Spring’s stutter steps

A pair of hanging baskets with pansies, or something like, have been added to the front stoop. Their hanging height, and the ease with which they can be brought into the house, should protect them from any frosty nights. The planting pots won’t get plants until sometime next month. Plus, this afternoon we actually started the lawn mower. We didn’t mow anything (yet) but it’s reassuring that it works. Maybe we’ll use it to capture the leaves in the dog run. The dogs are reaching a point where they need some time outside, off lead, to blow off some steam. One or both of the owners could use something similar I suspect.

bergamot seed trays in sunshine

Photo by J. Harrington

The bergamot seed trays got to spend a couple of hours in the sunshine today, before the wind got strong enough that I brought them in before they got blown over. Some cells have germinated well. Others show no signs of life. I may have made a mess of planting (too deep) or the planting medium just hasn’t been warm enough for long enough. Time will tell and the experience is helping me learn to forego expectations and live in the present. Better late than never, right?

We’re approaching peak woodland wildflower season over the next eight to ten weeks. I hope the weather gets more cooperative. But seasons change in stutter steps and temperatures rise and fall; precipitation comes and goes. As Lao Tzu is report to have observed: 'Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ That’s a lesson we all could stand to relearn each year at this time.

The peace of wild things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the Peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Those autumn leaves

There are three, maybe four, fresh, new dandelion blossoms along the roadside ditch in front of our property. Lots of little butter and eggs flowers too. It’s a little disconcerting to see wildflowers bloom anew in October, especially when we may (or may not) get our first frost this weekend.

October’s oak leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half’s efforts to reseed the bald spots in the grass around the house looks like a success. Maybe I should ask her to see what she can do with a bucket of rogaine and my rapidly thinning hair. She has prohibited me from mowing until sometime next spring or early summer. The local pollinators should be pleased and, once I get over my middle-class obsessive-compulsive neatness disorder, I can get into a more natural look around the yard. I did spend some time clearing leaves and pine needles from the driveway, however. I live in fear of clogging and jamming the auger of the snow blower with wet leaves while tackling the first “plowable” snowfall or two of the season.

Today’s wind kept clearing more leaves from the trees and swirling them onto the steps and front stoop as I blew the accumulated piles down the drive. That situation is reminiscent of the quandary of whether to shovel / blow snow in the midst of the storm or wait until it has all come down. In the case of oak leaves, they’ll be coming down every month from now until next April or May, and I have no intention of waiting that long.

Finally, for today, I’m pleased to report that I’ve read from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass almost every morning of this Banned Books Week and plan to do so for awhile, perhaps until autumn actually leaves and winter arrives.

Leaves

Lloyd Schwartz     1941 – 

                        1 

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony 
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its 
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far 
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
        the trees don't die, they just pretend,
        go out in style, and return in style: a new style.





                        2 

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far 
enough away from home to see not just trees 
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high 
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were 
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks 
like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, 
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the 
most color last year, but it doesn't matter since 
you're probably too late anyway, or too early—
        whichever road you take will be the wrong one
        and you've probably come all this way for nothing.






                        3 

You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last, you don't want it to last. You 
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop. 
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll 
        remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt
        or something you've felt that also didn't last.

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It’s quite all white

This morning unseasonably bitter cold brought frost, fog, hoarfrost, haze and/or low clouds. Behind and  through the mist the sun was a pure white circle. Trees encased in white looked like escapees from a fairyland. It was magical and a little disconcerting to any of us conditioned over the years to seeing either thicker clouds or a yellow sun. All in all, nature delivered a beautiful early Christmas present today.

snow-covered fields and frost coated trees

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we enjoyed a different kind of present. A large flock of tundra swans, white against pale gray clouds, flew past the windows. Swans emerging from clouds or silhouetted against them are an occasional winter delight in our  area. There’s a large flock or several smaller ones that  overwinter on the St. Croix river’s open waters. From time to time we see them doing a fly-by as they head for one of the neighborhood’s harvested corn fields to glean what’s left.

Since the dogs seem to be indifferent to the aesthetics of winter’s displays of white on white, they’re just looking forward to the return of seasonable, or above, temperatures during their daily walks. Putting on boots is a lot of trouble and feels weird so we avoid that unless it’s really, really, polar vortex cold. But that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable walking in the snow or on the ice at road’s edge.

