweet,

Christmas Eve she decided to go into heat.

Old Roger was moonblind,

And Jake was too green

Pete had colic or gas–

It remained to be seen.

Trouble was best,

But he has the Cushings.

If he they took him unclipped,

He’d look like a Wookie.

Santa sat on a bucket,

And looked down the barn row

Wondering how he would get to and fro.

The vet bills were growing

They’d make Mark Cuban balk.

Half his elves don’t make toys now,

Instead they hand walk.

As Santa sat moaning

He looked out on the snow.

And saw eight wild reindeer,

With nowhere to go.

“It just might be crazy,”

Said St. Nick full of bliss

“But eight crazy reindeer

Would be better than THIS!”

So that’s how the reindeer

Came to be Santa’s hitch,

And there’s never a colic

Nor a last minute glitch.

The horses retired

But they still hear the bells,

And each Christmas Eve

all their knees start to swell.

Merry Christmas!

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Winter didn't wait for the solstice

Today it's time to say good-bye to November, since tomorrow we welcome the arrival of December. Signs of Thanksgiving past arrive later today in the form of hot turkey sandwiches for tonight's dinner, while the Christmas season arrived earlier this week in the form of snowflake lights and wreathes adorning the house and reflecting in the snow from the two separate storms we had this last week. In fact, another snow shower has started since I began writing this post. Sometimes we get too much of a good thing.

Christmas cheer comes in many shapes and sizes

Photo by J. Harrington

Juncos are back at the feeder, probably for the rest of winter. There's a pair of cardinals that occasionally arrive at the feeder just as dark is setting in. Maybe, if we ever shake the chronic cloud cover, they'll show up during the day to bring bright Christmas color to the woods. Male cardinals agains a snowy background are about as cheery as winter woods get, it seems to me.

The Better Half [BH] and I have yet to select a home grown Christmas tree from the woods around the house. The aforementioned snow storms required enough snow blowing and shoveling to preempt woods wandering. I'll try a reconnoiter tomorrow and see if I can spot some candidates for the BH's approval. We've been cutting our own, on our own, for several years now and it's become a fun tradition.

Another holiday season tradition around here, blooming amaryllis, was renewed today when the BH put three separate, newly arrived, bulbs into three planters on the south-facing window sill. I''ll be curious to see how long it takes them to blossom. I should have paid more attention in years past.

This is supposed to be a season of peace to men of good will and / or peace, good will toward men. Holding aside the archaic, sexist phrasing, peace and good will seem sparse this year. Perhaps, if each of us tries, just a little bit harder, as Janis used to urge us, we can make this season a pleaasant memory for many more of both young and old than would otherwise be the case. It's worth a try, don't you think?

Since this is the last day of Native American Heritage Month, let's have Joy Harjo help us welcome winter and December.

 

Grace

Joy Harjo   1951 –

                                    For Darlene Wind and James Welch

I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn't stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace. 

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.

I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn. 

I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn't; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it. 

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Approaching Samhain

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

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

may only friendly spirits visit you

Photo by J. Harrington

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

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

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

The Circle Game

by Joni Mitchell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In service to the Serviceberry

Last Spring, about the time our pear tree was in bloom, I finally stumbled onto a local source of serviceberry bushes, of a species noted for producing good fruit, Saskatoon serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia). I drove to northern Dakota county and bought two at Gertens. Some time thereafter, I managed to plant them in accord with the directions. Several weeks later, despite watering them regularly between rainy spells, both bushes were leafless and dead. Rabbits? Deer? Pocket gophers? I wasn't sure but I was unhappy since the bushes were, to my mind, expensive plus the physical cost of planting them. I was slightly consoled by remembering the story by one of the Aldo Leopold kids about planting, and replanting, hundreds or thousands of conifers on their sand county farm.

pear tree in bloom, May 2025

Photo by J. Harrington

I spent bits and pieces of the Summer mumbling and grumbling about Amelanchier failures until the Better Half got tired of listening to me and called Gertens to confirm that my bushes were covered by a warranty. I could get replacements if I showed up with a receipt and photos of the dead bushes. Several weeks after getting the confirmation, I did so and the replacement process actually went better than I expected. It was smooth and pleasant.

