A fish in hand is worth....

Thanks to an invitation from the Son-In-Law and Granddaughter, I went fishing yesterday. My (not quite 4 year old) Granddaughter outfished me, I’m pleased to announce. In the time I was with them, she caught (and released) one sunfish while I, using a popping bug, had two strikes. Neither of the fish who took a swipe was big enough to get its mouth around a bluegill bug. I should have changed to a smaller fly but wasn’t sure I would be able to see it in the small waves that covered the lakes surface.

one of these might have been better than the popper

Photo by J. Harrington

Although I was outfished and came home empty handed, I accomplished several worthwhile objectives. First, I established I haven’t entirely forgotten how to cast a fly, even into a 10 mph (gusting to 15) headwind, despite a distressing lack of casting exercise over the past couple of years. Second, I demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that I know how to undo a “wind knot” in a leader, created by not being careful with my backcast into the aforementioned wind. Finally, I reconfirmed that the fun is in the fishing at least as much as in the catching. Now I need to haul myself off to a local trout stream and check out how my wading skills are holding up despite a lack of use. I will wait until the wind is topping out at 10 mph or less for that exercise. Today’s 20+ mph breeze is more than I can cope with.

Fishing Before You Know How to Fish

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2574

Through the pines and the one maple I hear her.

I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish.

I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish.

There she stands

legs impossibly long

pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy

pole in her hands

and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook.

I don’t tell her, but I do think

Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that.

Fishing before you know how to fish.

Leaving before you know how to leave.

Speaking before you know how to speak.

Fighting before you know how to fight.

Loving before you know how to love.

Dying before you know how to die.

We are all the child with the pole

worrying about who we’ve hurt.

And we are all the fish on the hook,

hoping for mercy.

Her aunt hears her muttering prayer

and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years

grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands

and dislodges metal from cheek.

And this, too, is all of us.

Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying

and a witness we forgot was listening.

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Feeding you a line?

I saw a report today on social media that someone in or around Madison, WI saw Canada geese flying north. A different report from east-central Minnesota noted maple tree sap is flowing. I’d be more concerned but nature has been around for a lot longer than we have and I suspect Mother will sort it all out with or without us. More likely without us if we persist in our hubris.

The local ten day forecast has us close to seasonable high temperatures in the low 30’s by Valentine’s Day. We’ll have to wait and see what comes after that. Meanwhile, I’ve collaborated with the Better Half and we have her fly rods and reels sorted and organized. Now it’s time for me to tackle the morass that my gear has become. Maybe by week’s end (this or next) I’ll be joyfully reporting that the rods, reels and lines have been matched and lists made of options. I don’t think I’ve developed a moderate case of OCD as much as I’ve gotten tired of spending as much time as I do finding what I want in a reasonable period of time. It’s sort of my own version of the troubles caused by deferred maintenance. Or, if you prefer and are old enough, think about the aggravation finding "tab A to go in slot B and be held with screw D.”

do I really need one of each?

Photo by J. Harrington

Life was simpler when ninety-nine percent of my fly fishing was only for bluegills and pumpkinseeds. Trout are somewhat more selective and the water types in which they feed vary a lot more. Plus the types and shapes of fly lines have increased by leaps and bounds, or something like that. To borrow and corrupt a phrase, that’s what makes horse races, although I’m coming to believe it’s also what increases dependency on technologies rather than building personal skills. I don’t want to give you the impression I believe having options and choices is a bad thing, but I vaguely remember being a kid with a nickel in a penny candy store faced with what seemed like impossible decisions and again when the ice cream flavor choices expanded from vanilla or chocolate to twenty-six flavors.

Balance

By Alice B. Fogel

Balance is everything, is the only

way to hold on.

I've weighed the alternatives, the hold

as harbor: It isn't safe

to let go. But consider the hover,

choices made, the moment

between later and too late.

Hesitation is later, regret

too late. You can't keep turning

and turning, or expecting

to return. This earth

is not a wheel, it is a rock

that erodes, mountain by mountain.

And I have been too soft,

like sandstone, but there is a point

where I stand without a story,

immutable and moved, solid

as a breath in winter air.

