Branching out

I don’t really believe this happened just because I’m currently reading Finding the Mother Tree. On the other hand, I’m not foolhardy enough to completely disregard the possibility that Mother Nature arranged conditions to reward my reading habits. A couple of days ago, after several outrageous downpours, pine trees on the hill behind our house displayed halos. See for yourself. (There’s a second tree glowing near the base of the bird house pole.)

small pine trees with halo

Photo by J. Harrington

Creating the halo effect no doubt took the right amount, and angle, of sunlight, the proper amount of rain, someone to notice and take a picture, and who knows what other factors, to all come together at the same time and in the same place. Coincidence or karma, take your pick, but I’m becoming a believer in the wood wide web.

Today, for the first time this season, I mowed the front yard. The Better Half and I are working on making it more pollinator friendly, so last spring I did the prep and she seeded with a clover-rye(?) mix. What grass had been there was rapidly being overgrown with wild violets, which continue to spread. Much of the pre-mow greenery appeared to be violet leaves. I was concerned that mowing the taller violet leaves would end up with the yard looking baldish. I’m pleased to report my concerns were misplaced. With the mower set to mulch and the cut height set high, the post-mow yard still looks nicely green and a bit neater. Slowly but surely I’m becoming a practical, as well as an intellectual, hypothetical, theoretical, environmentalist. If you remember George Peppard in the old tv series The A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

When I am among the trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Mary Oliver

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Feeding body and soul

I have a loaf of sourdough in the oven. The dough was much tackier (sticky) than I anticipated. Once I had shaped the boule and put it in the ‘fridge to proof, I went online to see what I might learn about why my dough was sticky and what I might do about it. I ended up at a web site I haven’t visited for months. If you’re interested in baking artisan bread, I suggest you spend some time visiting The Fresh Loaf, A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts. Another site I find helpful and interesting is Emilie Raffa’s The Clever Carrot, Sourdough tips, videos & recipes. Now that we’ve taken care of feeding the body....

early Spring, wood ducks

Photo by J. Harrington

We are lucky to live someplace that varies from pretty to beautiful to stunning. We’re in the Minnesota watershed of the wild and scenic St. Croix River. Several years ago, Craig Blacklock published a book of his photographs of the St. Croix and Namekagon. The photo gallery from the book is now online for all to see. Although not every part of our neighborhood is as gorgeous as the pictures, it’s helpful to be reminded from time to time that we should be more attentive to our surroundings. We might be missing much of the beauty that surrounds us.

The peace of wild things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the Peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Water is life. A river is water. Therefore...

I think I've read Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It at least a couple of times and watched the movie once or twice. An all-time favorite quotation of mine comes from the novel:

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”

a famous trout stream near "The Cities"

Photo by J. Harrington

For most of my adult life, I too have been haunted by waters. In my case it was first the Atlantic Ocean and several of the rivers that feed into it. Since moving to Minnesota, I've been drawn more to the  area's rivers than its lakes. Superior is the exception because it is an inland sea lacking only a salt tang in the air. My copy of Maclean's book is coming off of the library shelf and put in the stack for reading next Winter, when trout, fly-fishing, and much of the open water of our rivers are but temporally distant fantasies. To accompany  the novel, I'll look at the wonderful photography recently published in the Star Tribune under the title of Maclean's novel and eponymous movie. You can see it yourself if you follow this link: A river runs through it. For my taste, it's one of the better things the Strib has published.

fingerling trout in a "Trout in the Classroom" aquarium

Photo by J. Harrington

Having fished an ocean and several of the West's more famous trout streams, I admit a bias against narrow, brush-tunneled, creeks that serve as home to many of the Midwest's native and naturalized trout. In the Driftless Area of Southwestern Wisconsin and Southeast Minnesota, lots of the rivers and streams also are subject to devastating flash floods. It's nice to see some pictures of them when they're on their best behavior and to be reminded that I haven't fished any of the trout waters near The Cities since they've been improved and restored although I need to get back in shape before I try fishing stretches as adventurous as the one John Lenczewski is wading. These days it's rare that anything in a newspaper helps improve my Summer, but this time the Star Tribune landed a record.

