Weather or not, here it comes!

According to a couple of sources, we may, or may not, get an isolated thunderstorm this afternoon. As I thought about it, if the forecast says we may get a thunderstorm or storms, that also conveys the idea we may not get storms. But, if the forecast states that we may not get thunderstorms, does that convey the message that we might? Would it be more effective to just state that the weather will be unsettled for the next several hours?

June sky full of storm clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

I started on this line of reasoning (questioning?) when I had an urge to go fly fishing this afternoon and thought I should check river levels due to all the rain we’ve got over the past several days. I found the site with the data for the USGS station on the Kinni, but can’t find a clear context into which to fit the data. That is, what does it mean that the river gauge height is/was slightly over 9 feet? Even if I compare it with last year, I learn that it’s higher this year but how do I know if it’s wadable and/or fishable? This strikes me as being a classic example of the distinction between data and information. The linked photos on the USGS site look like the river is at least bank full and running muddy, conditions less than optimum for fly fishing, but it would be nice to have a clearer baseline.

Closer to home, the wind is gusting enough that I know better than to even consider casting a fly. I’m sure of that  because I’m watching the crowns of a stand of mature oaks toss and turn and twist and bend. The wind is reported to be at 15 mph with gusts to 25. It’s occasionally blowing birds off the feeder perches.

Reports continue to pile up that we’re failing to respond to climate disruption in anything like an adequate fashion. It might be a good idea for each of us to pay more attention, and take notes, to our local weather and what constitutes a baseline for various activities. I’ve noticed some farmers have been very late this year planting some fields. I’m still on a bubble about trying to get a three sisters garden started. Flax seeds we scattered a year or two ago, and had essentially written off, are just blooming this year. Time for each  of us to start a weather journal? How about learning a bit about permaculture?

The “Change” in Climate Change

By Jacob Shores-Argüello

My cousin WhatsApps me from Costa Rica, fits the family

into the rectangle of video as they wave from the balcony.

He turns the phone, shows me a swirl of birds in the hurting sky.

But they are not birds. They are neighbor Tinoco’s roof tiles

flying in a storm’s rotary energy. My family is calling because

I’m in Oklahoma, which, to them, is synonym for tornado.

Te amo, I say as my cousin lowers the phone for our grandmother

to hear. She’s scared because she’s lived in the town for 80 years

and can’t recognize all these new skies. Because a year before,

a hurricane reaved its way across this country for the first time

in recorded history. Tornado or torbellino or something else,

I ask her about the valley’s strange wind. And she laughs, says

that she was calling to ask me the same thing. I don’t know why

I keep forgetting the change in climate change. My grandmother

sighs as the sky darkens to the color of rum. Why I still think

that we’ll have names for all the things that will come.

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S'up planting?

Now that yesterday’s invasion of British Columbia smoke has passed through, the Better Half is planting annuals in the planters next to the front stoop. The question is: will we or won’t we have to cover them one or more nights during the next few weeks to protect them from frost? Only time and temperatures will tell.

our patchy back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

Yours truly has adopted a modified No Mow May regime. The back yard needed to get pocket gopher mounds harrowed level. Leaf cover was sparse compared to the nearby woods. We mowed after we harrowed and the place looks better and we can try over seeding bare spots and watch for fresh mounds so we’ll know where to set traps. Meanwhile, in the front yard, No Mow May continues because we don’t want to mow the violets among the ground ivy. I wonder if any native species of ground cover adapted to shade coud outcompete it.

The planting plan we were beginning to develop yesterday has hit a major setback. We can find neither plants nor seeds for either species of Draba we hoped to plant: Draba reptans (Carolina Whitlow-grass) and/or Draba nemorosa (Yellow Whitlow-grass). We’ll keep looking but it is discouraging. On the other hand, trying to sort out better alternatives to non-native turf grasses is kind of fun. I just wish I’d started 20 or 30 years ago instead of relying on benign neglect.

Now it’s time to replant bergamot seeds and see if there's success this round.

Planting the Meadow

By Mary Makofske

I leave the formal garden of schedules 

where hours hedge me, clip the errant sprigs 

of thought, and day after day, a boxwood 

topiary hunt chases a green fox 

never caught. No voice calls me to order 

as I enter a dream of meadow, kneel 

to earth and, moving east to west, second 

the motion only of the sun. I plant 

frail seedlings in the unplowed field, trusting 

the wildness hidden in their hearts. Spring light 

sprawls across false indigo and hyssop, 

daisies, flax. Clouds form, dissolve, withhold 

or promise rain. In time, outside of time, 

the unkempt afternoons fill up with flowers.