Snow White

Katherine Riegel

I dreamt I woke in winter—
even the river
silent, its tongue caught mid-
sentence, like mine
when someone looks at me
too closely. It had been years

since I understood winter
so well I knew it to be inside
my own bone-cage, since I had
smelled that kind of white.

White of the frozen rabbit
my spaniel dragged in from the back
yard, white of horse-breath in the barn,
white of birds so desperate
for seed they pretend colorlessness—

except the cardinal, drop of heat,
too neat to be blood, too brave
to be symbol. I woke in winter

and almost-knew what I had always
almost-known, back in those dark
five o’clock walks home for dinner:

something about loneliness living
in the well of the throat, something
about fur and burrowing
and black eyes
waiting for the thaw.

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’Tis the chill out time of year

According to my copy of the Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar, a normal low temperature of 32℉ doesn’t occur locally until early November. However, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources tells us there’s a 90% probability of reaching that low temperature by October 14. The same DNR data set points to a 10% probability of freezing by September 20. So, we are now officially in the time of year to stay alert for frost or freeze warnings.

low probability late September freeze

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve not yet turned on the heater in the bird bath, although on September 29, 2018, we had an overnight freeze that lasted long enough to coat the water in that bird bath with skim ice. Since it’s currently 82℉, and yesterday’s high temperatures were in the mid-80’s, this writing about freezing temperatures feels kind of silly, unless one has lived in the North Country for awhile. This is a time of year when we’re flipping the house’s thermostat between AC and heat day-by-day.

Our food intake is slowly shifting from Summer’s salads and sandwiches to Autumn’s soups, stews and chili. Bread baking is occurring more frequently, and ice cream cones will probably be phased out of desert rotation over the next several weeks. I suppose I could live somewhere that doesn’t enjoy four seasons, I just don’t want to. [I reserve the right to revise this assessment come February.]

Thinking of Frost

Major Jackson - 1968-

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

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For the birds!

We're tired of writing about hoar frost / rime ice covered trees. We're fed up with comments and speculation about the events leading up to, on, and subsequent to January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. So, today we're very pleased to inform you that we have at least three bright red male cardinals in the neighborhood.

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps one day we'll manage to get a photo of all three together in the oak branches overlooking the deck. We've seen them all at the same time. That's how we're sure there's at least three. But, by the time we've collected our camera and returned, one or more of the birds has left the vicinity. We were unsure what determined the gender of a bird's embryo, so we asked the internet and got this answer, including a video of a half male / half female cardinal. Birds do strange things with their chromosomes.

The weather forecast does call for a (brief) January thaw this week. That should return our trees to less ghostly appearances. It's also likely to get us thinking more about fly fishing and adding mentions here from time to time. We look forward to the arrival of better days as daylight lengthens and temperatures increase, but the next eight weeks or so are usually the longest in our year. Fortunately, we also have poets like Shelley who ask appropriate questions for this time of year.

Ode to the West Wind

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, 

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 

Each like a corpse within its grave, until 

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 

With living hues and odours plain and hill: 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; 

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! 

II 

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, 

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread 

On the blue surface of thine aëry surge, 

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 

Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! 

III 

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, 

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 

Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou 

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear! 

IV 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even 

I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, 

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 

Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. 

V 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 

What if my leaves are falling like its own! 

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth! 

And, by the incantation of this verse, 

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth 

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! 

Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

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Urge for going

After dutifully changing the oil and filter in the tractor this morning, we're listening to the second CD in the Joni Mitchell Archives - Volume 1, the early years (1963 - 1967). It includes two versions of the Urge for Going. Listening to a composer performer her works in different ways, showing the development and growth of talent, is a real treat. As much as anything, we're blown away by her guitar playing, enough so we finally looked up what the hell an "open G tuning" is. We suppose now we'll have to see what that sounds like on our long neglected guitar.

we read much more than we practice guitar

Photo by J. Harrington

The fact that we avoided disasters during the oil change was one of this week's other treats. Yesterday's delivery of a box of books from England, a package we weren't expecting until near the end of the month, is another one. This is shaping up as one of the better weeks in quite awhile around here. That brings us right back to the Urge for going.