The Trout

Amy Lowell - 1874-1925

          Naughty little speckled trout,
          Can't I coax you to come out?
          Is it such great fun to play
          In the water every day?

          Do you pull the Naiads' hair
          Hiding in the lilies there?
          Do you hunt for fishes' eggs,
          Or watch tadpoles grow their legs?

          Do the little trouts have school
          In some deep sun-glinted pool,
          And in recess play at tag
          Round that bed of purple flag?

          I have tried so hard to catch you,
          Hours and hours I've sat to watch you;
          But you never will come out,
          Naughty little speckled trout!

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"Being there" on a Spring morning

Thanks to the Better Half [BH], this morning we enjoyed the year's first confirmed sighting of a red-winged blackbird. BH had motored off to the local grocery store at the proverbial crack of dawn. After she parked, she sent me a text telling me to go take some pictures of the sleeping swans on the Carlos Avery Sunrise River pools. I promptly put down my coffee cup, pulled on my jeans with the drivers license in the pocket, grabbed the camera, climbed into the Jeep, and headed off.  The ponds are about a ten minute drive from the house.

Spring morning ducks in flight

Photo by J. Harrington

It was that kind of morning and scene that reminded me of why I had been an ardent waterfowl hunter for many years. It was all about Being There, as Gene Hill, one of my all-time favorite writers, put it many years ago. The pool surfaces were mirror smooth. There were a few ducks in the air. Many of the swans were awakening as the sun climbed higher  and got brighter. A few remained sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings or else they were seeking an underwater breakfast. Watching the swans, geese, ducks and sunrise, just "being there," made me realize how lucky I've been in my life so far, to have been able to enjoy so many mornings like this.

Spring morning swans sleeping (center right)

Photo by J. Harrington

After taking a few pictures, I turned the Jeep around and headed home to reheat  the coffee. That's when I saw, perched on a roadside post, the blackbird [no photo of this one]. I've heard an occasional call or two this week, but this was my first sighting. And, as I look out the window while typing this, I just noticed a purple finch at the feeder. Spring is here. May we all enjoy all of it. May it not be our last but may its pleasures last us a lifetime.

Spring Morning 

Marion Strobel

O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you, 
And make this shining wonder be 
A part of me! 
O day! O day!
You lift and sway your colors on the sky 
Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there 
More of reeling sunlit air 
Than I can breathe? Why is there sound 
In silence? Why is a singing wound 
About each hour? 
And perfume when there is no flower? 
O day! O Day! How may I press 
Nearer to loveliness?

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Sunrise, Sunset

Do you remember the lyrics from the song in Fiddler on the Roof, especially the refrain?

Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears

This morning and yesterday we started our day watching spectacular, sky-searing sunrises while walking one of our dogs. Today, while we were sipping our first post-walk cup of coffee, a ghostlike hummingbird visited the window-mounted nectar feeder in our office. The barely visible gray-tone flutters startled us because, for no particularly good reason, we didn't think hummingbirds fed before full daylight. At least that's the only time we've seen them at feeders prior to today.

late July sunrise, DSLR

Photo by J. Harrington

Unfortunately, once again we were frustrated by the apparent inability of our smartphone camera to capture deep fire colors from dawns like today's, about the shade of candy on this color thesaurus, or the bright band near the middle of the picture above, without washing them out. According to at least some folks, "The problem is that the auto white balance of digital cameras will typically try to cancel out any shift in color temperature, with the aim of producing results that are more neutral. As a result, the AWB setting can leech all the orange light out of sunset and sunrise shots, giving rise to insipid, neutral images as a result." (Problem #8) We'll see what happens after we spend some time reviewing iPhone camera tips and tricks, and maybe try a third-party camera app. Or, we could remember to take our DSLR for early morning walks in late Spring and early Summer, although we've had similar issues with that camera. Time to learn more about how to use a DSLR? Isn't technology wonderful, the way it "just works?" Conversely, we'd like it if our DSLR included GPS info the way our smartphone does.

mid-May sunrise, iPhone 6

Photo by J. Harrington

As happens all too often with us, and, we suspect, many others, we spend time fiddling around with alternative technologies rather than settling down and mastering any one. We noticed that our artisan sourdough improved markedly the more we studied and practiced baking bread. Our fly casting improves the more we practice. But, with a camera or a computer, we expect to be able to pick it up and have it read our mind. When will we act on the recognition that spending $$ on a hobby is not a valuable substitute for spending time engaged in that same hobby? What else might this apply to?

