November's heritage: memories and memorials

It was fifty years ago tomorrow that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the tragedy with his song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Please pause for a moment of silence after following the link and listening to him perform. Then check some interesting background to the song.

Minnesota's Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

Locally, on November 10 the Split Rock Lighthouse and the Minnesota Historical Society will host a memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Fitzgerald's sinking, as has been done for the past four decades or so.

Our area's firearm’s deer season opened yesterday with colder temperatures than we’ve seen so far this season. Warmer days are forecast for later in the week. One of the reasons I was more of a grouse and waterfowl hunter than a whitetail seeker is that I can't manage to sit still enough to blend into the landscape when experiencing the frequently cold temperatures we get during deer season in the North Country. Plus, when I tried deer hunting back in New England, before moving to Minnesota, I did it with a mixed group of bow hunters and bird hunters. It rarely failed that the bird hunters spooked deer and the bow hunters watched grouse strutting around their stands.

UPDATE: Local ponds are forming ice cover. First snow of the season is falling as graupel and forming snow snakes along the roads.

Since November is Native American Heritage month, as well as the season for early gales on Superior, and since Lightfoot referred to Superior by her Ojibwe/Anishinaabe name, Gitche Gumee, it seems fitting to close today with a Kimberly Blaeser poem. Water, in Great Lakes and elsewhere, has long been a source of both life and death.

Wellspring: Words from Water

A White Earth childhood water rich and money poor.
Vaporous being transformed in cycles—
the alluvial stories pulled from Minnesota lakes
harvested like white fish, like manoomin,
like old prophecies of seed growing on water.
Legends of Anishinaabeg spirit beings:
cloud bearer Thunderbird who brings us rain,
winter windigo like Ice Woman, or Mishibizhii
who roars with spit and hiss of rapids—
great underwater panther, you copper us
to these tributaries of balance. Rills. A cosmology
of nibi.  We believe our bodies thirst. Our earth.
One element. Aniibiishaaboo. Tea brown
wealth. Like maple sap. Amber. The liquid eye of moon.
Now she turns tide, and each wedded being gyrates
to the sound, its river body curving.
We, women of ageless waters, endure;
like each flower drinks from night,
holds dew. Our bodies a libretto,
saturated, an aquifer—we speak words
from ancient water.

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Contingency planning in the anthropocene

Yesterday and today, the dogs and I walked up to the pond North of the house. It’s a longer walk than we usually take at this time of year but with the warmer temperatures and lack of snow cover, we need the exercise. The ice cover on the pond is deteriorating for at least the second time this season. We’ll see lots of open water by the end of the week. If the general weather pattern continues, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see much of the Spring turkey hunting season to be a bit of a waste. Many of the hens may be bred, and the toms worn out, by the time hunting season opens in mid April. Or I may be way off base, depending on what the Wild Turkey Foundation means by “Unusually warm or cold spells may accelerate or slow breeding activity slightly."

local turkeys: early March past

Photo by J. Harrington

Then again, this being the North Country, we could be up to our armpits in snow by Valentine’s Day. I just don’t know what to make of it, but the dogs and I do prefer above freezing to below zero temperatures, when given the option, a very rare occurrence around here. We even got to enjoy approximately 49 seconds of sunshine today. More may be delivered later this week, or not.

One thing I feel relatively certain of: if I buy a turkey license, it’s likely to snow and rain and freeze and blow and maybe even blizzard. That assessment is based on the Spring weather we encountered in our younger days when we were know to join a few friends and hunt the birds in southeast Minnesota or South Dakota. We’ll see how the weather pattern plays out. I could be convinced to go trout fishing instead, or if the weather turns miserable enough, stay in, drink coffee, and read.

Turkey Fallen Dead from Tree

By Dore Kiesselbach

Startled from snow-day slumber by a neighbor’s mutt, 

it banged its buzzard’s head then couldn’t solve 

the problem of the white pine’s limbs 

with wings nearly too broad for a planned descent. 

