Summer into Autumn

It’s been an interesting week. Today is the last Sunday of Summer, meteorologically apeaking. Meteorologists begin Falling into Autumn on September 1. With luck, today’s Heat Advisory and tomorrow’s Excessive Heat Warning will end Summer’s heat and humidity attacks.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed a visit to our backyard by four sandhill cranes, two adults and two grown colts it looked like. They pecked their way around the yard and the wet spot behind the house. I can only hope they nailed a few moles and/or voles. As the cranes moved toward the North, a small flock of wild turkey hens entered from the South. Everyone pretty much ignored each other and kept their distance. Would that we humans were better at such behavior.

[ONCE AGAIN BLOGGER IS MALFUNCTIONING FOR ADDING AN IMAGE!!!]

Echinocystis lobata (Wild Cucumber)

Photo by J. Harrington

Midweek, I discovered, and removed, a red squirrel’s nest from the deck rafters. I spotted it while checking to see if the bat I had chased out of the house Wednesday morning early had tried to settle under the deck. No signs of the bat, and I set a live trap for the squirrel. A couple of days later, s/he was caught and transported several miles away and released into a new home territory, we hope.

Why are oak leaves and snowflakes alike in Minnesota? There’s only on month of the year in which Minnesota hasn’t recorded a snowfall and, I suspect, there’s but one, maybe two, months when oak trees aren’t shedding their leaves. They’ve started coming down this week, again. Tamaracks are turning golden, wild cucumber is blossoming. More trees are showing more colors.

Our son has had successful surgery on his broken arm. Daughter Person took possession of a new, to her, horse on Thursday. That pleases the daylights out of her. There seems to be something in the air, again, that has the dogs licking their paws, and me blowing my nose. Summer has just about worn out its welcome as our state fair begins.

I’m guessing you’ve heard by now that our Governor, Tim Walz, is the Democratic candidate for Vice President, with Kamala Harris nominated for President. We have an opportunity to do much worse. I truly hope we don’t take it, not so much for my sake as for the lives of our children and grandchildren unto the seventh generation. VOTE BLUE! please.

Autumn

Alice Cary
1820 – 1871

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips
   The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
   And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
   And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
   And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
   Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
   And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire of red—
   The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
   Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,
   Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
   Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn—
   Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides—
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
   Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
   Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
   And live with me the poetry of Spring.

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As Summer fades, Autumn glows emerge

Twice this past week I’ve seen a flock of four or five sandhill cranes standing on a road. A few days ago they were on our paved road, with wetlands on either side. Yesterday, Saturday, they were standing just before a curve on a gravel road I was traveling to pick up our weekly community supported agriculture [CDA] share. I’ve never before seen live cranes on a road. No idea what’s going on.

Yesterday’s CSA share included:

Tomatoes Red Leaf or Simpson lettuce Broccoli  Cantaloupe Sweet Corn  Green Pepper

This week past also brought several deer sightings. Mid-week, one of this year’s fawns stood in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway and stared at the dogs and me as we walked past. It was still there on our return a few minutes later, but had had enough of visiting and took off into the bushes. On yesterday’s CSA trip, does and fawns were scattered in several fields and at the curve in the gravel road just past where the cranes had been.

August: full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Our early morning dog walking this morning brought a view of one of the most gorgeous orange “full” moons I’ve seen in a long time. Technically the full moon arrives tomorrow and I’m looking forward to a repeat performance.

More and more trees are showing color changes in their leaves. Two maple trees in widely different locations have turned all red, almost crimson. On the other hand, temperatures have crept back to seasonable and the humidity is uncomfortable. There was a recent report [TPT Almanac, 8/16/24] that so far, this has been the second wettest year on record at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. It appears to be a tossup whether we’ll top the all time annual record. Stay tuned.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

Jane Kenyon
1947 – 1995

A second crop of hay lies cut   
and turned. Five gleaming crows   
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,   
and like midwives and undertakers   
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,   
parting before me like the Red Sea.   
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned   
to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.   
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;   
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks   
over me. The days are bright   
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today   
for an hour, with my whole   
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,   
and a crow, hectoring from its nest   
high in the hemlock, a nest as big   
as a laundry basket....
                     In my childhood   
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,   
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off   
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,   
and operations with numbers I did not   
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled   
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien   
I stood at the side of the road.   
It was the only life I had.

