Happy Autumnal Equinox and Alban Elfed

As of 7:43 this morning, local time, we are into full autumn, if not fully into autumn. The equinox has occurred but the season has not matured. Leaf color is still less than 10%. Some monarch butterflies have fluttered by. Flickers are flittering through the backyard. Strangely, several lilac bushes in the neighborhood have produced a second bloom recently. Meanwhile, the size of sandhill crane flocks has grown and Canada geese are doing training flights. We even saw a woolly bear caterpillar this week past.

just a hint of color in the trees

Photo by J. Harrington

No sign yet of the first frost or the first snowflake in our neck of the woods. Either could arrive any day now. The local crew of hummingbirds seems to have headed south. We’ll leave the feeders up for another week or two in case northern migrants stop by. I think, and hope, high temperatures will now stay seasonably less than 80℉ at least until next April.

As we enter the darker seasons, many of US hope that will only be literal and not figurative. The latter depending on the results of the upcoming presidential election. In our funkier moods, we wonder how many days of relative peace and quiet we’ll get before campaigns for the mid-term elections start up.

Archery deer season opened the beginning of last week Friday brought a handful of thunderstorms, complete with boomings, lightning flashes, and downpours. Will that be the last until next year, or might we experience thundersnows? Stay tuned.

Something we couldn’t share before this because it might have spoiled a birthday surprise was one of this month’s high points. For his birthday, we got the Son-in-Law an Early Lessons print from the BobWhite Studio. The Studio is located not far from our home so we made arrangements to take a peek prior to completing the purchase. In the process, we enjoyed a nice visit with Bob and his charming wife, Lisa. The story behind the print as a gift is that it depicts a man, presumably a Dad, standing behind / beside a girl holding a fly rod. The Son-In-Law has been taking his almost four-year-old daughter fishing quite a bit this summer. She’s a bit young for a fly rod, but, as most Minnesota sports fans have learned to say, “maybe next year.”

Poem Beginning with a Line from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Maggie Smith

Just look—nothing but sincerity 
as far as the eye can see—
the way the changed leaves,

flapping their yellow underbellies
in the wind, glitter. The tree
looks sequined wherever

the sun touches. Does anyone
not see it? Driving by a field
of spray-painted sheep, I think

the world is not all changed.
The air still ruffles wool
the way a mother’s hand

busies itself lovingly in the hair
of her small boy. The sun
lifts itself up, grows heavy

treading there, then lets itself
off the hook. Just look at it
leaving—the sky a tigereye

banded five kinds of gold
and bronze—and the sequin tree
shaking its spangles like a girl

on the high school drill team,
nothing but sincerity. It glitters
whether we’re looking or not.

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Almost Alban Elfed time

Despite summer-like temperatures and humidity, Canada geese and sandhill cranes are beginning to flock up. Daylight is shortening. Bowhunting season for deer opened yesterday and the current election season has less than two months to go. I’m trying to find a local organization that teaches youth hunting that would like a donation of my old decoys and duck boat. The Son-In-Law just finished using the leaf blower to clean the gutters. We’ve got a microshield that accumulates crap from oak leaf droppings. All in all, except for unseasonable warmth and dampness, we’re enjoying a typical early (meteorological) autumn with gradually increasing amounts of color in the leaves.

one tree in autumn's scarlet finery

Photo by J. Harrington

After most of a week’s worth of “accidents” in the house, my yellow lab SiSi seems to be recovering from her diarrhea, thanks to the vet’s probiotics and the Better Half’s home remedy of rice and pumpkin and other good healthy stuff. It’s frustrating to have not a clue what triggered the episode so we know enough to not do it again.

Another sign of impending seasonal change has been increased rodent activity building, actually, trying to build, nests in the engine compartment of the tractor. So far we’ve live trapped two chipmunks and translocated them and mousetrapped two mice. The nest building was occurring on top of a couple of bags of last year’s rodent repellant, so this week we’ll replace that with fresh stuff and see if it works better.