Today's plantings added the prompt installation of wire cage protectors and the addition of bark mulch around the outside of each cage. The serviceberry bushes are supposed to show their own white flowers about the time the pear tree does, but won't grow nearly as tall. Now that the replacement planting is done, I'm now typing up this posting and will then keep my fingers and toes crossed that these bushes make it through the Autumn and Winter and Spring etc. Stay tuned and, if you haven't read Robin Wall Kimmerer's latest book, The Serviceberry, here's the original essay as a sample. It's the one that started me on this adventure.

Tobacco Origin Story, Because Tobacco Was a Gift Intended to Walk Alongside Us to the Stars

By Joy Harjo

From a story of how the tobacco plant came to our people, told to me by my cousin George Coser Jr.

It was way back, before there was a way back

When time threaded earth and sky.

Children were conceived, were born, grew, and walked tall

In what we now call a day.

There must have been two suns, a bright moon, somehow

We had more light than now, sheen

Of falling in love playing about Earth’s body

In a wild flicker which lit

Us up. We who were this planet and yearned for touch.

Every planted thought grew plant

Ladders to the stars, way back, before there was

No way back, Miss Mary Mack.

We used to sing along the buttons of her

Dress. Our babies are always

Our babies. Even back then when time waved through

The corn. We knew our plants like

Relatives. Their stories were our stories, there

Were songs for everything — I

Should say “are” songs for every transformation

They link between way back and

Now, the forever now, a time when a young

Mvskoke man and woman

Walked through the shimmer of the early evening.

They had become as one song.

They lay down when it was dark. I can hear their

Intimate low-voice talking.

How they tease one another with such gut love.

Earth makes a bed, with pillow

Mounds. And it is there as the night insects sing

They conceived their first child. They

Will look back as they walk East toward the sunrise.

The raw stalks of beginning

Will drink the light, root deeply dark into earth.

In the tracks of their loving

The plant-child emerges, first the seed head, then

Leafy, long male body and the white female

Flowers of tobacco, or

Hece, as the people called it when it called

To them. Come here. We were brought

To you from those who love you. We will help you.

And that’s how it began, way

Back, when we knew how to hear the songs of plants

And could sing back, like now

On paper, with marks like bird feet, but where are

Our ears? They have grown to fit

Around earbuds, to hear music made for cold

Cash, like our beloved smoke-

Making threaded with addiction and dead words.

Sing this song back to me, girl.

In the moonlight, tobacco plant had silver

Moon buttons all up her back.

We’re getting dressed to go plant new songs with words.

Our sun is dimming faster.

Mvto hece, mvto hvse, mvto e — 

Kanvchaga, mvto ah

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back to the future? again?

The field behind the house is full of Spotted Horsemint, with scatterings of black-eyed Susans and a few compass plants. Purple Lovegrass provides a colorful, mist-like understory, if prairie-like fields can have an understory. Our wet spring seems to have prompted an abundance of late Summer natural beauty for this last week of August.

a cluster of Black-eyed Susan flowers

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of late Summer, the weather has taken a definite autumnal turn. Highs are forecast to be in the 70s all week with lows feeling as cool as forties and fifties, thanks to freshened breezes and last night's (early this morning's?) cold front that came through. Good weather for getting caught up on some yard chores that've been deferred due to heat, humidity or thunderstorms.

The elderberry bush in the wet spot behind the house has numerous clusters of berries replacing its midsummer blooms. Our lilac bushes have a few small clumps of flowers that feel out-of-season. We think there's at least one rough(?) blazing star in bloom in a spot not visible from the house. Learning to appreciate little things and natural beauty around us is taking some effort but is worth it, especially during these days when there's so much ugliness in our world. 