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A full moon of Spring

Night before last, an almost full moon, surrounded by a glowing halo, played peek-a-boo behind a thin layer of clouds. Last night [this morning], it shone in a clear sky. Tonight it will be full. Cloud cover remains to be seen, or not. Our copy of the Minnesota Weather Guide Calenday notes that the Ojibwe call this full moon Maple Sap Boiling Moon and to the Dakota, it’s Fattening Moon. (Other sources list the Fattening Moon in June.) Regardless of the name, moonrise tonight occurs a little after 8 pm and moonset about 6 am tomorrow.

two sandhill cranes in our back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

As days lengthen and temperatures warm, migrations from southern locales continue and locals become more active. Yesterday evening on the way to and from a visit with the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter, the Better Half and I saw swans, geese, pheasants, deer, turkeys, multiple species of song birds, and sandhill cranes. The trip reminded me of Aldo Leopold’s wonderful observation:

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.” - A Sand County Almanac foreword

Another sign of warmer days arriving is the increasing number of locations where road work of one kind or another is getting underway. Those who claim there are only two seasons in Minnesota, winter and road work, aren’t entirely joking. I wish work crews would put signs face down when not relevant, instead of just moving them to the shoulder.

Uncharacteristically, I’m going to take in stride the fact that my plans for the week have been disrupted by wet weather and slow to germinate bergamot seeds (which are showing increasing signs of life, thank you for asking). If I can’t play outside, I’ll read inside about the outside, and bake bread. Tomorrow’s project: a whole wheat sourdough rustic boule, The dough is currently undergoing bulk fermentation in preparation for oven time tomorrow.

My Debt

Jane Hirshfield
1953 – 

Like all
who believe in the senses,
I was an accountant,
copyist,
statistician.

Not registrar,
witness.

Permitted to touch
the leaf of a thistle,
the trembling
work of a spider.

To ponder the Hubble’s recordings.

It did not matter
if I believed in
the party of particle or of wave,
as I carried no weapon.

It did not matter if I believed.

I weighed ashes,
actions, 
cities that glittered like rubies,
on the scales I was given,
calibrated
in units of fear and amazement.

I wrote the word it, the word is.

I entered the debt that is owed to the real.

Forgive,
spine-covered leaf, soft-bodied spider,
octopus lifting
one curious tentacle back toward the hand of the diver
that in such black ink
I set down your flammable colors.

—2018

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Thanks! giving?

Last night, somebody (deer? raccoons? both?) was playing with the pumpkins we left in the field behind the house. They’ve been moved quite a distance from where we dropped them. but not very munched on yet, it appears. When deer were noshing on pumpkins in front of the house, it took them several days to eat much of the body of the vegetable. We’ll keep an eye on things and report anything noteworthy.

deer like the taste of Jack O'Lanterns

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half has adjusted the sparkly holiday bouquet on the book case behind her right shoulder. The "alien eyes” [see yesterday’s posting] are gone. It now looks much more holidayish. There’s also a miniature angel on top of a hutch keeping an eye on the dining-living-and-kitchen area. We may yet end up with some holiday spirit.

The oven’s preheating for the afternoon bread baking. That both helps take any chill off the living room and kitchen and, in a couple of hours, the place will smell great too. Then later, on Thursday, we’ll enjoy the aroma of roasting turkey. If I can only remember to stay away from news headlines and social media, the week could be quite pleasant, more so if the sun ever returns.

So far, a high point of the day has been a very close look at three sandhill cranes as they burst from a wetland next to I-35 and flew almost over the hood of the Jeep. They are beautiful birds. In the Marshland Elegy chapter of A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold notes how close we came to losing them. We can be thankful on Thursday, and every day, that we didn’t. Then we can do all we know how to do to protect other threatened critters and their habitat so we can be thankful we still get to enjoy their company next year at Thanksgiving time.