Wasps and/or hornets are building nests under the roof peaks. The front peak is just beyond the reach of our “up to 20 feet” wasp killer so I’m looking for a local source for some that’s supposed to reach “up to 27 feet.” I’m not interested in spraying from up on a ladder in case they decide to swarm the attacker. If nothing else, we’ll put up with them until winter’s freezing temperatures and then finish the job. Country living strikes again.

The feast of Alban Elfed, Autumnal Equinox, occurs a week from today at 7:43 am local time. Between now and then, we have a Son-In-Law birthday, an annual furnace tuneup, and a septic tank pumpout on the calendar, among other things. At the rate we’re going, by the time autumn’s gone, we’ll have earned and be ready for a winter’s rest, if we don’t get too many blizzards.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

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Welcome, Spring?

Locally, Spring begins at 10:06 pm today. I’m pretending that doesn’t really count because it’s such a small percentage of the day so late in the day. Tomorrow is my first real day of spring, but not the first real spring day. That was some weeks ago. Got it?

Here’s the Weather Underground forecast for the beginning of Spring(?)!

10 day weather forecast

Snow on Thursday, Friday, maybe Saturday, 9.6 inches on Sunday, another 6 on Monday and 2.4 Tuesday. If ever I’ve hoped a forecast was wrong..! Just this morning the Better Half pointed out the green leaves emerging in the front garden and yard. I can easily envision them shaking off a three or four inch spring snowfall, but something approaching a foot and a half isn’t going to melt overnight or in a day or two. We are looking at (but not forward to) validation of a Minnesotan assessment of our almost snowless winter: “We’ll pay for this!”

I started the tractor yesterday, just to be sure the back blade is available. Tomorrow we’ll check on the snow blower and the diesel and gas supply. Maybe if enough of us show we’re prepared, Mother Nature will decide it’s not worth the trouble to harass us.

I don’t know about you, but each day I wish more and more the world would start making sense again. Then, again, maybe it rarely has:

If—

By Rudyard Kipling

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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Watch out for the Equinox, Vernal!!

I hope everyone, or at least the good folks, had a Happy St. Patrick’s Day and enjoys the first day of Spring tomorrow (local time) or Wednesday (UTC). To celebrate the arrival of Spring, the weather forecast calls for a cumulative foot or so of snow beginning later this week. I’m glad I left the back blade on the tractor and haven’t put away the winter parka yet. Sigh!!! But we need the moisture.

is this what Spring 2024 will bring?

Photo by J. Harrington

The dogs got their annual check-up at the vet’s this morning. A few weeks ago, I found one tick on me and spring brings mosquitoes (eventually) and the possibility of heartworms. The monthly tick and heartworm pills start later this month, probably after the snow melts.

In the present moment, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, but the mid-afternoon windchill is 24℉. Nevertheless, one of the folks up the road apiece just reported a bear on their patio. Some things are acting seasonally, but it looks like it would make as much sense to anticipate either the spring or summer weather patterns as to guess the next national political or economic event.

At least I’m sitting in a reasonably warm house, with two reasonably healthy dogs, one reasonably healthy spouse, and the start of a list of presents to be requested for an up coming birthday and father’s day. Things could be worse. I’m not trying to cover collateral for a half a billion dollar bond with a reputation for not paying my bills hanging around my neck.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón
1976 – 

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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Captive on the carousel of time*

Our temperatures are consistently running above “normal” while precipitation is sparse to nonexistent. This is likely to present complications for greening up the North Country this spring. The buds on the maple trees in front of the house are beginning to swell but no bud burst yet. Once again local waters are becoming ice free. I’ve lost track whether this is the third or fourth time this year. There’s a better chance this time may last since the Spring Equinox is about a week and a half away and the next few days are forecast to bring high temperatures well into the sixties.

March maple buds beginning to swell

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re watching for signs of maladjustment attributable to our springing ahead an hour early this morning. So far, so good, although the sun’s warmth, when it finally arrives, induces a sleepiness we’re not accustomed to. We expect to adapt over the next few days and look forward to later sunsets bringing longer evenings. I think it’s fair to say that, for most of us, the best two-thirds or three quarters of the year lie ahead.