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From little acorns...

There’s quite a few bur oak acorns on the ground under the tree at the end of our drive. So far there’s not much sign that anyone’s been feeding on them. Perhaps we are experiencing something like this sequence described by Arbor Masters: “Bur oak acorns take two years to mature. The first year, the tree produces small, green acorns that fall to the ground and are not eaten by animals. The second year, the tree produces larger, brown acorns that are eaten by animals.” If that’s what’s going on, we won’t know until next year’s acorn fall. However, most other reports on bur oak acorns are similar to this one: “The acorns mature in one season, ripening in early- to mid-autumn.” from the Columbus Dispatch. [I’ve doubts about the two years to mature.]

bur oak acorn

Photo by J. Harrington

In our neighborhood, we have bears, deer, wild turkeys, and squirrels that I would expect to be feeding, if not feasting, on the acorns. Perhaps the fact that they’re right next to a paved road is deterring (detouring?) the critters from chowing down. Most of the nuts are the pale green color you see above, not the brown color I associate with ripe acorns. The “definitive” Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota, by Welby R. Smith, notes bur oak acorns “maturing early August to early mid-September of the 1st year; ...”

In addition to pondering acorns, I’ve also spent a little time today trying to sort out if there’s an environmentally beneficial solution to all the dead branches our oaks drop every year. Composting would take space and time, like years, to let the branches beak down. Chipping would take a chipper and storage space for the chips, plus some of the dead branches are the size of small trees. Stacking branches along the woods line presents the problem of providing wildfire fuel. This looks like another case of choosing the least worst alternative. Sigh!!

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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All about timing

Somewhat belatedly, it occurs to me that, if I reorganize my schedule so that I do the play (as a reward) first, I’ll be much less likely to end up so overheated and tired that I don’t feel like playing after the work is done. Yet another example of “we get too soon old and too late smart!” We won’t make that mistake again tomorrow.

less than a month between snow and mow

Photo by J. Harrington

The better news is that, while knocking down gopher mounds with the drag harrow, I saw a big bumblebee. Then, when I mentioned it to the Better Half, she shared that she’d seen several bumbles while watering out front. Put bumblebee sightings together with the dragonfly or two I saw while doing the mowing today and the efforts to live with nature may turn out to be worth it, although I’m not yet ready to put up with raising goats as an organic solution to the local buckthorn infestation.

Finally, for today, if I fail to scrape up the energy and enthusiasm to go out and play with one or two fly rods and straighten the memory coils from the lines, at least I have several handfuls of really good books to read, including Debra Magpie Earling’s The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. Relaxing and reading isn’t the worst way to spend a beautiful spring Sunday, but it would be better if I remembered the old saying “He who works and runs away, lives to play another day [especially if he’s old and retired]!!” 

Innocence

By Linda Hogan

There is nothing more innocent

than the still-unformed creature I find beneath soil,

neither of us knowing what it will become

in the abundance of the planet.

It makes a living only by remaining still

in its niche.

One day it may struggle out of its tender

pearl of blind skin

with a wing or with vision

leaving behind the transparent.

I cover it again, keep laboring,

hands in earth, myself a singular body.

Watching things grow,

wondering how

a cut blade of grass knows

how to turn sharp again at the end.

This same growing must be myself,

not aware yet of what I will become

in my own fullness

inside this simple flesh.

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Wait! What? Leaf me alone!

Today’s posting will be short, I’ve been busy with other things, and maybe not entirely sweet, I’m annoyed at members of the environmental community for making life more complicated than need be. It’s not the way to get folks to do what you’d like them to do. Okay, what am I fussing about this time?

mow, rake, leaf alone?

Photo by J. Harrington

Last autumn I started to follow the Xerces Society program for “Leave the Leaves: Winter Habitat Protection.” It ran contrary to some of what I’d been told much  of my  life but it made sense, including:

Leaving the leaves and other plant debris doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your yard to the wilderness. The leaves don’t need to be left exactly where they fall. You can rake them into garden beds, around tree bases, or into other designated areas. Too many leaves can kill grass, but in soil they can suppress weeds, retain moisture, and boost nutrition.  

