In some cultures, Spring is almost here

We've entered what is typically the coldest period of the year here in the North Country. I'm hoping Mother Nature and the Fates will be kind this year so we don''t have to wait until Spring for ICE OUT. Meanwhile, paperwork that let's us know we've entered tax season has started to arrive, along with junk mail. Can you tell this is not my favorite time of year? On the other hand, at least there's lots to look forward to during in January and February, like the return of melting and growing and waterfowl. We just have to hang in there.

winter is also sourdough bread season

Photo by J. Harrington

In the interim, the Better Half has three (Christmas) amaryllis plants with multiple blossoms now on two of them and the third coming along more slowly. Plus, one of her windowsill orchids is flowering! But, the lavender plant I got for Christmas seems "under the weather" due to lack of sufficient sunshine and ambient indoor temperatures five to ten degrees cooler than ideal. (Our downstairs is always cooler during heating season since heat rises.) I honestly can't remember an extended period of cloudiness like we've had for the past several months. I'd move the lavender upstairs but the sunny windowsills are full already with amaryllis and orchids.

If we were wise enough to follow more of the old Druid traditions, in a couple of weeks we'd be celebrating Imbolc on February 1. That's the first of three "Spring" festivals and arrives a couple of weeks ahead of Valentines Day. I'm going to polish my ""of Irish extraction" credentials and get ready to celebrate and enjoy Imbolc this year. That feels like it fits nicely with rereading Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild, as I started to do yesterday.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus said each morning at roll call on Hill Street Blues: "Let's be careful out there," especially as long as Minnesota is territory occupied by hostile forces.

Imbolc by Damh the Bard

As the dark, cold morning gives way to light,
And the world shows its face dazzling in her nakedness,
So the twigs and leaf-bare branches,
Bow to the passing dance
Of old Jack Frost.
His crystal breath on the earth,
And the corners of houses weep icicles of joy.
But where is the Sun’s warmth?
Where is life?
A small flower, delicate and pure-white,
Looks to the earth,
As if talking to the waiting green,
“Not yet,” it seems to whisper.
“When I fall, then you can return.”
And she nods her head,
as the Lady passes by,
Leaving more flowers in Her wake

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Weather, or not

Another day with some episodes of freezing drizzle and rain. Side roads are sloppy and slippery. If AI is the upcoming thing, why aren't our weather forecasts more accurate and internally consistent? It looks like we've got a January thaw lined up for much of the week ahead, except for periods of fog or freezing rain showers or freezing drizzle.

The Christmas tree and almost all the decorations came down today. Usually we wait until the Feast of the Epiphany, but this year that occurs tomorrow so we're declaring "Close enough." Now it's time to settle in and hunker down until Spring, which too often arrives some time in May around here. If you're getting the impression that I don't approve of the weather aberrations and bizarre volatility that may well be related to "global warming," you're very perceptive. Tuesday or Wednesday this past week the mid-morning temperature was 15℉, a light rain, not snow, was falling and freezing on the windshield and wiper blades of my Jeep. That's far from normal around here.

a "Christmas" amaryllis in January bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

On a brighter note, the Better Half has three amaryllises close to blooming. I was fussing about their varying development rates until she mentioned they're three different species. I was given a potted lavender plant for Christmas. It's in a south facing window but with our persistently cloudy skies, I doubt it's getting the amount of sunlight it needs to stay healthy. We'll just have to watch and see (and hope for the best).

You're correct that there was not a mention of the current regime, Epstein files, or Venezuela kidnappings. I''m trying to follow the old guidance about "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." But I don''t think it applies to winter weather.

Furry Bear

A. A. Milne

If I were a bear,
   And a big bear too,
I shouldn’t much care
   If it froze or snew;
I shouldn’t much mind
   If it snowed or friz—
I’d be all fur-lined
   With a coat like his!

For I’d have fur boots and a brown fur wrap,
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap.
I’d have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws,
And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws.
With a big brown furry-down up to my head,
I’d sleep all the winter in a big fur bed. 

