White Christmas?

For the past couple of days I’ve been enjoying my seasonal job as a volunteer Christmas cookie taste tester elf. So far I haven’t had to put in any overtime, but I’m willing to if the job calls for it. We’ve checked chocolate cookies, frosted sugar cookies, raspberry thumbprint cookies, madeleines, orange flavored cookies and maybe one or two more. No wonder I’m tired, and bloated. Fortunately, so far they’ve all passed the taste test. None have had to be returned to the baker for further work. Several packages have been shipped to their ultimate recipients to take some of the load off of Santa’s sleigh.

sparkly, frosted Christmas cookies

Photo by J. Harrington

The forecast high temperature on Winter Solstice is in the low 40’s. Christmas Eve and Day we’re expecting rain showers and more 40’s. I suspect there’s going to be lots of kids worried about how Santa will get around without snow. Maybe we can tell them Santa has always got around Hawaii and they (almost?) never have snow there. This isn’t our grandparents world or winter anymore.

Perhaps it’s time to look for seasonal events that are more stable than the idea of a white Christmas, with apollogies to Irving Berlin, Bing Crosby and Vermont Inns. Children crave security and familiarity. Each year, daylight shortens until the solstice, whether or not it snows. There are other seasonal traditions we can emphasize other than Santa’s visit. We might even consider being radical and emphasize the “wise" in three wise men rather than the presents they brought. Could gold, frankincense and myrrh be traded for Epiphany cookies? Would that be wise?

White-Eyes

By Mary Oliver

In winter 

    all the singing is in 

         the tops of the trees 

             where the wind-bird 

with its white eyes 

    shoves and pushes 

         among the branches. 

             Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep, 

    but he's restless— 

         he has an idea, 

             and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings 

    as long as he stays awake. 

         But his big, round music, after all, 

             is too breathy to last. 

So, it's over. 

    In the pine-crown 

         he makes his nest, 

             he's done all he can. 

I don't know the name of this bird, 

    I only imagine his glittering beak 

         tucked in a white wing 

             while the clouds— 

which he has summoned 

    from the north— 

         which he has taught 

             to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall 

    into the world below 

         like stars, or the feathers 

               of some unimaginable bird 

that loves us, 

    that is asleep now, and silent— 

         that has turned itself 

             into snow.

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A "winter"(?) surprise

Today we followed through on our plan to take a drive to Franconia and see what the St. Croix river is up to. Actually, in reality, the phrase is what the river is down to. Water levels looked to be down several feet from Summer flows. The river is all open water, with a scattering of ice floes floating downstream. So far, no real surprises. What we weren't expecting, in the least, were the four, that's right, four, vehicles and boat trailers parked at the launch area. We know, it was 48℉ while we were there. The sun is shining and the sky is blue and most of us are suffering varying degrees of COVID fatigue. But, four boats, on the St. Croix, in Minnesota, on December 9? Really? Or, maybe we've just gotten old and wimpy but December boating is unusual bordering on weird.

recently launched amid scattered ice floes on December 9

Photo by J. Harrington

three of the four boat trailers at the launch area

Photo by J. Harrington

The village of houses and cabins is pretty much the same as the last time we visited, except that a person or persons unknown have beautified the bridge railings with seasonal greenery and lights. It might be worth a trip back some evening soon to see them when they're at an advantage and not in bright sunshine. 

a seasonally decorated bridge

Photo by J. Harrington

So, we've confirmed that both the Sunrise and St. Croix rivers are open water; local lakes are covered in sheet ice; the lake ice is too thin for skating etc., and the river water is just fine for boating. This year continues its list of aberrant events and conditions. Maybe we've moved beyond a "new normal" to a "new abnormal." Is Rod Serling directing next year too?

Winter Journal: The Sky Is the Lost Orpheum

By Emily Wilson

The shelter of it carved, caved

Across the river, the park and the little Ferris wheel

       closed down

The great oaks emptying, russet, gusseted

the hovering slant light leaking from the outer edge

       of cloud bed

leads and shawls pulled forth

Thy synchrony of the lost elements recovered

the shivering water surfaces, planar unmeldings, remeldings,

       riverine alchemies, unlocketed selves

now the reemergence, the sun pouring global gold

       uptilted, gobleted, incanted

Am I not as God made me but stranger?

