Music to my ears

Purple loosestrife and wild cucumber are blooming conspicuously around damp and wet areas. Sandhill crane colts have reached nearly full grown size. Many of the deer flies disappeared and mornings are often cooler and less humid than July's. I’m not sure whether it’s tree frogs, crickets, something else, or all of the above that Harry the beagle and I hear chirping on our early morning walks. Minnesota’s primary election has come and gone. With some luck and lots of effort, the general election may produce a blue tsunami come November. “And the seasons, they go round and round” ~ Joni Mitchell -- The Circle Game.

whitetail fawn, back yard, early August

Photo by J. Harrington

My favorite part of the year is coming up. From the Autumn Equinox through Winter Solstice seasonal observations and activities most appeal to my tastes (with an exception for political advertisements). Although I don’t migrate like many birds and dragonflies, I do seem to get more restless in our third season, a condition Ms. Mitchell wonderfully captures in her song Urge for Going.

More and more birds are lining up on the wires between telephone poles.Wild turkey poults are almost the size of chickens. Fawns still have their spots. Some small grain fields have been harvested. Some corn stalk leaves have browned. The elderberry bushes in the wet spot behind the house are covered in berries which are attracting birds as the nearby goldenrod attracts butterflies. Milkweed pods are still green and solid. Minnesota’s wild rice harvest season has begun, as has the Minnesota Vikings preseason football schedule.

Last week a youngish (yearling?) black bear visited our deck at 7:30 am, in bright sunshine, to help him/herself to the bird feeder. I opened the walkout door to the deck and growled/snarled at him/her. The young’un promptly dropped to all four paws and scampered down the stairs and off into the woods bordering the back yard. Country living isn’t all peace and quiet.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

1935 – 2019

Who made the world? 
Who made the swan, and the black bear? 
Who made the grasshopper? 
This grasshopper, I mean— 
the one who has flung herself out of the grass, 
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, 
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— 
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. 
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. 
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. 
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. 
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down 
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, 
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, 
which is what I have been doing all day. 
Tell me, what else should I have done? 
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? 
Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?

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Happy Mother's Day

May all Mothers and families enjoy a peaceful day full of warm memories. May we all wish for many happy returns of the day. May this May avoid any more Maydays of the alarming type.

female bluebird perched on bare branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the past few days we've approached full leaf out on most of the area's trees. Rose-breasted grosbeaks, a male Baltimore oriole, and some kind of hummingbird have arrived at the feeders. A bluebird was flitting around the back yard yesterday. The two serviceberry bushes planted last Summer in the field behind the house are in bloom, as is the pear tree. Pocket gophers are creating an unacceptable number of mounds. We'll plan on using a drag harrow on the field next week and then set traps if fresh mounds show up.

Local roadsides and woods are showing more trees and bushes with white flowers than I ever recall seeing. The Better Half suggests concurrent blooming, rather than being spread over several week makes it seem like there's more flowering. Could our anomalous weather pattern roller coaster temperatures account for the compression?

Farmers have many of the local fields prepared for planting. We're holding off on hanging baskets and planting some annuals until frost advisories drop out of weather forecasts. Maybe another week or ten days will do it. All in all this Spring is shaping up to be about as good as this season usually gets hhere in the North Country. It is a noteworthy improvement over the preceding season and mostly avoids the humidity that's no doubt coming.

The Raincoat

Ada Limón
1976 –

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

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May: be better days ahead

A mile or two up the road, I used to enjoy looking at a cluster of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) in bloom in May or June. It's been a couple of years or more since I wandered that way. This year seems like a good time to see if it's still growing there. I suspect today's warm weather has made me think of that. We may actually get to enjoy a few days of real Spring over the next week or two.

prairie smoke in bud

Photo by J. Harrington

Although the buds on the maple trees in front of the house have swelled a lot this past week, there's still barely a hint of bud burst or leaf out. No green tinge on the tree tops yet. On the other hand, there's a lot of waterfowl and shorebirds in the area now. I flushed a flock of five wood ducks from the pond north of the property a couple of days ago. The pair of mallards on the other side of the road just swam away. This year there seems to be more swans than I remember in years past. It's always a delight to see and hear them in flight. A couple of Tom turkeys have been doing mating displays this week in the field behind the house.

I've long been interested in phenology and Emergence Magazine's current volume has an absolutely wonderful video/written piece about Seasoning a Kid. Please check it out. I'm finding that the return of life, and the promises that implies, are helping me minimize the dismay and despair triggered by the current regime in Washington and its aiders and abettors. I'm not sure we could last through sixteen years, the way Hungary has, and hope we don't even come close.