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O tempora, o mores!*

We got five or six inches of snow late Friday and early Saturday. The birds have been pouring in to the feeders: goldfinches, juncoes, woodpeckers, cardinals, bluejays, nuthatches and chickadees for the most part. My aging shoulders ache from wrestling with the snow blower. Spring can’t arrive soon enough as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, we’re again looking at a week ahead full of days with high temperatures in the single digits, at least according to my smartphone weather app. The Weather Underground outlook is marginally more optimistic.

a forced bulb pot garden in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

On a more pleasant theme, we got an early start baking Irish soda bread this week, instead of waiting until next month for St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve almost finished reading a book the Daughter Person lent me (which the Better Half assures me she read to our kids when they were young): Wise Child by Monica Furlong. I have no memory of it but find the current reading to be delightful. I’ll be curious to see how I react to the other two books in the series. Mentioned previously on these pages has been the forced bulb garden the Better Half gave me for Christmas. Watching it bloom has helped my sanity immeasurably during this interminable winter season. A version from 2023 is shown above.

Despite the goings on in D.C., this is still Black History Month. As a matter of fact, here’s a link to this year’s presidential proclamation announcing it. (I took a screen shot as backup.) Today’s poem feels fitting for all of US during the times and goings on the administration is shoveling on US. I wonder how much “love of country” will be in the air come Friday.

*O tempora, o mores! [click for translation  and explanation]

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

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Chilly outlook for the future?

The temperature probably won’t get above zero before the day after tomorrow. Then flurries are in the forecast for Wednesday. We’re paying a steep price for a little sunshine and blue skies but it’s not as bad as it was in 2019 when we hit -31 at the end of January. Getting back to seasonal highs in the low twenties gives us something to look forward to. I know, I don’t believe I just wrote that either. Spring equinox is still two months from tomorrow. Sigh!

We’ve not yet heard any spring calls from the chick-a-dees or cardinals. Maybe when this cold snap lets go? On a brighter note, the tulips in the “Spring Morning” forced bulb garden the Better Half gave me for Christmas are beginning to bloom. That and the other flowers will help perk me up until the real Spring thing is here.

last January's forced bulb garden

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re planning on a tv-less Monday tomorrow except for weather reports and, possibly, updates on the latest madness at the Minnesota legislature. It seems that, both locally and nationally, politicians are determined to prove the validity of Churchill’s observation:

‘No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

Another bit of good news, at least for me, is that the Daughter Person is now baking her own version oof one of my all-time favorite cookies, white chocolate and cranberries. I’m rationing my consumption to keep from exploding my blood sugar levels, but it’s hard!

This is about the time of year when bear cubs are born while mom is still hibernating. If humans were actually as smart as we like to believe we are, hibernation is a skill we would have acquired long ago.

Furry Bear

A. A. Milne

If I were a bear, 
   And a big bear too, 
I shouldn’t much care 
   If it froze or snew; 
I shouldn’t much mind 
   If it snowed or friz— 
I’d be all fur-lined 
   With a coat like his! 

For I’d have fur boots and a brown fur wrap, 
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap. 
I’d have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws, 
And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws. 
With a big brown furry-down up to my head, 
I’d sleep all the winter in a big fur bed. 

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First it melts, then it flows...

I’m already starting to envision waterfowl, red-winged blackbirds, and sandhill cranes beginning to get restless and warming up for their return flight to northern waters. This afternoon there’s serious melting going on where the sun shines. Although this has been a mild, dry winter so far, it’s also been very cloudy. Sunshine and warmth are a wonderful alternative to what we’ve experienced recently.

a bouquet of forced forsythia blossoms

Photo by J. Harrington

The leaf buds on the maple trees in front of the house are showing the slightest early indications of swelling and adding color, although I don’t expect leaf out for several months. It’s time to keep our eyes open in the  local shops for bunches of forsythia stems we can put in water in the house and force to bloom months before the bushes in the front and back yards flower.

I’m only too aware that the toughest weeks of winter can occur between now and late April. This year I intend to do my best to enjoy a long, leisurely, beautiful spring even if I have to bring it inside to do so. I’m pretty sure I’ll be in better shape to deal with the world’s problems after some concentrated self-car, including bouts of nature bathing. 

A Light exists in Spring

by

Emily Dickinson

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

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Learning to cope & hope

If “learning experience” is what lies between failure and success, that’s what we’ve had with our first boule of sourdough rye bread. It’s still in the oven and part of what we’ve learned is that rye has nowhere near the spring that wheat flour does. The bread will have to cool for some time before we taste test it. One way or another, we’ll report tomorrow. Depending on how it tastes, we’ll be more or less impatient to try again in a near (tastes great) or distant (tastes meh) future.