When the Frost is on the Punkin

By James Whitcomb Riley

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,

And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,

And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,

With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;

But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;

The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still

A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;

The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;

The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—

O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;

And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...

I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be

As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—

I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

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Home away from home

Today’s weather, so far, on top of last night’s rain showers, is a treat. Blue skies, breeze, warm not hot. sunshine... maybe thunderstorms this evening, we’ll see. We’re definitely doing a lot better than Maui and Phoenix.

The other day I once again started picking my way through a book titled Exploring a Sense of Place. A few years ago I began working through sections of the book but it never seemed to jell. After intermittently thinking about it, I believe I now know why. The places I feel most connected to are places where I was doing things I loved doing, especially hunting and fishing things. I’ve never felt comfortable enough with, or interested enough in, botany to be really good at foraging, never mind collecting mushrooms. Then again, I tried and didn’t persist in fly-tying, maybe because I didn’t get sufficiently interested in aquatic entomology?

We’ve lived in the same place for about a quarter century. I like the place but, especially in years like this one, wish it were more interesting. Not much grew in the back yard due to a droughty summer after a very wet spring and preceding winter. We’ve seen few whitetail fawns or wild turkey poults this year. It was interesting, and very disappointing, to discover late spring or early summer that a bear had destroyed one of the bluebird nesting boxes. As with much of life, most of the time very little happens day to day and then there’s a minor or major crisis. I believe the high point so far this season has been the sandhill crane visit, and they haven’t been back.

recent visitors to the back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

I think what I’m fussing about today is I don’t seem to be able to find a satisfying balance between learning and doing and thinking and the rest of living. Uncooperative weather patterns has something to do with that. Aging in a less than graceful manner is a coconspirator. (Lots of effort goes into teaching children to to grow and become productive, but precious little to teaching us how to age gracefully, as if we were born knowing that.)

Back to my lack of a sense of place. While I acknowledge the truths of Heraclitus’ [via Plutarch] metaphor “It is not possible to step into the same river twice,” perhaps I’m past due to read Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. For some time I’ve been haunted by the line from Neil Diamond’s I am I said: But nowadays, I'm lost between two shores. Duluth is not Boston and Lake Superior isn’t the Atlantic ocean. Maybe I need to discover familiar home waters where I am to complement those where I was. 

Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior

Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
1800 – 1842

^{translated from the Anishinaabemowin}

Here in my native inland sea 
From pain and sickness would I flee
And from its shores and island bright
Gather a store of sweet delight.
Lone island of the saltless sea! 
How wide, how sweet, how fresh and free
How all transporting—is the view 
Of rocks and skies and waters blue
Uniting, as a song’s sweet strains 
To tell, here nature only reigns. 
Ah, nature! here forever sway 
Far from the haunts of men away
For here, there are no sordid fears, 
No crimes, no misery, no tears
No pride of wealth; the heart to fill, 
No laws to treat my people ill. 

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Who’s rushing it?

The tractor is back home. Unlike a horse, it couldn’t find its own way back to the barn. I had to go pick it up and give it a ride on the trailer. On the way, I got a brief look at the St. Croix river near Taylors Falls. It’s low enough that I want to go back soon, without the hindrance of a trailer, and get some pictures. I’ve not been able to locate a source of current flows in historical perspective but will keep poking around.

soon summer’s leaving us

Photo by J. Harrington

It’s slowly sinking in with me that, come the end of the month, autumn will arrive, according to the meteorologists. The astronomocists will, no doubt, be holding out several weeks beyond that, until the Equinox. Locally, that will be Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 1:50 am CDT. I can feel the heat and humidity dropping already.