We're now less than three weeks from Beltane. I have my fingers crossed that conditions will permit burning the back yard brush pile that evening as a seasonal celebration. Many years it's been too dry and/or windy to safely have such a fire.

In recognition of National Poetry Month, and the state of the world, please enjoy

This Morning I Pray for My Enemies

by Joy Harjo

And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

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No April Fools here!

April is the month
of poetry
of snow melt
of snow fall
of the return
of ducks, geese, swans, and
of herons and cranes, and
of red-winged blackbirds

April 4, 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

April is the month
of bud burst
of leafout
of showers of rain
of snow
of sunshine and
of wild flowers

April 2, 2012

Photo by J. Harrington

April is the month
of greening
of flowing
of Easters
of growing
of nesting
of warming
of cooling

Here in the North Country
April is the month
when life that survived
begins again to thrive

Welcome April!

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When thaw becomes flow

Today is Palm Sunday and next Sunday is Easter, for those who celebrate. Yesterday was the third (inter)national No Kings protest. (The Better Half and I braved mid-day local wind chills in the teens for almost an hour while participating.) This coming Wednesday is April Fools Day. I'm mildly troubled by the juxtaposition of those latter two events but the next demonstrations are planned for May Day, which is also Beltane. With only 365 days to work with most years, we have to do the best we can as we schedule things. It's not just western water rights that are subject to prior appropriation.

late March: time for new growth to flow

Photo by J. Harrington

April Fools Day also brings us the start of National Poetry Month, this year celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. In recognition of the times we're living in, and the times we've lived through, I'm going to celebrate the month by focusing my reading attention on Bob Dylan Lyrics 1962 — 2001. Some of his recordings have been showing up on the shuffle play list in my Jeep, and I find it both reassuring and disconcerting how well many of his lyrics from years ago seem to fit today's tempora et mores.

Large flocks of dark-eyed juncos and of robins have been observed this week past. I'm inclined to tempt fate and take the back blade off the tractor some warmer day this coming week, but not Wednesday. I'm hoping that one day soon warmer weather will arrive and stay and then hanging around outside will be something to look forward to, until the mosquitos and deer flies arrive. But that's weeks away, right? Meanwhile, the last mounds and shaded patches of snow still have to melt.

This year our country celebrates its 250th anniversary. Dylan wrote a song / poem that I believe fits and represents my birthday wishes for this and each succeeding anniversary.

Forever Young

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young          

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Spring is sprung, what's next?

Yes, thank you, I have almost recovered from the Spring cold I started coming down with last weekend. Also, once again, the snow cover has finally melted. Locally, things are looking up, but the skies are too often clouded. That hasn't kept the waterfowl from returning. The Sunrise River pools have lots of open water occupied by swans, Canada geese and diving ducks. I also saw the unusual sight of a handful of crows walking along the ice at the edge of open water. Surrounding marshes may contain red-winged blackbirds, but our observations weren't close enough to confirm identification.

returning Canada geese and ducks on Sunrise River in Carlos Avery WMA

Photo by J. Harrington

While suffering the sneezing, coughing, snuffling, nose-blowing, no energy miseries this past week, I had the pleasure of reading most of Rebecca Solnit's The Beginning Comes After the End. So far it's got me, Mr. Gloom and Doom, feeling more optimistic than I have in quite a while. I've lived through and been generally aware of almost all the changes she writes about, but hadn't put them together quite the way she does. Meanwhile, I'm still adjusting to the idea that the future isn't something out there that we adapt to but something all of us are creating by our actions (or inactions) every day.

I'm looking forward to bud burst, leaf out and green up, along with days growing warmer and maybe even occasional sunshine. However, I've lived in the North Country long enough to know better than to prematurely pack away our gear for snow and/or cold weather. Maybe the last few patches of icy snow on the shaded south side of the drive will actually finish melting one of these days and we can look forward to seeing ducklings, goslings and sandhill crane colts as the seasons go round and round.

Of Course It Hurts

by Karin Boye

Of course it hurts when buds burst.
Otherwise why would spring hesitate?
Why would all our fervent longing
be bound in the frozen bitter haze?
The bud was the casing all winter.
What is this new thing, which consumes and bursts?
Of course it hurts when buds burst,
pain for that which grows
and for that which envelops.

Of course it is hard when drops fall.
Trembling with fear they hang heavy,
clammer on the branch, swell and slide -
the weight pulls them down, how they cling.
Hard to be uncertain, afraid and divided,
hard to feel the deep pulling and calling,
yet sit there and just quiver -
hard to want to stay
                      and to want to fall.