It’s too soon to tell if next week’s warmer temperatures will be simply a January thaw or may be the start of an early spring. Unfortunately, spring is one of those seasons Minnesota usually makes a mess of. Maybe one in ten fits a classic pattern of gradual warmth and green-up. All too often we experience an extended period in the 50s, a few days in the 60s and then a jump into summer with temperatures in the upper 80s or low 90s. Of course, at the moment, any of those would be a vast improvement over current conditions.

yellow tulips foretell real spring

Photo by J. Harrington

As long as we’re thinking about spring, I hope you enjoy the picture of the yellow tulips. That’s what they looked like yesterday. They’ll bloom some more and other flowers will follow along. Add in some above freezing temperatures next week and my mood may approach exuberant, regardless of pollitical storms on the horizon.

There’s an old joke about a fellow pounding his head on a brick wall. When asked “Why?” he responded “Because it feels so good when I stop.” That’s how I feel about winter in the North Country.

Thaw

Edward Thomas
1878 – 1917

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.

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Winter’s nadir?

While running errands this morning, we saw a sun dog. That means it was very cold and the sun was shining. Sun dogs need cold. Our dogs say they don’t, at least not this cold, this long. It’s getting harder to get them to take care of business because they just want to take a quick sniff around and head back into the warm(er) house. I understand their perspective but don’t expect to get them potty trained in addition to being housebroken, so we’ll continue our walks in the weather.

As I type this, I’m sitting in my arm chair in front of a picture window through which afternoon sun is pouring without any warmth. It’ll take a month or so before we can feel much warmth in sunlight. Meanwhile, I’ll be wearing heavy cardigans during the day and fleece-lined pj’s at night and typing blog posts about the North Country’s bitter, in more ways than one, cold.

If we continue to make progress, tomorrow is the day we can start to lay out fly rods and reels on a freshly cleared pool table so both the Better Half and I can mutually confirm whose is which. We have let playing with our toys deteriorate to the point that we’re not always sure whose rod one of us is about to grab. This isn’t a possessive about possessions concern as much as it is about different casting styles and preferences in line weights and actions. Fly fishing is usually more fun when your cast (my cast) feels good as well as hits the target.

flowers add color to winter

Photo by J. Harrington

As we ponder the eventual arrival of the equinox and the next season in the annual cycle we’re heartened and encouraged by the emergence of at least four bright yellow tulips in our indoor bulb garden, plus a red amaryllis starting to blossom and another starting to emerge from its bulb.

In case any of you are keeping track, the levain for the rye bread was a success although perhaps I “harvested” it too long after it had peaked. It floated nicely, but the dough it’s intended to rise isn’t yet rising. I have hopes than an overnight stay in the warming room (upstairs bath) will prompt it to rise. We’ll see in the morning.

Like Brooms of Steel (1252)

Emily Dickinson
1830 – 1886

Like Brooms of Steel  
The Snow and Wind  
Had swept the Winter Street -
The House was hooked  
The Sun sent out   
Faint Deputies of Heat -
Where rode the Bird  
The Silence tied  
His ample - plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug  
Was all the one that played.

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Feeding fantasies

The Christmas decorations will start to come down after this weekend, The Feast of the Epiphany is Sunday, January 7. I intend to respond to the impending winter blues and January blahs by visiting a couple of fly fishing shops just because I can. I may or may not buy anything but I do need to get out and peek at what’s on the counters and shelves and in the bins. Aside from everything else, it helps keep my mind off the approaching need to file taxes. Today’s major accomplishment is likely to be that the quarterly estimated tax payments got mailed. Just in time for the Republicans to waste them by forcing a government shut down.

December’s bulbs will soon yield January flowers

Photo by J. Harrington

In a week or two I’m hoping to see flowers bloom from the winter bulb garden that arrived as a Christmas present last year. The picture above is from last year but not last Christmas’s present. This year’s growth, from last Christmas’ present, is about the same as that in the picture. If, like me, winter’s cloudy, cold, dreary weather gets to you, I highly recommend trying an indoor bulb garden as an antidote. Watching plants grow and bloom is a very different experience than weekly watering a “house plant.” For the moment, we’re enjoying the white blooms of an amaryllis that will help us celebrate through Epiphany weekend. There’s also a handful of bulbs from prior years that failed to grow this year. I think we may have failed to get them their cold, dormant period by keeping them in the house all year. We’ll see what the Better Half has to say about that.