I have seen my death and I know

it is my neighbor, my brother,

my keeper. In my life

I am going to keep trying

for the balance,

remembering the risks and the value

of extremes, and that experience

teaches the length of allowable lean;

that it is easier — and wiser —

to balance a stone as if on one toe

though it weigh a hundred pounds

than to push it back against the curve

of its own world.

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Damn dams, don’t damn fisheries!

 I think I’ve mentioned that I’m a Trout Unlimited member involved in fundraising and related efforts in support of removing two dams on the Kinnickinnic River in River Falls, WI. Much background on that effort can be found at the Kinni Corridor Collaborative web site.

part of Kinnickinnic River restoration

Photo by J. Harrington

Although restoration of a free-flowing Kinni is important, I don’t believe there are threatened or endangered species involved, unlike a situation involving Atlantic salmon in Maine, back in my native New England. In a message I recently received, Trout Unlimited asked:

Did you know that wild Atlantic salmon are on the brink of extinction in U.S. waters? Salmon once returned to rivers from Connecticut through Maine by the hundreds of thousands. Today, fewer than 1,000 salmon return to just a few rivers in Maine.

Our best chance to save this majestic species is to remove four aging dams on the Kennebec River. Right now, federal agencies are weighing that very question, providing what is likely our last opportunity to restore a self-sustaining run of Atlantic salmon (and other important migratory species) to the Kennebec watershed.

Please join TU in urging federal fisheries officials to save our salmon by decommissioning those dams and allowing the lower Kennebec River to flow free to the sea once again.

Learn more

More and more research is supporting the physical and mental health benefits of fishing. To attain those benefits, folks need someplace to go fishing. The Kinni offers the prospect of adding miles of Class 1 trout water in a city in a large metropolitan area, the Twin Cities. Among most fly fishers, Atlantic salmon are a prized quarry. Let’s not find ourselves bemoaning the truth of Joni Mitchell’s lyrics:

Don't it always seem to go 
That you don't know what you've got 
Till it's gone 

Elegy ["I think by now the river must be thick"]

By Natasha Trethewey

For my father

I think by now the river must be thick

        with salmon. Late August, I imagine it

as it was that morning: drizzle needling

        the surface, mist at the banks like a net

settling around us — everything damp

        and shining. That morning, awkward

and heavy in our hip waders, we stalked

        into the current and found our places —

you upstream a few yards and out

        far deeper. You must remember how

the river seeped in over your boots

        and you grew heavier with that defeat.

All day I kept turning to watch you, how

        first you mimed our guide's casting

then cast your invisible line, slicing the sky

        between us; and later, rod in hand, how

you tried — again and again — to find

        that perfect arc, flight of an insect

skimming the river's surface. Perhaps

        you recall I cast my line and reeled in

two small trout we could not keep.

        Because I had to release them, I confess,

I thought about the past — working

        the hooks loose, the fish writhing

in my hands, each one slipping away

        before I could let go. I can tell you now

that I tried to take it all in, record it

        for an elegy I'd write — one day —

when the time came. Your daughter,

        I was that ruthless. What does it matter

if I tell you I learned to be? You kept casting

        your line, and when it did not come back

empty, it was tangled with mine. Some nights,

        dreaming, I step again into the small boat

that carried us out and watch the bank receding —

        my back to where I know we are headed. 

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Whose environment is it? Ours!

 I recently watched a presentation by a fisheries biologist regarding the fishing pressures and fish stock structure of a nearby trout stream. The essence of the presentation was that the current fishing regulations include a possession limit of 3 fish and a minimum size of 12 inches. The majority of fish in the stream are in the six to ten inch class. To improve the fishery structure [to what end?], the preference is to change the regulations to a maximum size of 12 inches and a possession limit of five fish.

trout stream? polluted? who’d know?

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve read about other fisheries where the biologists claim that an overabundance of smaller panfish precludes the ability of the habitat to produce fewer, bigger fish. I believe I understand the concepts involved but I have major doubts that the fisheries folks have clearly enough defined the problem they’re trying to solve to be confident their proposed solutions will work without generating unintended consequences in today’s world, a world in which “New research from Stockholm University found that the levels of PFAS in rainwater now exceed levels deemed safe by health and environment advisory agencies.” 

