September “Summer” #phenology

We are enjoying the gift of another beautiful late summer, early autumn day. I noticed the female and/or juvenile ruby-throated hummingbirds are still around. It’s been weeks since we’ve seen a male. A day or so ago I saw a small dragonfly along the road’s edge. Still no sightings of woolly bear caterpillars. For nimrods, ruffed grouse season opens Saturday when it’s forecast to be thunderstormy and 80℉. That’s not the kind of weather I’d enjoy hunting grouse in.

Northern Minnesota ruffed grouse

Photo by J. Harrington

The asters and mums we planted are settling in nicely and brightening the place even more. Thursday or Friday we’ll collect the first box of our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] autumn share. This morning I managed to dig up about half the bed where the Better Half wants to plant peonies. With luck, I’ll finish digging tomorrow and then work in a summer’s worth of compost.

It is hard to believe that we’re almost halfway through September, but I’ve noticed that I’m getting back into a baking-bread-more-frequently routine. That corresponds with fewer salads and more warm dinners showing up in the household supper/dinner menu. We’re not quite back to the soups and stews season, but I think I can see it from here unless, of course, the weather becomes as messed up as the stock market is these days. Admittedly, the stock market isn’t the economy, but it appears the Fed’s determination to put a stake through the heart of inflation may lead to an example of “the operation was a success, but the patient died” condition.

And Now It’s September,

By Barbara Crooker

and the garden diminishes: cucumber leaves rumpled

and rusty, zucchini felled by borers, tomatoes sparse

on the vines. But out in the perennial beds, there’s one last

blast of color: ignitions of goldenrod, flamboyant 

asters, spiraling mums, all those flashy spikes waving

in the wind, conducting summer’s final notes.

The ornamental grasses have gone to seed, haloed

in the last light. Nights grow chilly, but the days

are still warm; I wear the sun like a shawl on my neck

and arms. Hundreds of blackbirds ribbon in, settle

in the trees, so many black leaves, then, just as suddenly,

they’re gone. This is autumn’s great Departure Gate,

and everyone, boarding passes in hand, waits

patiently in a long, long line.

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Piercing an autumn’s mist

This morning’s fog was lacking the smell of salt air and the haunting of horns, but it came close to bringing me back to Cape Cod Bay. It also reminded me of the time in Minnesota when I literally had to follow a fog line at the edge of the road to drive most of the way to a deer camp Up North. It’ll be interesting to see if conditions repeat again during this week of unseasonably warm weather to trigger more misty mornings.

Did you know that a Minnesota-born artist, one who specializes in outdoor themes, David Maass, has done several “misty morning” paintings around subjects like ruffed grouse or mallard ducks? My Maass prints are mostly incorporated into a book, A Gallery of Waterfowl and Upland Birds, which includes Gene Hill stories. I’ve not read them for far too long. I’ve just added it to my winter reading list.

misty October morning

Photo by J. Harrington

The picture above, of the fields behind our house on a misty morning, shows fog neither as low-lying nor as thick as this morning’s, but it was taken on an October day much like today. I’m thankful that the “red gods” used this morning’s fog to remind me of the good times I’ve enjoyed hunting and fishing and just being outdoors during October. If today's contentious times and their customs are wearying you, try an awe walk. That’s all for now.

Morning Poem

by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray. 

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Time to extinguish a few crises

So, yesterday's good news is that I had enough sense to begin wearing a COVID-19 face mask while outside for any period of time in the smoke-filled air of east-central Minnesota, such as when walking the dogs. We all know the bad news, that we're setting Minnesota records for bad air quality from forest fires to our north and others to our west. If face masks are a means to help keep teeny, tiny virus particles out of my airways, they should also work to reduce inhalation of smoke and/or fine particles (PM 2.5).

this time last summer, spotted horsemint was more abundant

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, the drought continues; the current administration continues to avoid the implications of not suspending or revoking the permits allowing  construction to continue on Enbridge's new Line 3 tar sands transport pipe; folks are beginning to suffer whiplash from "adjustments" to indoor mask "guidelines" related to the delta variant of COVID; and, in a much lesser vein, I became thoroughly embarrassed to learn that Minnesota's sharp-tailed grouse range extends much further east and south than I ever knew. (I know about the Northcentral zone and have almost since I moved to Minnesota. Somehow, the East-central zone has stayed off my radar screen until this morning.)

It's no doubt timely for information affecting hunters and hunting seasons to begin to be released by the Department of Natural Resources in late July, since Sunday, two days from now is Lughnasadh, the beginning of Gaelic harvest time in the Druid Way. As we continue toward autumn, may the wildfires and their smoke be contained and extinguished; may all of US who can safely do so get vaccinated, extinguishing the COVID virus; and may the state and/or federal governments extinguish the Line 3 permits and honor the treaties which Line 3's construction fails to honor.

Tiger Mask Ritual

By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

When you put on the mask the thunder starts.

Through the nostril’s orange you can smell

the far hope of rain. Up in the Nilgiris,

glisten of eucalyptus, drip of pine, spiders tumbling

from their silver webs.

The mask is raw and red as bark against your facebones. 

You finger the stripes ridged like weals

out of your childhood. A wind is rising

in the north, a scarlet light

like a fire in the sky.

When you look through the eyeholes it is like falling.

Night gauzes you in black. You are blind

as in the beginning of the world. Sniff. Seek the moon.

After a while you will know

that creased musky smell is rising

from your skin.

Once you locate the ears the drums begin.

Your fur stiffens. A roar from the distant left,

like monsoon water. You swivel your sightless head.

Under your sheathed paw

the ground shifts wet.

What is that small wild sound

sheltering in your skull

against the circle that always closes in

just before dawn?

Note

The poem refers to a ritual performed by some Rajasthani hill tribes to ensure

           rain and a good harvest.

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