The Laughing Child

W. S. Merwin     1927 – 2019

When she looked down from the kitchen window
into the back yard and the brown wicker
baby carriage in which she had tucked me
three months old to lie out in the fresh air
of my first January the carriage
was shaking she said and went on shaking
and she saw I was lying there laughing
she told me about it later it was
something that reassured her in a life
in which she had lost everyone she loved
before I was born and she had just begun
to believe that she might be able to
keep me as I lay there in the winter
laughing it was what she was thinking of
later when she told me that I had been
a happy child and she must have kept that
through the gray cloud of all her days and now
out of the horn of dreams of my own life
I wake again into the laughing child

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Women Against Republicans: 2024’s WAR

Years ago, when I started homemade bread baking, I read that some folks named their sourdough starter and treated it like a pet that had to be fed regularly. My starter is named Lazarus because I regularly starve him to death in the refrigerator and then bring him back to life. That’s what we’re working on today. If a feeding of all-purpose flour doesn’t result in bubbles, we’ll next try whole wheat white flour. Fingers crossed time. I’m looking forward to baking the first sourdough boule of the new year.

One of the amaryllis flowers looks like it may bloom for New Year’s day. It stayed in bud past Christmas and is just now beginning to open. Another bulb has two short stems but I’ve not a guess when we’l see flowers. Before Valentine’s day probably. I know, that is a guess. I’m in a mood because we’re still under cloud cover. A few brief glimpses of sun late yesterday and last night the clouds returned. At least they didn’t block the gorgeous golden glowing nearly full moon as it rose in the evening.

We usually leave Christmas decorations up until the Feast of the Epiphany (January 7 next year). It takes several days to a week to take them down and put them away, by which time we decorate for Valentine’s. One of my Christmas presents, again this year, is a bulb bucket of flowers that will be blooming for weeks. Here’s a picture from late January 2023 of the Christmas 2022 bucket.

late January, forced blooms

Photo by J. Harrington

Here in the North Country, some of us are grateful for every sign of impending spring we can get. I’m definitely one of those some. As long as we’re on the topic of upcoming Spring, that’s when I plan to cash in a different Christmas present, a gift certificate at a local, independent, book store. (I know, quite a surprise!) Milkweed Editions is scheduled to publish Ada Limón’s Poet Laureate project: You Are Here, Poetry in the Natural World.

I’ve kept you in suspense long enough. Here’s what the title is about. At the moment, it appears I can do a reasonable job managing and scheduling most outcomes next year except for the one on November 5, For that I’ll need help from each of you. As of today, it’s time to declare a top 2024 WAR, Women Against Republicans! Down with insurrectionists. Up with bodily autonomy and women’s health!

How to Triumph Like a Girl

By Ada Limón

I like the lady horses best,

how they make it all look easy,

like running 40 miles per hour

is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.

I like their lady horse swagger,

after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!

But mainly, let’s be honest, I like

that they’re ladies. As if this big

dangerous animal is also a part of me,

that somewhere inside the delicate

skin of my body, there pumps

an 8-pound female horse heart,

giant with power, heavy with blood.

Don’t you want to believe it?

Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see

the huge beating genius machine

that thinks, no, it knows,

it’s going to come in first.

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Late June phenology

Sometime yesterday, or early today, the township mowed the shoulders of roads in our neck of the woods. It appears such efforts are consistent with recent (2022) legislation about providing "enhanced roadside habitat for nesting birds and other small wildlife....” The mower missed most of the patches of orange day lilies that are beginning to bloom along the roads. Although I’m far from expertise on this topic, I believe the day lily is classified as invasive, but not noxious, in Minnesota but a USDA plant database search of invasive/noxious in Minnesota by scientific name results in a null answer. I have no idea what’s going on.

orange day lilies

Photo by J. Harrington

For the past week or ten days, I’ve seen more birds than I ever remember before, especially male goldfinches and downy woodpeckers, going at each other in an effort to establish “pecking order(?).” It’s like watching micro fighter planes having dog fights minus machine guns. Meanwhile, the rose-breasted grosbeaks seem to be getting along, as are the red-winged blackbirds and nuthatches, and the red-bellied woodpecker just helps himself to the feeder whenever he wants.

I’d be upset that, again this year, we missed having a brush pile (bonfire) burn in honor of summer solstice, but it’s been so hot and dry I’m figuring it’s just as well we didn’t try. Plus, we used that time and energy to collect some book shelf kits and got one of the two kits assembled. We’re making progress but it’s too early to claim success in bringing order to our piles of books stacked hither and yon. If only I didn’t find so many topics of interest and so many poets worth reading. But then I’d probably be grumping about being bored much of the time.