For example, recent stories about PFAS/PFOS in fish indicate more and more of our environment has become contaminated. Other articles note just how ubiquitous those contaminants have become. For example, Minnesota’s Fish Consumption Advisory [FCA] goes on for 25 pages, mostly because of mercury contamination, but we’ve been sampling for mercury much longer and probably more extensively than for PFOS. According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency:

PFAS testing began in Minnesota’s lakes and streams in 2004, which has led to fish-consumption advisories due to perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) levels in fish tissue. PFOS is just one of the almost 5,000 PFAS chemicals. Continued monitoring is needed; many Minnesota lakes and streams that are potentially contaminated by PFAS have not been tested.

Please note that the FCA is issued by the Health Department, the water quality is overseen by the MNPCA and fishing regualtions are set by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Presumably, many other states, and the federal government, have a plethora of agencies involved in the permitting of intermedia transfer of pollutants that ultimately end up in our bodies and cause health issues for which each of us must pay for treatment. This state of affairs is yet another reason citizens should be able to petition for the termination of corporate charters so remediation costs don’t just continue as a cost of business (See, e..g., fossil fuel industry.)

If you’re reading this and you live, work or play in Minnesota, you might want to let your state legislators know how you feel about a bill to ban nonessential use of PFAS. Here’s some background that includes a link for contacting your legislators.

There It Is

By Jayne Cortez

My friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist  a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will try to exploit you

absorb you  confine you

disconnect you  isolate you

or kill you

And you will disappear into your own rage

into your own insanity

into your own poverty

into a word a phrase a slogan a cartoon

and then ashes

The ruling class will tell you that

there is no ruling class

as they organize their liberal supporters into

white supremacist lynch mobs

organize their children into

ku klux klan gangs

organize their police into

killer cops

organize their propaganda into

a device to ossify us with angel dust

preoccupy us with western symbols in

african hair styles

inoculate us with hate

institutionalize us with ignorance

hypnotize us with a monotonous sound designed

to make us evade reality and stomp our lives away

And we are programmed to self-destruct

to fragment

to get buried under covert intelligence operations of

unintelligent committees impulsed toward death

And there it is

The enemies polishing their penises between

oil wells at the pentagon

the bulldozers leaping into demolition dances

the old folks dying of starvation

the informers wearing out shoes looking for crumbs

the life blood of the earth almost dead in

the greedy mouth of imperialism

And my friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist  a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will spray you with

a virus of legionnaire's disease

fill your nostrils with

the swine flu of their arrogance

stuff your body into a tampon of

toxic shock syndrome

try to pump all the resources of the world

into their own veins

and fly off into the wild blue yonder to

pollute another planet

And if we don't fight

if we don't resist

if we don't organize and unify and

get the power to control our own lives

Then we will wear

the exaggerated look of captivity

the stylized look of submission

the bizarre look of suicide

the dehumanized look of fear

and the decomposed look of repression

forever and ever and ever

And there it is

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Move for reconsideration!

The longer I live, the more it becomes evident to me that the world in which we live is imperfect, as am I. Despite that growing awareness, or perhaps because of it, I continue to struggle with the question of how to live happily and effectively in such a world. The question has been compounded by the growing affects of climate weirding, diminishment of biodiversity, increasing levels and types of global pollution, viral pandemics, and continuing failures of human institutions to effectively respond to events that present existential threats to our future as a viable species.

Consideration of our foundational documents offers little help. On the one hand, we are seeing increasing fragmentation of the values which once bound US together as a nation. We also have laws against the overthrow of our government(s). And yet the Declaration of Independence unequivocally states

... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness ...

SCOTUS has found that corporations should enjoy personhood and that money is speech. And yet, corporations are not subject to any death penalty, as are the rest of US persons, and corporate executives are heavily shielded from the consequences of wrong-doing in their jobs. As a result, we are faced with reports describing situations such as

a new study from Stockholm University reports the amount of PFAS in rainwater exceeds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Lifetime Drinking Water Health Advisory levels. Researchers also found rainwater is often above Environmental Quality Standard for Inland European Union Surface Water. 