The Better Half claims she’s waiting until autumn to reseed the yard. I pointed out that’s what she did last year. This summer’s weather has really thinned the already sparse green ground cover on our little piece of the Anoka Sandplain. Fortunately the local homeowner’s association (The Better Half and I) is extremely tolerant about “lawn” maintenance, or lack thereof.

“Autumn" in August brings the assembly of large flocks of sandhill cranes. It’s a little early for that but, while trailering the tractor home, I did manage to miss the three cranes standing in the middle of a county road. What possessed them to be there in the first place I won’t even try to guess.

[The directional change above and the autumnal focus was prompted by the arrival of today’s mail including a copy of Gray’s Sporting Journal, Bird Hunting Edition. Sorry if it took you by surprise.]

Merry Autumn

Paul Laurence Dunbar
1872 – 1906

It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell

     About the breezes sighing,

And moans astir o’er field and dell,

     Because the year is dying.

 

Such principles are most absurd,—

     I care not who first taught ’em;

There’s nothing known to beast or bird

     To make a solemn autumn.

 

In solemn times, when grief holds sway

     With countenance distressing,

You’ll note the more of black and gray

     Will then be used in dressing.

 

Now purple tints are all around;

     The sky is blue and mellow;

And e’en the grasses turn the ground

     From modest green to yellow.

 

The seed burrs all with laughter crack

     On featherweed and jimson;

And leaves that should be dressed in black

     Are all decked out in crimson.

 

A butterfly goes winging by;

     A singing bird comes after;

And Nature, all from earth to sky,

     Is bubbling o’er with laughter.

 

The ripples wimple on the rills,

     Like sparkling little lasses;

The sunlight runs along the hills,

     And laughs among the grasses.

 

The earth is just so full of fun

     It really can’t contain it;

And streams of mirth so freely run

     The heavens seem to rain it.

 

Don’t talk to me of solemn days

     In autumn’s time of splendor,

Because the sun shows fewer rays,

     And these grow slant and slender.

 

Why, it’s the climax of the year,—

     The highest time of living!—

Till naturally its bursting cheer

     Just melts into thanksgiving.

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Babes in the woods

For the past few days, we’ve been seeing a small flock of wild turkey hens traveling with their assorted poults through our yard and across the street in the neighbor’s field. Yesterday morning a whitetail doe stood on the hill behind the house for quite a while. She was briefly joined by a spotted fawn who did a series of zoomie circles around the yard and disappeared back into the woods. Some time in the past few days, a young downey woodpecker knocked itself out on the walkout door to the deck. An hour or two after seeing the “body” lying on the deck, it was gone. Flown away with a headache? It’s that time of year when young’uns learn their way around a home range and some, while exploring, make more mistakes than others. Watching fawns and poults dash and scurry around is one oof the joys of country living.

back yard: whitetail doe

Photo by J. Harrington

Then, today, after having lived in the country here for something like twenty-five years, for the first time we saw a pair of sandhill cranes in our very own back yard. Before now, we’ve seen them in the neighbor’s fields, on mown lawns at a subdivision down the road, in distant farm fields, and, often, in the nearby Carlos Avery marshes. We can now largely confirm the old British saying “All things come to Thames that wait!” Unfortunately, patience has never been one of my stronger points, but I no longer feel discriminated against by the crane population.

back yard: sandhill crane

Photo by J. Harrington

This afternoon we’re getting thunder with no rain. Yesterday we had a brief downpour with no thunder and almost no clouds. Sun-shower, anyone? More thunder is in the forecast for the evening. We can use the precipitation, preferably without any severe side effects. As of today, we’re down to just over 15 hours of daylight and dropping. It’s less than two weeks to Lammas, or Lughnasadh, the beginning of harvest season. In anticipation, I’m again back to refreshing (resurrecting?) my sourdough starter. That’s it for now.

In Harvest

By Sophie Jewett

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;

I linger, for the hay is sweet,

New-cut and curing in the sun.

Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,

Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent

When, yesterday, the west wind went

A-rioting through grass and grain.

To-day no least breath stirs the plain;

Only the hot air, quivering, yields

Illusive motion to the fields

Where not the slenderest tassel swings.

Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings;

A goldfinch dangles from a tall,

Full-flowered yellow mullein; all

The world seems turning blue and gold.

Unstartled, since, even from of old,

Beauty has brought keen sense of her,

I feel the withering grasses stir;

Along the edges of the wheat,

I hear the rustle of her feet:

And yet I know the whole sea lies,

And half the earth, between our eyes.

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The fields are alive with the sounds of ...

As the dogs and I were taking their after lunch walk along the road today, we got yelled at. No, not by an irate motorist but by a pair of sandhill cranes walking through the neighbor’s hayfield across the road. Apparently we were getting too close for the crane’s comfort so we slowed down and gave them some time to increase the distance separating us. The dogs then finished their business, we turned around and headed back toward the house, and the cranes continued whatever business they were on without further comment.

neighborhood field, sandhill cranes

Photo by J. Harrington

Living where we do, cranes are frequently seen in the neighborhood. We’ve not yet, to our knowledge, had them visit our property. Although that would be nice, and we’re mildly jealous that the neighbors properties are more appealing to cranes than ours have been, seeing cranes up close fairly regularly is a wonderful enrichment to our day-to-day activities.

Canada goose/gander with goslings

Photo by J. Harrington

Before the county “improved” the Hwy 36 bridge over the Sunrise River, and the adjoining roadway, we used to be able to watch for geese and goslings near the bridge at this time of year. An extended guard rail cut off the small piece of field between the road and the marshes, so the geese have gone elsewhere to nest and we no longer get to enjoy watching goslings grow. On the other hand, partially grown goslings are no long as likely to be struck by a passing vehicle doing 55 mph or so. Better for the geese if not for would-be naturalists.

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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Spring migrants arrive preseason

This morning, as we drove through the Carlos Avery marshes along county road 36, we saw:

• three Canada geese (in the air)
• one swan (in the air)
• two sandhill cranes standing in the frozen marsh
• one fox hunting on the frozen marsh

There’s no sign yet of open water along the Sunrise river, but maybe within the next week or so....???

water starts to open and flow

Photo by J. Harrington

The “pond” north of our property is slowly showing an open intermittent channel of water. Some week soon it should look like the picture above. Most years it gets visited by waterfowl headed north or just arriving in the neighborhood. No sign yet of water in the  “wet spot” behind the house. More, much more, snow melt will be needed for that to become visible.

The National Phenology Network notes that, to our south, spring is arriving early, for the most part. Other than the early bird returns of southern migrants, we’re still waiting for an extended period of above freezing temperatures. While writing this post, we saw a northern-drifting turkey vulture pass over the house. Maybe the birds know something we only suspect. Soon it will be Spring! If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go watch some snow melt.

The Thaw

Henry David Thoreau - 1817-1862

I saw the civil sun drying earth’s tears —
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed,

Fain would I stretch me by the highway side,
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,
That mingled soul and body with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.

But I alas nor tinkle can nor fume,
One jot to forward the great work of Time,
‘Tis mine to hearken while these ply the loom,
So shall my silence with their music chime.

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It’s time to crane our ears skyward and eyes toward open water

I saw a report yesterday on Twitter that, just a little south of our area, the first sandhill cranes of the season were heard. So far we’ve neither seen nor heard any cranes around the Carlos Avery marshes, but this week we’ve either been inside, avoiding getting snowed on, or outside running the tractor and snowblower clearing snow off the driveway. Neither of those activities is conducive to seeing or hearing cranes, but we’ll keep our eyes and  ears open when (if?) the snow finally stops. (Walking the dogs has been reduced to very brief excursions so it’s unlikely we’d be on a walk as a flock flew over.)

mid-March sandhill cranes, early spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Several years ago we were fortunate to get some pictures of sandhill cranes at Carlos Avery in mid-March, but  that was a year when the snow had melted by then. I doubt this current snow cover will be gone in a week, maybe not even in two weeks, but soon, some day after tomorrow, we’ll awaken to bare ground and  birds singing and open water. Meanwhile, we can start shopping for the t-shirts proclaiming “I survived the winter of 2022-2023!” 