Today's high temperature is forecast to reach 78℉. All week we've enjoy temperatures about 30℉ warmer than normal for this time of year. Next Tuesday, four days away, the high is forecast to be in the low 40's, accompanied by snow. Weather whiplash is on the way again. We've already had a week of freezing and snow late last month. This morning we saw a hornet for the first time in weeks. Local ponds that had frozen over are now, again, all open water. Firearms deer season opens tomorrow without a trace of tracking snow in the local woods.

geese, no chevron, with an urge for going

Photo by J. Harrington

[UPDATE: Bumblebees are going extinct in a time of ‘climate chaos’]

Farmers have used this week's weather respite to harvest more fields that hadn't been touched prior to the cold, snow and freezing spell. Some waterfowl are still hanging around but, we suspect that, come next week, they'll have an urge for going. Weather volatility, political volatility, public health volatility, they all, individually or collectively, may leave many of us one day next week facing something like this:

Urge For Going

by Joni Mitchell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This lyric has been formatted exactly as Joni preferred it to appear (capitalization, punctuation, line breaks, changes in wording, etc). Joni collaborated with Lisa and John Sornberger by making these changes for presentation in their book, Gathered Light.

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A step in the right direction

This morning the birdbath was covered with skim ice and the deck with frost. We had covered or brought into the house the plants around the front porch. The lowest temperature we noticed was 34℉, so obviously we missed something since water doesn't freeze at that temperature.

Now, mid-afternoon, it's a cozy 59℉ and the sun is shining. We've done a couple of hours worth of outside chores and plan to take the rest of the day off and enjoy a late Summer -- early Autumn interlude. The disruption of "normal" routines created by COVID-19 is providing both an opportunity and the necessity to learn to pace myself, remembering the ancient saying "Chapter 64 of the Dao De Jing ascribed to Laozi":

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

just put one foot in front  of the  other...

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of a thousand mile journey, while in the midst of our chores today we saw what we think was a monarch butterfly. Their journey is reported to be spread over several generations. We're still hoping to see a hummingbird at one of the feeders today. Any time now the females and juveniles will be off on their journeys to wintering grounds. I wonder how many wingbeats it takes a hummingbird to travel a thousand miles.

As we've spent more time this week doing actual work in the real world, and less time Tweeting and reading Tweets on social media, we've noticed that our tendency to get agitated by things over which we have no control is diminished. I think it's sort of like "if a  tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?" If a Tweet shows up in my time line and I'm not there to read it, does it really exist?

Plain Advice

Jeff Gundy

Don’t be foolish. No, be foolish.
Each of these trees was once a seed.

Look down the road till it’s all mist and fumes:
Of course your journey is impossible.

It’s stupidly hot for September and yet here’s
an eddy, a gust, something to stir you

as the high leaves of the walnut are stirred,
as fine droplets touch you, touch the table

and the deck, no explanation, no design.
And beauty is like God, mystery

in plain sight, silent, hesitating
in leaves and the shadows of leaves,

in the carved fish painted and nailed
to the railing, in skeins of cloud

and searching fly and pale blue
scrim of sky and seas of emptiness

and dazzle, fusion and spin,
fire and oblivion and all that lies

on the other side of oblivion.

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Happy February!

No sooner had January said au revoir than the sun came out this morning! That's at least a little bit of progress. Driving home from dinner last night, there was still light in the sky until a little after 5:30 pm, so that might have been a (can't resist) foreshadowing. Now that February's here, before we know it, we'll be complaining about heat and humidity. 😉

We all know that February is Black History Month. It's also the month in which we celebrate:

• Groundhog Day
• Valentine's Day
• Presidents Day
• Leap Day
• Love your pet day, and, my favorite,
• Do a grouch a favor day

early February hoarfrost

Photo by J. Harrington

For a complete list of other observances in February, click here. February is also the month in which the Better Half's birthday, which occurs in early March, sneaks up on me almost every year to surprise me with a "how did the day after tomorrow get to be her birthday and why haven't I ordered a cake and bought a present?" There are disadvantages to this being the shortest month, another one being that, since presidential elections occur on leap years, we're subjected to an extra day of political campaigning and fundraising. Then again, February is the month in which we've had the most beautiful hoarfrost occurrences I've ever seen. The full moon this month, known as the Snow Moon, occurs February 9 locally.

Convergence

By Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Through the bedroom window 

a February sunrise, fog suspended 

between pines. Intricate crystals— 

hoarfrost lace on a cherry tree. 

