Can Summer have a nadir?

Heat, humidity, thunderstorms, tornado watches, deer flies, smoke from Canadian wildfires -- must be Summer in the North Country. At least the air conditioning has kept working so far, although that hasn't done much to dissipate the heat under my collar generated by all the nonsense emanating from the political sector this week.

four-spotted skimmer dragonfly

Photo by J. Harrington

I did a quick check yesterday and learned that many (but not enough to satisfy me) creatures feed on deer flies. Last summer and this one we've had a superabundance of deer flies and a sparsity of dragon flies. I have no idea what's going on there except I like it better when there's more dragonflies eating deer flies so there's fewer deer flies trying to eat me. Plus, I just like dragonflies.

We've finally started to see some wild turkey poults with the hens. It's obvious the poults have no idea wnat a motor vehicle is all about but they do a pretty good job of following "mom" into the weedy roadside ditches and disappearing. The pale bracts of spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata) have become obvious in the fields behind the house. 

We're rapidly approaching the festival of Lughnasadh on August 1. Summer begins to slide into harvest season which flows into Autumn. This summer has been one of the least enjoyable I can remember, compounded by the fact that I've yet to wet a fly line (see first sentence above).

The Dragonfly

by Louise Bogan

You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger,
Grappling love.

Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon your body and wings.

Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.

And you fall
With the other husks of summer.  

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Another mixed bag

I’d be outside doing some yard work if not for a fresh hatch of deer flies that set upon the dogs and I a little earlier. I decided that today’s “better part of valor” was to freshen the permethrin spray on my bug hoodie and wait for the flies to die off a little. It’s not like I live in suburbia with a home owner’s association breathing down my neck. So, despite delightful weather, I’m inside learning to take the biter with the sweet.

turkey poults and hens

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of sweet, this morning brought to the back yard the first visit of the year by a flock of turkey poults, chaperoned by three hens showing the young’uns around the neighborhood. Their appearance brightened my spirits, which had been dampened by the past week’s political turmoil. I’m left with concern for the future of democracy and our species, since we seem to be losing the ability to govern ourselves effectively. At least I hope we don’t take the rest of nature with US. Thank heavens Mother Nature isn’t dependent on computers or Microsoft and CloudStrike software. (I refuse to make the obvious joke about different kinds of turkeys appearing on the same day.)

This Sunday we’re off to hear one of our favorite local authors, Kent Nerburn, at an art gallery about an hour north of our place. According to the description: Kent joins us to speak primarily on “what we as a dominant culture can learn from Native America” rather than on the art of writing. That’s a theme I’ve been exploring in my reading recently. Given Nerburn’s background, it should be interesting.

The Way In

By Linda Hogan

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.

Sometimes the way in is a song.

But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,

and beauty.

To enter stone, be water.

To rise through hard earth, be plant

desiring sunlight, believing in water.

To enter fire, be dry.

To enter life, be food.

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The roadsides look positively vetching

Lazy, hazy, sleepy, days of summer are here. If anyone stumbles over my ambition, please feed and water it until cooler temps arrive. Then leave a comment here and I’ll come and pick it up. It’s time to return to reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@%! Journal, and to add watermelon to the shopping list.

The bright blue bug ball (for trapping horsedeerflies) is again functional, thanks to the Better Half’s completion of the tedious but essential task of painting sticky goop on the entire surface of the beach ball-size thing. I did the relatively mundane task of stringing and hanging the painted ball. Years of fishing and boating qualify me for spinning yarns, getting strung up, and getting tied up in knots.

crown vetch in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Most of the local row crops, corn and soy beans, are looking decent, except for the field areas under water. Isolated and/or scattered thunderstorms are were briefly back in the forecast. "Isolated or scattered” disappeared sometime between mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Local ditches are overgrown with crown vetch in bloom. I’m very confused (think Vinnie Barbarino) about how and why crown vetch is simultaneously listed as an invasive species and still sold commercially. A case of left hand, right hand, not knowing? 

One other long deferred chore got completed this morning. The live trap set for the chipmunk living in tunnels under the front stoop was cleaned, freshened and placed in what we hope will be a more tempting location. If not translocated, the little critter is liable to put a tunnel near the garage entrance and create minor havoc as the Better Half comes or goes. Until tomorrow about this time .....