The Tuft of Flowers

Robert Frost    1874 – 1963

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name, 
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me here the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together.’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

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a winter’s day, after day, after ...

Baking a loaf of kernza sourdough artisan bread on another gray, cloudy January day helps, but not as much as a month’s worth of sunshine and blue skies would. It’s true that drought, wild fire, atmospheric rivers are both emotionally and physically devastating, but our persistent cloudiness makes me feel like I’m being subjected to eternal water torture, drip-drip-drip, and would confess to anything too make it stop, but there’s not even a guard within earshot that I can implore.

a taste of times to come

Photo by J. Harrington

I did get a good whiff of the fragrances from the bulb planter flowers this morning, which made me hope I might live long enough to once again enjoy a real spring day full of wildflowers and sunshine. I bet any wild animals susceptible to seasonal affective disorder are hibernating in a state of torpor. That’s similar to my current condition but, unfortunately, I’m awake, not asleep, although the Better Half might have a different perspective on that.

A hen turkey is again feeding on droppings from the deck bird feeders. I noticed her as I was checking on a load of clothes in the dryer and sneaking another peek at the jonquils and tulips near the west side downstairs window. For a scruffy-looking bird she’s quite handsome; for a handsome bird she’s quite scruffy-looking. I need to remember to dump some sunflower seeds on the snow for her, the cardinals, and squirrels.

Maybe tomorrow I need to take a ride and see if I can find some open, flowing, water and just sit and watch for awhile. Even if everything is frozen over, I’ll feel better for having tried. Beckett’s statement on “fail better” comes to mind, as does the idea that waiting for winter to end in Minnesota is about as useful and hopeful as Waiting for Godot.

The Song of the Happy Shepherd

By William Butler Yeats

The woods of Arcady are dead, 

And over is their antique joy; 

Of old the world on dreaming fed; 

Grey Truth is now her painted toy; 

Yet still she turns her restless head: 

But O, sick children of the world, 

Of all the many changing things 

In dreary dancing past us whirled, 

To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, 

Words alone are certain good. 

Where are now the warring kings, 

Word be-mockers? — By the Rood

Where are now the warring kings? 

An idle word is now their glory, 

By the stammering schoolboy said, 

Reading some entangled story: 

The kings of the old time are dead; 

The wandering earth herself may be 

Only a sudden flaming word, 

In clanging space a moment heard, 

Troubling the endless reverie. 

Then nowise worship dusty deeds, 

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, 

To hunger fiercely after truth, 

Lest all thy toiling only breeds 

New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth 

Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, 

No learning from the starry men, 

Who follow with the optic glass 

The whirling ways of stars that pass — 

Seek, then, for this is also sooth, 

No word of theirs — the cold star-bane 

Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, 

And dead is all their human truth. 

Go gather by the humming sea 

Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,

And to its lips thy story tell, 

And they thy comforters will be, 

Rewarding in melodious guile 

Thy fretful words a little while, 

Till they shall singing fade in ruth 

And die a pearly brotherhood; 

For words alone are certain good: 

Sing, then, for this is also sooth. 

I must be gone: there is a grave 

Where daffodil and lily wave, 

And I would please the hapless faun, 

Buried under the sleepy ground, 

With mirthful songs before the dawn. 

His shouting days with mirth were crowned; 

And still I dream he treads the lawn, 

Walking ghostly in the dew, 

Pierced by my glad singing through, 

My songs of old earth's dreamy youth: 

But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! 

For fair are poppies on the brow: 

Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

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Easing winter’s doldrums

Last night while we slept, the plants in our bulb garden we busy. This morning we enjoyed the first bloom, a jonquil-daffodil-narcissus. After our extended cloudy, dreary, rainy spell, it was a delightful surprise.

bulb planter jonquil brightens winter

Photo by J. Harrington

Mid-morning we headed off to get the windshield in our Jeep replaced. It cracked almost all the way across during the brutally cold spell a month ago. Our first appointment to get the work done earlier this month was preempted by one of the snow storms. This has been a royal pain in the patoot winter so far. At least with all the cloud cover I wasn’t getting blinded and distracted by the sun reflecting off the windshield crack. More snow is in the forecast for tonight  and tomorrow. Current estimates for our area are 3+ inches. We’ll see if more work will be needed on the driveway this week. It will depend on whether I can wheel the trash can through the freshly fallen snow. Then we’re back to single digit highs a week from now.