My son calls out, awake. We sway, 

blanket-wrapped, his head nuzzling 

my neck. Hoarfrost, tree—I point, 

shaping each word. Favorable 

conditions: a toddler’s brain, hard 

data-mining, a system’s approach. 

Hoar, he hears. His hand reaches 

to the wallpaper lion. Phenomena 

converge: warmth, humidity, 

temperature’s sudden plunge;  

a child’s brain, objects, sound. 

Eyes widening, he opens his mouth 

and roars. 

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Preview of October's coming attractions #phenology

Another cloudy, humid (110%?), dreary September day, the last day of the month. Tomorrow begins October. In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold writes October is the time of tamaracks turning gold, ruffed grouse hunting and the "red lanterns" of blackberry leaves. If you haven't read this chapter in "Sand County," recently or ever, please do so. Leopold captures the essence of Octobers to be dreamed of in our North Country.

ruffed grouse on North Woods road

Photo by J. Harrington

My Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar notes that the average date of first frost for the Twin Cities is October 8, milkweeds should soon begin shedding their seeds, and, by month's end, black bears in the Northwoods should have headed for their dens. In our slightly more temperate area, we hold off on hanging suet feeders until some time in November, lest it become an attractive nuisance. (Once we've had our first frost, if we get another warm spell, we qualify for Indian Summer.) Come Halloween, trees will have shed many of their colorful leaves, many oaks excepted, and the woods will have a more open look and feel. Songbird migrations peak later in the month for many species.

maple leaf colors peak during October, leaf fall by month's end

Photo by J. Harrington

Although we won't be able to see it, October is also when lakes turn over. The full "Hunter's" moon or "Falling Leaves" moon will occur on October 13th. Toward month's end, the Gaelic festival of Samhain carries us through the transition from October to November. Do you remember the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. That may have been the most memorable change from October to November that ever occurred in Minnesota.

So, now that we've covered the preview of some of the upcoming events, it's time to wish September farewell and say "until we meet again."

September Midnight

By Sara Teasdale

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, 

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, 

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, 

Ceaseless, insistent. 

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples, 

The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence 

Under a moon waning and worn, broken, 

Tired with summer. 

Let me remember you, voices of little insects, 

Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters, 

Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us, 

Snow-hushed and heavy. 

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction, 

While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest, 

As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to, 

Lest they forget them.

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A May day / night dilemma #phenology

The Twin Cities National Weather Service has issued a frost advisory for much of Minnesota. For our county it runs from 1 AM to 8 AM tomorrow. They report the current temperature as 36℉. The weather app on my smartphone(?) forecasts overnight temperatures not dropping below 34℉. Of course, that same app informs us it's currently snowing when a glance out the window reveals rain sprinkles (that turned into snow flakes as we wrote this). So, the dilemma is: do we attempt to protect a bunch of newly planted flowers from a potentially non-existent frost by covering them and, if so, what to use for a cover.

rarely do May thunderstorms bring snow

Photo by J. Harrington

Other years when we've had mid- to late-May frost advisories, they've mostly occurred when we had clear, calm nights. With rain and / or snow in the forecast for the afternoon and evening, the bed sheets we've used in the past for frost protection are likely to get soaked through and, come morning, possibly turned into sheets of ice. We have some tarps sitting around the garage we could try, but they're likely to be too heavy to lay on the new plantlings and may crush them. Plus, they might not stay put if wind gusts do indeed reach 30 mph tonight. Local trillium have just come into bloom. What will they look like tomorrow?

are trillium frost proof?

Photo by J. Harrington

Frosted or crushed is sort of a plant's equivalent of "which eye do you want the sharp stick in?," also know as a Hobson's choice. An alternative would be to ignore the advisory, cross our fingers and hope that Mother Nature shows some pity. Then again, since we're now watching snow flakes, maybe the smartphone(?) should be listened to. Spring in the North Country isn't just a challenge. It's a mixed bag of challenges that makes life interesting, unless you're a plant or an orphan fledgling. The goslings we saw earlier today will no doubt be hunkered under mom to stay warm and dry tonight. In case you're interested, the "normal" high and low for today are 70℉ and 50℉. Tomorrow's normal low is the same and the normal high is 71℉. If you'll pardon a short posting today, I think I'll go dust off the snow shovel, just in case. All in all, we'd prefer a seasonal thunderstorm rather than a late season snow and frost attack.