I’ve not yet seen criminal charges associated with such findings, have you? Doesn’t such a condition effect your “Safety and Happiness,” especially if you enjoy fishing and hope to be able to safely consume any success from your angling, only to learn

A new study by Environmental Working Group scientists finds that consumption of just a single serving of freshwater fish per year could be equal to a month of drinking water laced with the “forever chemical” PFOS at high levels that may be harmful.

Is it safe to eat fish from this stream? Are you sure?

Photo by J. Harrington

All of the preceding is before we begin to consider whether our taxing and policing systems are at all equitable, whether our education systems teach values of which we can be proud, and why  we  have one of the more expensive and less effective “health care” systems in the developed world. Finally, it seems as though the situation isn’t significantly improved no matter who we vote for. It’s not the economy, stupid, it’s the stupid systems and the more stupid people who continue to support them. If money only buys US polluted food and water, what good is it?

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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Celebrate Rivers! Water Is Life!

Today is World Rivers Day. Here in the US, we have an abundance of rivers but less and less an abundance of clean water, and, with climate change, many of our rivers are running dry.

US Rivers

Yesterday I promised some resources on Minnesota’s rivers. Here they are:

• A Primer on Minnesota’s Rivers
• Minnesota’s federal Wild and Scenic River
• Minnesota’s Rivers and Streams resources
• Minnesota’s Watershed Districts

Watersheds often form the core of a bioregion.

Rivers and watersheds are the responsibility of an extremely fragmented array of governmental entities, making holistic management almost impossible. As our environmental crises continue to become more serious, fragmented approaches will become more problematic in adapting to and minimizing those crises.

In the US, the American Rivers organization and Trout Unlimited are doing an abundance of good work to protect, restore, reconnect, and sustain our rivers and streams.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is responsible for the water quality in our rivers and streams. There’s lots of room for improvement. The screen shot below identifies in red the rivers and streams that fail to meet water quality standards.

Minnesota’s Impaired Waters

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

********************************************
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Today’s at least a twofer

Today is National Public Lands Day. It’s also National Hunting and Fishing Day. We were pleased to see that the White House Proclamation [check prior link] directly links the two days.

Hunting and fishing also play a large role in funding conservation efforts, for example through fishing licenses and Duck Stamps — works of art that for nearly a century have helped protect habitats for birds and other wildlife. 

According to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service:

Funds from an 11 percent excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition [Internal Revenue Code of 1954, sec. 4161(b)] are appropriated to the Secretary of the Interior and apportioned to States on a formula basis for paying up to 75 percent of the cost approved projects. Project activities include acquisition and improvement of wildlife habitat, introduction of wildlife into suitable habitat, research into wildlife problems, surveys and inventories of wildlife problems, acquisition and development of access facilities for public use, and hunter education programs, including construction and operation of public target ranges.

Public Law 91-503, approved October 23, 1970, (84 Stat. 1097) added provisions for the deposit of the 10 percent tax on pistols and revolvers, one-half of which may be used by the States for hunter safety programs. This amendment also provided for development of comprehensive fish and wildlife management plans as an optional means for participating in the program, and changed the maximum limit from $10,000 to one-half percent for Puerto Rico and to one-sixth percent for the Virgin Islands and Guam.

On October 25, 1972, the Act was further amended by P.L. 92-558 (86 Stat. 1172) to add provisions for the deposit of the 11-percent excise tax on bows, arrows, and their parts and accessories for use in wildlife projects or hunter safety programs.

Driftless Area Red Cabin Site

Photo by J. Harrington

Many Minnesotans, especially from the Twin Cities area, fish for trout in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Federal funds help support habitat projects such as at the Red Cabin Site. In fact, the kinds of efforts that  have been going on in the Driftless Area have helped to shape Trout Unlimited’s updated strategic plan. Those who hunt and fish have long been willing to contribute to the preservation and restoration of the habitat, on both public and private lands, needed to support fish and wildlife and nongame populations such as pollinators and  songbirds.

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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Way too little, way too late! Why?

Slightly more than a year from now, on October 18, 2022, we will observe the 50th anniversary of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, Public Law 92-500, which became effective after the Senate, and then the House, overrode then President Nixon's veto.