From time to time I find myself drifting back to the 1960s and 70s when some of my close friends were semi-hippie, back-to-the-land types. My iPhone has lots of folk music from those days, copied from my CDs. So many of Bob Dylan's lyrics seem prescient and traumatically relevant to today's situations. Or, to quote a refrain from one of Pete Seeger's classics: "When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?" Money isn't speech. Corporations aren't people any more than artificial intellligence is. We are all in this together and all of US need to learn to act that way, as of yesterday.

Back Up Quick They’re Hippies

By Lani O'Hanlon

 

That was the year we drove

into the commune in Cornwall.

“Jesus Jim,” mam said,

“back up quick they’re hippies.”

Through the car window,

tents, row after row, flaps open,

long-haired men and women

curled around each other like babies

and the babies themselves

wandered naked across the grass.

I reached for the handle, ready, almost,

to open the door, drop out and away

from my sister’s aggressive thighs,

Daddy’s slapping hands.

Back home in the Dandelion Market

I unlearnt the steps my mother taught,

bought a headband, an afghan coat,

a fringed skirt — leather skin.

Barefoot on common grass I lay down with kin.

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Summertime, and the living is ...?

Some of the local corn fields have started to tassel. Deer fly numbers have erupted. Temperatures have been above what's considered "normal." Although it seems like it's been a wet year, year-to-date precipitation is close to normal according to the state climatology office. It's once again becoming clear to me why Autumn is my favorite season, although we've been enjoying lots of berries (and ice cream) for desert and that helps offset the discomfort recent humidity has been creating.

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the past couple of weeks, mouse activity has increased to a level we usually see in late August and early September. I can't even begin to guess why. Almost every day I've had to empty and reset at least one of the traps.

On a more cheery topic, some of the wild flower seeds we've scattered over the past few years are producing blossoms this year. We have some black-eyed Susans joining the butterfly weed on the slope behind the house. There's also a different yellow flower that's not yet been identified. The pear tree looks to have at least some pears this year and one of the whitetail does was regularly feeding under the tree for a week or so in the afternoon. Last, for now, but far from least, swamp milkweed is blooming near the wet spot behind the house. While doing some yard work today I saw what I think was a Monarch butterfly on one of the purple(?) flowers.

Despite some anomalous episodes, I find it reassuring to note that much of nature is behaving pretty much as expected and/or as climate scientists told us to expect. Decades ago a little llater in this season, I enjoyed watching Janis Joplin in concert at Harvard Stadium. Here's a version of one of the high points from her set list that night: Summertime (sorry about the opening ads).

Answer July

by Emily Dickinson

386

Answer July -

Where is the Bee -

Where is the Blush -

Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July -

Where is the Seed -

Where is the Bud -

Where is the May -

Answer Thee - Me -

Nay - said the May -

Show me the Snow -

Show me the Bells -

Show me the Jay!

Quibbled the Jay -

Where be the Maize -

Where be the Haze -

Where be the Bur?

Here - said the Year -

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Welcome, June

Last night, in honor of the summery weather and the turning of the month, we enjoyed slices of the first ice cream cake of the season. It hit the spot. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been switching back and forth between turning on the heat and the air conditioning. The outside heat is back, accompanied by smoke streams from Canadian wildfires to our north.

The neighborhood deer have been nipping at my freshly planted, “deer resistant” serviceberry bushes. I suppose deer “resistance" is to deer proof as water resistant is to water proof in rain jackets. I have now sprayed the bushes with deer and rabbit repellant and hung a mesh bag of the Better Half’s hair clippings on each bush. One of these days I may remember to not believe everything I read or think.

Chalk-fronted Corporal (on left) Common Whitetail [female] (on right)

Photo by J. Harrington

Columbine are now blooming, joining hoary puccoon, lilacs, and wild strawberries. Dame’s rocket started flowering the past day or so. The cloud of lilac aroma in front of the house is heady and delightful. I’d spend more time standing around outside sniffing but the bugs are getting worse by the hour.

A few dragonflies are flitting about. The mole population seems worse than ever it’s been since we moved in. This week I’ll spray encroaching poison ivy if we get a dry spell with temperatures under 80℉. Thunderstorms are forecast tomorrow night after highs near or at 90℉. Dogs will probably need their THC treats.