I’ve actually made some progress getting (some of) my fly fishing gear ready for the season. Two rods have fly lines that have been washed clean and leaders straightened. I discovered that some of my teeny-tiny flies (Tricos) may actually be based on hooks too small to hold a fish. Plus, the eyes are obscured enough that getting the tag end of a tippet through is a) a challenge or b) not doable. Better I should learn these things at home rather than when I’m in the stream and fish are rising.

Please be advised that this coming Thursday, March 14, is reported to be Pi Day. We’re planning on celebrating with French Silk.

[*  The Circle Game]

 

Baked Goods

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Flour on the floor makes my sandals 

slip and I tumble into your arms. 

Too hot to bake this morning but

blueberries begged me to fold them

into moist muffins. Sticks of rhubarb 

plotted a whole pie. The windows

are blown open and a thickfruit tang

sneaks through the wire screen

and into the home of the scowly lady

who lives next door. Yesterday, a man 

in the city was rescued from his apartment

which was filled with a thousand rats. 

Something about being angry because

his pet python refused to eat. He let the bloom 

of fur rise, rise over the little gnarly blue rug, 

over the coffee table, the kitchen countertops

and pip through each cabinet, snip

at the stumpy bags of sugar,

the cylinders of salt. Our kitchen is a riot

of pots, wooden spoons, melted butter. 

So be it. Maybe all this baking will quiet

the angry voices next door, if only

for a brief whiff. I want our summers

to always be like this—a kitchen wrecked

with love, a table overflowing with baked goods

warming the already warm air. After all the pots

are stacked, the goodies cooled, and all the counters

wiped clean—let us never be rescued from this mess. 

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And the seasons March on

 Happy Leap Day!

about to take a leap!!

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that we’ve taken care of that, let’s move on. Tomorrow is March 1. March promises to be a busy month. Without getting personal with things like birthdays, etc., next month will bring many of us:

• Women’s History Month
• Super Tuesday (5th)
• Daylight Saving Time (10th)
• The Ides (15th)
• St. Patrick’s Day (17th)
• Spring Equinox (20th)
• Palm Sunday (24th)
• Good Friday (29th) and,
• Easter (31st)

There are others not listed I’m sure, plus whatever may pop up, like one or two government shutdowns. It occurs to me that, if we could force through a constitutional amendment limiting political campaigns to no more than 60 (30?) days before an election, we could undermine the effects of Citizens United and the amount of irritation related to constant seeking of donations and being subjected to ads. One can only spend so much in a limited time and it could serve as an intermediate step to using public funds only for political campaigns.

Dear March—Come in—(1320)

Emily Dickinson
1830 – 1886

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial 
As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

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Happy Autumn, if you Fall for that stuff 🏈 🍁🍁🍁

By the time this is posted, we will have officially attained the Northern Hemisphere’s Autumnal Equinox. I’m sure of that because I control when the daily blog gets posted and today that will be after 1:50 pm CDT. 

woollybear caterpillar (Isabella Tiger Moth)

Photo by J. Harrington

Still no signs of woollybear worms, but the Climate Prediction Center already claims we may have a warmer, drier winter than normal, thanks to El Niño. Of course, their forecast is framed as a 40% to 60% chance. As I figure it, that averages at 50%, which equals a coin toss, which isn’t much of a forecast. In fact, it’s about as helpful as the banding on a woollybear caterpillar, which doesn’t foretell winter’s severity, or lack thereof, according to the U.S. Weather Service. Normally, I’d be heartened by the prospect, no matter how slim, of a milder, drier winter, but, over the past few years, I’ve noticed that warmer winters usually bring more freezing rain and ice storms than we used to get pre-Anthropocene. I can blow snow or scrape wet snow with the tractor’s back blade. Freezing rain leaves me with no tools except prayer that it melts soon.

a nice collection of prior year pumpkins

Photo by J. Harrington

Back to autumn: looking toward the week ahead, one of our goals will be to get a few pumpkins. I saw the first ones for sale yesterday as I drove past a local feed and grain store. When we dropped off the Daughter Person’s CSA portion yesterday, I saw a couple of pumpkins on their front steps and instantly suffered some pangs of jealously. But, as I’ve learned over the years, it’s good to have at least one goal in life.

