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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Help solve a "holey" mystery?

 First, let me wish everyone a fun-filled, safe and healthy holiday weekend to unofficially end Summer. Today's posting will be abbreviated in honor of Labor Day.

We've lived in our house for about a quarter of a century. Until this year, we've not seen the likes of the holes that have appeared along the South side, North facing, edge of our drive. We've plenty of ideas of what might be making them, but aren't sure specifically who to blame. We have living in the neighborhood: red and gray squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, field mice, moles, voles, shrews, etc. The prime suspects are red squirrels and / or chipmunks.

who made these holes?

Photo by J. Harrington

who made these holes?

Photo by J. Harrington

Here's the stumbling block. All the tunneling, burrowing, hole-digging critters listed above have been here in varying numbers since we moved in. Not until this year did the number and pattern of holes appear as it has. What, or who, has changed? Why now?

I admit I've not spent time checking the holes to see if they hold acorns. But if someone was burying acorns, wouldn't the holes be at least partially filled in? I'm totally stumped. This is more confusing than fairy rings. If anyone has a less speculative answer than those outlined above, please leave your assessment in the comments. That's all for now!

Like the Small Hole by the Path-Side Something Lives in

By Jane Hirshfield

Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in,

in me are lives I do not know the names of,

nor the fates of,

nor the hungers of or what they eat.

They eat of me.

Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me 

whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink.

And in my streets—the narrow ones, 

unlabeled on the self-map—

they follow stairs down music ears can’t follow,

and in my tongue borrowed by darkness,

in hours uncounted by the self-clock,

they speak in restless syllables of other losses, other loves. 

There too have been the hard extinctions, 

missing birds once feasted on and feasting.

There too must be machines 

like loud ideas with tungsten bits that grind the day.

A few escape. A mercy.

They leave behind 

small holes that something unweighed by the self-scale lives in.

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Varmints, vermin, property, damage?

When I started up the tractor this afternoon, a field mouse scurried out from under the engine cowling. The tractor had only been in its parking pace overnight since it had been visiting the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law for a week or so. Last year or the year before a mouse or mice had cost me about $400 to have the wiring harness repaired after they chewed through it and left me with no functional instruments in the dashboard. I've re-baited and returned to their place the mouse traps that now live near the tractor's tires. If the field mice stay in the fields and woods they won't be tempted by the peanut butter on the traps.

our last remaining pear tree, with fruit

Photo by J. Harrington

As far as I know, mice are unprotected animals that may, or may not, be a nuisance. This refers to the piece I posted Tuesday, fussing about the poorly crafted language Minnesota uses to distinguish game animals and birds from unprotected and / or nuisance animals. Then today, I read a blog posting by Angie Hong at East Metro Water, about Gophers and muskrats, oh why?, in which she notes:

... The plains pocket gopher is more common and is often considered a pest when it tunnels through our lawns and gardens. In a native planting or restored prairie, however, gophers should be considered a friend. Their tunnels aerate the soil and provide homes for numerous other wildlife as well. In other words, gophers are just as much a part of the prairie as bison, bluestem, and butterflies. Yes, the prairie will be bumpy instead of flat, but nature tends to be that way.

As with mice and wiring harnesses, and the red squirrel that gnawed through our siding around ten years ago, pocket gophers in our reverting to prairie hillside would be safe to happily aerate the soil if they hadn't destroyed, by eating the roots, almost a dozen fruit trees we've planted over the years. (We were trying for a savannah in which fruit trees took the place of oaks.) Now we also have a recently arrived woodchuck that's moved under the brush pile and a chipmunk living under the front stoop. Much as I'd like to live in peaceful coexistence with the critters around here, even with the deer that have eaten to death two of our Aronia (chokeberry) bushes, pocket gopher mounds make it almost impossible to mow and climate change seems to be bringing more ticks every Spring. Ticks don't seem to find short grass a suitable habitat.

I honestly don't know how to reasonably assess when a critter has done, or may do, enough property damage to warrant being terminated with prejudice, nor do I see much chance of being certain that the guilty culprit is the one so terminated. This is one of the quandaries that keeps me from seriously considering becoming a Buddhist. My compassion doesn't appear to extend far enough to let varmints and vermin get a free ride on my dime. Anyone knowing of appropriate and effective solutions to such a conundrum are invited to note such in the comments.