We even deferred spring cleanup through No Mow May:

Mowing your lawn less creates habitat and can increase the abundance and diversity of wildlife including bees and other pollinators. One way to reduce mowing is by participating in No Mow May. No Mow May is a conservation initiative first popularized by Plantlife, an organization based in the United Kingdom, but which is gaining traction across North America. The goal of No Mow May is to allow grass to grow unmown for the month of May, creating habitat and forage for early season pollinators. This is particularly important in urban areas where floral resources are often limited. 

Then, this morning, we came across some watershed folks telling us pretty much the opposite of the preferred approach of those who would protect pollinators:

Leaves are a potent source of nutrients. If you mulch them into smaller bits with your lawnmower, it has roughly the same effect as adding a round of store-bought fertilizer. That’s a good thing — as long as it all stays in your yard.

If your lawn looks like it’s more than 50 percent covered in leaves, consider bagging or composting rather than mulching them. Otherwise, your mower might not be able to chop them up enough so that they fall between the grass blades.

Remember that when leaves in any condition are blown or washed into stormdrains, all those nutrients go directly into the nearest waterbody. It’s like dumping fertilizer in the river.

The good folks in the permaculkture field aren't much help either. Their lawn guidance doesn't say much of anything about leaf management.

Since we live somewhere lacking storm drains, we’ll continue with a protecting pollinators program, but it would probably be beneficial if a working group, green ribbon?, were convened to produce a coherent set of guidance so those of us trying to do right by Mother Nature don’t develop migraines trying to sort out exactly what that involves.

Leaves Fell

By Juhan Liiv

Translated from the Estonian by H.L. Hix & Jüri Talvet

A gust roused the waves,

leaves blew into the water,

the waves were ash-gray,

the sky tin-gray,

ash-gray the autumn.

It was good for my heart:

there my feelings were ash-gray,

the sky tin-gray,

ash-gray the autumn.

The breath of wind brought cooler air,

the waves of mourning brought separation:

autumn and autumn

befriend each other.

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Getting perspective, shifting focus

We learned something new this morning. Perhaps you already know about the air quality images of the Boundary Waters available online. We didn't. If you're interested, here's a screen capture showing the area of coverage. (Use the preceding link to visit the site.)

This is one of the nicest discoveries we've made on social media (Twitter) in quite awhile. For the autumn, it will be interesting to compare, from time to time, the current image with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fall Color Finder. Then, this winter, we can watch for snowfall and, maybe?, Northern Lights?

Once again the ruby-throated hummingbirds seem to have disappeared but, so far this month, every time we thought they were gone, one showed up at one of our feeders with 12 to 18 hours. We'll see what happens this time. [UPDATE: 15 minutes after posting, a hummer arrived at the front feeder.]

hummingbird perched on dead branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Recently, we've been trying to figure out whether, and how much under what circumstances, we should be removing dead branches from our trees and whether we should remove some of the oaks that have clearly died. It is less than a straight-forward exercise in decision making. A lot depends on a lot of other things. Folks who are focused primarily on the health and appearance of trees lean toward removal. Those with more of an ecological systems bent point out all the roles dead branches and trees serve. We are going to spend some time studying permaculture to see if we can establish a framework within which we can assess the pros and cons of different approaches. Our primary objective at the moment is to avoid being guilty of the dictum "when your only tool is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail." In our case, substitute saw for hammer and dead wood for nail. Plus, to be honest, we've often felt deprived by the lack of design courses in our education. Studying permaculture design may help rectify that deficiency.

Speaking Tree 

Joy Harjo - 1951-

I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree.

                                                                   —Sandra Cisneros

Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
Genealogy of the broken—
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
Or the smell of coffee and no one there—

Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
But they do not understand poetry—

Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by
Wind, or water music—
Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—

Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth
Between sunrise and sunset—

I cannot walk through all realms—
I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—

What shall I do with all this heartache?

The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk
Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—
To the edge of the river of life, and drink—

I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:

Imagine what would it be like to dance close together
In this land of water and knowledge. . .

To drink deep what is undrinkable.

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Does #BigAg really feed people?

We live where there are lots of what look like "family farms," in a county that's part of a 2 state, 21 county Combined (Standard Metropolitan) Statistical Area [CSA]. Obviously, we live in a more rural sector of the CSA, one in which there are a number of farms that operate as Community Support Agriculture, a very different kind of CSA. Our state contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Just south of us is the State of Iowa, noted for its agriculture and its increasing agriculture related water pollution problems. We're also one of the Great Lakes states. To our East, Ohio is gaining increased notoriety for their growing problems with algae blooms.

what is all the field corn used for?