Made stranger still by what I have seen

at this hour of earth untended, unministered—

light caught up in the river’s grooved tread

That sun more like a mass grope out of emptiness

       and the black river weeds before it, torn and trained,

       rocketed and stark and stuck-to

The tall shadow of the willow grows forth

And the spare stems of the grasses and the rods of the mullein

And these are the stations of this river

The houses and the boats and the parked cars

The growing wedge the ducks make moving forward, the shape

       of the element there among the weeds that jut forward,

the mass of the willows growing deeper in green and sundering

The backfall of sun going downward

The surface of the river coming clear of its own admixture

The ducks moving over like slow planes in formation,

       barely seen needles hauling white threads,

       secretly heeding

The fish in my skin relinquishes

Will I know then what I have become?

The river darkens from its end of trees closing in

There is the sun and this deep depression

Exiting as viewed in this river

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No snow job!

There are many downsides to the climate disruption we humans have created: wildfires more intensive and extensive; species extinctions; ocean warming and acidification; declining fisheries and agricultural yields. Most of those are, so far, global and impersonal, as far as we're concerned. Precipitation like freezing mist or rain coating our roadways seems to have been happening more frequently in the past decade or so. This is consistent with reports we read several years ago, that Minnesota's Winters would become more like Missouri's. Mist or rain freezing on our roads fits a category that we consider neither impersonal nor global. Climate disruption is here and we're not doing enough about it. Here's an example.

An interesting new piece in Fresh Energy's blog, about their executive director's new vehicle, Michael finally gets an electric vehicle: why was it so hard?, made us think of past articles we've read which contend the solutions to global climate disruption are not attainable through individuals making incremental changes. At the time we read those articles, we didn't think they let us off the hook, they just focused us on system change. But think about it, oil companies couldn't make huge profits if there weren't markets for their products. Most of the market for fossil fuel products is comprised of individuals like Michael (and us) making decisions about how to satisfy their (our) needs. That brings us to our recent posting about changing our attitude from one of "Yes, but" to one of "Yes, and." Yes, but says, if a collection of actions isn't going to solve the problem, why bother. Yes, and counters being a "Yes, but free rider," or, as we called them when we were younger and less tactful, a moocher. Not being a free rider helps shape markets to better meet our needs. How do we know this? We learned it from a Christmas tale we read several years ago. It goes like this.

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a coal mouse asked a wild dove.

"Nothing more than nothing," was the answer.

"In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal mouse said. "I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow…Since I didn't have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952.

"When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch—nothing more than nothing, as you say—the branch broke off…"

The dove, since Noah's time, an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while and finally said to herself, "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come about in this world."

how much do these snowflakes weigh?

Photo by J. Harrington

As we understand it, for there to be peace in the world, there needs be more justice and equity and love as well as those voices that are lacking. That means fewer free riders. There's a number of carbon and/or ecological footprint calculators available. Most of the ones we've seen require moderately detailed information to complete an individual household calculation. If you don't have the necessary information, that would be a place to start, else you're just

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

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Happy Thanksgiving! Will you choose to be thankful today?

Once again it's officially the "Holiday Season." Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is underway. That's the milestone we use each year. We wish you all the warmest, most desirable and wonderful holidays ever. Don't forget to share what you have with those who have less.

we're grateful for November sunrises like this

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we're trying to decide if it's time to be grateful that Minnesota's North Country has found a solution to global warming. This season our skies have been cloudy almost all day, almost every day. Yesterday's sunrise looked sort of like the picture above. Today we couldn't find a sunrise, the clouds are so solid and thick, but we are grateful we are free to choose to be cheerful regardless. [Read Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”] If sunlight is limited to around 10% or 20% of normal, does that solve climate disruption? Probably not, since the solution needs to be global, right?

With that out of the way, we can think of no better wish for all of us this season than to note and live by Frankl's observation and to choose to live in a way like the following:

Max Ehrmann

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

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What's normal in our New Normal?