The History of America

By Alicia Ostriker

     —for Paul Metcalf

A linear projection: a route. It crosses

The ocean in many ships. Arriving in the new

Land, it cuts through and down forests and it

Keeps moving. Terrain: Rock, weaponry.

Dark trees, mastery. Grass, to yield. Earth,

Reproachful. Fox, bear, coon, wildcat

Prowl gloomily, it kills them, it skins them,

Its language alters, no account varmint, its

Teeth set, nothing defeats its obsession, it becomes

A snake in the reedy river. Spits and prays,

Keeps moving. Behind it, a steel track. Cold,

Permanent. Not permanent. It will decay. This

Does not matter, it does not actually care,

Murdering the buffalo, driving the laggard regiments,

The caring was a necessary myth, an eagle like

A speck in heaven dives. The line believes

That the entire wrinkled mountain range is the

Eagle’s nest, and everything tumbles in place.

It buries its balls at Wounded Knee, it rushes

Gold, it gambles. It buys plastics. Another

Ocean stops it. Soon, soon, up by its roots,

Severed, irrecoverably torn, that does not matter,

It decides, perpendicular from here: escape.

A prior circle: a mouth. It is nowhere,

Everywhere, swollen, warm. Expanding and contracting

It absorbs and projects children, jungles,

Black shoes, pennies, blood. It speaks

Too many dark, suffering languages. Reaching a hand

Toward its throat, you disappear entirely. No

Wonder you fear this bleeding pulse, no wonder.

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What's in a name?

Earlier today I managed to once again confuse myself about whether the understory plants I was pulling were actually buckthorn or some species of wild cherry. In part this tells me that, despite my best efforts  and intentions, I haven't been paying enough attention to details. I run into the same kinds of issues when faced with white and red pines; all of the local oak trees; and numerous other local flora. I do much better with local fauna, with certain exceptions such as purple versus house finches.

red pine? white pine?

Photo by J. Harrington

It also tells me that I continue my life-long dislike of learning things through brute memorization, compounded by the fact that photos and pictures in field guides for trees and wildflowers are rarely an exact match for what's in front of me in the field. The past week of so the Better Half and I have seen two foxes. Each was a red fox. We know this because, although the area where we live is within the range of both red and gray foxes in Minnesota, we aren't colorblind and the foxes we saw were both red. That identification is more readily accomplished while driving past a fox, or having one run in front of the Jeep, than counting the number of needles in a fascicle to distinguish white (5) from red (2) pine trees. It can't be done, even traveling as slow as 30 mph.

Admittedly, these are not matters of great personal significance. If they were, I'd hope I'd rapidly improve my knowledge of functions, purpose and identification of various species. Although, I've been an angler for trout for many years and I still readily forget which is the adipose fin. I keep confusing it with a different fin that also begins with an "a." Neither fin is of as much significance to me as they are to the trout.

So, which comes first, the nomenclature or the significance? Perhaps I'll gain some insight if I read an article I came across earlier today, How Oak Trees Evolved to Rule the Forests of the Northern Hemisphere. That may provide a useful context to hang other information about differentiating characteristics, or perhaps some mnemonic hints to make memorization easier and less brutal.

Naming the Trees

By Bruce Guernsey

At the national cemetery in Gettysburg

all the trees have names,

both family and genus

on small brass plaques at the base of each

to let the visitor know

the kind of oak,

whether red, white or black,

and is this rock or silver maple

looking once like any other

burlapped ball of roots

when it was lowered to earth

those decades after the war.

Colorful names like Tulip Poplar,

Weeping Beech, Buckeye,

Sweet Gum and Gingko—

sounding like nicknames almost, these trees

from every region and state

with broad leaves or skinny,

shiny, dull, or no leaves at all

like the Eastern Hemlock,

but all, all with names every one,

no matter the size and shape

amidst the many anonymous

mute stones in their shade.