Somewhere an awkward angel knows 

whether it was dead before it hit the ground.

Any sinner could tell it was dead after—

eyes unseen beneath bare and wrinkled lids,

feet drawn up almost as high as hands.

I loved to watch thistle and millet 

disappear beneath it in the yard.

As snow covers feathers that will still be 

iridescent in the spring I remember seeing 

a businessman take a dripping handful 

of pocket change and throw it down 

a subway grate beside a homeless man. 

The coins bounced and clattered, vanishing 

in the humid dark. The rich man said 

now you’re having a shitty day too. 

But it’s not a shitty day and won’t be 

when I retrieve the bird and walk it—

toes curling stiff from a shopping bag—

to a houseless scrap of oak savannah 

birdseed drew it from and dig it 

into deeper snow so what was hoarded 

by a man may by the thaw be doled.

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Oh, deer! November

For the next eight days or so, local style guides call for fluorescent orange or pink outerwear. Through November 12 it’s deer firearms season in our neighborhood.

I’ve never been much of a deer hunter, although I love being out in the woods, I have trouble sitting still. I’ve usually been happier chasing grouse or ducks, or, many springs, turkeys.

early snow, whitetail deer

Photo by J. Harrington

Compared to years past, we’ve seen few “backyard” deer or turkeys this year although yesterday afternoon, while walking the dogs, we saw a small flock of turkeys emerge from the neighbor’s woods, walk a short way down the middle of the road, get spooked and fly away. Maybe they encountered a spirit or two left over from Halloween.

Back in the years when I was a more dedicated duck hunter, I recall getting annoyed by the fluoresccnt orange requirement since we didn’t want to wear it in a duck or goose blind. Of course, neither did we want to take a chance on getting shot by mistake nor written up by a conservation officer on purpose.

These days I’ll get my exercise and fresh air clearing as many leaves as I can from the driveway in hopes they won’t clog the snow blower come that season.

November

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;	
    Long have I listened to the wailing wind,	
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,	
    For autumn charms my melancholy mind.	
 
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
    The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;	
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail	
    Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!	
 
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,	
    The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year’s bier,	
    These waiting mourners do not sing for me!	
 
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,	
    Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;	
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
    The loss of beauty is not always loss!

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Home territory?

As I’ve pondered my experiences in New England and Minnesota, trying to get a handle on why my affections for the former are so much stronger than those for the latter, it occurs to me that in Massachusetts, there was much more that I could do, close to where I lived, that I really enjoyed doing. In Minnesota, I can do many, but not all, of the same things but it involves much more travel.

One example that promptly comes to mind is that I could, with a half an hour’s drive, be wading a pond and fly-fishing for bluegills and small bass. Although I’ve spent a fair amount of time searching for a comparable location in Minnesota, there are few places (none I’ve found) to wade and fish a pond or lake. Things look much better if one has a boat or canoe, but that adds to the complexity of a quiet evening in the water.

Here’s one that I admit is unfair, but I could readily go clamming, fishing and duck hunting in several locations near my abode in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Minnesota doesn’t offer clamming, the goose hunting is better here but I have to drive most of the way across the state to enjoy that. Trout fishing back East was about as long a drive from home as it is in Minnesota. Turkey hunting when I lived back East was almost unheard of and only became viable in Minnesota several years after I arrived. These days I can hunt turkeys and deer in my back yard, but neither of those is a preferred outdoor activity. I’d rather be slightly more active than sitting in a blind or on a stand. Grouse hunting in both locations I’ve found to be pretty much comparable and about equally distant from home both places. 

some Minnesota trees

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half and I have enjoyed a number of vacations that involved some travel and trout fishing. The fishing part has been singularly unproductive. Maybe we should have hired a local guide. (Yes, I want it all: attractive surroundings and good sport.) At one point we lived somewhere that was about half an hour’s drive closer to a wonderful trout stream in Wisconsin. That was almost as good as the pond in Massachusetts, but I’m not sure about including Wisconsin in my assessment of Minnesota.