The Better Half has been brightening the place with cut flowers, including some scarletish tulips, but that’s not the same as a living, breathing plant in bloom. If things don’t get much  worse, we may well make it until spring and then we get to enjoy the new plantings that went in last autumn, unless the pocket gophers or moles get them. 😉

The Promise

By Jane Hirshfield

Stay, I said

to the cut flowers.

They bowed

their heads lower.

Stay, I said to the spider,

who fled.

Stay, leaf.

It reddened,

embarrassed for me and itself.

Stay, I said to my body.

It sat as a dog does,

obedient for a moment,

soon starting to tremble.

Stay, to the earth

of riverine valley meadows,

of fossiled escarpments,

of limestone and sandstone.

It looked back

with a changing expression, in silence.

Stay, I said to my loves.

Each answered,

Always.

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Did you thaw what I thaw?

Trees, once covered in snow, are down to a thin coating on their branches. Will that be gone next week? Perhaps. It’s going to be interesting to see how much of a mess the weekend’s January thaw leaves behind when followed by Monday’s rain forecast. Will the dragon’s teeth still line the roof edges? [Meanwhile, my home town of Boston is enjoying temperatures in the mid-50s. Sigh!]

dragon’s teeth icicles

Photo by J. Harrington

The plants in the bulb garden planter are growing tall. I won’t be surprised if we see some blossoms next week. Plus, it’s almost time for me to begin thinking about collecting some red osier dogwood stems to bring into the house and force bud burst. I think some additional melting will diminish the likelihood the Better Half may need to get a wrecker to haul me out of the marsh if I get stuck. We’ll give it at least a week or two, maybe more. Much as we like long naps from time to time, most years we think winter overdoes it when it settles down for one.

If the snow banks shrink a bunch this weekend it will really please the dogs, who keep jumping into the snow lining the edges of the driveway to see if it's too deep for comfort and deciding each time this week that it is. I feel pretty much the same and my legs are lots longer than either of the dogs, especially the beagle’s. Earlier this week I clambered through snow that came over the tops of my mukluks when I went to see if I could figure out why the outside temperature reading on our thermostat had climbed to 55. If the sensor was out of whack I didn’t care but if it was reading that kind of actual heat, I was concerned.

I failed to see any heat source, or even find the sensor. The next morning, a service technician checked it out and told us they’d been getting a number of calls. The combination of thaw and freeze and snow and wet had put a number of sensors out of kilter. Ours has been approximately accurate since the tech checked it so I now sleep better at night.

Have you ever thought about all the very large number of things that could go wrong each and every day? Are you grateful that so few actually do go wrong on any given day? Is that something worth pondering this Friday the 13th?

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952-

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

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Sharing an Epiphany

This morning the trees were snow covered, while the bushes were coated in frost or rime ice. Every once in awhile, a burst of dropping snow clusters loosens a micro-snowfall. All seems a long way from the buds of spring. That’s why I’m gleeful about the eruptions of green stems from the bulb garden [a Christmas present from the Better Half] on the bookcase in front of a downstairs window. You can see the progression in these pictures.

bulb garden 12/31/22

Photo by J. Harrington

bulb garden 1/2/23

Photo by J. Harrington

bulb garden 1/6/23

Photo by J. Harrington

The pileated woodpecker is back, still ignoring the suet feeder, while perching on the balusters of the deck railing and feeding from the “squirrel-buster” feeder. The downy and hairy woodpeckers seem quite pleased to have the bigger bird leave the suet to them. Meanwhile, the Better Half noted the pileated walking on the deck and pecking at the walkout glass (reflection?) or the frame. We took a picture of the bird’s wingprint in the snow that we’ll post some day soon.

After tomorrow, we’ll return to more seasonal temperatures and may even see a couple of above-freezing days in the next week or so. The year seems off to a halfway decent start if you’re not a Republican or a Californian or a Southerner.

January 6

By Vicki Hearne

We must stop bragging. There are limits

For us to the cold and the twelfth night

 

Marks them all. Just off the coast of Maine

The lobster boats pass, dragging their nets.

 

Capsize once in a while, in water

Like that you die, that’s all, that water

 

Isn’t even frozen. Not even

Frozen, and that’s as cold as it gets.

 

The hearts of birds beat voraciously

So they keep warm, so if you put out

 

A feeder, keep it full of the seeds

Their hearts feed on, then it is only

 

When their food runs out that you find them

Inexpressibly taut in hollows,

 

And that’s as cold as it ever gets.