Then, at the point of agony and when all is beyond help,
the tree’s buds burst as if in jubilation,
then, when fear no longer exists,
the branch’s drops tumble in a shimmer,
forgetting that they were afraid of the new,
forgetting that they were fearful of the journey –
feeling for a second their greatest security,
resting in the trust
                         that creates the world.

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Winter's last grasp?

Today is the Ides of March. Tuesday will be St. Patrick's Day. Friday is the Vernal Equinox, at 9:46 am locally. As I'm writing this, we have about half a foot of fresh snow on the ground and several more hours of continuing snowfall ahead of us. Will this storm reach the depth of the March 22, 2024 "Spring blizzard?" We'll see. Often, what's left of Winter grasps us by the proverbial short hairs. I consider "Winter's last gasp" a misnomer, in part because, here in the North Country, it's been known to snow every month except July. But after 9:46 am Friday, until Summer Solstice, precipitation will officially be known as "Spring showers."

almost 9 inches, March 22, 2024

Photo by J. Harrington

According to the ORDER OF BARDS, OVATES & DRUIDS:

"Winter sometimes seems so long, that we could be forgiven for wondering whether Spring will ever return. But the Goddess of Spring is merely sleeping through the darkness of Winter, and while she stirs at Imbolc, she is truly awake by the time of the Spring Equinox.

"The forces of light are equally balanced with the forces of darkness at this time, but light is on the increase – and will reach its apogee at the Summer Solstice three months later.

"The symbolic plant of the Equinox in Druidry is the trefoil or shamrock, which is also customarily worn on St. Patrick’s Day, 17th March – almost at the time of the Spring Equinox. The usual explanation for the use of the shamrock is that St Patrick once used its three-leaved shape to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity, but in fact shamrock is probably the national emblem of Ireland because of its earlier Druidic associations, and it is seen by some authorities as a survival of the trignetra, a Christianised wheel or sun symbol."

Wouldn't it be wonderful if, once again, the forces of light truly became dominant in and for US and the rest of the world, starting with this week? Our world is not a monoculture. Our moon is closer to that, and closer to being lifeless. The more we learn about Earth, the more she appears comprised of interdependent relationships rather than a collection of objects. Truth, much like beauty, is often found in the eye of the beholder. Don't just take my word for that, ask a quantum physicist.

Meanwhile, we'll keep our fingers crossed that waterfowl, sandhill cranes, and other migrators that arrived last week can hang in there through a couple of cold days after this storm so that they don't give up on the North Country as a good place for nesting and raising families. Now, it's time to assess how we're going to make the driveway drivable and walkable. C'mon Spring!!!

 Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón

1976 –

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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Perfecting Hope

Yesterday Saturday's snow melted back to bare ground. Several inches more is currently in the forecast for next weekend. Maybe the forecast will improve by midweek. Non-freezing rain is preferable to snow. On the brighter side, red osier dogwood stems are bright red and willow branches have turned golden. Spring is waiting in the wings.

a bouquet of red osier dogwood stems

Photo by J. Harrington

Several pairs of swans are hanging around on the graying ice of Pool 1 in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area and we spotted flocks of waterfowl loafing in an oversized farm-field puddle south of Forest Lake. Slowly we expect frozen to thaw, migrants to return or pass through, and more wildlife and avian mating to get underway. Writing this blog posting yesterday was interrupted by one of the most spectacular sunsets I can recall seeing. This morning I saw and heard a "V" of northbound Canada geese. There may yet be hope for an end to winter.

I'm looking forward to seeing if the serviceberry bushes I (re)planted last summer made it through the winter. (The first bushes died withing several weeks. The current ones made it through several months of Summer and Autumn.) Although tempted to write "I hope they made it," my current rereading of Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark has put a twist in my understanding of "hope." She writes:

“I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”

I really like that belief although I've never thought of hope that way. Perhaps I'm not too old to augment or modify my beliefs. Anyhow my rereading is to help maintain some semblance of sanity in today's world and to prepare for reading Solnit's latest, The Beginning Comes After the End, which was published last week. I expect to get a copy within a fortnight.

There is much happening, or not happening, in the world about which I can do little by myself. Several of the conservation organizations to which I belong are not as assertive as I would like about the issues I find important. One thing I can control, on a good day, is my reaction to the world and my behavior. (Who else do you know that keeps a small poster that says "You know it was a good day if you didn't hit or bite anyone.") (Re)reading Solnit (and Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems) is a big factor helping me to put a few good days together.

Once The World Was Perfect

by Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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It's all a circle, game?