Photo by J. Harrington

Since we like to eat, and we depend on clean drinking water, we've become more and more interested in the linkage between agriculture, sustainable living, and water pollution. The way we look at things, corn grown for biofuels is an industrial use and should be regulated as if it were a manufacturing operation. Over the past few days, we've begun to reread a book we picked up a year or two ago. Immediately below is the title and an excerpt from the book.

Restoration Agriculture - Real-World Permaculture for Farmers

On the whole, unless someone has special circumstances, nobody is really making money in agriculture. The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University has reported on numerous occasions that, of those farmers in the United States who file an IRS Schedule F (farm income and expenses), 80 percent receive the majority of their income from something other than farming. The fact that the USDA has huge agricultural subsidies (both direct and indirect) is evidence that there's something wrong with the economics of farming....

Why, we wonder, would people engage in farming if they have to have outside income to support their farming. Wouldn't that, according to other IRS regulations, make 80 percent or so of those farmers engaged in a hobby rather than a business?

wolf statue on Minneapolis' Native American Cultural Corridor

Photo by J. Harrington

Then today we came across an excerpt from a book that approaches food supply from a quite different perspective. The title and an excerpt are immediately below.

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States - Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health

Despite the $13 billion corporate food industry, 70 percent of the world’s food is grown by families, peasants, and Indigenous farmers. We are those people, and today when we return to our farms and our seeds, we take our place in history. In a time when agro-biodiversity has crashed and world food systems are filled with poisons, our seeds remain, and they return. These are our stories: stories of love and stories of hope.

If 70 percent of the world's food is grown outside the corporate food industry, and, in the US, most family farmers depend on outside income to survive, could this not be one of the most egregious failures of our current capitalist system, our political system, and our agricultural economy? Are we not adding upper stories to a shaky house of cards? Are we but arguing about what color to paint the deck chairs on the Titanic, before we rearrange them? Isn't our entire food system leaving us in a potentially very vulnerable position vis a vis our food security? You might want to think about these questions between now and November 2020.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

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Of cranes and chrysanthemums!

No Northern Lights were visible last night through the overcast. The cloud cover has been scattering light to heavy showers much of the day. Those showers, in turn, have thwarted our plans to get more yard work done. A little poking about on the internets did provide a rationale for our recently discovered strategy of mulching leaves, rather than raking them, except where we want to eliminate over-Wintering cover for field and deer mice. We'll see if we can gradually wean ourselves from an addiction to lawn neatness. If we have enough fallen leaves, the mulch may also help limit buckthorn establishment, or, maybe not. We'll see. Meanwhile, we're enjoying learning holistic and organic tactics to take care of what used to be just pain-in-the-butt chores.

sandhill cranes flying in clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

Back to our persistent cloud cover, it has had a saving grace, they provided a veil between those of us on the ground and the sandhill cranes we heard calling in flight while dog-walking. At least we think they were sandhill cranes, On occasion we've noticed there can be a confusing, at least to us, similarity between some crane calls and some raven calls. Since we couldn't see the birds today, we're claiming sandhill cranes and no one can dispute us. Ever since we first read Aldo Leopold's Marshland Elegy, we've become increasingly enamored of sandhill cranes. We've been most fortunate to be able to watch their increasing numbers in our neighborhood over the years we've lived here.

mums the word along the drive

Photo by J. Harrington

The half-a-dozen pots for the annual chrysanthemum planting are now in hand. We had been contemplating raking the area where we usually plant them but instead we'll just kick the leaves away from where each pot goes, dig a hole, and plant the mums (see 1st paragraph in today's posting). Less work, more pleasure. Meanwhile, we're still looking for a source for New England aster plants.

In honor of the beginning of Autumn, and the 59℉ midday temperatures, we're wearing a flannel shirt for the first time this season. We're also starting to look forward to the return of soup, stew, chowder and chili season.

Autumn

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

No melancholy days are these!
     Not where the maple changing stands,
Not in the shade of fluttering oaks,
            Nor in the bands

Of twisting vines and sturdy shrubs,
     Scarlet and yellow, green and brown,
Falling, or swinging on their stalks,
            Is Sorrow’s crown.

The sparkling fields of dewy grass,
     Woodpaths and roadsides decked with flowers,
Starred asters and the goldenrod,
            Date Autumn’s hours.

The shining banks of snowy clouds,
     Steadfast in the aerial blue,
The silent, shimmering, silver sea,
            To Joy are true.

My spirit in this happy air
     Can thus embrace the dying year,
And with it wrap me in a shroud
            As bright and clear!