An American Sunrise

By Joy Harjo

We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We

were surfacing the edge of our ancestors’ fights, and ready to strike.

It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight.

Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We

made plans to be professional — and did. And some of us could sing

so we drummed a fire-lit pathway up to those starry stars. Sin

was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We

were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them — thin

chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little gin

will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing. We

had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz

I argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,

forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We

know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die

soon.

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At the "bird" feeder, late February

It's been a tough Winter. Meteorologically, it ended with February. We've been going through lots of sunflower seeds and suet, but we haven't been feeding just birds. May March be a kinder, gentler month!

sunrise tangled up in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

a snowy dunce cap on the bluebird house

Photo by J. Harrington

the tall one knocks seeds down for the short one

Photo by J. Harrington

then helps herself

Photo by J. Harrington

and Runny Babbit gets some leftovers

Photo by J. Harrington

Late February

By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

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Empty nesting again

Yesterday the Daughter Person and the Son-In-Law closed on their first house. We're spending today helping them move into their new home and out of our house. We went through Empty Nesting when Daughter Person went off to college. The she and the Son-In-Law to be moved in with us while he finished his degree. Now they're off again. All grown up? We'll return to our regular programming tomorrow or as soon as our old bones and muscles have recovered from today's activities.

autumn leaves, St. Croix River

Photo by J. Harrington

Between loads being transported, we made a quick stop by the Discovery Center in Osceola to check our the Craig Blacklock presentation on his book of photos celebrating the St. Croix River's 50th anniversary as a Wild and Scenic River. Enjoy the photos on his web site.

Parenthesis

By Valerie Mejer Caso

Translated by Forrest Gander

Nothing's in the nest. No needles. No newborn ravens.

Maybe something like night in the deep hollow,

an eggshell planet, cracked in the middle, an empty bowl of soup.

Nothing's in the nest. No thread. No webs of words.

Maybe something like my navel, the eclipse of a magnifying glass.

A slice, mute with regard to its empty depths.

In the nest, nothing. The web unwoven. Dismembered.

In the space, something, yes. A piece of cloth. Sounding like flags

taking wing, a worm in its beak and suddenly, eyes, my eyes

which, cutting across the empty air, direct themselves at something noiseless over there.

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The orioles return #phenology

Sometime within the past few days, the Aldo Leopold Foundation < @aldoLeopoldFdn > shared this Tweet:

"Noticed Baltimore orioles have disappeared from fruit & jelly feeders? They change their diet to insects for more protein as they rear their chicks. Spot one of their "hanging basket" nests & look for adults feeding nestlings. Soon, the whole fam may visit your feeder! #Phenology"

 Today, as we were starting this post, a male Baltimore oriole arrived at our feeders. He drank some nectar from the hummingbird/oriole feeder and took a taste of grape jelly. His arrival, as foretold above by one of our favorite orgs, was a very pleasant surprise. We'd like to get his picture, since the only orioles we've photographed so far are females. Anyhow, maybe there is something to this phenology stuff? 😇

female Baltimore oriole at feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

We have no idea where the orioles' "hanging basket" nest may be located. There's a multitude of trees around here. That leaves us looking forward to the arrival of more orioles at the feeders. In fact, we'll put out fresh grape jelly tomorrow. The female rose breasted grosbeaks have been nipping at it from time to time and, with no orioles in sight until now, we saw little point in freshening the jelly since it was clearly a second choice, after sunflower seeds, for the grosbeaks. Some of the local squirrels check out the taste of jelly from time to time also. The dogs love to chase squirrels off the deck into the branches of the overhanging tree. The squirrels are safe until and unless the dogs learn to climb trees.