There appears to be a relative abundance of hummingbirds at the nectar feeders with some trying to scare others away. Parents trying to protect resources for their own fledglings? Each year about this time I see a similar pattern that's no where as obvious earlier in the summer. Meanwhile, more and more yellowjackets are showing up to feed on the sweetness and limited numbers are getting themselves trapped in the feeding reservoir and drowning. Based on relative size and numbers, I'm guessing that woodpeckers are the ones consuming most of the sugar water and I don't think hummingbirds can scare even downy woodpeckers in the least.

bur oak acorn

Photo by J. Harrington

Oak trees around the house have begun to drop acorns. Scattered leaf color is showing on some of the bushes and trees in the neighborhood. The flocks of birds lining up on the telephone and electric wires are getting longer and longer. We're more than halfway between Summer solstice and Autumn equinox. Days are noticeably shorter as sunrise arrives later. Seasons keep repeating their cycles. Before we know it, I'll be posting complaints about cold and ice and snow. But first, we get to experience harvest and migration and autumn seasons. Perhaps political sanity may return as temperatures drop, if we get really lucky.

Next weekend the Better Half and I celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary. I find it hard to believe anyone could have put up with me for that long. She's also doing a much better job tolerating the madness coming out of state and national capitols this year, possibly because she's had me to practice on for more than forty years.

Two

By Linda Hogan

 

The weight of a man on a woman

is like falling into the river without drowning.

 

Above, the world is burning and fighting.

Lost worlds flow through others.

 

But down here beneath water’s skin,

river floor, sand, everything

 

is floating, rocking.

Water falls through our hands as we fall through it.

 

And when a woman and a man come up from water

they stand at the elemental edge of difference.

 

Mirrored on water’s skin,

they are fired clay, water evaporating into air.

 

They are where water turns away from land

and goes back to enter a larger sea.

 

A man and a woman are like those rivers,

entering a larger sea

 

greater than the sum of all its parts.

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As we approach a time of resurrection

We’re close to mid-April this Palm Sunday. Here in the North Country, April is a time of snow showers and wild flowers. Wild turkeys begin mating rituals. Song birds return. Pregnant whitetail does will be dropping fawns in a month or two. Plant life (re)emerges from its winter retreat. Lakes and ponds lose their ice cover and some of us begin to lose our cabin fever as we wander about noticing Spring’s buds and blooms and growing warmth and open waters.

SiSi the yellow lab in her new home

Photo by J. Harrington

It was twelve years ago this month that SiSi came to live with us. She was between one and two when she arrived as a "rescue." We have had many happy times since she came and she has definitely done a good job of rescuing me. I'm glad we get to enjoy another Spring together, even though the Better Half has already found the first tick of the season on her.

April is also National Poetry Month. As part of my celebration, I bought a copy of Heidi Barr’s latest book of poems, Church of Shadow and Light, at a local independent book store, Scout & Morgan. As soon as I finish posting this, I'm going to start reading some of those poems as a reward for beginning Spring chores today. The back blade came off the tractor; both the front and back hoses got hooked up and water turned on; pounds of winter's mud got rinsed off the Jeep. It feels really good to be out and about doing something other than blowing snow, although we didn't have much of that to do this past winter.

Ever since last November, I've grown more and more concerned about the direction the returning administration has been trying to drag US and about the limited resistance expressed by those who are intended to serve as checks and balances to unbalanced behavior. Our current situation makes me think off how Native Americans have felt about the trail of broken treaties left behind by US. Maybe we'll respond to the stresses we're experiencing by realizing that we've allowed our spirits to be broken by relying on transactions instead of engaging in relationships. Perhaps we can learn what to do if we read and remember this poem.

For Calling The Spirit Back From Wandering The Earth In Its Human Feet

by Joy Harjo

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 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 yourself back. You will find yourself 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 will 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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Approaching Vernal Equinox

We have once again survived the conversion to daylight savings time. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. We wish a happy one to those who celebrate. This morning a ball of Irish soda bread dough went into the oven and made the house smell wonderful for awhile as it baked. The Better Half is cooking corned beef for tonight’s dinner. I’m wearing a green t-shirt, socks, and shoes today and will be attired in something similar tomorrow. I’m of Irish extraction as they say in my hometown of Boston

Unfortunately, since January 20, we appear to be blessed not by anyone good at driving out snakes, but with St. Upid. Many of US wish him a quick trip back to Apprenticeland, or wherever, until he learns how to behave with civilized people who lack the forbearance of, or for, some saints.