The marshes, open water, and even much of what passes for a river channel in Pool 1 of the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, have begun to freeze over. At dog-walking time this morning, the local temperature was in the single digits. Even some of the larger lakes are making ice, although none is/are safe to travel on. A couple of years ago these same waters were still mostly open and attracting some southward-bound swans.

Pool 1-Sunrise River, early December 2015

Photo by J. Harrington

At least today we're getting some blue skies and sunshine, enough to warm up our new "blacktop" road and melt the edges of some snow cover left from the snow showers of a couple of days ago. We're slowly but surely coming to the realization that the scientists(?) who called climate change "global warming" would have served us better if they had chosen climate disruption or broken climate or something along those lines. "Warming" sounds very innocuous and, as some deniers have pointed out, the climate is always changing. What we have more and more are hell, as in the current fires in California, and high water from intense hurricanes and rainstorms. In fact, during the past few years, those frozen nearby marshes have had higher water in late autumn than we remember from a quarter century or so ago when we first moved in. We've noted here previously that Minnesota's short term weather and long term climate would be far preferable if the averages weren't comprised of such extremes. A daily average temperature of 50℉ means one thing if it's derived from a low of 40℉ and a high of 60℉ but something else entirely if the low is 0℉ and the high 100℉. We're doing our bit to combine the humanities with STEM type issues. By including the Arts, STEM becomes STEAM.

Meditation on Statistical Method

By J. V. Cunningham

Plato, despair!

We prove by norms

How numbers bear

Empiric forms,

How random wrong

Will average right

If time be long

And error slight,

But in our hearts

Hyperbole

Curves and departs

To infinity.

Error is boundless.

Nor hope nor doubt,

Though both be groundless,

Will average out.

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Can we change minds faster than the climate is changing?

Let's start with the good news. This morning we got to read a wonderful story, very well told, titled In the Kingdom of the Bears, by Jude Isabella, in Hakai magazine. If offers, we think, a needed and profound insight into the relationship that should exist between humans and the rest of nature.

we also live in a kingdom of the bears

Photo by J. Harrington

Now, for the, as Paul Harvey used to say, "rest of the story."

There's a very cautionary opinion piece in today's Star Tribune that struct close to our heart. More frequent, intense rains imperil 'local foods' sector fits well with the recent release of the IPCC's report on our necessity to promptly respond to global warming. Unfortunately, it may be analogous to whistling past the graveyard if the data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications is to be believed. That's where we learned, to our dismay, that the number of Minnesotans who believe that global warming is happening is less than the national average. That doesn't seem to fit well with an image of "above average" Lake Woebegoners, does it?

There's even worse news, as we see it. From Yale again: Most Liberal Democrats Say Global Warming Will Be a Very Important Issue When Deciding for Whom to Vote in the 2018 Congressional Election, but Moderate-Conservative Democrats rate global warming as less of a priority than All Registered Voters. Have the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Martians, managed to get some sort of perception-altering drugs into our water supplies or the air we breathe? Have Moderate-Conservative Democrats given up on their children's having any kind of decent future?

The New Yard Times focuses the issue this way: Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040. If we consider local foods as a significant part of a local economy, as we do, the piece in the Star Tribune intimates the crisis has already started. And yet, almost one-third of the voters in this country, and in Minnesota, don't believe there's an issue. Are all of them supporters of the misguided, malevolent, individual currently occupying the White House?

Here's a list of three resources, some of which we admit we haven't yet managed to  make time to finish reading our very own selves. Shall we read, or at least skim, each and see if we can do something to help educate each other, including the Moderate-Conservative Democrats? (And, now that we think of it, did Yale not survey any Independents?)

• Drawdown, 100 solutions to reverse global warming


• Climate Change Needs Behavior Change


• Overwhelmed by climate change? Here's what you can do 

The Question

by Theo Dorgan

When the great ships come back,
and come they will,
when they stand in the sky
all over the world,
candescent suns by day,
radiant cathedrals in the night,
how shall we answer the question:

What have you done
with what was given you,
what have you done with
the blue, beautiful world?

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Water is Life #WorldWaterWeek

It's the noon hour on August 28, 2018 in East Central Minnesota. The skies are cloudy. The local temperature is 60℉. As we type this, we're wearing a fleece-lined flannel shirt and our fingers are cold. IN AUGUST? IN MINNESOTA? Clearly this is not part of global warming but it may well be related to climate change.