Football Weather

By Paul Carroll

As a kid I tried to coax its coming

By sleeping beneath light sheets

Weeks before

The funeral of the summer locusts in the yard;

Then when Granny peeled down the crucifix of

     flypaper that dangled from the ceiling of the

     kitchen

Magic wasn't needed any longer

To fill the air with pigskins.   The air itself

Acrid, lambent, bright

As the robes of the Chinese gods inside their

     house of glass

In the Field Museum by the lake.

Even practice could be fun—

The way, say, even sepia photographs of old-time

     All Americans could be pirates' gold

Like my favorite Bill Corbus, Stanford's "Baby-

     Face Assassin" crouching at right guard, the

     last to play without a helmet on—

And the fun of testing muscles out 

Like new shoes; the odor of the locker room

     pungent

As the inside of a pumpkin;

And the sting of that wet towel twirled against

     bare butt by a genial, roaring Ziggy, Mt.

     Carmel's All State tackle from Immaculate

     Conception Parish near the mills;

And then the victory, especially the close shaves,

     could feel

Like finally getting beneath a girl's brassiere

She'll let you keep

Unhooked for hours while you neck

Until the windshield of your Granddad's Ford V-8

Becomes filled by a fog

Not even Fu Manchu could penetrate.   Jack,

Next football weather my son Luke will be in high

     school,

Bigger than I was and well-coordinated—but

Couldn't care a plenary indulgence

If he ever lugs a pigskin down the turf

Or hits a long shot on the court.   At times, I wish he

     would.

So he might taste the happiness you knew

Snagging Chris Zoukis' low pass to torpedo nine

     long yards to touchdown

And sink archrival Lawrence High

45 years ago come this Thanksgiving Day.   Still,

He has his own intensities

As wild as sports and writing were for us:

Luke's the seventh Rolling Stone,

His electric guitar elegant and shiny black

As a quiet street at night

Glazed by rain and pumpkin frost.

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Autumn Equinox Eve

In less than 24 hours, we in the Northern Hemisphere will observe this year’s Autumn Equinox. It occurs tomorrow at 1:50 pm CDT where we live. In recognition of the upcoming cold and flu season, this morning I got a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination. Flu shot and COVID booster are still pending.

autumn leaves drift by my window

Photo by J. Harrington

Mother Nature is honoring the seasonal change by shifting the wind. It’s now blowing out of the north and littering the ground with the first real batch of falling leaves this season. Our first weekend this autumn is forecast to be a rainy one. We need it. Some of the Arrowhead is abnormally dry but most of Minnesota is experiencing drought, almost a quarter of the state, extreme drought.

Today is another community supported agriculture [CSA] pickup day. In a little while we’ll head off to get our weekly share, this week comprised of:

• DELICATA SQUASH
• EGGPLANT
• ONIONS
• POTATOES
• ITALIAN PARSLEY, and
• BROCCOLI

A batch of sourdough is proofing in the refrigerator until tomorrow. A quiet, rainy day with the smell of baking bread filling the house while I drink coffee and read something mellow seems like a wonderful, peaceful way to begin a new season that, all too soon, will end with the hecticness of Christmas holiday preparations.

Thinking of Frost

Major Jackson     1968 – 

I thought by now my reverence would have waned,
matured to the tempered silence of the bookish or revealed 
how blasé I’ve grown with age, but the unrestrained
joy I feel when a black skein of geese voyages like a dropped 
string from God, slowly shifting and soaring, when the decayed 
apples of an orchard amass beneath its trees like Eve’s
first party, when driving and the road Vanna-Whites its crops
of corn whose stalks will soon give way to a harvester’s blade
and turn the land to a man’s unruly face, makes me believe
I will never soothe the pagan in me, nor exhibit the propriety
of the polite. After a few moons, I’m loud this time of year,
unseemly as a chevron of honking. I’m fire in the leaves,
obstreperous as a New England farmer. I see fear
in the eyes of his children. They walk home from school,
as evening falls like an advancing trickle of bats, the sky
pungent as bounty in chimney smoke. I read the scowl
below the smiles of parents at my son’s soccer game, their agitation,
the figure of wind yellow leaves make of quaking aspens.