The purpose of the preceding is to compare, not criticize. I’m convinced that Minnesota, at least around the Twin Cities, has a much more active literary community than I ever found around Boston. I’m truly grateful for that. But overall, I find it much more challenging discovering a sense of place in Minnesota than I did back East. Could it be because I grew up with clam and corn chowder (chow dah) rather than tater tots? You may have noticed that I’ve not mentioned the people in either location. I have every reason to believe that New Englanders are no more or less insular than Minnesotans, but I was born there, not here, so I can’t really do that comparison. I was native to parts of New England and accepted as such. Others, not so much.

If you have any thoughts you want to share about becoming native to aa place, we’d love to see them in the comments.

Native Trees

By W. S. Merwin

Neither my father nor my mother knew

the names of the trees

where I was born

what is that

I asked and my

father and mother did not

hear they did not look where I pointed

surfaces of furniture held

the attention of their fingers

and across the room they could watch

walls they had forgotten

where there were no questions

no voices and no shade

Were there trees

where they were children

where I had not been

I asked

were there trees in those places

where my father and my mother were born

and in that time did

my father and my mother see them

and when they said yes it meant

they did not remember

What were they I asked what were they

but both my father and my mother

said they never knew

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Going to the dogs

Using a “best guesstimate” approach and the data from the CoCoRaHS web site, we got about .2 inches (two tenths of an inch) of rain late yesterday. Close to but better than nothing. The drought has deepened in much of the state, although we continue to experience lots of cloud cover, which makes days more dreary but helps keep temperatures down, or has so far. For next week’s forecast we get into the mid-nineties. Sigh!

Harry the Beagle warming my chair

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re pleased to report that Mr. Harry the Beagle’s sprained tail is much improved. Harry is the Better Half’s dog and she notes that she’s happy to see he has his wag back. SiSi, my blonde lab cross-breed, hopes that we get more rain but without the thunder and lightning, thank-you-very-much! If you’ve considered getting a dog, especially a rescue, and have some reservations, let me assure you they’re more than worth any inconvenience, and there probably will be some. If that’s not enough to motivate you, check out these Gene Hill quotes on dogs. Mr. Hill is one of my all time favorite out-door writers, but don’t just take my word for it, see what Sporting Classics has to say about him.

I need to make some major adjustments and spend more time with our dogs and my toys and less time on my duff in the chair pictured above with Harry seated in it. I may need to pull a Tom Sawyer on myself to accomplish that, like the way he got the fence whitewashed. I fear that, in the process of getting older, I’ve also become staider. I need to create a way to undo that or the MAGAt Republicans will win. I’ve decided that one of their primary  objectives is to make the rest of US as miserable as they are. If we can stay, or get, happy, we win and they lose. Playing with dogs, fly rods, shotguns and spending more time in the outdoors is one way I think I can destaidify myself. Check back from time to time to see how it’s going.

Happy as a Dog’s Tail

By Anna Swir

Happy as something unimportant

and free as a thing unimportant.

As something no one prizes

and which does not prize itself.

As something mocked by all

and which mocks at their mockery.

As laughter without serious reason.

As a yell able to outyell itself.

Happy as no matter what,

as any no matter what.

Happy

as a dog’s tail.

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Talking turkey

For all the times we’ve seen wild turkeys around the place, and the few times we’ve heard toms gobbling, this morning is the first time I can remember hearing a hen yelping. I was busy loading the tractor onto the trailer so we could take it off to the dealer for service, and amidst my hearing the tie-down straps ratchet tight, were the hen’s calls. Was she calling poults to stay away from me, the Jeep, and the trailer? Was she just trying to gather a family together? Could she  have been responding to the ratchet noise? I’ll never know, but it was fun to hear a real version of what I’ve been trying, off and on, to imitate during years of (unsuccessful) spring turkey hunting.

either sex is legal quarry in fall season

Photo by J. Harrington

Since Minnesota has a fall turkey season, this may be a year to get a license and spend some mornings sipping coffee on the deck and seeing if anyone wanders through the yard. Maybe I’ll even try playing with some of my turkey calls, although I’ll need to practice to minimize the likelihood of scaring the quarry away rather than drawing it in close. All of this presume that the smoke from Canadian wildfires has ceased and none is being generated by Minnesota burns. The past week or so has been smokey enough that I’ve even held off on burning some of the downed dead branches in the burn pit. It also depends on the disappearance of most all of the mosquitoes by the end of September. Think we’ll have had our first hard frost by then?