Travelling Storm

Mark Van Doren
1894 – 1972

The sky, above us here, is open again. 
The sun comes hotter, and the shingles steam. 
The trees are done with dripping, and the hens
Bustle among bright pools to pick and drink. . . . 
But east and south are black with speeding storm. 
That thunder, low and far, remembering nothing,
Gathers a new world under it and growls, 
Worries, strikes, and is gone.  Children at windows 
Cry at the rain, it pours so heavily down,
Drifting across the yard till the sheds are grey. . . . 
A county father on, the wind is all—
A swift dark wind that turns the maples pale, 
Ruffles the hay, and spreads the swallows’ wings. 
Horses, suddenly restless, are unhitched,
And men, with glances upward, hurry in; 
Their overalls blow full and cool; they shout;
Soon they will lie in barns and laugh at the lightning. . . . 
Another county yet, and the sky is still; 
The air is fainting; women sit with fans
And wonder when a rain will come that way. 

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No pain from the rain on the plain (yet)

As noted previously on these pages, we live at the easternmost edge of the well drained Anoka Sand Plain. We’re currently under a flood watch that’s been in place since yesterday and continues through late tonight. The Sunrise River pools and marshes have been as deep as I’ve seen them in all the time we’ve lived here and that was before the current storm pattern kicked in. On a brighter side, all the rain we’re getting is helping our plants to exuberantly burst into bloom and grow inches overnight. The lilac blossoms look absolutely giddy and the peony plants are about three times as big as they were a day or two ago. Unfortunately, all this wetness is keeping me from yard chores so I’m compensating by staying warm and dry, drinking coffee, and reading poetry because, in addition to the rain, strong winds and occasional lightning is keeping me from fly fishing. It’s heartbreaking, but I’ll manage.

Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)

Photo by J. Harrington

On the way to visit the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter yesterday evening, we noticed some pink wild geraniums where, in past years, we’ve seen only marsh marigolds growing along the township road ditch. In our own ditch, so far we’ve got only one milkweed plant growing amidst the mix. That’s not promising for attracting monarchs later this summer. We’ll cross our fingers that there are still some late emergers to show up. We’re still watching for swamp milkweed to bloom out around the wet spot behind the house.

I suspect that I end up saying something similar every year about this time, but the mosquitos are exceptionally thick and vicious this year. Where are the predatory birds, bats, and dragonflies when we need them? The dogs are managing to attract a few ticks. Does anyone know what feeds on ticks? Turkeys? Backyard chickens would probably be more trouble than they’re worth to minimize tick threats. Maybe if I didn’t feed the birds, they’d be more predatory but maybe seed feeders don’t also feed on bugs. There’s so much I don’t know about managing nature.

Rain

By Peter Everwine

Toward evening, as the light failed

and the pear tree at my window darkened,

I put down my book and stood at the open door,

the first raindrops gusting in the eaves,

a smell of wet clay in the wind.

Sixty years ago, lying beside my father,

half asleep, on a bed of pine boughs as rain

drummed against our tent, I heard

for the first time a loon’s sudden wail

drifting across that remote lake—

a loneliness like no other,

though what I heard as inconsolable

may have been only the sound of something

untamed and nameless

singing itself to the wilderness around it

and to us until we slept. And thinking of my father

and of good companions gone

into oblivion, I heard the steady sound of rain

and the soft lapping of water, and did not know

whether it was grief or joy or something other

that surged against my heart

and held me listening there so long and late.

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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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The more things change ...

There’s not much new and exciting to report on today. Deer flies are becoming more numerous. We’ve responded by installing a new blue ball covered with sticky goo. The flies are attracted to the color and get caught in the sticky stuff. Last summer we end up with a blue ball encrusted with the blackish bodies of dead flies. Our dogs and our skins appreciated the results and we didn’t spray pesticides hell, west, and gone around the place. There’s already a couple of dozen flies stuck on the ball after a few hours.

would you expect this from a caterpillar?