National goals were stated in Title I, Section 101, including these:

 " (1) it is the national Goal that the discharge of pollutants into
 the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985;
 " (2) it is the national goal that wherever attainable, an interim
 goal of water quality which provides for the protection and
 propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provides for recrea-
 tion in and on the water be achieved by July 1,1983;
 " (3) it is the national policy that the discharge of toxic pollut-
 ants in toxic amounts be prohibited;

Follow this link to view Minnesota's draft 2020 Impaired Waters List map. According to the Star Tribune, 56% of Minnesota's waters fail to attain water quality standards. It's unnecessary to emphasize that, decades later, Minnesota, and probably all states, are far from attaining any of the goals adopted in 1972.

Sunrise River flowing towards the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

If you wonder why this country, one of the richest in today's world, is failing miserably to meet its commitments on greenhouse gas reduction, adaptation measures to respond to the effects of climate breakdown, or other environmental responsibilities, you need look no further than our abysmal track record at protecting and restoring that with which we cannot live without, water
.

California is considering adopting its own version of the Clean Water Act, since an estimated 95% of that state's waters are in impaired status. Meanwhile, members of the Minnesota legislature continue to insist that our environmental requirements are "most stringent." If that's so, why haven't we attained the 1983 goal and how much longer do we expect it to take? How about a major effort to document, fifty years later, where, precisely we stand and what it will take to belatedly meet those goals. Or, Minnesota could continue to follow the lead of those bastions of progressiveness like Iowa or the Dakotas.

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

********************************************
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Accepting imperfection

In my younger days, decades ago, I sometimes drove to Idaho in the Summer. At the time I had in-laws who Summered in Rexburg, ID. It took some research and adjustment to recognize that about this time of year snowmelt still had many Idaho trout streams high and discolored. It wasn't until July or later that the flows moderated to "fishable" conditions.

these flies still need to get wet

Photo by J. Harrington

As today's posting is being written, about 25 or 50 miles+/- East or West in a storm track stands between us, our local trout streams (the ones we've been trying to get to for weeks now), and either about .25 inches or 3 to 5 inches of rain tonight and tomorrow. Rain in the higher amounts may well despoil local fishing for a week or two, or more.

a trout stream at a fishable level

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, I'm once again in a mode of studying wabi sabi, a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.  I'm hoping any serious imperfections in the fishability of our trout streams will be transient. (I know that's not how it's "supposed" to work, but, if the sandal fits, ....) Thursday, Friday, and the upcoming weekend look to offer ideal weather. I hereby commit to fitting in at least two trips, even if brief and imperfect, between now and Monday, the Ides of June. If I'm successful, there will be some photos of at least one stream. Any trout photos will be  icing on a cake yet to be baked.

In lieu of our usual poem, please accept the following as one of the better prose poems ever written by a fisherman. Background on the poem and its author can be found here.

Testament of a Fisherman

I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly. Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape. Because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing what they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion. Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed, or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility, and endless patience. Because I suspect that men are going this way for the last time and I for one don’t want to waste the trip. Because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters. Because in the woods I can find solitude without loneliness. … And finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important, but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant and not nearly so much fun.

— Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman

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Late Winter, time to go with the flow...

We did get out yesterday and found open, running water, right where we had left it, in one of the small tributaries of the St. Croix River. Although the St. Croix itself is ice and snow covered, it was a joy to see the sparkle and hear the burble of the feeder stream. We're not sure if the creek we visited actually hosts a sucker run or not. We'll check back in a couple of months or so and see if we can learn anything. According to the St. Croix 360 blog/web site, the St. Croix is home to 14 species of suckers, buffalo or redhorse (and many other fish species also).

looking upstream

Photo by J. Harrington

After satisfying our need to see and hear moving water, we headed for Coffee Talk in Taylors Falls, where we treated the Better Half to a cappuccino, enjoyed sitting in the sunshine of the bay windows, and then were off to Wild River State Park where we bought this year's Minnesota State Parks vehicle sticker for the Jeep. Other than the open water and the sunshine, we didn't come across any noticeable signs of impending Spring, although we did notice a couple of wild turkeys trudging through a snow-covered field and, several miles further on, a rooster pheasant pecking gravel at roadside. With more snow in the local forecast tomorrow and this coming weekend, it's shaping up as a tough Spring for local wildlife. There's growing numbers of deer trails/tracks in the snow behind the house. It looks like they're visiting the brush pile seeking possible browse. Life can be tough when you're in the midst of a February that may set a local record for all-time snowiest.

looking downstream

Photo by J. Harrington

The River

By Jim Harrison

Yes, we'll gather by the river,

the beautiful, the beautiful river.