It feels odd thinking about turkey hunting in midsummer, since it’s usually an early spring affair, but then this has been one of those decades, hasn’t it? One where the unusual is becoming more common and most of US are struggling to figure out what, if anything, to do about it.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

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How bad is it?

I’ve noticed lots of comments (complaints) on social media about how bad the mosquitos are this year. Local, and, I think, national, news has done a story on it. Somehow, I think I recall similar stories almost every spring turning into summer. It all puts me in mind of one of my outdoor adventures from years ago.

The Better Half had given me, as a birthday present, maybe combined with father’s day, a bow and arrow bear hunting trip to a camp in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. One afternoon, as I was sitting 15 or 20 feet up in an aspen tree, a bear came to the bait. I drew my bow and, in my excitement, ended up shooting a little high. The bear disappear immediately after the arrow passed over his(?) front shoulder. When the guide later came to collect me, he decided we should track the bear to be sure I hadn’t drawn blood or, if I had, to fill my tag. Off we went on a late afternoon in June through scrub brush in Canada.

While 15 or 20 feet in the air, exposed to what breeze there was, I hadn’t noticed any mosquitos. On the ground, tracking a bear, I was literally coated and crawling with them. For fear of spooking a possibly wounded bear, I did minimal swatting while we walked. After 45 minutes or an hour, with no sign of the bear or any blood, the guide accepted that I had indeed missed. We headed for his truck and I swatted freely.

this bear visited our front yard in June, 9 years ago

Photo by J. Harrington

Since that afternoon, Minnesota has produced mosquito swarms thick enough to annoy me, but not in sufficient numbers to impress me as much as the Canadian skeeters had. I’ll share another, more current, bear story tomorrow. Just remember, no matter how bad something is, it might well find a way to get worse. Find something that’s going ok (like not encountering a wounded bear) and be thankful for that.

Mosquitoes

By Katherine Hauth

Mosquitoes,

with needle-noses

sucking blood

from elbows, cheeks, and chin

why were you not

designed to thrive

on brine, on swine,

or likewise-spiny

porcupines?

                       SLAP!

SLAP!

                                          SLAP!

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How to choose a poetry book

Czeslaw Milosz is a Nobel Laureate in Literature (1980). I’m rereading one of his works, Road-side Dog, and quite enjoying it. Some weeks ago, I effusively shared with the Better Half [BH] some of the pieces in that volume. Subsequently, BH presented me with two other volumes of Milosz’ poetry: New and Collected Poems 1931 -- 2001, and Selected and Last Poems 1931 -- 2004. I’ve but briefly glanced at the former and am about halfway through the latter. Much to my dismay and frustration, I’ve thought I understood  and enjoyed no more than two or three poems of what I’ve read thus far. I find the experience somewhat comparable to partially assembling a jigsaw puzzle without benefit of the box top and with perhaps a third or half of the pieces missing.

Milosz isn’t the only poet I’ve found challenging in recent days. I’ve previously read, thought I understood, and enjoyed several of Kathleen Jamie’s works such as Sightlines and The Overhaul. On that basis, for Christmas last year I asked either Santa or BH for a copy of Jamie’s Selected Poems. In the last day or so I read the first three or four poems in that volume and have no concept of what she’s writing about there. Perhaps the difference is European rather than American frames of reference and context. I wouldn’t blame you if you were thinking perhaps it’s the reader rather than the poet that’s lacking. I admit to that possibility but would point out this extract from a Poetry Foundation discussion:

Many of the translators’ notes in this issue refer to the difficulty of translation, and many refer in one way or another to Robert Frost’s view that “poetry is what is lost in translation.” Reading Aleksandar Hemon’s translator’s note, are you inclined to agree or disagree with Frost? How does the language that we speak affect our understanding of ourselves?