St. Upid, Patron Saint of Economic Collapse

We’ve already had our first 70 degree day and some thunder. Many waterfowl have returned over the past few days. Weeping willows are turning golden. Red osier dogwood has brightened. There’s only a few small patches of snow left, if that. There's snow in the forecast for the day before Spring arrives which, in Minnesota, isn't terribly surprising. In years past, we've had snow every month of the year but one. This year is looking like a tarriffic one for all kinds of volatility and roller coaster rides.

I spend too much time doom scrolling and hope to soon find something more enjoyable to do instead. Fly fishing, anyone? Then again, though I've not yet acquired the skill to turn away from watching an impending train wreck, I do hope we won’t soon be forbidden to wear certain colors, especially since “Spring Is a New Beginning."

"The Wearing of the Green" Lyrics

Oh, Paddy dear, did you hear the news that's going 'round?

The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground

Saint Patrick's Day no more to keep, his color can't be seen

For there's a bloody law again' the Wearing of the Green.

I met with Napper Tandy and he took me by the hand

And he said, "How's poor old Ireland and how does she stand?"

"She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen

For they're hanging men and women there for Wearing of the Green."

She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen

For they're hanging men and women there for Wearing of the Green.

Then since the color we must wear is England's cruel red

Sure Ireland's sons will never forget the blood that they have shed

You may pull the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod

But 'twill take root and flourish there, though underfoot 'tis trod.

When laws can stop the blades of grass for growing as they grow

And when the leaves in summertime their verdure dare not show

Then I will change the color too I wear in my caubeen*

But 'til that day, please God, I'll stick to Wearing of the Green.

She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen

For they're hanging men and women there for Wearing of the Green.

But if at last our color should be torn from Ireland's heart

Her sons, with shame and sorrow, from the dear old Isle will part

I've heard a whisper of a land that lies beyond the sea

Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of Freedom's day.

Ah, Erin, must we leave you, driven by a tyrant's hand

Must we seek a mother's blessing from a strange and distant land

Where the cruel cross of England shall never more be seen

And where, please God, we'll live and die, still Wearing of the Green.

She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen

For they're hanging men and women there for Wearing of the Green.

*"Caubeen" is an Irish word for a certain type of hat, similar to a beret.

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It’s woolly thinking time

Today is the penultimate day of September 2024. Haven’t seen a hummingbird at the feeder all week. Wasps and/or hornets are about everywhere, building nests and being annoying. Temperatures have been running close to 20 degrees above normal this week past but are expected to become seasonable, or close to it, come mid-week, early October. This in a state that decades ago became famous for a Halloween blizzard. This morning I found a woolly bear showing four bands of ginger, of 13(?) total bands. It’s an unrepresentative sample size, but it may portend a winter thats more wintery than usual. Meanwhile, there’s at least half a dozen lilac bushes in the neighborhood that are in bloom.

woolly bear says winter will be ???

Photo by J. Harrington

In a typical year, we’d be looking toward peak leaf color over the next couple of weeks. It’s been very slow developing this year. September has been more like July, plus we keep discovering more lilac bushes in bloom. Birds and butterflies seem to be moving south, but that must be due to day length more than our weather. Did I mention all the lilacs in bloom? In September?

We aided and abetted our Granddaughter and her friends and relations celebrate a 4 year old's birthday last week. I had forgotten that just opening presents is considered as much fun as playing with or trying on what’s getting unwrapped, especially if there’s a big pile of presents to be unwrapped before we get to the birthday cake. There was a strong horsey theme since a certain 4 year old has been taking, and enjoying, riding lessons these days.

It looks like, with two minutes to go in today’s game and a nine point lead, the Vikings are going to beat Green Bay and start the season 4 and 0. Our football fan son will be gleeful. I’m still touchy having rooted for a team that’s lost the Superbowl four times. (Final today: Vikings 31 Green Bay 29)

I’ve been working, without as much success as I’d like, at letting go of expectations and living in the moment. With the weather changes and the constant revisions in technology and business practices, that seems wise but requires the retraining of a lifetime’s conditioning. I have a book on order that should arrive this coming week, written by Jenny Odell, titled How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. I’d been toying with reading it and, in one of the reviews I read, saw the mention of bioregionalism. I was hooked and look forward to reading about the combination.

The Woolly Bear

Along a silvan lane, you spy a critter
creeping with a mission, a woolly bear
fattened on autumn flora. So you crouch,
noting her triple stripes: the middle ginger,
each end as black as space. Her destination
is some unnoticed nook, a sanctuary
to settle in, greet the fangs of frost,
then freeze, wait winter out—lingering, lost
in dreams of summer, milkweed, huckleberry.
Though she’s in danger of obliteration
by wheel or boot, your fingers now unhinge her.
She bends into a ball of steel. No “ouch”
from bristles on your palm as you prepare
to toss her lightly to the forest litter.