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The Circle Game continues

The hoary puccoon is blooming in profusion. Pink tints are showing from the beardtongue buds that  should open soon. The poison ivy we sprayed last week is shriveling and disappearing. Today we cut the grass in the back yard. In the process we discovered some fresh pocket gopher mounds. Tomorrow, after we pick up our final Spring Greens CSA share, we'll probe for main tunnels and see about setting traps. At the rate we're getting the property tidied up, we'll be done just in time for Autumn's leaf fall and the cycle will continue. I'm trying to adjust my perspective to seeing life in terms of continuing cycles instead of a series of discrete projects. So far, fly-fishing keeps getting elbowed out of the cycle, That won't do so I'll just see where and how it can be worked in as an integrated aspect of my life cycle. At the moment, I'm thinking back to when I read Gene Hill's wonderful story "When Pheasant Season Was from Chores 'Til Dark," a country boy's view of how life is organized.

late Winter: pheasant

Photo by J. Harrington

A hawk, species uncertain, has been hanging around and perching along the wood line after flying low over the fields during the past week or so. Might we have a new neighbor? That would be cool. No fawn sightings yet. Occasional turkeys skulk or strut through the field behind the house.

The Better Half has weeded her lily garden so blossoms, when they arrive, won't have to compete with tall weeds. i think we're both finding that getting outside and being more active leaves us feeling tired but overall better than when we are but couch potatoes. Let's see if tomorrow I agree with that assessment.

late July lily blossom

Photo by J. Harrington

All in all, we're shifting into a Summer mode, tempered by coronavirus precautions. Driving the tractor, cutting grass, wearing bluetooth hearing protectors connected to a playlist on my smart phone is not a bad way to live. If the small engine doctor can get the tiller running, next week we hope to start a three sisters garden. The days to maturity should give us harvests around the end of August or early September if we get the planting done next week. Wish us luck.

The Garden Year

Sara Coleridge

January brings the snow,
Makes our feet and fingers glow. 

February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again. 

March brings breezes, loud and shrill,
To stir the dancing daffodil. 

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet. 

May brings flocks of pretty lambs
Skipping by their fleecy dams. 

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hands with posies. 

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots, and gillyflowers. 

August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne. 

Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot. 

Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant. 

Dull November brings the blast;
Then the leaves are whirling fast. 

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

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A tale of two rodents

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. (with apologies to Dickens) This morning I think I set a record for the earliest date I started pocket gopher trap setting. One of those rodents has been making mounds between the back yard's vernal pond and the edge of the small patch of oaks behind the house. If it weren't for their mounds, and their tendency to eat the roots of freshly planted fruit trees, I might be willing to take more of a live and let live approach. I truly wish we had more gopher snakes (Pituophis catenifer) on the property. I'd rather let them take care of the gopher population.

a pocket gopher predator looking for lunch

Photo by J. Harrington

A different rodent, one that I enjoy having as a neighbor, keeps trying to move back into the neighborhood. When we first moved here, a quarter century or so ago, a beaver, or two, lived in a den in the South bank of the pond up the road. We watched the pair for a year or two and then they were there no more. Whether they became coyote dinner or were trapped for their pelts we'll never know. Then, just last year, the flowage that feeds the pond sprouted a beaver dam.

is this a pond to which beavers are returning?

Photo by J. Harrington

Either the watershed district, or the county, or the township, or one or more of the contiguous property owners, or some combination thereof, decided that the large existing wetland that drains to the flowage shouldn't be allowed to hold more water. First about half the dam was removed. Then, I think someone set traps for the beaver. Then the rest of the dam was removed.

This Spring, we've noticed what we think are beavers back in the pond where we first saw some, across the road from where the dam was removed last year. We have no intention of telling anyone that they're back or where they are. Beavers have yet to eat any of our roots, bulbs, plants etc. I'd rather have them as neighbors than pocket gophers. At least we get to watch beavers every once in awhile. It's very rare that we every see a pocket gopher push dirt our of a tunnel.