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Don't let buckthorn get your goat!

Sometime within the past week or so we mentioned that we're (re)considering managing the buckthorn growing on our property using goats to graze the invasive. This morning we discovered that the University of Minnesota has started looking at How Goat-Grazing Research is Helping with Buckthorn Control. We were unaware that there's "a deadly brain parasite that puts goats in the field at risk." The research is part of the work being done at the Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center.

backyard buckthorn before removal

Photo by J. Harrington

As we were getting some needed chores done today (the "quick-connect mower deck" for our John Deere tractor doesn't connect all of a sudden, so both are off at the dealer's service department), we were thinking about invasive species, like buckthorn. If and when we get buckthorn gone from our property, there will be the perpetual(?) threat of reinvasion since seeds can and will be dropped by birds as long as the neighbors, including the public sector, haven't also cleaned up their buckthorn. That's kind of a discouraging prospect for us and, we suspect, others in a similar situation. It suggests that invasive species management is not a project by project approach but more like an annual activity.

When we search the internet about terrestrial invasive species in Minnesota, we discover that, in addition to the University's programs and projects, the Department of Agriculture is involved, as are the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Transportation, the Science Museum of Minnesota, plus counties and other units of local government. There's probably some federal agencies involved also. It's a little frustrating that there doesn't appear to be a designated lead agency responsible for pulling all the pieces together. We also would like to see more consideration of permaculture approaches to invasive species management.

On an unrelated and brighter note, we'll soon take a new kind of bread boule from the oven. The last loaf we baked using our current formula and flour sources tasted different than any of the prior versions. We "restarted" our home grown sourdough starter, and the Better Half bought some pricey local flour for us to play with. Today's loaf/boule will be the first production with the renewed starter and new flour. Tomorrow or Friday we'll let you know how it turned out .

Invasive Species

by Samn Stockwell

The bulldozer paws and pauses

at the edge of the marsh.

Water is easy to direct,

impossible to stop, serpentine

in its empire.

The third settlers were chased here

by the second settlers and early death

but not before a softening hand

planted bouncing bet in the yard,

now in scallops and pools along

the train tracks, hiding

the diary wrapped in waxed canvas. 

And everything that follows

seized and scattered: 

another woman kneeling on the floor,

coat on the back of the chair

repairing a fraying rug —

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A never-ending story

Today's will be a very short posting. We're tired. This morning we basically finished removing buckthorn from all but a small, clump surrounding a black cherry tree behind the house. We even have photographic proof. Now we can move on to the buckthorn that's invaded the woods in from of the house.

Here's the Before picture:

slope with buckthorn

Photo by J. Harrington

Here's the After picture:

slope without buckthorn

Photo by J. Harrington

Here's what's left:

last bit to go

Photo by J. Harrington

The Before photo was taken a couple of years ago, which means we already had one season of pulling buckthorn behind us. Way in the background, downslope, is where the cherry tree with what's remaining can be seen in the after photo. To paraphrase a line from the Byrds, "I'll feel a whole lot better with [it] gone." On the other hand, Mary Oliver might well have had a different view.

Mindful

by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

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Country living's joys #phenology

Yesterday, before we thought we noticed snowflakes, we though we saw a rose-breasted grosbeak at the feeder, Today, the grosbeak sighting was confirmed. Apparently the snow flakes we "enjoyed" yesterday didn't reverse the grosbeak migration. If it doesn't rain too hard this weekend (or snow again) we'll get a hummingbird feeder and a Baltimore oriole/hummingbird feeder hung. Spring keeps inching ahead despite setbacks from time to time, like yesterday's snow and tonight's frost forecast.

grosbeaks arrive about this time each year

Photo by J. Harrington

Today, after making our first half property tax payment, we undertook the first crack at cutting grass / mulching leaves for the year. The grass cutting worked fine. The leaves, in only slightly smaller pieces, are still all over the yard, but in neater rows from the discharge chute. It's becoming clear we either need to vastly lower our standards on how we want the place to look, or we need to repair or replace our pull-behind lawn vacuum. Is it really worth investing 50% of the cost of a new one in a machine that's 20+ years old? Probably not. Then again, no one locally seems to be selling a new one all set up ready to go. Ah, the joys of country living outside mainstream American life. Then again, we've been less than thrilled with how our mainstream Apple computers and iPhones have worked over the years. We think we may have noticed millennials have a higher tolerance for technological malfunctions than us older generation types, especially for a company that makes products that are supposed to "just work."