It is now less than two weeks until the spring equinox! Before we get to that equinox, there’s the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo, Friday through Sunday, March 17-19 at Hamline University in St. Paul. Head on down and check out what’s new in fly fishing and conservation in the Midwest. Although we don’t support FB, we do support Minnesota Trout Unlimited and the chapters that are hosting the event so here’s a link to the page on FB.

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Cycles of transition

Today is National Recycling Day. Although we sometimes think we’re wasting time, we cycled through similar seasons time and again, until we weirded the climate. The big picture pattern is based on the relationship between the sun and the earth, so the solstices and equinoxes should stay pretty much the same, but what happens between those key events may well change a lot unless we do.

We’re halfway through November. It’s just slightly more than five weeks until Winter Solstice, which occurs locally at 3:48 pm on December 21. From then until March 20 at 4:24 pm it will be astronomical winter, which will last for 88 days, 23 hrs, 36 minutes. Spring will then last 92 days, 17 hrs, 33 mins, followed by summer at 93 days, 15 hrs, 52 mins. I suppose we can claim this is proof that Mother Nature is merciful since summer is five days longer than winter, but that would probably get a number of Minnesota’s winter lovers on our case. On the other hand, we’re only 60% of the way through autumn and it’s been snowing for the past three days in a row, so winter lovers get no sympathy here.

sandhill cranes at Crex Meadows

Photo by J. Harrington

Small or shallow ponds are once again getting iced-in. Canada geese are feeding in harvested corn fields. Minnesotans are again proving that, over last summer, they forgot how to drive in the snow, and I’m embarrassed I never realized how many sandhill cranes flock into (onto?) Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in November. This year set a record we've read. We missed an autumn trip to Crex Meadows in Wisconsin this year, but that makes the prospect of a trip next April even more appealing, although we may have to defer until May if we want to diminish the chances of getting caught  in a spring snowstorm.

The pumpkins we dumped under the pear tree a couple of days ago have disappeared. I’ve not been up there to check for tracks, and the persistent snowfall has probably filled in whatever tracks might have been left, but I’m betting some local deer enjoyed a nice snack. We’ve seen none to speak of on the property for weeks now.

How Soon

By Gordon Henry Jr.

The story goes from in a rainfall

to sister walking a field

browned autumn. And when she arrives

winter has come, so the old man

rises from his chair, picks up

matches, pipes and tools, and

walks out to begin again.

 

The sculptures grow by the day,

birds in ice, recognizable

eagles, a bear who began

as a man in a moment of dance.

He does this in ice, all

winter carving at dawn,

carving at dusk.

 

And sister after walking a field

browned autumn, arrives, watches

from the east window, waits,

goes out to him in spring,

taps him on the shoulder

and points to the pools

of water he's standing over.

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Summer goldrums

My favorite time of year usually starts when the local New England asters come into bloom and lasts through leaf fall on the maples. (Our local oaks drop their leaves up to and including leaf out next spring, so there’s almost no end to their leaf fall season.) During this period, Canada geese start their goslings on training flights to develop flight muscles and chevron practice. The local sandhill cranes begin to assemble in larger and larger flocks in anticipation of their migration south. We’ve already seen some crane assemblies as the small grain fields get harvested and cranes begin gleaning and feeding where the harvest is completed.

Canada geese: training flights begin soon

Photo by J. Harrington

If our township hasn’t mown them into extirpation, the local roadside asters should start showing their lavender flowers in the next week or two (or three). Over the years, I’ve planted a half dozen or so New England asters around our property. So far, none have survived more than a year or twos of my benign neglect. Maybe we’ll try again this year. At least we can enjoy them during this autumn.

According to my cheat sheet from a local orchard, apples won’t be ready for picking until near month’s end. We’ve noticed that honeycrisps grown elsewhere are lacking in something compared to the Minnesota homegrown variety. This apple season offers me yet another chance to take notes on my preferences among apple varieties. For the past several years I’ve intended to but you know what they say the road to hell is paved with, right?