For the past year or two, I’ve found myself drawn more and more to poems about rural living, nature, hunting, fishing and foraging by North American poets, both indigenous and other. I have my eye on a recently published volume by a poet new to me although I’m familiar with some of her prose. I’m encouraged because her volume is reviewed in the most recent issue of TROUT magazine and it’s been blurbed by a different poet whose work I’m already looking forward to reading. I’m going to take an easy out and provide a link to the publisher’s web page on her book: How You Walk Alone in the Dark.

Now, the secret hidden in the preceding is that I will be checking into each of those who blurbed Dark to see if any of their works look interesting and appealing enough to get my hands on. It won’t take me forever to finish Jamie and Milosz and my reading diet requires variety.

Time Travel by Erin Block

August 31, 2022 ~ ONE ART

Time Travel

Where would you go
if you could go anywhere.
That’s what people ask.
From the time we’re born,
desperate to get away
like a coyote in a trap.
And I’ve never known what to say
until just now after the rain’s stopped,
just before dark,
just before I knead tortilla dough
with the hands I use to braid my mother’s hair
down her back to childhood—
do I know the answer—
and it’s up the mountain
to where the ravens are cawing.
Because it’s never not something:
a bear, a turkey, a body
cached by a lion.
They’re better than a bloodhound
for a missing person
and if you’re looking for a reason,
they have it.
Tucked in tailfeathers;
held in beaks like splintered bone
that rain down ash when they speak.
I’ll bring my mother with me,
walking over the ridge to find them.
There she’ll remember where she’s gone
and how to get back home.

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No more passenger pigeons

 Today is opening day of Minnesota’s wild turkey season No, not the turkeys in the state capitol, their season begins back in January or February. Interestingly, both the wild and political turkey seasons end about the same time, at the end of May and each is often associated with major snow jobs in April.

tom turkey mating display

Photo by J. Harrington

When I first moved to Minnesota, about four+ decades ago, wild turkeys were confined to a few counties in the southeastern part of the state. Now, they’re widespread throughout much of Minnesota, including our back yard from time to time. Wild turkeys and bald eagles demonstrate our ability to restore critters to range from which they’ve been extirpated and from near extinction population levels. Wouldn’t it be great if we worked harder at avoiding the need for restoration by protecting nature. (Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati zoo more than 100 years ago.) We can and must do better.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

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T minus 2 and counting

As you know, we’re rapidly approaching Turkey day. I’ve hunted wild turkey quite a few times, always in the spring. Autumn was reserved for hunting grouse and ducks, occasionally deer, and, when I lived in Massachusetts, striped bass fishing. Several of us from Minnesota used to travel to the Dakotas for spring turkey hunting, at that time you could hunt with a rifle. I only got one shot in a number of trips, and I missed the bird’s head at about 75 yards. All of this is a lead in to saying  that I’m full of gratitude for the times I’ve spent fishing, hunting, getting ready to fish or hunt, messing with hunting (and other) dogs, fiddling with boats, canoes, belly boats and duck boats.

I grew up at a time when outdoor magazines like Field and Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield published writers like Gene Hill, Corey Ford, and A.J. McLane. That meant I could get three or four times as much  pleasure from any outdoors outing: thinking about going; going; memories of having gone; and, reading about similar trips by others. I’m grateful I grew up where, when and how I did. These days I’m working on following the old advice: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because t happened.” I don’t get out as much as I used to but I’m grateful I can still get out at all.

turkey hens in the front yard

Photo by J. Harrington

So, instead of shooting turkeys with a gun, I’ve managed to shoot quite a few with my camera. The taste is a little on the flat side but I get to enjoy the pictures more than for just one or two meals. That’s something for which to be thankful too, right?