The question of leaves versus wildflower ground cover doesn't appear to have received much attention in the natural landscaping community. Raking and/or mowing doesn't seem compatible with plantings of shade tolerant wildflowers, but maybe it is. Or, maybe the wildflowers just grow up through each year's leaf fall. The things we haven't paid attention to over the years. Fortunately, none of this is life-threatening, at least not to us. Once again we will drag out Beckett's wonderful approach: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." He would have been right at home living in the country these days.

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

Will the real "highbush cranberry" please step forward.

One of the male goldfinches perched, moments ago, on the niger thistle feeder, his feathers clearly molting into brighter chrome yellow colors. He, like the fields and woods around the house, is transforming from drab colors appropriate for Winter survival to bright, breeding colors that thrive throughout Spring. Soon he will be joined by multi-hued wildflower blossoms, verdant variant leaves of grass, and, still later, green arrays emergent in treetops and branch tips. But, for today, we are limited to gray, cloud-filled skies and bursts of bright bird-feathers.

buckthorn to be replaced by "highbush cranberries"

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half [BH] and I have been pondering alternatives to the "out-of-stock" response we received from our local county soil and water district to the order BH placed for red osier dogwoods and high bush cranberries. Suddenly, life became somewhat more interesting than we anticipated. One source claims that Viburnum edule (squashberry) is hardy in USDA zones 1-11. Those of us who lean toward the skeptical side doubt that and began investigating. Here's much of what we discovered about Viburnums in Minnesota, as we seek native plants to replace the buckthorn we've been pulling.

Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota, Welby Smith, lists the following as present in Minnesota,

• Viburnum edule (Michx.) Raf. - native
• Viburnum lentago L. - native
• Viburnum opulus L.
• Viburnum rafinesquianum Schult. - native
• Viburnum trilobum Marsh. - native

Minnesota Wildflowers also lists five Viburnums, not including Viburnum trilobum

• Viburnum edule (Michx.) Raf. - squashberry
• Viburnum lentago L. - nannyberry
• Viburnum opulus var americanum - american highbush cranberry
• Viburnum opulus var opulus - guelder-rose
• Viburnum rafinesquianum - downy arrow-wood

The foraging resources we have on the bookshelf list Viburnum trilobum and Viburnum edule as edible but not so much the Viburnum opulus var opulus. We also discovered a moderate variation on which species are hardy in which USDA hardiness zone. We're going to try a few Viburnum edule in Zone 4a, which may be several zones South of where it's indigenous in Minnesota and see how they fare. Wish us luck. We're still pondering whether to be upset by the lack of consistency among sources or grateful the inconsistencies aren't worse. We were even more fascinated to find no mention of cranberries in Mary Siisip Geniusz' Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask. At lest she didn't have to cope with buckthorn.

Orange Berries Dark Green Leaves

By John Taggart

Darkened not completely dark let us walk in the darkened field

trees in the field outlined against that which is less dark

under the trees are bushes with orange berries dark green leaves

not poetry’s mixing of yellow light blue sky darker than that

darkness of the leaves a modulation of the accumulated darkness

orange of the berries another modulation spreading out toward us

it is like the reverberation of a bell rung three times

like the call of a voice the call of a voice that is not there.

We will not look up how they got their name in a book of names

we will not trace the name’s root conjecture its first murmuring

the root of the berries their leaves is succoured by darkness

darkness like a large block of stone hauled on a wooden sled

like stone formed and reformed by a dark sea rolling in turmoil.

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Crossing permaculture with #phenology?

Minnesota has several wildflowers of the Gentiana family. The Minnesota Wildflowers web site lists five Gentiana and three other "Gentians" that bloom in September. The plants in our front flower garden are, we think, bottle gentians, but don't hold us to that. Our listing of Chisago County wildflowers includes only two Gentianas, but also has two "gentians" from the Triostium family. This has possibly been a classic exercise in why scientists rely on Linnaean rather than common names.

bottle gentian(?) in September

Photo by J. Harrington

The leaves on the remnants of the black chokeberry bushes left by our local whitetail herd have started to change to bright orangey-yellow instead of the reddish-purple (purplish-red?) many cultivars are listed as producing. Perhaps it's the lack of full sun that's altered the color? We're now thinking that, instead of transplanting some of the existing bushes, maybe we should buy more and see if we can convince the deer to leave at least some of them alone? The photo shows a partial yield several years ago from one bush before the deer discovered them.