Elegy for a Gopher

Ellen Bass

The pads of your paws scrabble
as I drag you from the tunnel
clamped to the shiny green trap,
a baby, hell-bent on saving
your twist of life, spun
from the same cells as I am, the common
intelligence of fins, wings, limbs.
The first time you see the sun
you’re splayed on your back, the shadow
of my blade above you.
Your ears, tiny colorless petals,
and at the tips of your articulated fingers,
ten frantic claws. When I strike,
your mouth opens stunningly
wide, a scream so silent
all sound is sucked down the naked
whirlpool of your throat. I hate
that I can salvage nothing.
I can’t skin and eat you, stuff or display
your fur on the mantel.
I won’t carve a needle
from your bone. Bit of breath
I bury under a stone.

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Mystery plant identified! (?)

Some, but not many, weeks ago we wrote about a plant that we couldn't identify that has popped up on many locations on our property, often mixed in with buckthorn or poison ivy. Since that time we've pulled more of the unidentified plant, along with more buckthorn, and continued to look through our field guides and other resources on the flora of Minnesota. We now believe we have established the identity of the unknown plant. We finally found strong evidence paging through, literally page by page, almost all of the 700+ pages of Welby Smith's Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota. On page 680, we found prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum) and a telling description that included "These roots can become quite invasive and will sprout suckers (new shoots) unless inhibited by competition." That's consistent with what we've noticed as we pulled the stems and suckers.

prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum)

Photo by J. Harrington

So, this year we're pulling buckthorn; pulling prickly ash; and spraying poison ivy. The buckthorn is nonnative. Prickly ash and poison ivy are both native, although the latter is listed as a noxious weed and the former is reported to offer limited medicinal properties, we believe we can do nicely with none of the above. We do continue to have major reservations about how many of the "invasive" plants in Minnesota have been classified. For the most part, the perspective described in Tao Orion's Beyond the War on Invasive Species, A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration is more in line with our thinking and approach. Sometimes all we can do is treat symptoms, but then we should expect recurrences of the invasions. Being clearer about the priority to be assigned to responses to noxious weeds, whether invasive or not, might also be helpful.

We continue to ponder the difference between Mother Nature's approach of profligacy, spreading countless seeds wantonly, extending suckers radially, feeding fruits to creatures, thus extending the range of seed distribution, etc., compared to our more feeble planting of three or four of somethings and thus often accomplishing little but offering appetizers to the deer, rabbits and other creatures that have no respect for our efforts to improve the landscape's aesthetic qualities. Although, since we've been startled over the past few years to learn that trees communicate with each other, we wouldn't be surprised to learn some day that wild creatures actually have an aesthetic sense, but that it differs radically from ours. After all, many of us humans have wildly differing tastes in what we find pleasing to observe and/or eat. Life, and the earth, are consistently more complicated than we seem to be prepared for. Will we ever learn to take this into account and practice a much more holistic pattern of thinking?

Moonflowers

By Karma Larsen

Milly Sorensen, January 16, 1922 - February 19, 2004

It was the moonflowers that surprised us. 

Early summer we noticed the soft gray foliage. 

She asked for seedpods every year but I never saw them in her garden. 

Never knew what she did with them. 

Exotic and tropical, not like her other flowers. 

I expected her to throw them in the pasture maybe, 

a gift to the coyotes. Huge, platterlike white flowers 

shining in the night to soften their plaintive howling. 

A sound I love; a reminder, even on the darkest night, 

that manicured lawns don't surround me. 

Midsummer they shot up, filled the small place by the back door, 

sprawled over sidewalks, refused to be ignored. 

Gaudy and awkward by day, 

by night they were huge, soft, luminous. 

Only this year, this year of her death 

did they break free of their huge, prickly husks 

and brighten the darkness she left.

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Aren't we a nation of colonizing immigrants? #phenology

Ditches and roadside fields have erupted with ox-eye daisies and dame's rocket this past week and those are just the locations we could see as we drove past. Each of those plants are listed as nonnative and invasive, although we admit to being intrigued that the ox-eye is listed as a terrestrial invasive plant by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources while the dame's rocket isn't.

Minnesota has an Invasive Species Council that asserts:

An "invasive species" is defined as a species that is:

1) nonnative to the ecosystem under consideration

2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. (Executive Order 13112).