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier this year members of the younger generations of the family got together and gave me a new iPhone for my birthday. Since I had been using an iPhone 6, you have an idea of how much new technology I’m trying to adjust to. This morning I got my new hearing aids. My old ones had served for about a decade. The technology for hearing aids has gotten quite a bit more complicated over the past ten years. I’ve read that I can use my new iPhone to adjust my new hearing aids, once I find and learn how to download a couple of apps, and then learn how to use those apps. I’m wondering why I didn’t plan better and schedule these changes for the winter, when I’d be fine sitting in the house playing with new toys. Each of our offspring were born in December. I could have borrowed one of their birthdays last year.

Did I mention I’m (over)due for a new laptop computer. This is getting typed on a five or six year old MacBook Pro with a sticky keyboard and slightly erratic trackpad. I’m not sure if I should try to get the phone and hearing aids under control first or just immerse myself in updates and let the bytes fall where they may. I’ll decide as soon as I get used to how much noisier the world is this afternoon than it was this morning. At least we’re not living in Russia, or China, or Texas, where the technology is failing while the  heat, literal and figurative, increases. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go study a manual or two, or three, or....

Meditation 29

Philip Pain

How mutable is every thing that here
Below we do enjoy? with how much fear
And trouble are those gilded Vanities
Attended, that so captivate our eyes?
   Oh, who would trust this World, or prize what's in it,
   That gives, and takes, and changes in a minute?

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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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Where are the dragonflies?

We’ve already had a mosquito hatch that has filled the air with the little biters. So far, there are not enough predators to reduce the population. Dragonflies won’t appear in numbers until later this month and early June. Is the mosquito hatch early this year? Has evolution buffered dragonfly hatches so that there will usually be plenty of food (mosquitos, etc.) by the time dragons fly? If corporations were involved, would they try to lean out the supply chain of mosquitos, even if it meant the death by starvation of a number of customers?

common green darner

Photo by J. Harrington

Frogs have been making evening and nighttime noises for weeks now. I think frogs eat mostly insects. I wonder what the frogs have been feeding on until the mosquitos started to hatch. Is a frog quick enough to catch and eat a mosquito, or do they mostly feed on the larvae? There’s so much I don’t know!

The transition from winter to summer continues. The snow blower is now stored behind the lawn mower. The battery for the electric start on the mower is recharging. Fresh gas will be added one day soon, after we’ve finished picking up the dead branches from the parts of the lawn that get cut with the push mower instead of the tractor. I’ve decided I'm actually beginning to prefer the look of our creeping Charlie and violets lawn, rather than grass. I’m also getting better at not beating myself up for not getting everything done in one day and then spending the next three hobbling around. I may never age gracefully, but I can try to age more peacefully. To that end, I think it’s time to go look for some common green darners.

Fly, Dragonfly!

By Joyce Sidman

Water nymph, you have

climbed from the shallows to don

your dragon-colors.

Perched on a reed stem

all night, shedding your skin, you dry

your wings in moonlight.

 

Night melts into day.

Swift birds wait to snap you up.

Fly, dragonfly! Fly!

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As we fall out of autumn

 The day-lily garden is mulched. When we get a favorable wind, we’ll leaf blow the drive with our electric leaf blower. At least we’re going through the motions of preparing for the changes from falling leaves to falling snowflakes.

In a week or so a crew should arrive to take down the big pine in front of the house. We’ll miss it but it got hit with something this past summer that killed it. Several other pines in the neighborhood have also been stripped of their needles and died but they’re not in a position to land on the house or garage if they fall. Meanwhile, we’re looking ahead to a week of mostly seasonable temperatures and peak leaf fall.

leaf fall, Upper St. Croix River, October

Photo by J. Harrington

This is the time of year when falling leaves also get blown onto area rivers, where they become habitat to and sustenance for aquatic macroinvertebrates. Over the winter I’m going to spend time reviewing the Xerces Society’s guidance on Nesting & Overwintering Habitat For Pollinators & Other Beneficial Insects. Much of our property is wooded and much of it is open fields that have been enjoying benign neglect for at least a decade. To be candid, I’m as motivated by a desire to minimize yard work as I am providing habitat. That said, I’d like to “do it right!” If anyone has suggestions for resources to maintain a “naturalized landscape,” please share in a comment.