She flies in a parabola, and lands
in leaves. Though she has vanished, both your hands
hold myriad tiny hairs, a souvenir
scattered like petals. When this hemisphere
turns warm again, she’ll waken, thaw, and feast
on shrubs and weeds (the bitterer the better)
then, by some wondrous conjuring, released
from larval life. At length she will appear
a moth with coral wings — they’ll bravely bear
her through a night of bats or headlight glare,
be pulverized like paper in a shredder,
or briefly flare in a world that will forget her.

by Martin J. Elster

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Happy Autumnal Equinox and Alban Elfed

As of 7:43 this morning, local time, we are into full autumn, if not fully into autumn. The equinox has occurred but the season has not matured. Leaf color is still less than 10%. Some monarch butterflies have fluttered by. Flickers are flittering through the backyard. Strangely, several lilac bushes in the neighborhood have produced a second bloom recently. Meanwhile, the size of sandhill crane flocks has grown and Canada geese are doing training flights. We even saw a woolly bear caterpillar this week past.

just a hint of color in the trees

Photo by J. Harrington

No sign yet of the first frost or the first snowflake in our neck of the woods. Either could arrive any day now. The local crew of hummingbirds seems to have headed south. We’ll leave the feeders up for another week or two in case northern migrants stop by. I think, and hope, high temperatures will now stay seasonably less than 80℉ at least until next April.

As we enter the darker seasons, many of US hope that will only be literal and not figurative. The latter depending on the results of the upcoming presidential election. In our funkier moods, we wonder how many days of relative peace and quiet we’ll get before campaigns for the mid-term elections start up.

Archery deer season opened the beginning of last week Friday brought a handful of thunderstorms, complete with boomings, lightning flashes, and downpours. Will that be the last until next year, or might we experience thundersnows? Stay tuned.

Something we couldn’t share before this because it might have spoiled a birthday surprise was one of this month’s high points. For his birthday, we got the Son-in-Law an Early Lessons print from the BobWhite Studio. The Studio is located not far from our home so we made arrangements to take a peek prior to completing the purchase. In the process, we enjoyed a nice visit with Bob and his charming wife, Lisa. The story behind the print as a gift is that it depicts a man, presumably a Dad, standing behind / beside a girl holding a fly rod. The Son-In-Law has been taking his almost four-year-old daughter fishing quite a bit this summer. She’s a bit young for a fly rod, but, as most Minnesota sports fans have learned to say, “maybe next year.”

Poem Beginning with a Line from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Maggie Smith

Just look—nothing but sincerity 
as far as the eye can see—
the way the changed leaves,

flapping their yellow underbellies
in the wind, glitter. The tree
looks sequined wherever

the sun touches. Does anyone
not see it? Driving by a field
of spray-painted sheep, I think

the world is not all changed.
The air still ruffles wool
the way a mother’s hand

busies itself lovingly in the hair
of her small boy. The sun
lifts itself up, grows heavy

treading there, then lets itself
off the hook. Just look at it
leaving—the sky a tigereye

banded five kinds of gold
and bronze—and the sequin tree
shaking its spangles like a girl

on the high school drill team,
nothing but sincerity. It glitters
whether we’re looking or not.

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Here’s to full days with color

It's Labor Day weekend here in Minnesota. The weather is turning autumnal. Thanks to the Better Half, there's a couple of pots of asters on the stairs to the front stoop. Due to a couple of severe thunderstorm evenings this past week, the yard and driveway are again cluttered with dead, broken branches. We're not sure what’s left in the air after all the rains, but both dogs are exhibiting allergic reaction signs, licking their paws.

pots of asters on the steps

Photo by J. Harrington

Hummingbirds are still showing up at the feeders. I expect they'll start heading south over the next few weeks. Local sandhill crane colts are fully grown, or close to it. We expect to see crane flocks grow in size this month before they head off to warmer locales to spend the winter. Other than hay, we’ve not seen any signs of fields being harvested. May be a late harvest this year if the snow holds off.

I’m looking forward to cooler weather and warmer colors in the days ahead, although the MNDNR Fall Color Finder isn’t yet updated from last year. We’re coming into the season of soups and stews and homemade pies and .... I’ll no doubt get back into some sort of regular bread baking routine.