We finally picked up this year’s fishing licenses and Wisconsin trout stamp. Minnesota doesn’t require a stamp for those over 65. No, I won’t mention how much over 65 I am but this isn’t the first year I didn’t need a Minnesota trout stamp. Now that we’ve made a little progress tidying the yard, if I don’t get out fishing this week, I will manage to do some practice casting in the back yard (he wrote hopefully). These are times to enjoy simple, basic pleasures.

Thankful for Now

BY TODD DAVIS

Walking the river back home at the end

of May, locust in bloom, an oriole flitting

through dusky crowns, and the early night sky

going peach, day's late glow the color of that fruit's

flesh, dribbling down over everything, christening

my sons, the two of them walking before me

after a day of fishing, one of them placing a hand

on the other's shoulder, pointing toward a planet

that's just appeared, or the swift movement

of that yellow and black bird disappearing

into the growing dark, and now the light, pink

as a crabapple's flower, and my legs tired

from wading the higher water, and the rocks

that keep turning over, nearly spilling me

into the river, but still thankful for now

when I have enough strength to stay

a few yards behind them, loving this time

of day that shows me the breadth

of their backs, their lean, strong legs

striding, how we all go on in this cold water,

heading home to the sound of the last few

trout splashing, as mayflies float

through the shadowed riffles.

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Memorial Day weekend starts summer mode

The planters by the front porch have been freshly planted by the Better Half. I helped hang hanging baskets of fuchsia on which I will bump my head all summer. Cleanup of the autumn / winter / spring mess of fallen leaves and broken branches continues. We’ve even started mowing a little as the broken branches are collected and thrown on the brush pile. I keep trying to convince myself the fresh air and exercise are good for me and that I’m enjoying seeing the butterflies and wildflowers (mostly hoary puccoon) as I work. (They are and I do.)

a cluster of hoary puccoon, bright yellow wildflowers

Photo by J. Harrington

The serviceberry bushes I planted a week ago are persisting to live. The weather forecast indicates they’ll need hand watering this coming week. They arrived after flowering season this year but I’m looking forward to seeing their fall colors in four or five months, although I don’t want to rush the seasons.

Once again this year downy and hairy woodpeckers are feasting on the nectar feeder we’ve hung for the hummingbirds and orioles. The latter haven’t yet noticed a grape jelly feeder we hung a couple of days ago but the male red-breasted grosbeaks seem to like a taste from time to time. Male American goldfinches are in bright, chrome yellow plumage and frequently fighting with each other. Most of the wild turkeys have disappeared. Hens are incubating eggs. I’m not sure what the toms are up to.

One side benefit of getting outside and doing some yard work: not once in the several hours I was busy outside did I think about what the idiots in D.C. are down to, nor how much they’re wrecking, our country and the lives of many of US. I’m hoping for and looking forward to a similar mental status when I finally manage to get out fly fishing.

At the Retirement Home

Tony Barnstone

^{U.S. Soldier, 194th Armored Regiment, retired, Brainerd, Minnesota}

I’ve had both knees replaced. I’ve got a steel
pin in my hip. I don’t hear you so good,
but I’m not stupid, son. How would you feel,
surviving the Bataan Death March, no food
for days, no water, and the ones who fell
behind were bayoneted where they lay,
and now you’re marching off to death? Real hell
is not old age, though. No, taking away
the rights we died for, saying torture’s right,
that’s hell. Hand me the iron and those shirts,
would you? Thanks, son. As long as I have fight
in me I’ll love this country till it hurts.
And it does. This is worse than what I saw
overseas. Torture. In America.

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United we stand ...

Today I’m (re)posting the story below because, as much  as I dislike MAGAts, I keep wondering who is benefitting from our being at each others' throats and in each others' faces. I really hate being played for a sucker.

Using Art to Bridge the Rural-Urban Divide

by Anya Petrone Slepyan, The Daily Yonder
March 21, 2025

As the 2024 election approached, news channels and commentators once again revived a familiar narrative: the urban-rural divide. 