UPDATE: LET FALLEN LEAVES LIE

A Short Story of Falling

By Alice Oswald

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass

as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip

turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance

the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong

and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue

to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain

that rises to the light and falls again

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Meteorological summer’s last Monday this year

 For the record, female ruby-throated hummingbirds are still coming to the sugar water feeder. Yesterday, or maybe the day before, a male ruby-throat was seen at the feeder on the front window. I’m not sure if it’s lack of attention on our part or if males rarely visit the big feeder on the deck. In any event, I won’t be surprised if this morning’s batch of sugar water turns out to be the last for the year. We’ve not seen Baltimore orioles for something like a couple of weeks, so the hummers aren’t likely to finish off the feeder’s contents before they head south.

After last night’s rain, today’s weather is cool and dry, with a definite pre-autumnal feel to it. Warmer temperatures are in the forecast for the balance of the week. All the rain we’ve experienced over the past few weeks hasn’t brought us out of a moderate drought status, but it has triggered an explosion of mushrooms in our front yard woods. We’ve got some pictures, but haven’t yet tried to identify what they’re of, so you’ll have to wait until I can induce the Better Half to work with me on potential id’s. I can tell you that, compared to other year’s pictures, the fruiting(?) is at least a week or two earlier this year.

watch for grasshoppers or crickets in the grass

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s another tidbit I came across in the Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar that I want to share because it came as a surprise to me. Minnesota is home to several species of cricket. I’ve never considered that possibility before. To me a cricket is a cricket is a.... But no, there’s “snowy tree crickets, ... black field crickets and Carolina ground crickets.” The University of Minnesota Extension lists field crickets, camel crickets and house crickets. Minnesota Seasons’ list is much longer:

• Allard’s ground cricket (Allonemobius allardi)

• camel cricket (Ceuthophilus spp.)

• fall field cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus)

• snowy tree cricket (Oecanthus fultoni)

• spring field cricket (Gryllus veletis), and

• striped ground cricket (Allonemobius fasciatus)
  

We've now reached a time of year at which a number of “field crickets” endeavor to become “house crickets.” Our usual tactic is to place a clear plastic cup over the errant insect, then slide a piece of paper under the cup, and transport the critter back outside. The same approach works for spiders which often look for a warmer place to spend the winter. This is also a time of year when a cricket of a grasshopper fly can be very effective on your local trout stream, especially if it flows through grassy fields and the wind is blowing.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

By John Keats

The Poetry of earth is never dead:    

  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,    

  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run    

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;    

That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead       

  In summer luxury,—he has never done    

  With his delights; for when tired out with fun    

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.    

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:    

  On a lone winter evening, when the frost      

    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills    

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,    

  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,    

    The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

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Adapting to a world of difference

We’ve reached a time of year when acorns are dropping from bur oak trees. They are among the more interesting looking acorns around. I’m doubtful that there’ll be much of an acorn crop this year, but neither am I anywhere near an expert on oaks or acorns. That’s one of the reasons I bought and have thoroughly enjoyed reading so far about the first half of The Nature of Oaks.

bur oak acorn

Photo by J. Harrington

The list of benefits oak trees provide to humans and the multitude of insects, birds and animals that find food and shelter in, on, and around oaks has done wonders to temper my dislike of oak leaves falling for about  half the year in our area. (Of course, when one lives in a state in which there has been recorded snow 11 of the  12 months in a year, what can one expect.)

As much  as I dislike raking leaves, I’ve learned that oak leaves can be very beneficial in restoring a greener world. According to the transcript of a Grow, Podcast with the book’s author

The best leaf litter is leaf litter that will not degrade quickly, Doug says, and that’s where oaks come in. Maple, birch and tulip tree leaves don’t make it through the summer because they degrade rapidly, but whole oak leaves are so full of tannins and lignans that a single oak leaf can take up to three years to break down. In an oak forest, there’s never bare soil, and that’s exactly what the doctor ordered to keep organisms in soil happy, Doug says.

There’s also the fact that oaks are very effective at carbon capture and storage, since, under normal circumstances, they’re very long-lived. If anyone had suggested a decade or more ago that a book about oak trees would have a major impact on my attitude, and consequently, my life, I would have rolled on the floor in laughter. Not only are the times changing, so am I. I think it’s called adaptation to a climate crisis.

Black Oaks

by Mary Oliver

Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,

or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort. 

Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind. 

But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen

and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage

of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.

Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain. 

Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another -- why don't you get going?