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Entering a transition zone

We’ve reached September. Meteorological summer is behind us. It’s slightly more than three weeks until we reach the Autumn Equinox (Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 1:50 am CDT) locally. The time between meteorological seasonal change and astronomical change often brings a mix of each season’s weather. We’re looking at summer’s last hurrah(?) over the weekend, with temperatures forecast to reach between 90 and 100 Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Then, gradually back to seasonable temperatures over the next several days. Will this weekend bring the last 90 + degree days this year? Stay tuned!

It appears as though either my sourdough starter has succumbed to natural causes or I’ve managed to starve it to death. “Her” departure makes me sad, but it also provides an opportunity to start afresh, using formulas and techniques from Sourdough by Science. I’ve been doing a “mix and match” routine since I began, years ago, with 5 minute artisan bread and moved through to sourdough. Spending much of the hot weekend ahead inside an air-conditioned house putting together the basics of a fresh starter seems like a worthwhile way to celebrate Labor Day. I may even dig out some old folk music to play on the stereo system.

homemade artisan sourdough bread

Photo by J. Harrington

(Ir)regular readers probably know that we’re easing into my favorite season of the year. Asters in bloom and leaf color emerging; pumpkins turning into Jack O’Lanterns; flights of ducks, geese, Monarch butterflies and hummingbirds; plus the always exciting watch for wolly worm caterpillars, and the return of soup, stew and chowder season will be more than enough to keep me mostly satisfied from now until Thanksgiving and the rest of holiday season. May we all enjoy the beauty and pleasures of the season(s). To begin, here’s the lyrics to one of my favorite “folk” songs that celebrates autumn.

Urge For Going

by Joni Mitchell

I awoke today and found 
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky 
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold 
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row...

I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go

I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I had a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
And bully winds came around
and pushed them face down in the snow...
He got the urge for going
And I had to let him go

He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

Now the warriors of winter give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying all that lives is gettin' out
See the geese in chevron flight 
Flapping and racing on before the snow...
They've got the urge for going
And they've got the wings to go

They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I'll ply the fire with kindling now
I'll pull the blankets up to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out
And I'll bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime
And have her stay for just another month or so...
But she's got the urge for going
So I guess she'll have to go

She gets the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empire's falling down
And winter's closing in.

And I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is Falling Down.

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“Willow” weep for me!

We are now less than a week from Spring Equinox. The barred owl is again on its perch in the oak tree next to the deck. The sun is shining and the temperatures for the first half of next week begin to approach normal (mid-40’s). Meanwhile, both coasts are getting pounded by severe storms and the country is trying to forestall a collapse of the banking system. We are certainly living in interesting times.

barred owl on its usual branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I’m a recovering planner who suffers an occasional relapse, the kerfuffle about whether the Biden Administration should or should not have approved the Willow project in Alaska has me in a planning mode wondering who, if anyone, is responsible for identifying and tracking the progress, if any, toward meeting the requirements to abate greenhouse gas targets by dates certain. The IPCC reports don’t seem to clearly specify a basis on which we can tell what should, or should not, be allowed. Perhaps what I’m looking for will be included in a major report to be issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the Spring Equinox this year. More likely, the high level language suitable for policy makers will fail to be sufficiently specific to determine whether certain projects are approvable based on meeting policies. The looseness with which “truth” is proclaimed by liberals and conservatives doesn’t much help those responsible for doing the analysis on which projects are deemed consistent, or not, with goals and policies.

I base my assessment and part of my critique on the failure of Minnesota to meet, for an extended period of time, legislatively mandated greenhouse gas reduction goals. I also am sensitive to the egregious failure of the United States to meet its legislatively mandated clean water goals of 1983 and 1985. In fact, we’ve allowed the global economy to go in the other direction and make pollution of water by PFOS and PFAS almost ubiquitous.