Haiku Journey

By Kimberly Blaeser

         i. Spring

the tips of each pine

the spikes of telephone poles

hold gathering crows

may’s errant mustard

spreads wild across paved road

look both ways

roadside treble cleft

feeding gopher, paws to mouth

cheeks puffed with music

yesterday’s spring wind

ruffling the grey tips of fur

rabbit dandelion

         ii. Summer

turkey vulture feeds

mechanical as a red oil rig

head rocks down up down

stiff-legged dog rises

goes grumbling after squirrel

old ears still flap

snowy egret—curves,

lines, sculpted against pond blue;

white clouds against sky

banded headed bird

this ballerina killdeer

dance on point my heart

         iii. Fall

leaf wind cold through coat

wails over hills, through barren trees

empty garbage cans dance

damp September night

lone farmer, lighted tractor

drive memory’s worn path

sky black with migration

flocks settle on barren trees

leaf birds, travel songs

october moon cast

over corn, lighted fields

crinkled sheaves of white

         iv. Winter

ground painted in frost

thirsty morning sun drinks white

leaves rust golds return

winter bare branches

hold tattered cups of summer

empty nests trail twigs

lace edges of ice

manna against darkened sky

words turn with weather

now one to seven

deer or haiku syllables

weave through winter trees

Northern follows jig

body flashes with strike, dive:

broken line floats up.

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November: storms of the season

In commemoration of the 47th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Minnesota’s Split Rock Light House will be holding a Memorial Beacon Lighting and related activities. For those unable to attend the event, a portion of the beacon lighting will be streamed live on YouTube. I would be remiss if I failed to include a link to Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song about the wreck, so here it is.

• Previous postings on My Minnesota about the Edmund Fitzgerald

Split Rock Light House

Photo by J. Harrington

This week’s weather makes me glad I haven’t spent all year looking forward to the firearms deer hunting season that started last Saturday. It’s been a week of howling winds, rain, thunderstorms, I think they got some snow up north. Deer don’t like strong winds. Speaking only for myself, I never enjoyed sitting on a tree stand in the rain, but then I never had a tree stand with a roof like some of the ones I’ve seen at the edges fo several of the farm fields around here. A little bit of snow, known as “tracking snow,” is usually seen as helpful, but there’s none of that to speak of around here.

The sleeping giant (thunder bay, lake superior)

Emily Pauline Johnson 1861 – 1913

When did you sink to your dreamless sleep

Out there in your thunder bed?

Where the tempests sweep,

And the waters leap,

And the storms rage overhead.

Were you lying there on your couch alone

Ere Egypt and Rome were born?

Ere the Age of Stone,

Or the world had known

The Man with the Crown of Thorn.

The winds screech down from the open west,

And the thunders beat and break

On the amethyst

Of your rugged breast,--

But you never arise or wake.

You have locked your past, and you keep the key

In your heart 'neath the westing sun,

Where the mighty sea

And its shores will be

Storm-swept till the world is done. 

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Hunting for more than antlers or meat

Firearms deer season opens tomorrow in our neck of the woods and continues through November 13. There will be scattered patches of florescent orange and a handful or two of strange vehicles in the neighborhood and then back to our usual exurban quiet.

deer nibbled pumpkins

Photo by J. Harrington

I expect the dogs, especially Harry the beagle, to be hyperactive, hyper-vigilant and hyper-noisy with all the strangers walking and driving in the area. We may have to shoo a hunter or two out of our backyard, or maybe not. Some years the pressure in our immediate area is greater than in others.

The Department of Natural Resources notes that there’s a three deer limit in our area and that the “population has consecutively grown in density even with more liberal harvest designations. Another year of early antlerless and a three-deer limit should help curb the growth rate with focused antlerless harvest to stabilize the population at goal level.” I’m surprised at such an assessment because we’ve seen many fewer deer this year than in years past. In fact, it’s been a few years since we had post-Halloween pumpkins nibbled at our doorstep. But, if the herd exceeds the carrying capacity of the habitat, the health of the herd is at risk.