For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,

I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

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What's buggin' us

Cloudy, cool, calm, confusing, considering it's the end of the first week of July and June set record high temperatures throughout the state, country, and world. From what we've noticed so far this summer, poison ivy thrives during  hot, dry spells. Deer flies seem more abundant this July than in years past, but  that could just be a result of repressed memories. Earlier this week I saw someone walking their dog along  a gravel road beside a local pond and they (the walker, not the dog) were actually wearing one of those blue deer fly traps coated with sticky stuff. I probably should have stopped to thank him for thinning out the population. If I were as smart as I like to think I am, I'd actually make one of those traps myself and wear it when I walk the dog(s) at mid-day.

home to ticks and deer flies and ...

Photo by J. Harrington

Actually, I've almost made those traps a couple of different years. What usually happens is that, by the time I'm annoyed enough  with the deer flies, it's often late enough in the season that they'll be mostly gone when the supplies would be ordered, delivered and assembled. Plus, I'm not sure where the hat, or hats, would be stored that either the Better Half, or I, or one of the dogs, wouldn't end up with it inadvertently stuck on one or more of us'uns.

We seem to be getting past the worst of the tick season, at least the dogs aren't showing up with quite as many in their ears or crawling on their coats. From what I've read, milder winters and related factors in our North Country are resulting in growing populations. Since we feed the dogs edible heartworm and tick treats once a month, it would be great if some outfit would make a comparable treatment for us humans.

Between the weather and the bugs and other obligations, we haven't reached a point of deciding "too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy, too buggy? TOO BAD! We're going outside for some fresh air." Not yet, but we can see it from here.

Listen to the Deer Tick Sing

By James K. Zimmerman

I wait for you to come

to brush your shoe against

the blade of grass I'm sitting on

touch me with your hand

as you reach for one last

violet to take home

 

or pick up a worm to place

gracefully in the garden

 

even better if you lie

on a hillside to watch the sunset

or breathe in stars

 

I will feel your warmth, bury

my head next to that freckle

on your calf, that hair

on your forearm, or just behind

the lobe of your left ear

 

I promise not to take too much

blood into my swelling body

 

only what I think I need

 

and I will never

let you know I am here

though I will love you

 

deeply

 

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Turning over an old leaf...

Today's rain won't hurt, but it may not be enough to really help the plants very much. At least the temperature isn't in the 90's. That, I think, is better for most plants and animals.

Today I finally ordered a mulching kit for the mower deck on our tractor. The idea is to make the clippings, and the autumn leaves, cut small enough to decompose readily and feed the soil.  Bagging the clippings makes the  place look neater but reduces nutrient recycling and we never fertilize except occasionally in the flower beds. I hate raking and have been going back and forth and round and round about how to get maximum results with a minimum expenditure of elbow grease and time. The fact that I suffer from mild perfectionist tendencies doesn't help. Left to her own devcices, Nature tends toward messiness.

oak leaves on the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

To be candid, a book I'm reading, The Nature of Oaks, is convincing me that it's unlikely I'll have a yard that is both healthy for pollinators and other critters and simultaneously looks the way I'd like, neat and clean and spiffy. I'm much more a hunter-gatherer than a gardener. If I have to choose, I pick natural, healthy, functional for plants and animals, and taking limited time so I can spend more time fishing, foraging and photographing. The front yard has been turning into an attractive mix of violets, creeping Charlie and wild strawberries that I don't want buried under oak leaves. We'll see if we can work out a system of mowing / mulching, raking / hauling, and bagging that serves both aesthetic and ecological purposes. At least we don't have to mow or mulch by hand.

Mowing

By Robert Frost

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.

What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;

Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,

Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—

And that was why it whispered and did not speak.

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,

Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:

Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak

To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,

Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers

(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

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Removing flies from our ointment

This morning's blue, clear, sky held a rising sun in the East and a setting, full moon in the West. It felt almost as if the universe were starting to right itself after near capsizing. It was also pretty enough to make us feel good about being alive.

During the past few days, we've been sneaking in a few moments of something we've been threatening to do for the past several years. We've actually begun to organize our fly fishing boxes and may even try to identify the names of many of the trout flies we have at hand. For the moment, we're just putting nymphs with nymphs; dry flies with dry flies; wet flies, which we almost never fish (personal bias) have been sorted and set aside for some years now. We're still thinking about a separate box for terrestrials (hoppers, crickets and ants) and/or "attractors." In the process, we've discovered we have many more trout flies than we realized, sort of like our situation with books.

a variety of "prince" nymphs (top & bottom) plus misc.