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Happy Solstice!

Tomorrow, very slowly, the days will begin to grow longer, at least for the first half of the year. Temperatures will begin to increase on a schedule that lags behind the day length. The Minnesota Weather Guide calendar notes we reach our normal daily low high temperature (23℉) in mid-January and begin to see an increase in average daily highs the last week of that month. So, for some of us, there’s that to look forward to after the holiday season.

I’ve noticed that, since I’ve been paying more attention to the details of seasonal changes, and not just the broad brush awareness of which of the four general seasons we’re in, I’ve been more inclined to take in stride inclement weather and seasonal abnormalities. This morning I went off through the snow to get gas for the snow blower. I’m of the opinion that risking an insufficient fuel supply to clear the drive after the snowfall stops is an invitation to have record-setting snow amounts befall us. It’s a variant of the old saying “the best defense is a good offense.”

tomorrow our sun starts creeping northward

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, the Better Half has either taken pity on me or become fed up with my complaints about winter being worse than usual, perhaps both, because I got an early Christmas present, a bulb garden of paperwhites, tulips and others that will help bring early signs of spring to our windowsill in 5 to 6 weeks. That may be a little after the amaryllis bloom. We failed to give those bulbs their cool, dark treatment on a timely basis this year.

Birds are piling in to the feeder as the snow falls. It’s fun to watch them and makes me happy that I can do more than fluff my feathers to stay warm in this bitter cold. There’s been a flurry of present wrapping going on inside the house. That’s slowly winding down. My assessment of last week, that we were very, very likely to be assured of a white Christmas is turning out to be an understatement. Nevertheless, may we all find that next season, and the ones after that, are better and more enjoyable than the preceding one.

Winter Solstice

Ray McNiece 

Late December grinds on down.
The sky stops, slate on slate,
scatters a cold light of snow
across a field of brittle weeds.

Each boot step cracks a stalk.
The pigments have been dragged
earthwards and clasped. The groundhog
curls among the roots curling.

Towards home I peel blossoms
of frozen mud from my pant legs
and pull off burrs that waited
for wind or the flashing red fox.

In my jacket pocket I find
a beechnut, slightly cracked
open, somehow fallen there,
and, enfolded inside of it,

a spider that unclenches
yellow in my steaming palm –
a spider that is 
the sun.

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Red as a winter color

I think this year the Christmas amaryllis will come into bloom for next year’s Valentine’s Day, or thereabouts. I believe we missed the timing on the cool to cold dark period of rest needed to support the December flowers. Instead, the Better Half cleverly ordered bunches of holly from Oregon, the kind with real red berries that we have to be sure the dogs don’t eat. The place looks downright festive and it will be fun to see how close to Valentine’s the amaryllis blooms. One of my longstanding frustrations with Minnesota is that much of the state, including where  we live, is borderline or worse for holly plants. Winterberry just isn’t the same.

sometimes, Christmas brings amaryllis blooms

Photo by J. Harrington

Weather permitting (heh, heh), tomorrow afternoon I’ll use the rear blade on the tractor to clear much of the accumulated precipitation from the drive. I don’t think I can drag the trash and recycling cans through the township snow plow’s leavings at the end of the driveway and, with luck, the slop will still be soft enough to move tomorrow afternoon. We might even need to take another snow removal run Friday before it gets really cold. Some of us think we’d be much  better off if the intermittent drought concentrated in the winter months and left spring and summer precipitation alone.

There are still some odds and ends of holiday shopping to get finished, and coordination on who’s getting  what for whom on which list, complicated, a little, because our son’s birthday is also December 25 and Christmas presents must be distinguished from birthday presents. Unless there’s a radical shift in the weather trend, December 25 looks like it will be sunny and very cold. One of my Christmas wishes is that it be sunny and not too cold.

Amaryllis

By Connie Wanek

A flower needs to be this size 

to conceal the winter window, 

and this color, the red 

of a Fiat with the top down, 

to impress us, dull as we've grown. 

Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb 

half above the soil 

stuck out its green tongue 

and slowly, day by day, 

the flower itself entered our world, 

closed, like hands that captured a moth, 

then open, as eyes open, 

and the amaryllis, seeing us, 

was somehow undiscouraged. 

It stands before us now 

as we eat our soup; 

you pour a little of your drinking water 

into its saucer, and a few crumbs 

of fragrant earth fall 

onto the tabletop. 