The other interesting coincidence with deer season this week occurs on Tuesday, when the crew arrives to take down our big pine tree in front of the house, and some oak trees that I think have died of oak wilt. As you know, that’s also election day. It’s looking more and more like a very interesting week coming up.

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet 

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.

Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. 

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Enjoying Autumn?

Summer’s gone. By week’s end, September will join the past and October will hold the near future. Tomorrow is World Rivers Day and this morning I stumbled into some river resources I should have known about but didn’t. I’ll share them tomorrow.

Today is, among other things, National Public Lands Day. I sent emails to my congressperson and two US senators asking them to support additional funding for national wildlife refuges. The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists 21 facilities in Minnesota. The Star Tribune, several years ago, published a guide to 13 national wildlife refuges in the state. Full disclosure: almost all of my Minnesota goose hunting has been done at a state wildlife area/refuge, Lac qui Parle, in western Minnesota.

Carlos Avery, Canada geese, 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota’s regular waterfowl season opened today. I didn’t hear much shooting this morning, which isn’t a surprise since I’ve not seen many birds around Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, which is, literally, in our back yard.

Since today is Public Lands Day, I’m going to close with the full version of a Woody Guthrie classic, but not until I’ve noted that the indigenous inhabitants of this land were driven from their homes to make public lands. Treaties Matter.

This Land Is Your Land

Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters; 
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway 
I saw above me that endless skyway; 
I saw below me that golden valley; 
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps 
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts; 
And all around me a voice was sounding;
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling, 
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, 
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting: 
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." 
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, 
By the relief office I seen my people; 
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking 
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me, 
As I go walking that freedom highway; 
Nobody living can ever make me turn back 
This land was made for you and me. 

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Time for a different approach?

 I grew up reading Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and similar magazines. Some of my all-time favorite writing and writers arrived in those pages. Robert Ruark, The Old Man and the Boy, Gene Hill, Tailfeathers, Corey Ford, The Lower Forty, helped shape both my desires for outdoor adventures and the values by which I judged a successful day afield or a stream. There was, and still is, a great deal of wisdom and ethics embedded in that writing. Later, I became a lifetime subscriber to Gray’s Sporting Journal, which I still enjoy but preferred back in the days Ed Gray himself was in charge.

These days I’m really happy to see somewhat of a return to the kind of writing I grew up thriving on. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle has just [as of this writing] published an article on Connecting with conscience: Simms launches fishing movement centered on stewardship, responsibility. Trout Unlimited recently devoted an issue of TROUT magazine to the question of What are you really fishing for? Patagonia has a section of its web site devoted to fly-fishing and activism.

trout stream: a fine place to spend a July day

Photo by J. Harrington

It doesn’t matter if your preferred outdoor recreation is gardening, surfing, fishing, biking, hiking, hunting, boating, foraging, or .... We all depend on earth’s resources for food, shelter, recreation, clean air to breathe and water to drink. So will our descendants. I doubt that there will ever be enough laws and law enforcers to protect the resources on which we all depend. Take a look a how “well” we’re doing with the Clean Water Act goals.

As an alternative to depending on an insufficient legal framework, we could try being more reliant on an approach Aldo Leopold writes about in A Sand County Almanac, shaping a land ethic that has evolved “in the minds of a thinking community.” As we consider protecting resources, we must take account of another nonrenewable resource we often fail to value enough. This quote from Gene Hill may hit home.

Remember when time was cheap? The songs we sang about it told us that we had time on our hands, that time stood still, that tomorrow would be time enough. And now we find it was not. Suddenly times to come have become times past, and we must hoard it and spend it cautiously as the tag ends of a small inheritance . . . which is what it really was all along—except no one told us.