We hope our recent wave of overly hot, excessively wet weather (6" to 12" or more a county or two North of us) over the weekend hasn't disrupted your life. The claims of climate scientists, that climate change will result in more volatile, intense storm patterns, seem to be pretty well reflected by recent weather events. Sigh!

That Woman

Sarah Getty, 1943

Look! A flash of orange along the river’s edge--
“oriole!” comes to your lips like instinct, then
it’s vanished--lost in the foliage,

in all your head holds, getting on with the day.  
But not gone for good. There is that woman     
walks unseen beside you with her apron
  
pockets full.  Days later, or years, when you least    
seem to need it--reading Frost on the subway,    
singing over a candled cake--she’ll reach

into a pocket and hand you this intact    
moment--the river, the orange streak parting 
the willow, and the “oriole!” that leapt

to your lips.  Unnoticed, steadfast, she gathers      
all this jumble, sorts it, hands it back like 
prizes from Crackerjack.  She is your mother,

who first said, “Look! a robin!” and pointed,   
and there was a robin, because her own
mother had said to her, “Look!” and pointed, 

and so on, back to the beginning: the mother, 
the child, and the world.  The damp bottom 
on one arm and pointing with the other: 
       
the peach tree, the small rocks in the shallows,    
the moon and the man in the moon.  So you keep on, 
seeing, forgetting, faithfully followed;   

and you yourself, unwitting, gaining weight,
have thinned to invisibility, become
that follower.  Even now, your daughter

doesn’t see you at her elbow as she walks
the beach.  There! a gull dips to the Pacific,
and she points and says to the baby, “Look!”

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Wild and Scenic: Golden!

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the designation of the Namekagon and St. Croix Rivers as the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. One of many wonderful aspects of where we live is that we're on the western edge of the St. Croix watershed. Our property is a couple of miles downstream of the Sunrise River, a tributary of the St. Croix.

Wild and Scenic 50th Logo

Several years ago we started a writing and photography project focused on the Scenic St. Croix. We never finished that project. This year it's time to take another crack at it. We're going to share some of the resources we've discovered in the interval.

Recently we've been trying to find any existing anthologies of river poetry. We've only found one that we're sure of, The River's Voice: An Anthology of Poetry. From the reading that we've done over the past few years, we think there's numerous other poems that warrant inclusion or a separate volume. We're going to see how far we can get toward an augmented anthology without actually trying to get permissions and get anything (re)published. At least, that's the plan for now.

canoeing on the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

Craig Blacklock has crafted a series of photographs of the St. Croix and Namekagon, accompanied by an essay written by Walter Mondale and published as The Enduring Gift. There's an unrelated Wild and Scenic Rivers web site that has a compilation of river quotes that we will soon start wading through.

Part of our inspiration comes from an English web site we've discovered, Caught by the River. The English seem to have more excellent poets writing about their rivers than we former colonists have writing about ours. We've recently read Alice Oswald's A Sleepwalk on the Severn and Dart, each a book length work devoted to one river. On our side of "the big pond," we have Raymond Carver's outstanding The River and several of Jim Harrison's poems among other works. Then, there's Gary Snyder's incomparable Mountains and Rivers Without End, which includes several river-specific poems and, last but not least for now, there's the more expansive themes in River of Words: Youth Art and Poetry Inspired by the Natural World. We're not sure if any of you think you may need or want something like we're proposing to pull together, but the more we wrote today, the more we became sure we do.

The River

By Jim Harrison

Yes, we'll gather by the river,

the beautiful, the beautiful river.

They say it runs by the throne of God.

This is where God invented fish.

Wherever, but then God's throne is as wide

as the universe. If you're attentive you'll

see the throne's borders in the stars. We're on this side

and when you get to the other side we don't know

what will happen if anything. If nothing happens

we won't know it, I said once. Is that cynical?

No, nothing is nothing, not upsetting just

nothing. Then again maybe we'll be cast

at the speed of light through the universe

to God's throne. His hair is bounteous.

All the 5,000 birds on earth were created there.

The firstborn cranes, herons, hawks, at the back

so as not to frighten the little ones.

Even now they remember this divine habitat.

Shall we gather at the river, this beautiful river?