It’s now time to start watching for woolly worm caterpillars migrating. If they make it through until spring, they’ll become Isabella tiger moths. Monarch butterflies are heading south, although we’ve seen very few this year so expectations are tempered. If the changing of the seasons brings cooler, dryer weather and pleasant times out doors, plus a blue wave on November 5, we’ll have enough to be thankful for in late November. Summer community supported agriculture shares just ended. Autumn’s start next weekend.. Here’s what was in yesterday’s box:

Watermelon Heirloom Tomatoes Mixed Sweet Peppers French Breakfast Radish Curly Parsley Broccoli or Cauliflower Decorative flowers (not for eating!)

September

Helen Hunt Jackson

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!
The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung
On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue
To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped
In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;
And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among
The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung
Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped
The purple grape,—last thing to ripen, late
By very reason of its precious cost.
O Heart, remember, vintages are lost
If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.
Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate, 

Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

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At Autumn’s door step

A few days ago we started to notice leaves had begun to change color. First were the sumac leaves in red. Plus, there were hints of color in a large deciduous tree on the north side of county highway 36 ay the Sunrise river bridge.. Then, on Friday, we noticed color in a clump of maples as we were driving home from Taylors Falls. We’ve had color change this early in other years but it does go nicely with the cooler temperatures we’ve enjoyed for the past week or so.

even some local maples are beginning to turn

Photo by J. Harrington

Hummingbirds continue to chase one another away from the sugar water feeders. According to our traps, more mice are trying to move into the lower level and the garage. Although we see sandhill cranes in the fields from time to time, they’re in clusters of two, three or four. No signs yet of major flocks forming for migration.

A boule of sourdough just came out of the oven. The last loaf I baked had, to my taste, almost no flavor, so I reformulated the starter using about half whole wheat flour and the other half bread flour. I’ll know, shortly after this is posted, if the flavor has been enhanced or if more fiddling is called for. We’ll report in our next posting.

I have made some progress on one of the other writing projects I’m starting, and Sunday seems like a good day to post if I decide to shift to a weekly blog schedule. Blogger aappears to have made whatever adjustments were needed to allow me to again include images in these posts so we’ll just play it by ear.

Fall Song

by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures. 

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Easing into warmer days

Yesterday, the first hummingbird of the year, a female ruby-throated, showed up at the nectar feeder. Today, I noticed an abundance of trees covered in blossoms, roadsides and medians highlighted with bright yellow floral accents, but no sign, yet, of Canada goose goslings, at least for me. The Better Half claims to have seen some near the Sunrise River pools during the past few days. Spring continues to triumph over winter in more and more ways, with ephemeral wildflowers and downy goslings still to come. Meanwhile, we’re still working up to getting this year’s fishing licenses. That’s next week’s priority, after we celebrate Mother’s Day.

Canada geese on a small pond, no goslings visible yet

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve been enjoying reading Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. I got a copy through a non-renewable interlibrary loan and doubt I’ll finish it before the due date. That probably means a request for a copy of my very own goes on a list for Father’s Day or my birthday next month. It was very shortsighted of me to manage to get born so close to Father’s Day that sometimes all the celebrations (and presents) get jumbled into one. Our son out did me though. He was born on December 25.

Our major accomplishments for today are likely to be getting the first half of the year’s property taxes paid and using elbow grease and Bartender’s Friend to remove 80% plus of the calcium ring around the inside of the downstairs toilet bowl. One or two more episodes and the remains should end up just about invisible. It had gotten to be a continuing point of annoyance to get the bathroom essentially clean but still have that stain staring up at us. Hard water, even with a good softening system, can be a pain to live with.

As you can see from today’s report, one of the problems with retirement is you never get a day off. We’ll just try to make the best of it that we can, for as long as we can.

First Warm Day in a College Town

Beth Ann Fennelly
1971 – 

Today is the day the first bare-chested
          runners appear, coursing down College Hill 
                      as I drive to campus to teach, hard 

not to stare because it’s only February 15, 
          and though I now live in the South, I spent 
                      my girlhood in frigid Illinois hunting Easter eggs 

in snow, or trick-or-treating in the snow, an umbrella 
          protecting my cardboard wings, so now it’s hard 
                      not to see these taut colts as my reward, these yearlings 

testing the pasture, hard as they come toward my Nissan 
          not to turn my head as they pound past, hard 
                      not to angle the mirror to watch them cruise 

down my shoulder, too hard, really, when I await them 
          like crocuses, search for their shadows as others do 
                      the groundhog’s, and suddenly here they are, the boys 

without shirts, how fleet of foot, how cute their buns, 
          I have made it again, it is spring.  
                      Hard to recall just now that these are the torsos 

of my students, or my past or future students, who every year 
          grow one year younger, get one year fewer 
                      of my funny jokes and hip references

to Fletch and Nirvana, which means some year if they catch me
            admiring, they won’t grin grins that make me, busted, 
                      grin back--hard to know a spring will come 

when I’ll have to train my eyes 
          on the dash, the fuel gauge nearing empty, 
                      hard to think of that spring, that 

distant spring, that very very very 
          (please God) distant 
                      spring.