There are several relevant quotations that help explain the challenges we face as a species trying to keep our planet habitable. We need to stop electing and empowering folks who think like this:

• “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”     Bill Clinton


• "When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”     Yogi Berra

Instead, we are well advised to empower leaders who think like this:

• “And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly mean nothing to our politicians and our society?”     ― Greta Thunberg, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference 


• “The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.”     — Bill McKibben

 

Willow Weep for Me

Ann Ronell

Willow weep for me
Willow weep for me
Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to my plea
Hear me willow and weep for me
Gone my lovely dreams
Lovely summer dreams
Gone and left me here
To weep my tears along the stream
Sad as I can be
Hear me willow and weep for me
Whisper to the wind and say that love has sinned
To leave my heart a sign
And crying alone
Murmur to the night
Hide her starry light
So none will find me sighing
Crying all alone
Weeping willow tree
Weeping sympathy
Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to me plead
Hear me willow and weep for me
Willow
Willow
Weep for me

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It’s still winter for another 9 days

We had a barred owl visitor late yesterday. It perched on a bare, dead branch on the oak next to the rear deck. The owl’s presence didn’t seem to bother the cardinal pair that perched about 20 - 25 feet away on the same tree at about the same height. After something like an hour, the owl began its classic call: 

Barred Owls have a distinctive hooting call of 8–9 notes, described as “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” This call carries well through the woods and is fairly easy to imitate. During courtship, mated pairs perform a riotous duet of cackles, hoots, caws and gurgles.

barred owl on an oak

Photo by J. Harrington

After a few calls the bird flew away, possibly to its mate since we’re somewhere around the beginning of nesting season.

This afternoon the birds and squirrels are piling in to the feeders in the midst of yet another snow storm. I’m fed up with writing about it so for now, owl be seeing you.

A Barred Owl

By Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

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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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A hint of decolonization

In [partial] preparation for observance of spring equinox, today I bought a couple of pots of oxalis plants. The green is a nice contrast to the snow outside. It’s improbable we’ll be able too enjoy a fire in the fire pit come equinox, but I’ve reached the point where, living in the North Country, I need to do more to honor the arrival of spring, longer days, sunny skies(?), returning migrants and open, flowing waters.

oxalis, shamrock

Photo by J. Harrington

Tomorrow, at least for a little while, will include flowing water as rain, which will then become ice. Every year spring arrives on stutter steps, some years more quickly than others, but rarely, if ever, smoothly. I may manage to avoid, or at least minimize, complaining about setbacks and focus on improvements in the weather rather than what we’ve experienced the past few weeks and anticipate over the next few days.

Since I’m tired of writing about our local weather, I’m going to share something I found online this morning. For background, I need to tell you that for several years I’ve been pondering similarities between Native American and Irish experiences under British colonialism. Today I learned I’m not the only one who thinks about such topics. The On Being Project has an interview with Margaret Noodin that includes these observations:

Noodin: Yes. Now, I knew that. I taught the Irish lit. class, last semester, which I sometimes get to do. And my friend Bairbre here, who runs our Celtic Studies center, we had some comparisons in language. And we, of course, are very biased, but we felt that Ojibwe and Irish were perhaps the most musical and lovely languages that there are. [laughs]

Ó Tuama: That’s just plain fact, Margaret. That’s not bias at all. [laughs]

Noodin: I would agree. Absolutely, right? [laughs] But we wonder too, sometimes — we joke — we’ve joked for many years, within my family, and it’s not just us. So you have a confluence of history. You have people located in a similar space on the globe and really defined in ways by where the land meets the water. So, whether you are a diaspora centered around this inland sea or whether you are an island within a sea, a lot of your metaphors are similar in the fact that you’re in this northern region. You have a seasonal similarity.

But we have things like Paisake, little beings that have red hair that potentially cause disturbances or teach people lessons. And there are so many ways where, when you get to know cultures and you can make comparison between stories, you can absolutely see that the option is either to believe that they really exist and they’re all over, in every culture, in different ways, or to somehow think that people really connected sometime, long ago; but that’s probably the least likely. I think that people have a need to understand and describe the world through describing both the real and the imagined, sometimes.