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It’s beginning to look a lot like...

We already got a dusting of snow last month, but it soon melted. It’s now supposed to snow, off and on, for the next several days. The temperatures aren’t forecast to get above freezing for more than a week. I suspect that, just about the time that folks remember how to drive in the snow, it will melt a little more than a week from now and the next thing we’ll be reading about is whether we’ll have a white or a brown Christmas. I’m betting it will be one or the other.

November 6, 2013

Photo by J. Harrington

Birds are piling in to the feeder today. I’m thinking we may need to try a different feeder since sightings of cardinals have been much less frequent than usual. I don’t think they like the feeding ports on the “squirrel-proof” feeder, even with a cardinal ring circling the perches. Cardinals are one of the brighter sights in our winter landscapes so I’m willing to put up with some squirrels mooching if it brings cardinals in. It’s not just me that’s noticing a decline in cardinals in our neck of the woods. Cornell’s ebird site is recording a decline in cardinals in the vicinity of St. Paul.

We lucked out on one front. The balance of the Better Half’s peony order finally arrived yesterday. The top inch or so of soil was frozen where she wanted to plant them so I used a posthole digger to break the crust and dig the planting holes. At least we didn’t have to shovel snow to get at the dirt. 

I’ll wait another couple of weeks before we hang the suet feeder. The neighborhood bears may still be trying to fatten up before they start their deep winter napping. Suet often attracts a pileated woodpecker, another neighbor we haven’t seen much of all summer.

All in all it looks like the road construction season is over for another year. For that we can be thankful on the 24th of this month and ask Santa for an early, extended, and gradual spring to compensate for early onset winter, if that’s what we now have.

Poems

by Rita Joe

Our home is this country
Across the windswept hills
With snow on fields.
The cold air.
I like to think of our native life,
Curious, free;
And look at the stars
Sending icy messages.
My eyes see the cold face of the moon
Cast his net over the bay.
It seems
We are like the moon --
Born,
Grow slowly,
Then fade away, to reappear again
In a never-ending cycle.
Our lives go on
Until we are old and wise.
Then end.
We are no more,
Except we leave
A heritage that never dies.

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Mums the word ’til you aster for an apple

A short burst of thunder early on this cloudy, cool, rainy morning prompted me to react that “It’s too early for waterfowl opener.” Can you guess how much I’m anticipating a change of seasons? We return to seasonal temperatures tomorrow for a week or so but today, with the thermometer at 60℉, I’m wearing, for the first time this season, a chamois shirt.

mums lining driveway, 2020

Photo by J. Harrington

The pots of mums and asters for the drive are in place awaiting planting. That may be a tomorrow or Sunday project. In between showers today I managed to scatter more mole repellant on the peony bed to be. We’ll see about getting that bed dug before the temps climb too much next week. It’ll give us a place to use much of the summer’s production of compost.

a bowlful of apples

Photo by J. Harrington

In celebration of the start of apple season, we’re having my famous grilled sourdough apple and cheese sandwiches for tonight’s dinner but this time I’m adding some sliced Virginia ham to the mix. Wish us luck. For a beverage, I’m planning on a glass of apple cider. The Better Half is welcome to share the cider if it appeals to her. It may be too much of a good thing for her taste. It’s the time of year when I get restless and miss New England a whole bunch. I’m working on compensating for my hiraeth.

A Short History of the Apple

Dorianne Laux - 1952-

The crunch is the thing, a certain joy in crashing 
through
living tissue, a memory of Neanderthal days.
   —Edward Bunyard, The Anatomy of Dessert, 1929


Teeth at the skin. Anticipation.
Then flesh. Grain on the tongue.
Eve's knees ground in the dirt
of paradise. Newton watching
gravity happen. The history
of apples in each starry core,
every papery chamber's bright
bitter seed. Woody stem
an infant tree. William Tell
and his lucky arrow. Orchards
of the Fertile Crescent. Bushels.
Fire blight. Scab and powdery mildew.
Cedar apple rust. The apple endures.
Born of the wild rose, of crab ancestors.
The first pip raised in Kazakhstan.
Snow White with poison on her lips.
The buried blades of Halloween.
Budding and grafting. John Chapman
in his tin pot hat. Oh Westward
Expansion. Apple pie. American
as. Hard cider. Winter banana.
Melt-in-the-mouth made sweet
by hives of Britain's honeybees:
white man's flies. O eat. O eat.

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