The Minnesota definition is a much abbreviated version of the language in the (linked) federal Executive Order. As near as we can tell, there's no allowance in the language for benefits that could be provided by nonnative species. We think that's unfortunate and would suggest we need a process similar to that used for assessing endangered species be used to declare a species invasive.

Leucanthemum vulgare (Ox-eye Daisy) [white]
Lotus corniculatus (Birds-foot Trefoil) [yellow]

Photo by J. Harrington

As an example, consider this, if ox-eye daisies and dame's rocket weren't growing where they are in Minnesota, what would we see? More grasses? Are there any native wildflowers as prolific that grow where these two nonnative, but naturalized, plants grow? Does either of these plants provide benefits to threatened pollinators?

We suspect we are out of the mainstream in our approach to invasive species. Isn't Kentucky blue grass one of the more invasive plants in North America? Does the massive prevalence of monoculture lawns serve any beneficial ecological role? In Minnesota, and similar locations, we're watching boreal forests move further North as their Southern fringes are replaced by deciduous forests. Isle Royal (officially part of Michigan, psychologically closer to Minnesota) is being overrun by moose. Does that make those moose an invasive species on the Isle? We (dis)respectfully suggest we are much too anthropocentric in our definitions and massively too little too late in our approach to respectful and effective stewardship. The activities that continue to bring aquatic invasive species to the Midwest won't be offset by limiting infestations to the Great Lakes, just as addressing buckthorn won't be effective while significant acreages of public (and private) lands serves as reservoirs for reinfestation. Voluntary conservation efforts for invasive species will be about as effective as relying on voluntary compliance with speed limits or vaccinations.

In the 1968 Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand (with whom we often agree and sometimes vehemently disagree) wrote "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." That observation seems eerily prescient in this early Anthropocene era. Looking at the conditions we've created, and the way we're responding, reminds us of another saying, not attributable to Brand, "Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas." It's too late for the Earth and its inhabitants for us to avoid the first part of that advice. Now it's time for us to improve the half-vast ideas of what we're doing, why and how.

A poet, Marwa Halal, has crafted a book of poems under the title Invasive species, in which she captures some of the complexity we're posting about today. One of those poems is below. Another can be read at the link above.

poem for palm pressed upon pane

i am in the backseat. my father driving. from mansurah to cairo. delta to desert,
heliopolis. a path he has traveled years before i was born. the road has changed but the
fields are same same. biblical green.

hazy green, when i say: this is the most beautiful tree i have ever

seen. and he says, all the trees in masr are the most beautiful. this is how i learn to see.

we planted pines. four in a row. for privacy. for property value. that was

ohio. before new mexico. before, i would make masr

my own. but after my mother tells me to stop       asking her what is wrong

whenever i see her staring
out of the living room window. this is how trauma learns to behave. how i learn to push
against the page. i always give hatem the inside seat.

so he can sleep. on the bus.                             his warm cheek against the cold

window. when i am old enough to be aware of leaving. it is raining hard.

5000 miles away, there is a palm. in a pot. its leaves

pressed. skinny neck bent. a plant seeking light in an animal kingdom.

Marwa Halal

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Froggie Went A-Courtin' #phenology

We didn't even know there was a National Frog Month until a day or two ago. It comes in April, which is fitting, as that's usually when the snow and ice melts; waters open; grounds unfreeze; and, frogs go a-courtin'. Both the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have web pages full of facts about Minnesota's frogs, including pictures, recordings of calls and fascinating, off-beat items. One of the strangest "facts" we came across is the listing, on Bob Dylan's web site, of a complete(?) set of lyrics to the traditional English folk song, Froggie Went A-Courtin', listing Mr. Zimmerman's alter ego as the arranger.

wood frog(?) on screen door

Photo by J. Harrington

We all know (or should) about The Frog Prince and, according to one source, Aesop's The Scorpion and The Frog. A different source lists another eight of Aesop's fables that include frogs, but none also includes a scorpion.

green tree frog on hand rail

Photo by J. Harrington

Some time ago we found a description of many species of animals that benefit from stream restoration projects, such as those done by Trout Unlimited. Quite a few species of frogs are included. We were even more intrigued by the amphibian breeding phenology information provided in the report. Here's the chart:

The Frog

By Hilaire Belloc

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

   And do not call him names,

As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’

   Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’

Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’   

   Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:

The Frog is justly sensitive

   To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

   A treatment kind and fair;

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and, by the way,   

They are extremely rare).