Photo by J. Harrington

In the process of playing with, er, working on organizing, our toys, er, fishing tools, we've made a startling discovery. Much more progress is evident when we actually do the sorting work than when we spent much of our time sitting around thinking about how things should be done. Not that we're about to join the "chuck and chance it" school of fishing (catch what we did there?, heh, heh), but there's an outside possibility we may be overthinking things and, as we do so, turning pleasure into pain. A large part of our revised approach was prompted by the idea below, that we came across as we were skimming through our copy of Tom Rosenbauer's Fly Fishing for Trout, The Next Level.

... There are always tons of hatch-matching patterns available, and better ones come out each year. Get a bunch of popular flies that imitate mayflies in the dun, emerger, and spinner stages; caddisflies in mergers and adults; and stonefly adults (you don't need emergers for stoneflies, just egg-laying adults) in a few sizes and shades and have at it.

In the next paragraph Rosenbauer writes "In practice, you'll learn your local hatches and which flies and what stages are important." If it turns out we never do learn the name of the fly we're fishing at any given moment, then we can, in all honesty, reply "Dunno" if asked by a fellow angler "What are they taking?" If we take a photo of the fly being fished at any given time, that can substitute for a name and if we actually start keeping a fishing journal, instead of intending to, we may have fun as we make progress. It's almost as if we've been given an early Christmas present this year.

Things keep sorting themselves.

By Jane Hirshfield

Does the butterfat know it is butterfat,

milk know it’s milk?

No.

Something just goes and something remains.

Like a boardinghouse table:

men on one side, women on the other.

Nobody planned it.

Plaid shirts next to one another,

talking in accents from the Midwest.

Nobody plans to be a ghost.

Later on, the young people sit in the kitchen.

Soon enough, they’ll be the ones 

to stumble Excuse me and quickly withdraw.

But they don’t know that.

No one can ever know that.

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Here comes caterpillar season #phenology

woolybear caterpillar climbing screen

Photo by J. Harrington

We're starting to come into woolybear caterpillar season. I know that because:

1. the photo of the woolybear above was taken on August 24 some years ago; and,
2. the Minnesota Seasons web site says flight season of the Isabella tiger moth (Pyrrharctia isabella) lasts until late July and it takes about two weeks for eggs to hatch, which would bring us to mid-August or sooner

Despite the folk lore about wooly bears foretelling Winter's severity, "the truth is that this caterpillar can't predict what Old Man Winter has in store for us in the upcoming winter."

To be honest, when I think of insects in August, usually it has to do with grasshoppers and trout fishing. But, now I realize August is as much monarch, woolybear, and other caterpillars as it is grasshoppers and beetles falling into streams and rivers.

One of the strange things about woolybear caterpillars is how they Winter-over.

Once settled in, the caterpillars hibernate, creating a natural organic antifreeze called glycerol.  They freeze bit by bit, until everything but the interior of their cells are frozen.  These interior cells are protected by the hemolymph.  Woollybears can - and do - survive to temperatures as low as -90℉. 

So, if you have taken to going for outdoor walks as a way to limit going stir crazy during our COVID-19 pandemic, you can now look for monarch caterpillars munching their way across the undersides of milkweed leaves and, soon, you can watch for woolybears as they search for a dark, comfortable place to spend the Winter. Maybe, by the time we can look for next Summer's Isabella tiger moths, we'll have a better handle on our pandemic and on our government. But then, my mother often used to accuse me of "wishing my life away."

The Caterpillar

Robert Graves - 1895-1985

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man's-looking-glasses;
Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
I eat and swallow and eat again.

Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
I'll mind my business: I'm a good worm.

When I'm old, tired, melancholy,
I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away.

Some say worms win resurrection,
With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
Either way I'll miss my share.

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat.

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Buy two, too!

There's an old saying to the effect that "if you find something you really like, buy two before they stop making it." I've done that for a few things, some of which they're still making. For those that aren't being made anymore, I've managed to still have two, apparently due to karma. If I had only one I'd have lost, broken, worn out or otherwise ended up with none. What does this have to do with a day near mid-July?