The preceding gives us an opportunity to share one of Margaret Noodin’s et. al. wonderful poems and to confess that we’ve not read as much of her work as we would like and hope to.

Meshkadoonaawaa Ikidowinan: Exchanging Words

By Kimberly Blaeser, Molly McGlennen, and Margaret Noodin

baazhigwaadiziwin—persistence

Ningii-bazhinemin, we have barely escaped

nightly, a threshold looms in the cold.

Again, we sing ourselves strong—

Anishinaabikwewag, women of history and persistence.

Observe: constellations have long illuminated patterns,

relentless stories, adizookanag,

of who we might be, noongom aawiiyaang

gemaa waa-aawiiyang, or become.

Across skies trace belonging, ezhi-dibendagoziyang

in the land of wiindigoo-cannibals, awaken the crumbling spirit.

Become swirling light, motion—where Bagonegiizhig

still lives. This ancient portal a promise.

Become the shadow others expect—aagawaatesen

hiding in significance. Like stars, anangoog, excluded.

Anyone could read this.

No matter this bitter

winter, still.

wiingashk—sweetgrass

How she stitched the rim, gashkigwaadan.

Leaf blades and needle fingers circled,

smallest curve, waaganagamod, of song—

endless like the scent.

Held, there are, atenoon, some parts

one cannot see—

but she knows, gikendaang, what they hold.

Words from bogs and marshes.

Heaven fits neatly, mii gwayak, under

the snug lid, shut tight as lips

long used to gaadood, keeping secrets

of grandmothers and crane companions.

Notes:

The authors write about the collaborative process behind this piece here. 

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Spring is getting sprung

The March thaw has arrived, belatedly, confirming the old saying of “better late than never.” Yesterday brought a glimpse of three of the local deer moving mid-day. Evidence that the worst of winter has passed? Soon we can look forward to the emergence of skunk cabbage; the blooming of marsh marigolds, pasque flowers, and prairie smoke. Birdsong will fill mornings and evenings. It will be time for planting, but first I need to prune some dead branches before we reach oak wilt season.

skunk cabbage, late March

Photo by J. Harrington

A week from today is the Vernal Equinox, at 10:33 am CDT locally. Astronomical spring will last for 92 days, 17 hrs, 40 mins. That barely seems like enough time to accomplish all the spring chores and enjoy the playing outside that needs to get done. And don’t forget, any time the temperature is above 40℉, ticks may be active. Lack of ticks and mosquitoes may be one of the better aspects of winter. Please feel free to remind me of that next January and February, no doubt it will take some of the pain out of the wind chill, below zero temperatures, and ice storms.

Tomorrow’s new snow will be gone by Wednesday. Some time in the next day or so, most  likely tomorrow, we’ll get to baking  another  loaf of Irish soda bread. Tuesday morning we get our new glasses and celebrate with a trip to a fly-fishing shop to see what we absolutely must have for the upcoming season. If we can wean ourselves from social media and stay away from news online or on tv, we may be able to have an enjoyable week. Must we suffer to be responsible?

The Poet Contemplates the Nature of Reality

By Jill Bialosky

On the side of the road a deer, frozen, frigid.

Go back to your life, the voice said.

What is my life? she wondered. For months she lost

herself in work—Freud said work is as important

as love to the soul—and at night she sat with a boy,

forcing him to practice his violin, helping him recite his notes.

Then the ice thawed and the deer came to life.

She saw her jump over the fence, she saw her in the twilight,

how free she looked. She saw her eyes shiny as marbles,

as much a part of this world as the fence a worker

pounds into the earth. At night she still sat with the boy.

He’s learning “Au Claire de la Lune.”

Do you know it? He has established a relationship

with his violin. He knows that it takes practice to master it:

the accuracy of each note, to wrestle his feelings to the listener.

But he’s impatient. Sometimes what he hears and feels

are not always the same. Again, the poet says.

She knows if he tries to silence his fervor, he might not ever know

who he is. The poet contemplates whether a deer can dream.

Rich blood-red berries on a branch, pachysandra in the garden.

A soft warm bed in the leaves.

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What does Punxsutawney Phil know?