Misreading Housman

By Linda Pastan

On this first day of spring, snow

covers the fruit trees, mingling improbably   

with the new blossoms like identical twins   

brought up in different hemispheres.   

It is not what Housman meant

when he wrote of the cherry

hung with snow, though he also knew   

how death can mistake the seasons,   

and if he made it all sound pretty,   

that was our misreading

in those high school classrooms

where, drunk on boredom, we had to recite   

his poems. Now the weather is always looming

in the background, trying to become more   

than merely scenery, and though today   

it is telling us something

we don't want to hear, it is all

so unpredictable, so out of control

that we might as well be children again,   

hearing the voices of thunder

like baritone uncles shouting

in the next room as we try to sleep,   

or hearing the silence of snow falling   

soft as a coverlet, even in springtime   

whispering: relax, there is nothing   

you can possibly do about any of this.

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It's gosling time? #phenology

At least some of the neighborhood Canada geese have produced gaggles of goslings. We're confused. The picture below, from several years ago, shows goslings of about the same size we saw this morning, but the picture was taken about the third week in June. We haven't considered a six week flux in a Spring event to be within a normal variation, but then we're, at best, very amateur phenologists.

gosling time: mid-May to late June?

Photo by J. Harrington

The weather is slowly shifting into a Summer pattern. Temperatures near 80 and thunderstorms are in the forecast for later this week, until or unless the forecast changes. Hanging flower baskets, that can be quickly brought in when and if frost reappears, have returned to the front porch. Fern fiddleheads are unfurled and the straightened stems have opened into fronds. One of the freezy/frosty nights we had a bit ago hit our new bush plantings. We've got our fingers crossed realizing that we pushed our luck since the average last date for frost around here is about a week from now.

We're not sure if it's something in the air, or the water, or both, or what, but nationally both our weather and our politics have become less and less stable over the past few decades. It's almost as if Gaia has decided to push back against those who believe perpetual growth on a finite planet is the way to perpetual success. If we had our druthers, all economics and business courses would have mandatory content on how to assess decisions effects on seven generations. Geese don't need to do that because their ability to screw up the planet's systems is much more limited than ours.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

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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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Doesn't that just frost you?

Minneapolis and St. Paul get an average of 42% sunshine in December. Duluth gets a little less, 39%. We're between the Twin Cities and Duluth, so, to make this easy, let's say we average 40% sunshine. That means that 60% of our daylight hours are cloudy. This would be even more disruptive of our normally sunny personality (see what we did there?) if it weren't for the ghostly beauty added by the combination of fields and wood lots covered with fog/mist/frozen fog and, sometimes, honest to goodness hoarfrost. Today, and for the past few days, we've been seeing lots of frost-covered grasses and forbs in our piece of prairie/sand plain, plus some pine needles coated with frost. The ethereal quality of the dead and sleeping plants shrouded in frost provides a wabi-sabi patina to the area.

frost-covered local marsh grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of impermanence, the loaf of bread we baked to go with last night's beef stew is almost gone. The Daughter Person and Son-In-Law arrived about dinner time to facilitate some sort of Christmas cookie swap and help consume the stew and bread. We had tried a new kind of flour for the first time. The loaf of bread turned out more "off-white" than we would have expected and the taste of wheat overpowered any hint of sourdough. The bread tasted good and looked good and was fun to make, but we prefer more of a sourdough flavor. We'll probably play some games with a mixture of the organic wheat flour and some of our regular King Arthur bread flour and see if we like that any better. Now that the Daughter Person has nudged us out of our bread-baking rut, there's no telling what may happen. Meanwhile, the Christmas cookies may have a slightly greater air of permanence, but only because there is a greater quantity of them and it will take us longer to work our way through the supply. If Christmas came every Winter month, we would soon take on the dimensions of a certain portly old elf and. come Spring, probably wouldn't fit into our waders.

the latest bread experiment

Photo by J. Harrington

After Apple-Picking

Robert Frost, 1874- 1963

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

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Frost on the punkin? #phenology

Earlier this week we had a morning or two of clear, sunny skies following cold nights. Frost didn't show up well (at all) on the "punkins" lining the driveway, but it was beautiful on the grasses in the fields, until the sun climbed high enough to warm the stems and melt the frost. We could use more days like those before the snow flies.

Autmn's frosted grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

Mice, crickets, and spiders have been creeping and crawling into the house looking for Winter shelter. We've manage to catch and release the crickets and spiders. The mice, and one mole / shrew, didn't fare as well.