For the past several weeks I've been wearing a light-weight, synthetic cloth bug-shirt. It came permeated with permethrin. Wearing it on occasion for fishing seemed to work well. This Summer I've been wearing it while doing outside chores. It helps with the  deer flies but it doesn't breathe. The ventilation panels in the sleeves and torso are inadequate for this Summer's humidity. Each time I wear this shirt for more than five minutes, I end up soaked in sweat. And the deer flies still attack my ears and  the back of my neck.

buckthorn with berries

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning that all happened again as I was dismembering a large buckthorn bush that had lots of berries on it. The bush pieces are now on the brush pile to be burned later. The bug shirt ended up in the wash and, when walking the dog at mid-day I dug out a different fishing shirt that's mostly cotton. It's off-white and felt much more comfortable than the synthetic cloth and the light color is less attractive to deer flies and the material is just heavy enough to keep them from biting through it. Unfortunately, the company that made it no longer offers it, so I can't buy two. Fortunately, I've found something similar, polyester in a mesh weave, with a hood to protect ears and neck, that should be delivered today. If it works well at deterring bugs and "wicking away moisture," I'll do my best to order another later this Summer. That may help "protect" my mostly cotton fishing shirt too. There's a real timing challenge to owning something long enough to be sure it works well for you and that you really like it so you can order another before they're gone.

Fork with Two Tines Pushed Together

Nick Lantz

It's fast and cool as running water, the way we forget
the names of friends with whom we talked and talked
the long drives up and down the coast.

I say I love and I love and I love. However, the window
will not close. However, the hawk searches
for its nest after a storm. However, the discarded
nail longs to hide its nakedness inside the tire.

Somewhere in Cleveland or Tempe, a pillow
still smells like M_____'s hair.
In a bus station, a child is staring
at L____'s rabbit tattoo. I've bartered everything
to keep from doing my soul's paperwork.

Here is a partial list of artifacts:
mirror, belt, half-finished 1040 form (married, filing jointly), mateless walkie-talkie, two blonde eyelashes, set of acrylic paints with all the red and yellow used up, buck knife, dog collar, camping tent (sleeps two), slivers of cut-up credit cards, ashtray in the shape of a naked woman, pen with teeth marks, bottom half of two-piece bathing suit, pill bottles containing unfinished courses of antibiotics, bank statements with the account number blacked out, maps of London, maps of Dubuque, sweatshirts with the mascots of colleges I didn't attend, flash cards for Spanish verbs (querer, perder, olvidar), Canadian pocket change, fork with two tines pushed together.

Forgetfulness means to be full
of forgetting, like a glass

overflowing with cool water, though I'd always
thought of it as the empty pocket

where the hand finds
nothing: no keys, no ticket, no change.

One night, riding the train home from the city,
will I see a familiar face across from me? How many times
will I ask Is it you? before I realize
it's my own reflection in the window?

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Summer sightings of neighbors

A couple of bucks in velvet wandered across the far fields behind the house yesterday. I managed to get some pictures but not with both raising  their heads at the same time. Still haven't seen any fawns this Summer although the Daughter Person reports she and her spouse have seen a couple on their property.

two bucks in July velvet

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sunrise River pools near County  Highway 36 are very slowly receding to "normal" flow levels. This morning a great blue heron was standing still, neck retracted, looking for its next meal? A week or so ago the water was too deep for heron wading where it was standing today.

Down the road a couple of miles from our place, a red fox dashed across in front of the Jeep this morning, then stopped in a farm house yard to watch us drive past. We slowed to a stop and watched  back until s/he(?) got nervous and bolted off behind the barn. I'd like it a lot if we saw more foxes and/or vixens in the neighborhood.

While doing some outside chores this morning, I checked the bluebird house again to find that the green treefrog had reversed direction but otherwise was in about the same spot inside the house as s/he was a couple of days ago.

what is this? a wasp? what kind?

Photo by J. Harrington

I've not yet managed to identify what I think is some kind of wasp (long, black, needle-like ovipositor?) that was perched on the screens a day or two ago. If you have suggestions on where to look or what it is, feel free to leave a comment.