Plus, the areas of southwestern Wisconsin we've visited this year are currently under flood watches due to lines of thunderstorms that have been passing through Minnesota and into our neighboring state to the East.

Today is approximately the middle of World Water Week. According to one of their policy briefs,

All the 17 [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, are linked to water. The 2030 Agenda recognizes that social development and economic prosperity depend on the sustainable management of freshwater resources and ecosystems and it highlights the integrated nature of the SDGs. It is therefore important to consider how water contributes to all the goals. When looking for solutions, one goal cannot be tackled without taking into consideration how the others are affected.

Grand Marais Harbor on Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

Lack of a holistic perspective is one of the current faults experienced in Minnesota. There, plus other Great Lakes States, people are faced with increasing competition for existing water resources, those once considered abundant to a fault. Are we killing the geese that lay the golden eggs? In the northern part of Minnesota, mining for copper is seen as presenting unacceptable risks to the Boundary Waters, St. Louis River and therefore Lake Superior. Yet, political pressure to proceed with the mining proposals continues. The southern third or so of Minnesota fails to meet water quality standards due, in large part, to (corporate) agriculture while growing numbers of proposed industrial-scale Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations [CAFO] further threaten the water supplies and local surface water on which communities and tourists depend.

a trout stream in Minnesota's farm country

Photo by J. Harrington

Wisconsin has already obtained an "exception" to the Great Lakes Compact and Agreement for Waukesha to withdraw Lake Michigan water, and the prospect of the Foxconn project offers further threats to maintaining any integrity to the Great Lakes compact.

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes offers insight to other perils facing these lakes, as does The Great Lakes Water Wars. We suppose that, as long as people continue talking about the growing demands on our finite resources, there's a chance that we'll escape some shooting wars. That's more than we can say about other parts of the world. We wonder how many Midwesterners are in attendance at World Water Week.

Water

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

The water understands 

Civilization well; 

It wets my foot, but prettily, 

It chills my life, but wittily, 

It is not disconcerted, 

It is not broken-hearted: 

Well used, it decketh joy, 

Adorneth, doubleth joy: 

Ill used, it will destroy, 

In perfect time and measure 

With a face of golden pleasure 

Elegantly destroy.

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#WorldOceansDay in the North Country

If you're from the MidWest or the North Country, you may well ask "what's World Oceans Day got to do with us?" The answer is at least three fold:

1. This year the focus is on preventing plastic pollution. Do you use plastic? Probably so.


2. There's a 97% or so consensus among scientists that humans are responsible for global warming that's negatively affecting the oceans and our weather/water cycle. What's your carbon footprint?


3. What do you know about the hydrologic cycle? The rain and snow that falls on us largely originates with evaporation from the oceans. Streamflow down the Mississippi River transports sediment and farm fertilizers to the Gulf of Mexico, helping to create a dead zone off shore from New Orleans.

Are you getting a clearer picture of what John Muir meant when he wrote "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." (- My First Summer in the Sierra , 1911, page 110.) or was that already obvious to you?

Minnesota's Inland Ocean

Photo by J. Harrington

We grew up next to the Atlantic Ocean. We swam in it, boated on it, fished in it and watched the tides rise and fall. In fact, one of the most significant (to us) observations about Lake Superior is that it doesn't smell right. For those of us who've spent much of our lives near an ocean, that much water is supposed to have a "salt smell" that's missing from Superior and the other Great Lakes, although, as "inland oceans" they have lots of appeal. For confirmation, take a look at Lorine Niedecker's Lake Superior after you've read:

"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd"

By Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, 

Whispering, I love you, before long I die,

I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you. 

Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe, 

Return in peace to the ocean my love, 

I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated, 

Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! 

But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, 

As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; 

Be not impatient – a little space – know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land, 

Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love. 

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IS there a "New Normal?" #phenology

We've always lived someplace that had four seasons. As we recall, the transitions between seasons in New England were more gradual than those in the upper Midwest, probably because we lived near the coast in Massachusetts. We remember several times that it was raining as we left home and snowing five miles inland as we pulled onto the highway. Climate change, aka global warming is reported to be triggering more intense storms and a more aberrant pattern. We thought we understood how that was likely to play out. Then we came to 2018.