But Laura Zabel, executive director of Minnesota-based arts non-profit Springboard for the Arts, was more interested in urban-rural solidarity. 

“Going into an election year, we knew that there was going to be a lot of narrative that focused on ways we might be different, or ways that people assume we’re different,” Zabel said. “And we wanted to do something to not only counter that narrative, but to help people build real relationships and real solidarity across urban and rural places.” 

Stoking resentment between urban and rural communities serves to divide largely working-class constituencies that could gain more political power if they work together, Zabel said. Emphasizing what these communities have in common, across different geographies and demographics, can help counter that divide. But it’s not easy to overcome a narrative that is so deeply ingrained that many Americans take it for granted.

So Springboard for the Arts launched a new initiative, consisting of over 35 artists working on projects across Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, and Colorado that connect urban and rural communities. The installations include phone booths that connect communities in rural Northfield, Minnesota and Minneapolis, a culinary project that celebrates the fusion of a chef’s Southeast Asian roots and rural midwestern upbringing, and a Kentucky poetry slam honoring the renowned theorist and professor bell hooks.

Artists Drew Arrieta and Maddy Barsch created cozy phone booths that connected the communities of Minneapolis and Northfield, Minnesota. (Photo by Drew Arrieta)

The results, Zabel said, demonstrate “all of the different ways that we’re connected, and all of the different creative ways that we might reach out to one another and build that kind of understanding.” 

Using art projects to foster connection and understanding is effective, according to Zabel, because they leave room for nuance and complexity that is often flattened by media narratives.  Creative projects can also help people approach new ideas with a more open mind, she said. 

“Art has a tremendous ability to build shared experience in ways that takes people outside of their comfort zone, or makes people more open to thinking of things in a different way,” Zabel said.

A project installed in two Minnesota elementary schools demonstrates the principles behind the projects. Artist David Hamlow worked with 2nd and 3rd graders in rural St. James and urban Minneapolis to design wall sculptures made of recycled materials. Each student was also given a yearbook photo of a participating student from the other school, and asked to incorporate that picture into the sculpture. The resulting walls of faces serve a purpose similar to pen pals, according to Zabel.

Each student was given a class portrait of their counterpart at a different school, and asked to decorate the picture with recycled materials. (Photo by David Hamlow)

“The goal of this whole project in a nutshell is to just get people thinking about one another as individuals and as people who are living full lives and having similar experiences and to help people be more curious about what those lives might be like,” Zabel said.

The youth-focused project also hopes to reach urban and rural children before they’ve internalized the harmful stereotypes these communities can apply to one another. 

Project installations by the initial class of 35 artists are ongoing, but Zabel hopes to expand the initiative further in coming years.

“I think that if we are able to build greater understanding and connection, and help people see a more complete picture of what it looks like to live in different contexts, we end up finding out that there is a lot of shared interest and shared hope for our future and our children,” Zabel said.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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As January prepares to leave....

 A (late) January thaw is on its way. The combination of days of bitter cold and a barrage of Executive Orders has put a major crimp in my sunny personality. I confess to spending entirely too much time sitting and brooding and bitching. Several days of even mild melting may also help thaw my grumpiness, I hope. The fact that Minnesota’s legislature is a dysfunctional mess doesn’t really improve one’s outlook on the state of the state, the country, or the world.

pileated woodpecker at suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Backyard sightings of deer or turkeys have been slim to none, although there are deer tracks in the snow behind the house where they’ve been searching for acorns under the snow at night. So far, no pileated woodpeckers have visited the suet feeder, at least while we were watching. 

On to more pleasant themes: my forced bulb garden is developing nicely. The dogs appreciate the slight improvement in temperatures. My sourdough bread is improving as I get back to baking more frequently. We’re approaching Valentine’s season. The Vikings didn’t tease us along only to break our hearts again. The best parts of the year are still ahead of us and I’ve lots of good books to read to get through the rest of winter. (Spring Equinox is 52 days away. Meteorological Spring begins March 1.)

Joy Harjo’s poem seems to capture only too well the times and the season we’re living through. Pllease be kind to each other.