While we were visiting Duluth yesterday, after an enjoyable lunch at Fitger's Brew House, we stopped by the Bookstore at Fitger's, where we picked up a book titled Natural Connections, exploring northwoods nature through science and your senses, written by Emily M. Stone and published by Cable Natural History Museum, where Ms. Stone is the Naturalist/Education Director. We started reading with the Fall section, since we're in the middle of that season. It's enjoyable, entertaining and educational. You should at least check it out [previous link] if you're interested in North Woods phenology.

North Country loon

Photo by J. Harrington

According to some phenology sources, we've reached the time of year when our North Country loons will be heading South for the Winter. Except for the howl of a wolf, we can think of no sound more evocative of the North Woods than the ululations of a loon.

When the Frost is on the Punkin

By James Whitcomb Riley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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first frost, first freeze #phenology

Last night and early this morning, local temperatures fell below freezing. Sensitive plants (that we wanted to protect) were covered or came into the house. Tonight it's forecast to be warmer and to rain so today the plants were uncovered and returned to outside. Those years when we get a frost only this time of year, we just toss some sheets over plants. Its early for a hard freeze. The bird bath was covered with skim ice this morning. See!

ice-covered bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

The blacktopping crews were back at it today. Now the entire road is blacktopped. There's about a two inch lip at the end of our drive. It's not clear if the crews intend to smooth the transition or not. Since the road committee was concerned about people driving on the edges of the blacktop, if it were me, I might have done the paving some time other than near the opening of hunting season, since about a third or so of the total length of this road borders a Wildlife Management Area open to public hunting, where folks often just pull to the side of the road (across the edge of the new pavement), park, and head into the woods.

frost-covered field and wet spot

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that we've had our first frost, we're eligible to enjoy Indian Summer, according to the Weather Service, or not, if you believe the Old Farmer's Almanac. We've also seen reports from elsewhere in Minnesota that the air has been full of snow flakes. That's not so unusual, since we think July is the only month in which snow hasn't been recorded here in the Northland.

from “Thoreau”

Cole Swensen, 1955

In the essay “A Winter Walk,” which predated the more famous essay “Walking”
by a few years, Thoreau paid particular attention to the astonishing array of whites

from fog to snow to frost to the crystals growing outward on threads of light. The
fact that white is separately known. That it is its own wildness, entirely exterior,

like all weather you notice is a version of an open room coming through
the wind in prisms. White holds light in a suspended state, unleashing it later

across a field of snow or a sheet of water at just the right angle to make the surface
a solid, and on we go walking. Goethe’s Theory of Colorsdepicted each one

as an intense zone of human activity overflowing its object into feeling there is
a forest through which something white is flying through a wash of white, which is

the presence of all colors until red, for instance, is needed for a bird or green
for a world.

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Hoarfrost #phenology

This morning was gray on grey on gray...: overcast skies above freezing fog above hoarfrost covered trees and ground covers above snow covered ground. It was one of the most depressing landscapes we recall seeing. No signs of life were visible anywhere. Fairies had gone to hiding in the hoarfrost's fairy forest.

a hoarfrost covered fairy forest

Photo by J. Harrington

We get relatively few episodes of hoarfrost in our neighborhood. It can, under conditions dissimilar to this morning's, create beautiful views. Hoarfrost requires a temperature regime similar to what's needed for maple sugaring, warm days and below freezing nights, plus lots of moisture in the atmosphere, which comes from the Winter's snow cover melting. Tonight we'll be adding to this season's cover, with 6 to 10 inches of new snow forecast for our area. We'll make sure the feeders are full later this afternoon. Impending snowstorms trigger multiple visits from local flocks. How do they know? Do the fairies warn them?

                     Lines for Winter

By Dave Lucas

Poor muse, north wind, or any god   

who blusters bleak across the lake   

and sows the earth earth-deep with ice.   

A hoar of fur stung across the vines:   

here the leaves in full flush, here   

abandoned to four and farther winds.   

Bless us, any god who crabs the apples   

and seeds the leaf and needle evergreen.   

What whispered catastrophe, winter.   

What a long night, beyond the lamplight,   

the windows and the frost-ferned glass.   

Bless the traveler and the hearth he travels to.   

Bless our rough hands, wind-scabbed lips,   

bless this our miscreant psalm.

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