We'll sing with the warblers perched on his eyelashes.

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Dusting and strutting #phenology

For some creatures, such as whitetail deer, Spring is a time of birth. Others, like wild turkeys, are more in line with where a young man's fancy turns in Spring. This morning we watched a dusting hen ignore a displaying tom for about an hour. The hen was only missing candlelight and soft music from the extended dust bath she took. It seems possible that Charles Schultz might have used a dusting turkey as the model for his Pig Pen character.

Tom, in all his splendor, under the pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

The National Wild Turkey Federation notes that the physical condition of a hen affects nesting timing. The hen we watched this morning favored her right leg. Perhaps that accounts for her lack of interest in the tom. When she finally arose from the pocket gopher's mound, where she had been dusting, she headed down the hill, but not toward the displaying tom. She'd limp a step or two, peck around at whatever (we hope she was eating some ticks), then take another couple of steps in the general direction of our vernal pond. Meanwhile, the tom, who wouldn't condescend to approach the hen (she has to some to him) remained under our pear tree, occasionally still puffing his breast feathers and fanning his tail.

Tom's in the shadow, center left. Hen's the dark spot, center right.

Photo by J. Harrington

Eventually, as it became clear, even to the tom, that the hen wasn't interested. He eventually strutted up the hill to where the hen had been, while the hen finally reached the pond and took a drink. If the hen had already been bred, and has a nest somewhere, she'll be brooding for about four weeks. Then the eggs turn into poults and we'll expect to see some wandering around in late July or August.

Hen at the pond (at the base of the pine tree, bottom left center above).

Photo by J. Harrington

Our late Spring snowstorm deterred us from getting a turkey license this year. We're not particularly disappointed about that because, to be honest, our hunting activities were as much a reason to get out in the fields and woods at Springtime as they were intended to bring home some meat. Since we now live where turkeys and whitetails, among others, wander through the "back yard," we're almost satisfied with pictures instead of reducing a real animal to possession, as the DNR folks say.

Turkeys

The turkeys wade the close to catch the bees
In the old border full of maple trees
And often lay away and breed and come
And bring a brood of chelping chickens home.
The turkey gobbles loud and drops his rag
And struts and sprunts his tail and then lets drag
His wing on ground and makes a huzzing noise,
Nauntles at passer-bye and drives the boys
And bounces up and flies at passer-bye.
The old dog snaps and grins nor ventures nigh.
He gobbles loud and drives the boys from play;
They throw their sticks and kick and run away.

—John Clare (1793-1864)

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Swan song #phenology

It was nearly one year ago that we noticed the swan pictured on Bone Lake. We never did learn how that tale ended.

Trumpeter swan straggler, Bone Lake, 2016

Photo by J. Harrington

For more years than last, we've been promising ourselves that we would set aside time in December or January to track down and photograph trumpeter swans we've heard about, reputed to Winter over around Hudson, WI. From time to time, we see an occasional swan, or handful, near the river as we're driving around Stillwater and vicinity, but never in large numbers, and even more frustrating, never in a location we can safely pull over and take pictures.

The return of cold air and snow on the ground reminds us that it's once again time to dig out the "to do" list and move "find and photo swans" to near the top. It seems an unusual but fitting phenology event. SWans along the St. Croix in Summer are no particularly big deal. Wintering over swans is a different story. So far, it's bee like trying to get a picture of a "will-o-the-wisp," although I'd be more inclined to search for one of those further North, where there are more bogs.

                     The Silver Swan

By Orlando Gibbons

The silver swan, who living had no note,

When death approached, unlocked her silent throat;

Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,

Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:

“Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes;

More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”

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WInter's return #phenology

chickadee blown from feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

The seeds on the ground are covered with a crusted layer of snow. Chickadees frantically grab a sunflower seed or a smidgeon of suet from the feeders and dash back to a sheltered spot out of the cold, harsh wind. A pileated woodpecker pounds on the now frozen suet with success at flaking off edible chips. Winter has returned to the North Country.