Grace

Joy Harjo
1951 – 

                                    For Darlene Wind and James Welch

I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn't stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace. 

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.

I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn. 

I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn't; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it. 

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Wishing you seasons full of happiness

Were it not for our persistently cloudy skies, about 3 am this morning we could have enjoyed seeing December's full moon, known as Little Spirit Moon by the Ojibwe and Shedding Horns Moon by the Lakota, according to my copy of the Minnesota Weather Guide calendar. The dogs and I were taking our early morning constitutional about that time. As Minnesota sports fans, we have lots of practice with the phrase “wait ’til next year.” This year we’re in a typical Minnesota pattern of really cold and sunny or warmer and cloudy and often snowy. Yesterday and today are like the latter.

Proof that it’s been cold can be seen on local lakes where portable ice fishing houses are popping up like woodland mushrooms in a wet spring. While doing seasonal errands, we noticed the houses on not just one, several local lakes. I’ve tried ice fishing years ago. I’m too restless to sit still in an ice house or on a deer stand for the amount of time required for success.

Christmas thumbprint cookies: bet you can’t eat just one!

Photo by J. Harrington

Slowly we’re making progress with Christmas shopping. The Better Half [BBH] just finished baking Christmas cookies, including lots of raspberry thumbprints and lemon bars(?) for me. Plus I still have more than a dozen white chocolate, cranberry scoop cookies from Taste of Scandinavia. My holiday wealth isn’t measured in gold!

On our way to the barn yesterday, to visit and feed the Daughter Person’s horse, the BH and I spotted a flock of three to four dozen turkeys in a field along the way. I don’t recall ever seeing that many in one place before. They were foraging during our drizzle/ snow showers and had disappeared by the time we were returning home.

It’s now less than a week until Winter Solstice (locally 3:20 am CST). At the moment we’re in that shoulder season between the start of meteorological winter and the solstice. I’ve already reached a point at which I’m looking forward to Christmas and to days starting to lengthen just before then.

Happiness

Jane Kenyon
1947 – 1995

There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
       It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

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As days get shorter

 I found this on the internet the other day and wanted to share:

A Special Kind of Stupid

Slowly, very slowly, the Christmas decorations are coming together. Daughter Person's birthday has been successfully celebrated. She and her Spouse and Daughter are safely back from a brief Disneyland vacation. Now we all need to buckle down and get some Christmas shopping done, but first I have to drop the two remaining Halloween pumpkins under the pear tree on the ridge behind the  house so the local deer can enjoy them.

It's been a month since the election and I'm finally starting to shake off my funk. The warmer temperatures we've had the past few days has helped, I'm sure. A little lot more sunshine would be appreciated too. Today was cloudy, cool, and dreary, with some dank thrown in, but better than single digit temperatures and bellow zero wind chills.

I'm already working on some New Year's resolutions: one is to simplify and organize my  life as much  as possible; another is to have gratitude for the good things in my life instead of always looking for more and / or better. I've asked Santa for a mild winter and early spring but I'm not sure he can do much about either. Maybe I better  follow up with a request for some toy I can play with in the  house this winter.

The Power of Hope Today

Gabrielle Marshall

Today’s hope is a flickering candle that dwells in a snow-dusted window, 
circulating the prayers of Christmas mornings. 
Today’s hope is the crisp daffodil in colorless photos,
containing the soul of a small 
child,
who only wishes and knows of 
peace and love.
Today’s hope is the sparkling eyes that
truly believe in achieving
anything to reach unity.
Today’s hope is the palm to palm connection
bracing each other for the climb neither expected,
but couldn’t abandon.
Today’s hope is peering
beyond
the lingering barrier,
but still recognizing the diversity in ourselves.
Today’s hope has been dimmed and tossed recklessly,
but still generously stays with us,
for we cannot help but come back
like wide eyed children to candy.
We are said to be weak to rely on such strength,
but we are only believers.
That spark 
That gives science a baffled case
And oceans an infinite plane,
is the eagle that dips 
and soars
and fights,
which stands for
the hope of 
today. 

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