Here's a couple of graphics from the National Weather Service that portray a pattern that makes us wonder when or if we'll ever enter into some sort of new "normal," if we take normal to mean "conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural."

Source: National Weather Service

In our neck of the woods, May was almost 9℉ above normal. But, look at the transition from April to May on "average" for the whole month. May was about 30℉ warmer than April. That's quite a jump, about double the "average" monthly change shown in US Climate data. We don't recall seeing any estimates of the effects that such large transitions, in a compressed time frame, may have on nature's "normal" patterns. As we've noted before and elsewhere, Minnesota's weather would be fantastic if our averages weren't made from such extremes. Instability and volatility are bad for business and living things.

Source: National Weather Service

Despite the trend in scientists' reports noting that the effects of what we've done to the atmosphere and oceans look like they've been underestimated for their severity,  we think humans have the ability to adjust and adapt to the problems we're creating, but not if we keep fighting yesterday's wars. We didn't believe enough US voters could be misguided enough to allow a charlatan to be nominated, let alone elected (by a minority of voters) to serve as president of the US. Clearly we were misguided on that as well as uninformed on the extent and effectiveness of foreign power interference. But, the same country that put astronauts on the moon, helped defeat fascist dictators and a misguided subculture that believe humans should be chattel, should be able to recover from it's latest round of short-sighted self-centeredness.

We all need to come to believe that, working together, we can make the choice between jobs and the environment a false choice. Do we have a major political party that truly includes that in their platform? No so's we can find it. The United Nations has adopted, through a vote of its members, sustainable development goals. We think that's a beneficial place to engage capital and labor in a conversation about moving away from winner take all politics. Think about it, if the 1% end up with 99% of the world's capital, who the hell will be able to buy anything their corporations produce? Responding to climate change should be framed with a democratic effort to apply the sustainable development goals. Several models for how to do that are contained in Mirriam Horn's Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman: Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland. Read it, watch the documentary, think about it. Don't end up being one of those people who'd rather fight than win.

Bounden Duty

By James Tate

               I got a call from the White House, from the

President himself, asking me if I’d do him a personal

favor. I like the President, so I said, “Sure, Mr.

President, anything you like.” He said, “Just act

like nothing’s going on. Act normal. That would

mean the world to me. Can you do that, Leon?” “Why,

sure, Mr. President, you’ve got it. Normal, that’s

how I’m going to act. I won’t let on, even if I’m

tortured,” I said, immediately regretting that “tortured”

bit. He thanked me several times and hung up. I was

dying to tell someone that the President himself called

me, but I knew I couldn’t. The sudden pressure to

act normal was killing me. And what was going on

anyway. I didn’t know anything was going on. I

saw the President on TV yesterday. He was shaking

hands with a farmer. What if it wasn’t really a

farmer? I needed to buy some milk, but suddenly

I was afraid to go out. I checked what I had on.

I looked “normal” to me, but maybe I looked more

like I was trying to be normal. That’s pretty

suspicious. I opened the door and looked around.

What was going on? There was a car parked in front

of my car that I had never seen before, a car that

was trying to look normal, but I wasn’t fooled.

If you need milk, you have to get milk, otherwise

people will think something’s going on. I got into

my car and sped down the road. I could feel those

little radar guns popping behind every tree and bush,

but, apparently, they were under orders not to stop

me. I ran into Kirsten in the store. “Hey, what’s

going on, Leon?” she said. She had a very nice smile.

I hated to lie to her. “Nothing’s going on. Just

getting milk for my cat,” I said. “I didn’t know

you had a cat,” she said. “I meant to say coffee.

You’re right, I don’t have a cat. Sometimes I

refer to my coffee as my cat. It’s just a private

joke. Sorry,” I said. “Are you all right?” she

asked. “Nothing’s going on, Kirsten. I promise

you. Everything is normal. The President shook

hands with a farmer, a real farmer. Is that such

a big deal?” I said. “I saw that,” she said, “and

that man was definitely not a farmer.” “Yeah, I

know,” I said, feeling better.