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At the "bird" feeder, late February

It's been a tough Winter. Meteorologically, it ended with February. We've been going through lots of sunflower seeds and suet, but we haven't been feeding just birds. May March be a kinder, gentler month!

sunrise tangled up in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

a snowy dunce cap on the bluebird house

Photo by J. Harrington

the tall one knocks seeds down for the short one

Photo by J. Harrington

then helps herself

Photo by J. Harrington

and Runny Babbit gets some leftovers

Photo by J. Harrington

Late February

By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

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What a surprise!

On our early morning return from walking SiSi, we met a strange stranger on the road. SiSi wanted to go play but the stranger didn't seem interested. In fact, the stranger came out of the end of our drive, crossed the road and headed off in the far-side ditch as quickly as possible. It was, we're quite sure, a muskrat. Why a muskrat was prowling our property can be but speculated on. Hungry? Most likely.

habitat for muskrat homes?

Photo by J. Harrington

We had assumed, incorrectly it turns out, that muskrats stayed inside their houses and ate stored food all Winter, like their cousins the beavers. Not so according to the Minnesota DNR. "Unlike the beaver, the muskrat does not store food for the winter. It needs to eat fresh plants each day, and sometimes it makes channels in the mud to get from its house to reach food under the ice." There's a pond a little North of our property from whence the muskrat might have emerged if the stored food has run out. We'll never know for sure. It's all part of the great mystery we live every day.

horses in hoarfrost

Photo by J. Harrington

We're experiencing another sign of approaching Spring today, slight fog and hoarfrost covering the local flora. It certainly pretties up the neighborhood. In fact, one of our favorite pictures we've taken is of hoarfrost covering a neighbor's pasture and woods (see above).

For You, a Handful of the Greatest Gift

Ray Young Bear

Small-eyed, plump, and with black
leathery hands, Attaskwa, is composed
          and debonair
as it perches on trampled cat tail reeds
beside a quivering, cloud-reflecting pond.
          “Filled
with cosmogony, he’s exceedingly
unselfish,” instructs the branch-shaping
          sculptor.
“Wabami, Look at him, kekenetama,
he knows. And he’s elated to oversee
          what
the daylight brings everyday.”
We focus the camera’s telephoto lens
          and see
details of his coat glittering with drops
of luminescent water.

“To our Grandfather, Kemettoemenana,”
narrates the sculpture, “he magnanimously
          agreed after
the Last Conflict of the Gods to retrieve
a handful of soil from the deep, singular
          ocean that
became land beneath our feet. He
set forth unequivocally a doctrine.
          Listen
very closely, my grandchildren,
nottisemetike, for you may not hear
          these words
again.” Lifting its black nose
to the sky, Attaskwaambles
          to the pond’s
edge and stops as if to pose
before the picture is snapped.
          Behind us,
the sculptor crafts a small
dome-shaped skeletal lodge
          and
embeds it to the ground.

We wholly agree that each day
there are overt and minute changes.
          Even if we
don’t see or if we’re not there, it happens.
Without Muskrat, our Creation—you
          and me,
would be zero. From the alluvial soil
delivered from oceanic depths, we
          were made
thereafter. His courage is brazen like
that of a Wetase, Veteran, because he
          dove
unflinchingly to retrieve Earth.

Oblivious of our presence, Attaskwa
slides into the pond and swims
          to the middle,
creating a cape-like effect of waves
behind him that dissipates
          the blue sky
and its clouds. Indicative of his
sacrifice, we learn Attaskwafloated
          lifeless
to the surface. In gratitude Earth-maker
resurrected him. So when personal
          contributions
are contemplated, ask yourself,
my daughter and son, what did I
          sacrifice?
Think specifically of what he did.
Use him, my children, netabenoemetike,
          as an example
of what must be done to rectify
society’s misdirection. Only then
          will our,
language, religion, culture, and history
thrive in the Muskrat’s benevolent
          shadow.