They say it runs by the throne of God.

This is where God invented fish.

Wherever, but then God's throne is as wide

as the universe. If you're attentive you'll

see the throne's borders in the stars. We're on this side

and when you get to the other side we don't know

what will happen if anything. If nothing happens

we won't know it, I said once. Is that cynical?

No, nothing is nothing, not upsetting just

nothing. Then again maybe we'll be cast

at the speed of light through the universe

to God's throne. His hair is bounteous.

All the 5,000 birds on earth were created there.

The firstborn cranes, herons, hawks, at the back

so as not to frighten the little ones.

Even now they remember this divine habitat.

Shall we gather at the river, this beautiful river?

We'll sing with the warblers perched on his eyelashes.

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On the eve of President's Day

The day night after tomorrow's brings February's full moon. According to some reports it will be the biggest, brightest moon (supermoon) for several years to come. Some Anishnaabe refer to it as sucker moon (namebini-giizis). Others refer to February's full moon as bear moon (MKWA GIIZIS) and call April's full moon the sucker moon. Regardless of the name, we're looking forward to seeing it and maybe getting a picture or two if the sky is clear enough.

a February full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Suckers, the fish, run in April, not February. Black bears give birth to cubs in February. There's a partial explanation of the differencese in naming moons among the Ojibwe to be found on the ojibwe.net months and moons page. Thinking about suckers running makes us think about open water running. We haven't been to any of the feeder streams flowing to the St. Croix River for months and months. Tomorrow is a holiday. A trip to look at and listen to open, running, water, followed by a cup of coffee at a local coffee shop, seems like a great way to honor the first 44 presidents of the country. Number 45 seems hell-bent to destroy whatever good is left in this nation, so we'll leave him off a list of those we honor tomorrow. As of today, it is 624 days until the next presidential election.

open water, running water, sucker water?

Photo by J. Harrington

A New National Anthem

Ada Limón, 1976

The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National
Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good
song. Too high for most of us with “the rockets’
red glare” and then there are the bombs.
(Always, always there is war and bombs.)
Once, I sang it at homecoming and threw
even the tenacious high school band off key.
But the song didn’t mean anything, just a call
to the field, something to get through before
the pummeling of youth. And what of the stanzas
we never sing, the third that mentions “no refuge
could save the hireling and the slave”? Perhaps
the truth is that every song of this country
has an unsung third stanza, something brutal
snaking underneath us as we blindly sing
the high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands
hoping our team wins. Don’t get me wrong, I do
like the flag, how it undulates in the wind
like water, elemental, and best when it’s humbled,
brought to its knees, clung to by someone who
has lost everything, when it’s not a weapon,
when it flickers, when it folds up so perfectly
you can keep it until it’s needed, until you can
love it again, until the song in your mouth feels
like sustenance, a song where the notes are sung
by even the ageless woods, the shortgrass plains,
the Red River Gorge, the fistful of land left
unpoisoned, that song that’s our birthright,
that’s sung in silence when it’s too hard to go on,
that sounds like someone’s rough fingers weaving
into another’s, that sounds like a match being lit
in an endless cave, the song that says my bones
are your bones, and your bones are my bones,
and isn’t that enough?

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Divided and conquered?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] has been in the news recently, particularly in regard to its article 5, "collective self-defence." We've been watching increased attacks on America's public lands and waters recently and have seen, in response, a growing number of coalitions, groups, businesses and individuals come together to support our public lands and waters. We also have seen a number of reports on how folks like the Koch brothers have been funding and taking a long view on undermining what many would consider fundamental democratic values to benefit the 1% at the top. That, and other factors like recent election outcomes, have made us wonder if it could be time, and might be possible, to create a NATO for the United State's public lands and waters. It would include, but not be limited to such organizations as:

Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development, a coalition of more than 500 businesses, organizations and individuals dedicated to conserving irreplaceable habitats so future generations can hunt and fish on America's public lands. The coalition is led by the National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimitedand the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers seeks to ensure North America's outdoor heritage of hunting and fishing in a natural setting, through education and work on behalf of wild public lands and waters. There's a Minnesota Chapter working to protect the Boundary Waters from the proposed Twin Metals mine.