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How should Spring arrive? #phenology

Willow trees have taken on golden hues. (We finally lost hope and patience and bought a handful of pussy willow boughs this morning.) Male goldfinches are starting to show patches of bright yellow. Our formerly ice-coated driveway is now readily passable. Slowly, sometimes surely, with occasional misdirections, Spring creeps Northward.

male goldfinch starting to show breeding colors

Photo by J. Harrington

This year in the North Country, Spring seems to be taking longer than "normal." We suspect that's because several of our past Springs have arrived sooner and warmer than historical trends would indicate. We don't recall seeing any analysis about increasing volatility in seasonal transitions, although we haven't looked very hard. The animation above shows some areas where Spring is early and others where it's tardy. We're concerned about whether it actually stays "Spring" once arrived. Late season snowstorms, if not to heavy, can usually be taken in stride by our hardy natives. Late season hard freezes are a different story.

Spring leaf index anomaly

Once upon a time, when we were much younger, we remember thinking that Spring's arrival in our native Massachusetts, although often early or late, was pretty much a gradual progression more than a sudden arrival. Clearly that's not the case this year. A careful examination of the animation makes it clear that neither Massachusetts nor Minnesota has, as yet, produced enough evidence of Spring to compare with past years. Sigh! That does leave us much to look forward to, including the possibility of a sudden change of season replacing this dreary pattern we're in.

                     Willow

By Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Jennifer Reeser

...and a decrepit handful of trees.

—Aleksandr Pushkin

And I matured in peace born of command,

in the nursery of the infant century,

and the voice of man was never dear to me,

but the breeze’s voice—that I could understand.

The burdock and the nettle I preferred,

but best of all the silver willow tree.

Its weeping limbs fanned my unrest with dreams;

it lived here all my life, obligingly.

I have outlived it now, and with surprise.

There stands the stump; with foreign voices other

willows converse, beneath our, beneath those skies,

and I am hushed, as if I’d lost a brother.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

When Spring is more promise than real

Next week is the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere: official beginning of astronomical Spring. Then, again, this is Minnesota, where Spring usually arrives with the enthusiasm of a three year-old on the way to the dentist or doctor, foot dragging all over the place. Sometimes even a full scale thrash about on the floor tantrum through the appearance of a Spring snowstorm, followed, two days later, by the arrival of 80℉ Summer weather.

The driveway is still mostly covered with ice and snow. Snowlines in our fields are slowly shrinking and slipping down South-facing slopes. Bluebirds have been reported to have returned to houses some 30 or 40 miles South of us. We'll close up our houses in the next few days, although it still seems very early. While we're at it, we'll hang our native bee house and see if anyone shows up as the snow melts.

reported, but neither seen nor heard

Photo by J. Harrington

We've also seen reports that male red-winged blackbirds are back but can't yet personally vouch for that either. Knock on wood we seem to have dodged this past season's flu but we are definitely looking forward to having a bout of Spring fever. At least we haven't suffered through a series of Nor'Easters bringing massive amounts of snowfall, as has New England. I never, ever expected to be grateful to spend late Winter in Minnesota instead of Massachusetts, but this year proves there's an exception to everything.

swollen, but not yet burst

Photo by J. Harrington

Although maple buds are beginning to swell, there's still no sign of bud burst nor open water, unlike some past years when one or the other, or both, have been in evidence about this time of month. March may well be the most variably volatile month of the year. As climate change and global warming continue, will it stay that way or will other months begin to equal March's madness?

Enjoy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. We'll be in a political convention all day (what were we thinking?) and may or may not get home in time to post a report. Of course, the weather is forecast to be warm, maybe even 50℉ and sunny. Sigh!

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

Wallace Stevens, 1879 - 1955

At the earliest ending of winter, 
In March, a scrawny cry from outside 
Seemed like a sound in his mind. 

He knew that he heard it, 
A bird’s cry at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.
 
The sun was rising at six, 
No longer a battered panache above snow . . . 
It would have been outside. 

It was not from the vast ventriloquism 
Of sleep’s faded papier mâché . . .
The sun was coming from outside. 