For the most part, today’s rain has been more gentle showers than downpours. There’s been enough rumbles of thunder to get SiSi’s attention, but not enough to make her really nervous. With luck, this afternoon’s, evening’s and tomorrow’s precipitation will be no more severe. The plants seem much happier than this time yesterday.

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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It’s ice out time in our neighborhood

Sometime during the past few days, local lakes have reached ice out; if we consider ice out to mean 80% or 90% of the lake is open water. Last night’s storms have left many ditches full of water and some local streams running bank full. Now all we need is sunshine and warmth for spring to burst out all over. Maybe next week, or the one after it?

I don’t remember the last time we saw as much thunder and lightning as we did last night. SiSi gets anxiety attacks when it thunders, so we spent lots of time reassuring her that she’d be okay if she just settled down near us. It sort of worked but we’re both pretty sleepy today.

Sunrise River marshes: sandhill cranes

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier, watching sandhill cranes flying agains a cloudfilled sky made us think of Klingon war birds or pterodactyls. Their haunting calls seemed to echo off the cloud bottoms. This is not how we usually think of spring weather, but that probably means the issue isn’t the weather but our expectations. At least we’re not living on Hoth, the ice planet, for the next six or seven months, although having a nice warm house remains high on the list of things for which we’re grateful. With all the dreary, depressing news these days, it would be wonderful if the weather provided an antidote. Soon?

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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As seasons take flight

Across the township road, a pair of sandhill cranes rose trumpeting from the field as SiSi and I walked past at lunch time. Up the road a pair of wood ducks quietly paddled away up the creek as we watched. Before SiSi and I took that walk, I think I glimpsed a bluebird in the back yard trees although I might have mistaken a red-breasted nuthatch for a bluebird. For the past several days there’s been a robin or two visiting the back yard. The birds are back in town, just in time for the three day storm we’re expecting to start later today.

tom turkey mating display, late April

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve neither seen nor heard turkeys strutting nor gobbling, but then neither have we seen or heard any turkeys at all. Perhaps they’re hanging around with the local whitetail deer that also seem to have disappeared. Which brings me to a confession. If I’m not watching birds or beasts of a noticeable size, I keep thinking the back yard is empty.

I forget that, under the snow, there are mouse tunnels through the grass. Under the soil there are shrews and moles and voles and pocket gophers and.... Last autumn we left a bunch of leaves unraked and unmulched to provide overwintering habitat for caterpillars and some butterflies and moths. This spring we’re deferring some parts of cleanup to ensure that winter is actually finished with us before we get disruptive. All of this undermines our sense of middleclass orderliness, neatness and dominance. That’s undoubtedly good for us, as is our growing awareness that living as part of nature is more complicated but more rewarding than living apart from nature. Now, if only the microfauna in the compost bin would get hungrier.

Birds Again

Jim Harrison - 1937-2016

A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.
I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they’re roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.

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A few thawghts about Spring

 Next week is shaping up to be verrry interesting!

• Sunday: Daylight Savings begins
• Thursday: St. Patrick’s Day
• All week: Spring thaw

Weather Underground extended forecast

Look at the extended forecast high temperature jump from Saturday [24℉] to Sunday [41℉] to Wednesday [51℉]. We’ll soon be able to take off the Yak Traks for walking the ice-covered drive and replace them with Wellingtons. It’s starting to look as though what passes for spring around here may actually arrive on or about the Equinox.

In honor and anticipation of the impending change of seasons, we took the dogs to the vets for their annual visit and meds to prevent fleas, ticks, heartworms, etc. My SiSi was excessively exuberant while the Better Half’s Harry the Beagle, first time at this vet, was nervous but mellow. Both dogs are looking forward to snow melt so they can get more time to play in their run without freezing paws and stuff.