His Speed and Strength

Alicia Ostriker - 1937-

His speed and strength, which is the strength of ten
years, races me home from the pool.
First I am ahead, Niké, on my bicycle,
no hands, and the Times crossword tucked in my rack,
then he is ahead, the Green Hornet,
buzzing up Witherspoon,
flashing around the corner to Nassau Street.

At noon sharp he demonstrated his neat
one-and-a-half flips off the board:
Oh, brave. Did you see me, he wanted to know.
And I doing my backstroke laps was Juno
Oceanus, then for a while I watched some black
and white boys wrestling and joking, teammates, wet
plums and peaches touching each other as if

it is not necessary to make hate,
as if Whitman was right and there is no death.
A big wind at our backs, it is lovely, the maple boughs
ride up and down like ships. Do you mind
if I take off, he says. I’ll catch you later,
see you, I shout and wave, as he peels
away, pedaling hard, rocket and pilot.

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A prince in disguise?

From time to time in these blog posts I've mentioned the "wet spot" in our back yard. In Spring-time it's full of frog choruses which, for the most part, sound cheerful. I'm not sure where, specifically, all those noisy anurans disappear to during the Summer, although we see gray treefrogs on the windows, screens and railings from time to time.

is a frog in a bird house like a cat in the hat?

Photo by J. Harrington

A day or so ago, I went to check the restored bluebird house, the one that someone had filled with twigs, to see if anyone else had started a nest. I was surprised to discover, inside the house, a treefrog. At the time I didn't have either a camera or cell phone with me. Today I checked again. It's not clear whether the frog was back in the bluebird house or still in the bluebird house. In either case, the frog is unlikely to be consuming many insects while ensconced in a bird house. I may have to consider an eviction action. The frog is large enough to consume deer flies but the fact that it mostly hunts at night probably means it doesn't help reduce that population very much. Which might also explain why this particular frog spends its days in a bluebird house. I wonder if current inhabitation by a frog would deter bluebirds from nesting. I also wonder if we humans know nearly enough to try to pick winners and losers in nature.

That's it for today, except for a brief report that much of the time I've been writing this, several hummingbirds and bees or yellowjackets have been chasing each other away from the "oriole" feeder. All of which triggers my parental reaction of "if you can't play nice together, I'll take away your toys until you learn to get along and take turns." But then, see the last sentence in the preceding paragraph.

The Frog

By Hilaire Belloc

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

   And do not call him names,

As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’

   Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’

Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’   

   Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:

The Frog is justly sensitive

   To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

   A treatment kind and fair;

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and, by the way,   

They are extremely rare).

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Even if butterflies aren't free, they're worth it

Perhaps the heat and humidity have got to me but I find myself pondering how it might be that, the more we look, the more we find signs of some form of life in about every nook and cranny of Earth, but, so far, we've found no signs of life elsewhere in the universe. These thoughts have been triggered, in part no doubt, by the continuing and frequent encounters with Summer in Minnesota's deer flies, mosquitos, etc. Once again the dog and I returned from our post-lunch stroll with my fingers covered in her blood, which I acquired by smooshing the deer flies biting her muzzle and around her eyes.

What good are deer flies? What feeds on them? Could the local ecology thrive without deer flies? I found myself wondering if it was time to reread Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, since the pros and cons of deer flies versus DDT seemed to be reaching a toss up. But then I remembered that the late Gene Hill, hunting and fishing scribe extraordinaire, managed to write credibly about why there are ticks. Perhaps, if he had lived longer, he might have done something similar for deer flies. I suppose that leaves us, or at least me, in the "mine is not to reason why" mode. No doubt my dog would react to a deer fly mask about as well as she does to a COVID-19 mask. She doesn't like masks. They  keep her  from eating and drinking and licking but doesn't mind at all if I get blood all over my fingers, especially if it's from smooshed flies that were biting her.

swamp milkweed in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

I find butterflies much preferable to biting insects. Sometime soon I hope the swamp milkweed around our "wet spot" in the back yard will come into bloom. That should attract monarchs and other butterflies, unless I mowed to close to the rim of the  wet spot last Autumn and took out the swamp milkweed. We should know in the next week or two. I'm also contemplating planting the pretty orange butterfly weed milkweed in the location where asters have failed to survive. Maybe using the tiller to loosen the soil and adding some fertilizer will help.

Song of the Builders 

by Mary Oliver

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope
it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

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