Pategonia supports, among other grantees, Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, which seeks to protect and preserve wilderness and to advocate for the protection of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

There are numerous other businesses, organizations and individuals who support protecting our public lands and waters (and air), our commons, our environment, our heritage. Part of being a democracy, it seems to us, is based on the idea that fish and game, and therefore the water and land resources on which fish and game depend, are not property of the king but belong to all citizens. It further seems to us that politics has failed us as an institution on which we can rely to protect our commons due in large part to the growing influence of money in and on politics, compounded by decisions like Citizens United.

One way we can respond is collectively. In fact, that may be the only way we can effectively respond, since both American and Russian oligarchs, and too many politicians, have benefited by setting us to fighting amongst ourselves. If we can learn to work together and speak with a united voice about our common interests, outdoor enthusiasts and environmentalists may be able to protect the common base on which we all depend. It needs protection from, among others, mining, fracking, free riders, pipelines and other "commons carriers." Isn't it time to join together to defend what we share in commons, and then we'll talk about how we divvy up the shares afterwards?

[UPDATE: Hunters, hikers unite to protect beloved public lands, waters, Denver Post 7/23/18]

I Went into the Maverick Bar

By Gary Snyder

I went into the Maverick Bar   

In Farmington, New Mexico.

And drank double shots of bourbon

                         backed with beer.

My long hair was tucked up under a cap

I’d left the earring in the car.

Two cowboys did horseplay

                         by the pool tables,

A waitress asked us

                         where are you from?

a country-and-western band began to play   

“We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie”   

And with the next song,

                         a couple began to dance.

They held each other like in High School dances   

                         in the fifties;

I recalled when I worked in the woods

                         and the bars of Madras, Oregon.   

That short-haired joy and roughness—

                         America—your stupidity.   

I could almost love you again.

We left—onto the freeway shoulders—

                         under the tough old stars—

In the shadow of bluffs

                         I came back to myself,

To the real work, to

                         “What is to be done.”

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We're not blowing prairie smoke, Mother's Day is Sunday! #phenology

If we waited 'til Sunday to remind you, and you hadn't remembered yourself in time to get a card and present, you'd have good reason to fuss at us, so consider yourself reminded and you're welcome.

Last year, by the end of May, our local patch of blooming prairie smoke had passed peak. Today in that same patch we found one flower bud emerging where a week or so ago there was nothing but base leaves. If the weather cooperates and we check more regularly than once a week, we may be able to photograph peak bloom this year. It would have been nice if they had bloomed in time for Mother's Day but that's not happening locally this year.

prairie smoke blooming, late May 2017

Photo by J. Harrington

One of Minnesota's fundamental seasonal milestones will occur this weekend. No, silly, we're not referring to Mother's Day, but to Walleye Opener. Since walleye are Minnesota's state fish (in Massachusetts, it's the cod), we're surprised that the state constitution hasn't been amended to require the legislative session end before walleye opener. Seasons for trout in streams open earlier, usually in April. Bass seasons open closer to Memorial Day. Neither generates the attention that walleye "fishing" opener does. Personally, our preferences lean toward trout and bass, each of which is more susceptible to being caught on a fly. Walleye have a decided preference for bait. (Since both walleye and wild rice, the state grain, depend on clean water, we'd think the legislature might be a little more sensitive about messing with water quality standards. Maybe someday!)

The Better Half informed us yesterday that the periwinkles on the slope behind the house have started to bloom. We haven't had chance to look for ourselves yet but we need to be careful when pulling buckthorn on that slope to minimize damage to the periwinkles. Before we start pulling the larger buckthorn plants, we need to change the oil in the tractor. The pleasures of warmer weather in Minnesota are sometimes tempered.

Since this weekend is also Mother's Day, may all of us born of and partnered with a mother be sure to honor them without being too fishy about it. We'll share this poem because it mentions periwinkles and soon it will be too late to reference early Spring this year.

Lines Written in Early Spring

William Wordsworth, 1770- 1850

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;                         
And ‘tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played:
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.                              

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

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