As he approaches the mound
of his home, Attaskwalooks back
          at us briefly.
And before his cape of waves reaches
the shoreline, he dives into the dark
          green pond.
Before we pack up the equipment,
the sculptor hands us sacred
          tobacco
to sprinkle delicately over
the water animal’s architectural
          tranquility.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Observing January

How often have you studied a snow covered field and decided that it was empty, void of interest? Aldo Leopold would have us look more thoughtfully. We discovered the accuracy of his comment just before the recent January thaw melted much of the snow cover near the house.

source: Aldo Leopold Foundation

We know that, under the snow, under the grasses covered by snow, and sometimes underground in tunnels, we have moles and voles and shrews and insects and worms and bacteria and.... We've seen the moles or voles or shrews as they've emerged to feed on sunflower seeds knocked down or dropped by the birds and squirrels at the feeders. Mice continue to be caught in the traps we set along the foundation's perimeter inside the lower level and the garage. The mice would be much better off if they'ed settle for the sunflower seeds. 🌻

Look carefully. See the tracks and tunnel tops?

Photo by J. Harrington

Another way that we know we have an abundance of small rodents (in addition to pocket gophers and squirrels) is that sometimes the conditions are such that their tracks and tunnels are quite visible. We had such conditions the first week of this month. That's when we took the photo below. The location is the area behind the garage and kitty-corner from the sunflower seed feeders hanging on the house's rear deck. As the snow melted, the tunnels imploded (collapsed?) leaving behind what look like paths worn into the snow by fairies or elves.

Sigurd says not good-bye but "Au revoir!"

Photo by J. Harrington

Sigurd has returned to his place north of Ely until Christmas season comes again. We'll miss him, his canoe, and his breath of fresh air from the North Country. Meanwhile, we've a new version of artisan sourdough bread in the oven and have to sign off for now. Some of you might have been expecting a rant in response to last nights broadcast from the Oval Office. Read today's poem to learn why there's no rant here. We're trying a new approach with this new year.

Good Bones

Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

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Soon, a quiet season

More blue skies and sunshine. Early Christmas present? Most of the old time Minnesotans we know would claim that "we'll pay for this." To which we say "Not if the Yellowstone super volcano gets us first." Of course, that kind of attitude is exactly the opposite of the middle class, delayed gratification our parents tried to instill in us. We're old enough to remember when "middle class" was more defined by values than income. Those were the days!

These days, except for birds (and squirrels) at the feeders, there's been precious little critter activity. Goldfinches are back after an extended absence but we haven't even seen Runny Babbit for quite a while. We've seen nary a turkey for weeks nor a whitetail since the trio fed on the pumpkins under the pear tree more than a week ago. We're not sure if it's something we said or ...?

Winter cottontail, a.k.a. Runny Babbit

Photo by J. Harrington

On the home front, we haven't quite finished our Christmas shopping, but we think we can see the end of the list from here. This is a good thing, with Christmas only ten days away. We're looking forward to the quiet time that comes after Christmas. It's nicely described by Joanna Van Der Hoeven in her Zen for Druids:

This is the time of the shortest day and the longest night, and the shift out of the deepest darkness towards lengthening days with more sunlight occurs. In Britain, where the days can be terribly short, especially on dark, overcast wintry days, this shift towards the light half of the year is very remarkable and special for some people, not least those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is a time of darkness, of quiet contemplation and family. Bringing sprigs of greenery into the home to decorate the hearth and integrate the natural world with the inner sanctums, and the giving of gifts that is now traditional at this time of year, strengthens the family and community bonds. It is a time for rest, as the earth lays dormant, seeds waiting below ground for the return of the sun even as the cold winds blow.

"as the earth lays dormant"

Photo by J. Harrington

This reminds us that we need to do some research during our quiet time, to see if it makes a difference whether we spread the wildflower seeds we have late in the Winter on top of the snow, or early in the Winter beneath most of the snow. That should be an interesting quest, to see if there is an available answer. We're hoping to do more than feed the field mice and the shrews that tunnel through the snow.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

Anne Boyer

The coven of bison
          brought here as wishes
                    bore 80 million calves
                              in a year
                              This was the epicenter of the nursery
                              of the palace of the monument
                              of the battlefield
of the resurrection of the biome—
170 million acres aggressively
                                      self-returfing &
            a new state slogan:
                        AD ASTRA
                        THE TALL GRASS
                                 PER ASPERA
                                 ITS REVENGE
The public-private partnership¹
          was lesser prairie chickens & very large cats.
Even the sky could hear the wolves returning.
The grasshoppers were strategists.
The Koch brothers melted plows.