a rare harvest of black chokeberries

Photo by J. Harrington

We discovered on-line this morning a resource we'll check more thoroughly over the next few days. PERMACULTURE 101: AN INTRODUCTION TO REGENERATIVE DESIGN may, or may not, offer helpful suggestions on dealing with the pocket gophers, rabbits and whitetails that seem determined to help themselves to "our foods." Actually, the real problems is each of these critters, in their own way, tends to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs, if we may thoroughly mix our metaphors. Pocket gophers have eaten the roots of most of the fruit trees we've planted, and replanted. The results are dead trees. Rabbits and deer browse on the bushes to the point that few flowers and no fruit is produced, and several of the branches die from browsing. It's hard to share the yield of a dead or non-producing plant or tree. Mr. Frost, Robert, not Jack, certainly seems familiar with our trials and tribulations.

Good-bye, and Keep Cold

By Robert Frost

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark

And cold to an orchard so young in the bark

Reminds me of all that can happen to harm

An orchard away at the end of the farm

All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.

I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,

I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse

By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.

(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call

I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall

And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.

(We made it secure against being, I hope,

By setting it out on a northerly slope.)

No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;

But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.

"How often already you've had to be told,

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below."

I have to be gone for a season or so.

My business awhile is with different trees,

Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,

And such as is done to their wood with an axe—

Maples and birches and tamaracks.

I wish I could promise to lie in the night

And think of an orchard's arboreal plight

When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

Its heart sinks lower under the sod.

But something has to be left to God.

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More bucking buckthorn

We will soon be back to pulling more buckthorn. To minimize it's recurrence, we'd like to have native plants growing where the buckthorn used to grow. Although we haven't yet done a detailed cross-check, we suspect that many of the native plants that could replace buckthorn would be much more attractive to the deer to eat than the buckthorn has been. In fact, if whitetails would eat buckthorn we'd be much more inclined to take a "live and let live" approach. As it is, the deer have already enjoyed more calories from our serviceberry bushes than we have.

some of our buckthorn

Photo by J. Harrington

While we're at it, in case the topic is of any interest to any of you, here's a list of some resources on buckthorn management:

• Buckthorn Solutions


• BUCKTHORN REPLACEMENT PLANTS
  (extra points for quoting Margaret Atwood)


• MNDNR Buckthorn


• MNDNR Alternative plantings for buckthorn


• Friends of the Mississippi River buckthorn removal

One of the interesting aspects of working our way through this annoying woodlot management issue is it's teaching us, or at least giving us an opportunity to learn new and improved ways of thinking. Several of the resources suggest using glyphosate herbicide. We may come to that but only as a last resort. We suspect there are enough berries scattered about the property that we'd be spraying for more years than we'd like if we take that "more convenient" approach. Plus there's the more recent news about its carcinogenic properties.

would black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) be a beneficial replacement?

Photo by J. Harrington

When we first started, we hadn't thought much about what to use as replacement plants. That selection process is becoming a continuing education effort. Buckthorn as a lifetime learning motivator seems like a new angle. Plus, we're fortunate that we can usually burn a brush pile (after chasing out the occupants, of course) for several months of the year.

The tree in front, that we though might be an actual buckthorn tree is dropping fruit these days. Dark purple, but with one hard pit, rather than about three seeds, means it's cherry, not buckthorn. This discovery now has us thinking that the large tree behind the house might (we stress might) be another cherry surrounded by buckthorn bushes. We'll pull the bushes and observe more carefully before we have the tree taken down. We are actually learning to pay more attention to details and to, as the old saying goes, "measure twice, cut once."

If we manage to use this as an opportunity to develop some patience and longer term perspective, we might actually have to admit that coping with invasive species isn't all bad, just annoying and less fun than fly-fishing.

Autumn Psalm

By Jacqueline Osherow

A full year passed (the seasons keep me honest)

since I last noticed this same commotion.

Who knew God was an abstract expressionist?

I’m asking myself—the very question

I asked last year, staring out at this array

of racing colors, then set in motion

by the chance invasion of a Steller’s jay.

Is thiswhat people mean by speed of light?

My usually levelheaded mulberry tree

hurling arrows everywhere in sight—

its bow: the out-of-control Virginia creeper

my friends say I should do something about,

whose vermilion went at least a full shade deeper

at the provocation of the upstart blue,

the leaves (half green, half gold) suddenly hyper

in savage competition with that red and blue—

tohubohu returned, in living color.

Kandinsky: where were you when I needed you?

My attempted poem would lie fallow a year;

I was so busy focusing on the desert’s

stinginess with everything but rumor.