That scrawny cry—it was 
A chorister whose c preceded the choir. 
It was part of the colossal sun, 

Surrounded by its choral rings, 
Still far away. It was like 
A new knowledge of reality.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

As of and after this Winter it's Climate Change, not Global Warming!

It's -16℉ outside our home. Reports are that  we're experiencing a "snow drought." Meanwhile, our place of origin (like a family of origin), Massachusetts' south shore, is getting buried in snow, flooded and frozen, all at the same time. Melting polar ice caps are leading to a more volatile polar vortex. These are some of the predicted consequences of a buildup of green house gases in the atmosphere leading to increasing temperature which, in turn, triggers more intense and volatile weather events.

between a rock and a cold, hard place

Photo by J. Harrington

Words matter. "Global warming" may create a misguided sense or warm fuzzies. It also lets idiots in the senate hold snowballs while denying climate change and incompetent presidential imposters joke about impending weather disasters. Hence forth, we'll do our best to follow this guidance from NASA:

But temperature change itself isn't the most severe effect of changing climate. Changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. For this reason, scientific research on climate change encompasses far more than surface temperature change. So "global climate change" is the more scientifically accurate term. Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we've chosen to emphasize global climate change on this website, and not global warming.

Thanks for letting us get that off of our chest. Most of today we're going to be headed up North, to Duluth, to meet some folks and talk about sustainable mining, or even whether we can agree such a thing can exist. Maybe "mining in a circular economy" works better. Our introductory rant today is a sign we're awakening to how much words can matter and we hope to find the correct words to make mining less economically, socially and environmentally anathema. As with many issues, change is occurring, but too slowly. We need to help more, and more, folks realize "there is no Planet B!" and cheating does us all a disservice. There's real difference between a greenwash and a sustainable world. That difference depends, ultimately, on us and how much we care about those who come after us. Before we have descendants, we have children. Don't they deserve the best we can provide? Doesn't that begin with a planet that provides air clean enough to breath, water clean enough to drink, and a climate that's changing less than we're experiencing this days? How will we know we've made a global economy sustainable? It's challenging to even label sea food successfully. Words matter!

The Young Poets of Winnipeg

Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

scurried around a classroom papered with poems.
Even the ceiling, pink and orange quilts of phrase…
they introduced one another, perched on a tiny stage
to read their work, blessed their teacher who
encouraged them to stretch, wouldn’t let their parents
attend the reading because parents might criticize,
believed in the third and fourth eyes, the eyes in
the undersides of leaves, the polar bears a thousand miles north,
and sprouts of grass under the snow. They knew their poems
were glorious, that second-graders could write better
than third or fourth, because of what happened
on down the road, the measuring sticks
that came out of nowhere, poking and channeling
the view, the way fences broke up winter,
or driveways separated the smooth white sheets
birds wrote on with their feet.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Toward a Happy(ier) New Year!

Despite all the books patiently waiting for us to read them, stacked in corners and piled on top of book cases, plus the books added to those stacks and piles at Christmas, we've decided there are at least two more books we need to read early (1st quarter?) next year. Why? Because they're reported to be optimistic, realistic, and offer positive responses to the trumpster fire that was 2017.

The first book was published a few years ago and somehow escaped being picked up on our radar screen. An interview with its author, Jonathon Porritt, published in ensia, came to our attention this morning. The book is The World We Made. Here's the "take-away" from the ensia interview:

"I think that the most important thing we can do now is not to give into temptation to spend all of our engaged minutes learning everything that’s going wrong and focusing on the slow sliding away into the apocalypse. Psychologically, we spend too much time on that. We devote a huge amount of our political and psychological energy to trying to stop more bad things from happening. We’ve got to use our available advocacy time and capacity to persuade people that good and exciting things are there and are available. What I’d like is for people to say, “Yeah, OK, I’ve got it. Let’s grab a little bit of that and make that happen in our community, whether it’s a community farm, or renewable energy, or we’re going to think about this differently.” Whatever it’s going to be, do the solutions as well as keep your mind alert to the problems."