I’m getting excited about seeing open water and the return of the geese, cranes and red-winged blackbirds. In the interim, the double quince stems seem very slow to show budburst. We hope next week’s weather will encourage the flowers to overcome their shyness and begin to open. I’m starting to get giddy at the prospect of the world coming vibrantly alive again.

Mid-March

By Lizette Woodworth Reese

It is too early for white boughs, too late 

For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall 

A few last flakes, ragged and delicate. 

Down the stripped roads the maples start their small, 

Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks 

A rich and deepening red. The willow tree 

Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks 

The lean bush crouching hints old royalty, 

Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows 

Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose. 

The days go out with shouting; nights are loud; 

Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold; 

The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold, 

Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.

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Preparing for Samhain

On October 31, many Celts celebrate Samhain, an antecedent to our Halloween. In the spirit of the season, decorations honoring both feasts have been acquired and are mostly in place. It’s not clear if any pumpkins will be carved this year, since our principal pumpkin carver (the Better  Half) is busy with other projects and the “young’uns” now have their own home to decorate and pumpkins to carve.

ghosts of Halloween to come

Photo by J. Harrington

In the 25 or so years we’ve lived here, we’ve not once has a trick or treater come to the door. Nevertheless, again this year we’ll pick up a few bags of candy, the kind we ourselves particularly like, just to be on the safe side. It just wouldn’t do to be without treats for any local ghosts, goblins, witches, wiccans and such, should any arrive at our door.

Halloween candy table decorations

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday, while returning from our trip collecting most of our decorations, we drove past a cornfield full of harvested stalks plus several dozen sandhill cranes. That was an unexpected and very pleasant surprise, even though it means they’re gathering and staging in preparation for their migration south. If they encounter much southern weather like last year’s Texas brutal cold spell, cranes and other waterfowl might as well skip the trip. If they stay up North, we can use the troughs  we used to use to feed whitetails, before CWD struck, to feed cranes in the winter.

Samhain

By Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother's mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

"Carry me." She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

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Bloomings and hatchlings #phenology

Yesterday, early, I drove past a hen turkey and her clutch of poults. They were working their way through the roadside weeds and grasses and lots of common milkweed in bloom. So far this year that's the first and only sign of turkey nesting success we've seen. Later in the summer we hope for visits by several hens and their offspring pecking through the field behind the house, feeding on ticks and grasshoppers. Some of us think it would be great if turkeys hatched earlier and taught their poults to feed heavily on ticks.

a mullein beginning to bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Mullein is starting to come into flower. A quick search on the internet indicates that mullein has limited use by wildlife and substantial medicinal uses by humans. We tend to ignore the scattered plants growing in our fields and those of the neighbors.

scarlet tanager male at grape jelly feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

We've been delighted several times this week to see a male scarlet tanager at the feeders. There have also been occasional visits by purple finches, plus the usual cast of characters including American goldfinches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, chickadees, and nuthatches. During the past few days we've noticed a few more hummingbirds at the feeders. Not sure what that's all about unless young of the year are now showing up.

The other day, the Better Half reported seeing a whitetail doe and a pair of fawns in the field across the road. None  have yet visited our back fields but it's getting to be time for that.

A pair of sandhill cranes flew over the house this morning. The last decade or so has seen a notable increase in the local crane population. It's one of the few indications of things improving for those of us who are nature lovers.

The Origin of Birds

Nicole Callihan

For hours, the flowers were enough.
Before the flowers, Adam had been enough.
Before Adam, just being a rib was enough.
Just being inside Adam’s body, near his heart, enough.
Enough to be so near his heart, enough
to feel that sweet steady rhythm, enough
to be a part of something bigger was enough.
And before the rib, being clay was enough.
And before clay, just being earth was enough.
And before earth, being nothing was enough.
But then enough was no longer enough.
The flowers bowed their heads, as if to say, enough,
and so Eve, surrounded by peonies, and alone enough,
wished very hard for something, and the wish was enough
to make the pinecone grow wings; the wish was enough
to point to the sky, say bird, and wait for something to sing.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.