Hunting Manual

By Eleanor Wilner

The unicorn is an easy prey: its horn

in the maiden’s lap is an obvious

twist, a tamed figure—like the hawk

that once roamed free, but sits now, fat and hooded,

squawking on the hunter’s wrist. It’s easy

to catch what no longer captures

the mind, long since woven in,

a faded tapestry on a crumbling wall

made by the women who wore keys

at their waists and in their sleep came

hot dreams of wounded knights left bleeding

in their care, who would wake the next morning

groaning from the leftover lance in the groin,

look up into the round blond face beaming down

at them thinking "mine," and say: "angel."

Such beasts are easy to catch; their dreams

betray them. But the hard prey is the one

that won’t come bidden.

By these signs you will know it:

when you lift your lure

out of the water, the long plastic line

will be missing its end: the lure and the hook

will be gone, and the line will swing free

in the air, so light it will be without

bait or its cunning

sharp curl of silver. Or when you pull

your net from the stream, it will be eaten

as if by acid, its fine mesh sodden shreds.

Or when you go at dawn to check your traps,

their great metal jaws will be wrenched

open, the teeth blunt with rust

as if they had lain for years in the rain.

Or when the thunderstorm suddenly breaks

in the summer, next morning

the computer’s memory will be blank.

Look then for the blank card, the sprung trap,

the net’s dissolve, the unburdened

line that swings free in the air.

There. By day, go empty-handed to the hunt

and come home the same way

in the dark.

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Time for (re)awakening!

 This month is SiSi’s birthday with us. She’s been living in her “forever” home for nine years this month. I have a Labrador retriever cross-breed who doesn’t retrieve often and doesn’t much care for the water either. Then, again, it’s been more than a few years since I’ve launched a duck boat. She’s wonderful company; does a great job warming my arm chair for me; always reminds me when it’s time for her to be fed or get a snack; and stays close to comfort me during thunderstorms. A guy can’t ask for much more and I hope we get to share many more years of fun and games.

SiSi, when she first moved in

Photo by J. Harrington

Recently I’ve been rambling on about fishing, especially fly fishing, and its role in my life. This morning I read something that has me truly pondering and scratching my head. Understand, I’m completely and totally in favor of the concept involved. I just wonder how normal folks like us can attain the same results on our budgets. Take a few minutes and go look through:

The Tao of Trout

What does a week-long, $12,500 fly fishing class look like?

Are you back, good. What do you think? Is fishing, or hunting, or gardening, or writing poetry, for you, about keeping score? I hope not. BUT, and it’s a big butt, it’s easy to slip into the habit of counting as the way to value experiences in life. One of the things about money is that it simplifies keeping score, a score based on quantity, not quality. I was very pleased to see a similar theme emerge in a recent piece by the editor of TROUT magazine, Kirk Deeter, in which he asks the question: 

Can we be done with “ripping lips” already?

We’ll wait again while you go look at his answer.

Back again? Good, thanks. When I first learned how to fish and hunt, embedded in the what to, how to and where to lessons was a fundamental of respecting the quarry and protecting its habitat. Fishing, hunting, gardening, living, should not be extractive activities. If we keep taking more than we put back, soon there’ll be nothing left to seek. We’re already doing that with much of the world and that’s left US and others between the proverbial rock and hard place.

I’ve recently begun rereading Leonard M. Scigaj’s Sustainable Poetry (1999).  The following quotation helps explain why I’m so doing.

In my estimation changes in personal behavior and voting patterns are more likely to appear after the reader has altered his or her perceptions about how humans ought to relate to the environment.

We are frustratingly overdue for altering the perceptions of many, perhaps most, people on how they ought to, and can, relate to the environment. I just don’t think we can afford to spend $12,500 for a one week course for everyone. Let’s modify the curricula of all our schools instead. 

What We Need Is Here

by Wendell Berry

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

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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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Today’s at least a twofer

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

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

According to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service:

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

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

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

Driftless Area Red Cabin Site

Photo by J. Harrington

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

Birds Again

Jim Harrison - 1937-2016

A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.
I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they’re roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.

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