(young?) pileated woodpecker feeding on suet

Photo by J. Harrington

We tried playing (again) with manual focus on our camera's telephoto lens. Autofocus gets all confused when we shoot through glass windows. We think we're starting to get the hang of it but we need to remember to hold the camera and lens from underneath, not from the side. These birds look cold because it is cold. The windchill is in low single digits, although the sun is shining. Roads over much of the state are a mess, ditches full of skidded vehicles.

icicles on birdbath's rim

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night's wind blew water over the edge of the heated bird bath, creating icicles which don't seem to belong on a heated birdbath. The snow-encrusted back yard remains essentially trackless. We suspect the four-legged critters that live around here are going to stay bedded down until the wind calms. We haven't seen any turkeys in long enough that we can't begin to guess where they are. The snow certainly isn't deep yet so they can get around without much trouble. Maybe they're taking a page from Robert Lewis Stevenson's book and spending Winter in a warmer nook. We certainly share the poet's sentiments.

Picture-books in Winter

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850 - 1894

Summer fading, winter comes—   
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs   
Window robins, winter rooks,   
And the picture story-books.   
   
Water now is turned to stone
Nurse and I can walk upon;   
Still we find the flowing brooks   
In the picture story-books.   
   
All the pretty things put by,   
Wait upon the children’s eye,
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,   
In the picture story-books.   
   
We may see how all things are,   
Seas and cities, near and far,   
And the flying fairies’ looks,
In the pictyure story-books.   
   
How am I to sing your praise,   
Happy chimney-corner days,   
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,   
Reading picture story-books?

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Nice to travel, nice to be home, MN Nice?

We're back home in the South end of the North Country. The snow showers stopped a little South of Cloquet but the clouds continued to precede us and are still hanging around. A few of the wolf photos from the International Wolf Center turned out well. Many others show a wild animal's desire to avoid eye contact. The ravens look like ravens feeding on roadkill or the equivalent. We're still frustrated at an ongoing inability to readily identify ravens compared to crows. It's one that we'll just have to keep working on / at?

ravens feeding on carcass

Photo by J. Harrington

Something we've neglected to report on before this are the swans we saw on our drive North Saturday. One pair South of Cloquet, flying in the low clouds, crossing the road, and two pair flying plus a flock on the water North of Cloquet. We don't remember ever seeing swans in the vicinity of Duluth / Cloquet in all the times we've visited. In addition, other wildlife observations include one whitetail beside the road near Embarrass, one or two bald eagles, multiple ravens and / or crows [see preceding paragraph] and several flocks of small birds.

wolf stalking raven

Photo by J. Harrington

As is often the case, it was nice to travel and visit places rarely seen or never seen before and also nice to return home to familiar surroundings. We remember reading that the typical home range for a whitetail deer is about one mile square. We noted maps of the ranges of several wolf packs (see p. 3) during our visit to the International Wolf Center. Do we humans have a home range and if so, what is it? Would it be established by our average commute? Our shopping radius (not counting mail order)? How much of a sense of community among adults depends on having children in the same schools? Christopher Alexander, in A Pattern Language writes about a Community of 7,000 and about Community Networks. We're overdue for a relook at his descriptions of Community and at thinking about the relationships among community, rural life and wilderness.

Raven’s Last Dream

Red Hawk

Raven was in a deep sleep,
dreaming the world. He saw things
and they happened, He dreamed things
and they came to life. He hardly knew 
where to begin or what to do 

once the world was. At last He understood 
Fodder’s dilemma. It troubled Him, 
made Him restless, disturbed His sleep. 
Then the terrible thing happened:
He had a thought.
 
Everything dream? He wonder.
Then the worst thing happened:
He had another thought, one thought
following the other.
Who dreaming Raven? He wonder and
 
this woke Him up.
He looked up, He looked down, He
looked all around.
Don’t know, He say and
He couldn’t get back to sleep.