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This May work out

Daybreak today brought a crescent moon hanging in a shades of fading deep blue sky. It was about the prettiest dawn and sunrise I’ve ever seen. As the sun rose and the moon disappeared, the season’s first bluebirds arrived to check out both nesting boxes in front of the house. For a little while we had bluebirds twittering, squirrels skittering, and dew-covered grass gleaming. Locally it was indeed enough to make me think: what a wonderful world. It’ll probably be a few days or more until we learn if either bird house has been deemed suitable for raising a bluebird family.

female bluebird on bare, leafless branch

Photo by J. Harrington

A purple finch (or house finch?) was briefly at the seed feeder yesterday. Most of our visitors have been goldfinch, chickadees and woodpeckers. Now that the bluebirds are here, I’ll fill and hang a nectar feeder for hummingbirds and orioles. Maybe a grape jelly feeder would serve as an additional enticement. Then I have to remember to bring each feeder in every night so the bears don’t think we’re serving them a free lunch.

I suspect that sometime later this month the temperature will exceed 85℉. Then, after a brief cool down, it will jump to 90℉ or more and then stay at summer levels pretty much through September. Let’s watch and see what really happens as we go about enjoying our road repair season.

Bluebird

Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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Déjà vu for you, too?

Our Spring season is repeating many of its typical patterns. The first rose-breasted grosbeak of the season arrived at the feeder today. Based on the photo records from prior years, he’s ten days to two weeks early. Leaf-out is progressing nicely. Despite a lack of sunshine, the countryside is greening and the first ruby-throated hummingbird has been sighted in the Rochester, MN area. Damp, cooler weather (all too typical for the North Country spring) is motivating me to mix another batch of sourdough, targeted for the oven tomorrow.

male rose-breasted grosbeak

Photo by J. Harrington

Some of us who lived through the 1960’s and ’70’s are developing a growing sense of déjà vu as we read about the campus demonstrations, the establishment’s responses, and the similarities in progressives’ reaction to Lyndon B. Johnson over Vietnam and Joe Biden over Israel. (We needn’t go into any parallels between Nixon and tRUMP.) There’s even a recent piece in The Guardian with the head: ‘Do not bow’: ex-Black Panther praises pro-Palestinian student protesters from prison.

Although it is highly unlikely to (re)solve many, if any, of our contemporary battles, it might help some of us to minimize escalation of confrontations if we learn or remember Fritz Perls' Gestalt Prayer, which serves as today’s “poem.”

    I do my thing and you do your thing.

    I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,

    and you are not in this world to live up to mine.

    You are you, and I am I,

    and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.

    If not, it can't be helped.

    — Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, 1969

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A corner turned

The fuel line shutoff has been turned off on the snow blower. The lawn mower’s electric start batteryis charging. I may even wash the Jeep one of these days. Although the record shows there’s only one month of the year in which we haven’t had snow in Minnesota, we’re declaring winter of 2023-24 over. The best times of the year (according to me) are ahead of us.

green is busting out all over

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning, as a band of rose began to brighten the eastern sky, we noticed three or four whitetails gnoshing their way through the narrow band of woods between the front of the house and the road. Today was the first time we’ve seen deer in that location. Yesterday afternoon a displaying tom turkey and his harem of hens were parading around the hill behind the house. It’s truly encouraging to see the country come alive. On my way home from an errand this morning I saw a fair-sized flock of what I think were teal zipping over the Sunrise River pools near HWY 36. The water there is up and flooding most of the surrounding marshes. If we get a bunch of rain (is “bunch" the correct technical term?) there may be some issues about where the water all goes before it flows to the St. Croix.

Leaf-out is becoming more prominent by the day. Dandelions are popping into bloom overnight. With the rain expected Friday through Monday, I won’t be surprised if we can actually hear trees, bushes and plants growing, sounding like a susurrating bowl of rice crispies. Spring can be an awesome time in the North Country.

At the Spring Dawn

Angelina Weld Grimké
1880 – 1958

I watched the dawn come,
    Watched the spring dawn come.
And the red sun shouldered his way up
    Through the grey, through the blue,
Through the lilac mists.
The quiet of it! The goodness of it!
    And one bird awoke, sang, whirred
A blur of moving black against the sun,
    Sang again—afar off.
And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun,
    Stretched to my finger tips,
        And I laughed.
Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love,
    At the dawn,
        At the spring dawn.

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