No place even for the spectrum’s introverts—

rose, olive, gray—no pigment at all—

and certainly no room for shameless braggarts

like the ones that barge in here every fall

and make me feel like an unredeemed failure

even more emphatically than usual.

And here they are again, their fleet allure

still more urgent this time—the desert’s gone;

I’m through with it, want something fuller—

why shouldn’t a person have a little fun,

some utterly unnecessary extravagance?

Which was—at least I think it was—God’s plan

when He set up (such things are never left to chance)

that one split-second assignation

with genuine, no-kidding-around omnipotence

what, for lack of better words, I’m calling vision.

You breathe in, and, for once, there’s something there.

Just when you thought you’d learned some resignation,

there’s real resistance in the nearby air

until the entire universe is swayed.

Even that desert of yours isn’t quite so bare

and God’s not nonexistent; He’s just been waylaid

by a host of what no one could’ve foreseen.

He’s got plans for you: this red-gold-green parade

is actually a fairly detailed outline.

David never needed one, but he’s long dead

and God could use a little recognition.

He promises. It won’t go to His head

and if you praise Him properly (an autumn psalm!

Why didn’t Ithink of that?) you’ll have it made.

But while it’s true that my Virginia creeper praises Him,

its palms and fingers crimson with applause,

that the local breeze is weaving Him a diadem,

inspecting my tree’s uncut gold for flaws,

I came to talk about the way that violet-blue

sprang the greens and reds and yellows

into action: actual motion. I swear it’s true

though I’m not sure I ever took it in.

Now I’d be prepared, if some magician flew

into my field of vision, to realign

that dazzle out my window yet again.

It’s not likely, but I’m keeping my eyes open

though I still wouldn’t be able to explain

precisely what happened to these vines, these trees.

It isn’t available in my tradition.

For this, I would have to be Chinese,

Wang Wei, to be precise, on a mountain,

autumn rain converging on the trees,

a cassia flower nearby, a cloud, a pine,

washerwomen heading home for the day,

my senses and the mountain so entirely in tune

that when my stroke of blue arrives, I’m ready.

Though there is no rain here: the air’s shot through

with gold on golden leaves. Wang Wei’s so giddy

he’s calling back the dead: Li Bai! Du Fu!

Guys! You’ve got to see this—autumn sun!

They’re suddenly hell-bent on learning Hebrew

in order to get inside the celebration,

which explains how they wound up where they are

in my university library’s squashed domain.

Poor guys, it was Hebrew they were looking for,

but they ended up across the aisle from Yiddish—

some Library of Congress cataloger’s sense of humor:

the world’s calmest characters and its most skittish

squinting at each other, head to head,

all silently intoning some version of kaddish

for their nonexistent readers, one side’s dead

(the twentieth century’s lasting contribution)

and the other’s insufficiently learned

to understand a fraction of what they mean.

The writings in the world’s most spoken language

across from one that can barely get a minyan.

Sick of lanzmen,the yiddenare trying to engage

the guys across the aisle in some conversation:

How, for example, do you squeeze an image

into so few words,respectfully asks Glatstein.

Wang Wei, at first, doesn’t understand the problem

but then he shrugs his shoulders, mumbles Zen

... but, please, I, myself, overheard a poem,

in the autumn rain, once, on a mountain.

How do you do it? I believe it’s called a psalm?

Glatstein’s cronies all crack up in unison.

Okay, groise macher,give him an answer.

But Glatstein dons his yarmulke (who knew he had one?)

and starts the introduction to the morning prayer,

Pisukei di zimrah,psalm by psalm.

Wang Wei is spellbound, the stacks’ stale air

suddenly a veritable balm

and I’m so touched by these amazing goings-on

that I’ve forgotten all about the autumn

staring straight at me: still alive, still golden.

What’s gold, anyway, compared to poetry?

a trick of chlorophyll, a trick of sun.

True. It was something, my changing tree

with its perfect complement: a crimson vine,

both thrown into panic by a Steller’s jay,

but it’s hard to shake the habit of digression.

Wandering has always been my people’s way

whether we’re in a desert or narration.

It’s too late to emulate Wang Wei

and his solitary years on that one mountain

though I’d love to say what I set out to say

just once. Next autumn, maybe. What’s the occasion?

Glatstein will shout over to me from the bookcase

(that is, if he’s paying any attention)

and, finally, I’ll look him in the face.

Quick. Out the window, Yankev. It’s here again.

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