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Owl be seeing you #phenology

The trees in our neighborhood are about 75% or 80% bare of leaves, enough so that the mylar aluminized balloon that appeared late last Spring is visible again. The flashing on a sunny day is a real irritation so we'll tend to that next week when we get back from our weekend "Up North." Lack of leaves made it easier to notice one of our favorite neighbors stopped by for a visit. Return of a barred owl to the trees on the North side of the house made my day yesterday.

barred owl on bur oak

Photo by J. Harrington

Owls are among our favorite birds. We're not sure why, although the eyes, the facial expressions, the swiveling heads, the quiet flight and the consumption of small rodents may have something to do with it. It's been too long since we last reread Laura Erickson's Twelve Owls, illustrated by Betsy Bowen or Intriguing Owls, by Stan Tekiela. We'll put those on the stacks to be read this Winter, while we're curled up nice and warm. (As an aside, we're looking forward to Winter and the turning of the year because we already have Betsy Bowen's 2018 calendar to hang.)

"who-cooks-for-you?-who-cooks-for-you?"

Photo by J. Harrington

For the record, the fact that Harry Potter's owls (real ones, not the Ordinary Wizarding Level [O.W.L.] exams) have been written about by Laura Erickson, as Professor Mcgonagowl, doesn't hurt our continuing affection for and fascination with owls.

In the process of taking the photos above, we also made some limited progress on a seasonal chore. We removed a window screen so we wouldn't have the screen distorting any pictures. We did the same the other day in one of the windows of the room where we often write. Wild creatures are much less troubled by photographers inside a house than by those that try to sneak up outside for a better "shot." No screens and clean glass help compensate for skittishness on the part of subjects.

                     A Barred Owl

By Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

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"a fractured and tender world"

There's no way, since they aren't wearing obvious identifiers, to be sure the egrets we saw today are the same ones seen a week or so ago, but today we did get some pictures and confirmed that the birds are, indeed, great egrets, based on size, wing span, and yellow bills.

egret in flight

Photo by J. Harrington

About the time we were taking egret portraits, the Daughter Person [DP] was sending an email with a link to an online recording of a conversation between Krista Tippet and Naomi Shihab Nye: Your Life is a Poem. It's part of a larger effort Ms. Tippet is undertaking, the Civil Conversations Project, which:

"... seeks to renew common life in a fractured and tender world. We are a conversation-based, virtues-based resource towards hospitable, trustworthy relationship with and across difference. We honor the power of asking better questions, model reframed approaches to entrenched debates, and insist that the ruptures above the radar do not tell the whole story of our time...." 

three egrets, Sunrise River pools

Photo by J. Harrington

As we explored the conversations available (note that there are transcripts as well as audio versions), we came across one with Layli Long Soldier — The Freedom of Real Apologies. It contained information we think we should have known, but hadn't, until today, that "the U.S. government offered an official apology to Native peoples in 2009. But it was done so quietly, with no ceremony, that it was practically a secret." If this summary is accurate, we still need to do better, but, as Lao Tzu would have us know, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." More civil conversations are, no doubt, in order.

Although we have, for some time, known about Krista Tippet's On Being interviews, we've neglected exploratory excursions until today. We owe the DP a huge "thanks" for the nudge. Although Naomi Shihab Nye is among my favorite poets, and I look forward to reading her conversation, I'm absolutely delighted belatedly to have learned that the United States government is beginning to acknowledge our debt to those peoples indigenous to the lands that became the U.S. and further, that it "commends and honors Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land." We believe our collective future will be best served if all of us become more dedicated to stewarding and protecting this land. There are no jobs on a dead planet.

This has been a day full of serendipitous surprises full of good tidings and karma. We hope the rest of our today,and all of yours, goes as well.

Big Bend National Park Says No to All Walls

Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

Big Bend has been here, been here. Shouldn’t it have a say?
Call the mountains a wall if you must, (the river has never been a wall),
leavened air soaking equally into all, could this be the home
we ache for? Silent light bathing cliff faces, dunes altering
in darkness, stones speaking low to one another, border secrets,
notes so rooted you may never be lonely the same ways again.
Big bend in thinking—why did you dream you needed so much?
Water, one small pack. Once I lay on my back on a concrete table
the whole day and read a book. A whole book, and it was long.
The day I continue to feast on.
Stones sifting a gospel of patience and dust,
no one exalted beyond a perfect parched cliff,
no one waiting for anything you do or don’t do.
Santa Elena, South Rim, once a woman knew what everything here
was named for, Hallie Stillwell brimming with stories,
her hat still snaps in the wind. You will not find
a prime minister in Big Bend, a president, or even a candidate,
beyond the lion, the javelina, the eagle lighting on its nest.