---

¹ After decades of contention between park advocates and local agribusiness activists, in 1996 a unique public-private partnership was formed to create a tallgrass prairie preserve in Kansas on one of the few undisturbed patches of tallgrass prairie left in North America. In less than a decade, the park fell onto hard times as the private wing of the mostly private public-private partnership could no longer financially sustain it. The preserve looked like it was going to have to be sold. Then the Nature Conservatory, led by a former managing director of Goldman Sachs and assisted by a $1 million dollar gift from Wichita’s Koch brothers, took over. They introduced thirteen bison to the Kansas prairie to unexpected results. The bison quickly returned to their pre-Columbian population. After a controlled burn of the entire great plains in the spring of 2019, the tall grass prairie ecosystem of the U.S. restored itself from tap roots that had lain dormant at the earth’s core since John Deere invented the steel plow in 1838. The interior U.S. radically depopulated as prairie dog colonies caused irreparable damage to the infrastructure of its cities and towns.

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Solstice blues?

As we approach the longest night of the year in the Northern hemisphere, we have been encountering unusual, if not downright aberrant, behavior by emissaries of our local wildlife. It began, or at least we first noticed it, several days ago. We had filled the front sunflower seed feeder the day before and the next day it was almost empty. Usually, the front feeder is good for five to seven days feedings between fillings. Wondering if the birds knew of an impending storm we hadn't heard about, we refilled the large tube feeder.

feeder pole on the ground after whitetail attack last Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law stopped by. The Son-In-Law mentioned that, as they pulled in, they had scared a large whitetail deer away from the front feeder. We had a problem last Spring when one of the local herd bent the feeder pole and knocked the feeder to the ground. That time there had been tracks on soft, wet ground. This time the frozen ground, despite snow cover, displayed no evidence except a large distribution of sunflower seeds on the ground.

We've become accustomed to bringing the feeders in at night in Springtime, as the bears come our of hibernation looking for snacks. Bringing feeders in at night during the Winter because of whitetails adds a whole layer of irritation that may require serious reconsideration or reconfiguration of maintaining front feeders in addition to those on the back deck.

Speaking of the back, on our little patch of sandplain, we have not one but two separate eruptions of pocket gopher mounds that we've noticed in the last couple of days. Remember that we mentioned the frozen, snow-covered ground not showing deer tracks. If the ground is frozen, how is it that the pocket gopher are doing all their digging and mound making? We suspect if we tried to dig into one of their tunnels with a shovel, so we could set gopher traps, we'd find the ground is too frozen for human digging, absent a backhoe, which defeats the whole purpose.

last Winter's Solstice "bonfire"

Photo by J. Harrington

Is this all part of a new normal in the Anthropocene? Is this part of nature's revenge? In the quarter century or so that we've lived here, never before have we noticed new gopher mounds in the Winter, nor, with the exception of last Spring, have creatures other than bears and squirrels attacked our bird feeders. If anyone thinks they have a good idea of what's going on, please feel free to use the comment box. This is making us a little twitchy.

On the other hand, the sun is shining, we've passed through another spell of single-digit mornings to milder temperatures, a number of raptors appear to have arrived from Northern outposts and the Better Half is baking Christmas cookies. Before we get too unhinged we'll enjoy a spell of the good things in life.

Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today

By Emily Jungmin Yoon

I read a Korean poem

with the line “Today you are the youngest

you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest

I have been. Today we drink

buckwheat tea. Today I have heat

in my apartment. Today I think

about the word chada in Korean.

It means cold. It means to be filled with. 

It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.

Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.

My heart knocks on my skin. Someone said

winter has broken his windows. The heat inside

and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.

Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today

it fills with you. The window in my room

is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say. It’s tea. 

We drink. It is cold outside.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.