Regardless of what Punxsutawney Phil says about his shadow, meteorological spring begins on March 1. That’s 27 days from now. Astronomical spring begins on Spring Equinox (March 20), 46  days away. The latter is slightly more than 6 weeks from now, the former not quite four weeks. It’ll be interesting to see what the actual weather does to bring about loss of snow cover and ice out. Calendars are mathematical. Weather is organic and, lately, temperatures are roller coasterish. Sometime between now and summer solstice we should see whatever passes for spring in our North Country.

male cardinal on February snow

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve seen few cardinals at the feeders this winter, perhaps because they don’t like the new “squirrel-proof” feeder, which is the only one we’ve been hanging for the past few months. Today an older style has been  returned to service. We’ll keep our eyes open and see if we can tell if the squirrels or the cardinals return first [or someone else entirely].

Fun on Groundhog Day

There are shadows you make in the sunshine,
There are shadows you make by the lamp,
There are shadows that lurk in the forest
While you tell creepy stories at camp.

There are shadows that help you with puppets,
And shadows; you make just for play,
But the shadow that’s famous is Groundhog’s,
When he tells whether winter’s to stay.

Let’s go out very early this morning
And watch for his shadow, my son;
It may not be at all scientific,
But you’ve got to admit that it’s fun!

Barbara Walker

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Welcome to this year's Vernal Equinox

In the Northern Hemisphere, it's the first day of Spring. The lack of snow cover is making us giddy. Plus, March is known for being a windy time of year and that's what we've got today. We've joined the crew in the Hundred Acre Wood for a blustery day. All told, despite the breezes, the weather is nice enough  that we saw a couple of motorcycles being ridden on the local roads.

late March bud burst

Photo by J. Harrington

Soon we'll be watching for and then enjoying the greening of the countryside. Undoubtedly, we'll try again  this year to get some wildflowers to grow on our Anoka sand plain hillside. In fact, we're hoping against hope 🤞that one or two of the pasque flowers we planted several years ago may actually bloom again. The dogs will soon start to enjoy longer walks since wind chill should no longer be part of the daily forecast. It remains to be seen if we'll actually get any sort of bud burst this month. Even in the North Country, that's been known to happen from time to time, although it's not a regular feature of March, unlike the little lame  balloon man.

[in Just-]

By E. E. Cummings

in Just- 

spring          when the world is mud- 

luscious the little 

lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 

running from marbles and 

piracies and it's 

spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 

old balloonman whistles 

far          and             wee 

and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it's 

spring 

and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 

far 

and 

wee

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Change, change, change...

More and more hornets are seeking a place to spend the Winter. They've been bumping into the picture window and arriving at the screened patio to clamber up alongside the joists that support the deck / patio roof. Perhaps someone told them that tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox and it's time to find Winter quarters.

Today's breeze is a bit more than we're comfortable with for torching the brush pile. Perhaps tomorrow will be calmer and we can enjoy celebrating solstice tomorrow evening. For now (since it just also started to pour rain), here's a couple of the photos we took today while checking the increased amount of colors in the local leaves.

local colors just before equinox

Photo by J. Harrington

We learned late yesterday and early this morning that not all of the female ruby-throated hummingbirds have headed South. At least one, we guess it's the same one, showed up at the feeder both times. Possibly no one's yet told her that tomorrow's the solstice.

tamaracks just hint at gold

Photo by J. Harrington

A day from now we will have entered the Dark Half of the year. We hope that will only refer to diminished daylight hours and nothing more sinister. This may well be the time when we need to pay careful attention to identify reasons for celebration. If we are careful enough, those reasons will be found. Rebecca Solnit once again has shared with us her assessment of just how much we depend on others in her essay on How Change Happens. Do you agree that change is one of the few constants in life? Have you considered whether you can control or direct the changes in your life? Solnit isn't the only person to call to our attention how change happens, Margaret Wheatley informs us that:

Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes when networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitment that lead to broad-based change.

So, in these turbulent times, as change continues to roil our waters, hadn't we best tend to the quality of our relationships?

Otherwise

Jane Kenyon - 1947-1995

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

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