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Mid-August report #phenology

Morning: dark, clear, skies nicely set off the waning crescent moon. The smart phone camera took some of the most undistinguished photos imaginable. There were but two small, bright dots in a field of black. They aren't worth sharing.

asters and goldenrod

Photo by J. Harrington

Later in the day, several bumble bees enjoyed the Anise Hyssop plants. What may have been a black swallowtail butterfly flittered across the grass tops surrounding the wet spot behind the house. Elsewhere multitudes of tiger swallowtails are enjoying August's blooms. Round-headed bush clover is approaching fully grown status with flowers becoming noticeable, but we haven't had sufficiently breezeless periods to enable us to get a decent photo. No matter how fast the camera's shutter speed is set, the breeze's timing and direction seem designed to thwart getting an in-focus picture. At least there's Samuel Beckett's wonderful quote for consolation: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." Asters haven't failed, they're now in bloom in abundance among the goldenrod.

bumblebee and anise hyssop

Photo by J. Harrington

Ruby-throated hummingbirds continue to use the feeders. No further sightings of orioles to report. We have, however, noticed several folks collecting cattail leaves and female flower heads from local road side ditches. We know from past experience that the flower heads, if kept too long as part of a bouquet, release the seeds and they drift about the house every time someone passes by. They do look nice though until they start shedding.

                     The Flower Press

By Chelsea Woodard

It was the sort of thing given to little girls:

sturdy and small, round edged, wooden and light.

I stalked the pasture’s rough and waist-high grass

for worthy specimens: the belle amid the mass,

the star shaming the clouds of slighter,

ordinary blooms. The asters curled

inside my sweat-damp palms, as if in sleep. Crushed

in the parlor’s stifling heat, I pried

each shrinking petal back, and turned the screws.

But flowers bear no ugly bruise,

and even now fall from the brittle page, dried

prettily, plucked from memory’s hush.

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A time of magical light

Between dawn and sunrise, what light there is often has a magical quality. This morning it caused to whitetail doe walking across the rise in our back yard to glow, almost ember-like. She was grazing on something near the ground in the tall grass, because her head kept disappearing below the tops of the grasses. Visions such as this morning's, and Thursday's sighting of a pair of sandhill cranes in a nearby cornfield, help a lot to refresh hope in times like these. Would that more of us suffered from severe cases of biophilia.

this Astilbe(?) looks like it should be named Angora something
[UPDATE: It's Queen-of-the-Prairie
Filipendula rubra]

Photo by J. Harrington

Leaf-dappled sunlight, accompanied by a gentle breeze, followed sunrise to the front yard. I still haven't learned how to adequately compensate for even mild motion with sufficiently fast shutter speeds. Sigh! The just out of focus quality is frustrating, but the flowers are pretty. I may need to start resorting to a tripod, or settle for a reduced depth of field. I don't recall ever seeing a flower quite as pretty as whatever the pink, lacy blooms [above] are. Genus and species weren't readily recalled by the Better Half when I queried her this morning. Most of us though recognize Queen Anne's lace.

Queen Anne's lace with early Sun dappling the right-hand flower

Photo by J. Harrington

A different mystery has been solved as this piece was being written. A week or two ago, I installed an ant guard moat above the deck oriole / hummingbird feeder. The feeder had been attracting a large number of big, black ants. Since then, even on days after heavy rains, I've noticed the water level had dropped until the container was about half full. I doubted there had been that much evaporation. Moments ago, I watched a nuthatch drinking, in its usual head down position, from the ant moat. I'm only too happy to get a two-fer out of the ant moat and am grateful that that mystery appears solved.

Enjoy Summer! Six months from now, deer will be in their Winter colors, flowers will be in hot houses,  and at least some of us will be complaining about cold, snow and wind-chills. Once in awhile I've found magical light during our cold seasons, but, like many of us, it seems to come out and play more often in the warmer months.

Miracles

Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the
        water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
        with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
        forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
        quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
        same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the
        ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

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