The second book is by someone whose works we've been reading for years. Paul Hawken has recently published Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Hawken delivers a message (un)surprisingly similar to Porritt's:

When it comes to global warming, Hawken says, we’ve been “focusing too much on the problem instead of the solution…. Regenerative development is development, whether it’s on an urban, transportation, housing, marine agriculture, or health level. It’s development that actually heals the future as opposed to stealing from it, which is what we’re doing today.” 

We've notice that, since election day 2016, our mood has become darker and darker. We've been focusing more and more on the problems. For the new year coming, we're going to remember, as Buffalo Springfield taught us long, long ago,

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away

Since we've often been told that "The best defense is a good offense," we're going to be more positive in 2018 and do our best to be as offensive as we can creating a better world on terms we think are best. We've also been told, time and again, that "the proper definition of a problem is half the solution." Our new, proper, we hope, definition of the problem will be to focus on solutions and let the problems take care of themselves.

Burning the Old Year

Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   
lists of vegetables, partial poems.   
Orange swirling flame of days,   
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   
only the things I didn’t do   
crackle after the blazing dies.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

A little bird told me #phenology

We got a couple of inches or so of snow last night. This morning chickadees are flocking to the feeders as if they were Black Friday shoppers at big box stores. Juncos are hopping around on the snow-covered ground under those feeders and occasionally getting scared off or chased away by one of the neighborhood bluejays. If our name were Inhofe, and we were a US Senator from Oklahoma, this weather could provide an excuse to challenge the existence of global warming and reportedly shorter snow seasons. Instead, we'll call your attention to this report, released yesterday:

• Highlights of the Findings of the U.S. Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report (Executive Summary)


• Climate Science Special Report Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I (Full Report)

There have been several Tweets about that report, but we found mike augustyniak's to be particularly well done.

"will flit for food"

Photo by J. Harrington

Chickadees can only adapt to the changes they're experiencing. We can do better than chickadees. We can modify those of our activities that have caused climate change at the same time we adapt to the effects of global warming since

"... it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence."

"just a quick bite"

Photo by J. Harrington

The World Economic Forum has written about key steps to a more sustainable economy. As we move through our transitions in weather, climate and economy, we need to remember that

The question is: how much of our industrial system must we transform? Carbon dioxide will build up in the atmosphere until we stop removing fossil carbon from the ground, which means that very soon we will have to dramatically reduce our use of a raw material that is central to our global economy. The change will be easier if we can produce goods using carbon-neutral or low-carbon raw and recycled materials. Plastics manufacturers want ethylene, not crude oil; wind turbine manufacturers want steel, not iron ore and coke; server clusters need electricity, not coal. For some products, this is possible in principle, but there are important differences between fossil carbon and the alternatives. Renewable energy sources are thinly spread, often intermittent, and annual production is limited. Nuclear power remains an option but is expensive to build and operate and, as Fukushima showed, can pose risks even when managed well.

In Minnesota, we have the benefit of having helped create a culture that produced the Nobel Laureate who wrote:

That he not busy being born is busy dying

Much of Minnesota's North Country was "settled" by Finns and Swedes and Norwegians, the same cultures and economies that are helping to lead our way into a "New Normal" that we all face together. There's not yet reason for us to run around like chickadees with our heads cut off nor scream that "the sky is falling" as long as we don't sit on our wings hands and do nothing.

Horoscope

Maureen N. McLane

Again the white blanket    
icicles pierce.
The fierce teeth
of steel-framed snowshoes
bite the trail open.
Where the hardwoods stand
and rarely bend
the wind blows hard
an explosion of snow
like flour dusting
the baker in a shop
long since shuttered.
In this our post-shame century
we will reclaim
the old nouns
unembarrassed. 
If it rains 
we’ll say oh
there’s rain.
If she falls
out of love
with you you’ll carry
your love on a gold plate
to the forest and bury it
in the Indian graveyard.
Pioneers do not
only despoil.
The sweet knees
of oxen have pressed
a path for me.
A lone chickadee
undaunted thing
sings in the snow.    
Flakes appear
as if out of air
but surely they come
from somewhere
bearing what news
from the troposphere.
The sky’s shifted
and Capricorns abandon
themselves to a Sagittarian
line. I like
this weird axis.
In 23,000 years
it will become again
the same sky
the Babylonians scanned.