A New Year’s Phoenix

We’re closing out the month and the year with another cloudy, frosty day. Today is the second last day of 2023. New Year’s Eve arrives tomorrow. Snow showers are forecast for tonight. Tomorrow evening brings the Vikings Packers game, a “must win” for both teams to keep alive playoff hopes. I’m sure some fans may be excited but Lucy Viking has snatched the football away from this Charlie Brown once too often, four time Superbowl losers!

a New Year arises from the ashes of the old

Photo by J. Harrington

As is all too typical around here, today we found and delivered the stocking stuffers and Christmas presents that fell out of Santa’s sleigh. By some strange coincidence, all were destined for the Better Half. I’m blaming it on friction on the sleigh runners (no snow) and the way the sleigh was packed by elves. Maybe they’ll do better next year.

The crazy warm weather we’ve been experiencing is getting me antsy for next fishing season and I know I’m headed for a fall -- snow fall that is. There’s two+ months of North Country winter ahead of us. At least I have books to look through and gear to clean and organize. Maybe next year will be the year the Son-In-Law gets induced to seriously try bass bugging with a fly rod. We know his brother-in-law gave him a couple of bass flies for Christmas and his father-in-law haas a spare bass weight rod available to borrow. (I think I may have just given away a New Year’s resolution.)

Burning the Old Year

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

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Overlooking the objectively obvious?

Today we barely climbed into the single digits. Also at some point today, the Star Tribune added a story to its online edition: What will best keep Xcel's grid reliable in a pinch: Gas plants or batteries?

With the kinds of cold we get in winter, and heat with humidity in summer. the answer to that question is of significance to quite a few Minnesotans, including our household, for which the monthly energy costs for December increased by $100 between 2020 and last year.

if the wind blows or the sun shines...

Photo by J. Harrington

As a long time fan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Systems Dynamics section and their work on Limits to Growth, I searched the internet using the phrase “MIT US grid modeling.” I was pleasantly surprised to discover a research report online: “The Future of the Electric Grid.” I was even more pleasantly surprised to learn it’s one of a series.

Other Reports in This Series

• The Future of Nuclear Power (2003)
• The Future of Geothermal Energy (2006)
• The Future of Coal (2007)
• Update to the Future of Nuclear Power (2009)
• The Future of Natural Gas (2011)
• The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (2011) 

I fear that our state government, including and perhaps especially the Public Utilities Commission, may be overly reliant on testimony from those with “skin in the game” or a “dog in the fight,” depending on which cliche you prefer. Does Minnesota have a legal requirement that state agencies seek and use relevant information from neutral parties in adjudicating contentious issues? If not, why not?

That’s it for today from a taxpayer who doesn’t mind paying taxes but hates to see them wasted on poor decision-making systems crafted, and often run, by undereducated and untrained amateurs such as those regularly elected to office in this state.

Statement on Energy Policy

By Carter Revard

It’s true we have invented quark-extraction,

and this allows our aiming gravity at will;

it’s true also that time

can now be made to flow

backward or forward by

the same process. It may be true as well that

what is happening at the focal point,

the meristem of this process,

creates a future kind of space,

a tiny universe that has

quite different rules. In this, it seems,

whatever one may choose to do or be becomes

at once the case. In short,

we have discovered heaven and

it’s in our grasp. However,

the Patent Office has not yet approved and cites

less positive aspects of this invention. First, it

does not generate profit, and

it does make obsolete all present

delivery systems for our nukes. Then,

it will let private citizens do things that only

a chosen few, that is, OUR sort, should be allowed—

fly freely from one country

to any other, spreading diseases

and bankrupting transportation.

Home-heating, auto-making industries will be trashed,

employment shelled, depressions spread worldwide,

sheer anarchy descend.

For these and other reasons,

no one must know of this. . . .

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Time to check all systems

It’s been a strange twenty-four hours. Yesterday, as the downpour was ending, the power went out. Xcel had it restored about 4 p.m. Our phone and internet connection disappeared approximately the same time as the power. That didn’t get restored until eighteen or twenty hours after it went down. Midday today, while walking the dogs, we noticed what looked suspiciously like a dead whitetail at the end of a neighbor’s drive. Then, after we had come back into the house, begun to settle down, and finally got to turn to online activities, we noticed that the Better Half’s email application persisted in incorrectly autocorrecting the spelling of my last name. We think that’s finally been corrected by laying hands on the application's settings. In that process, we discovered the need for a universal, standardized, location for a save button on all computer applications.

more storm clouds ahead

Photo by J. Harrington

As we begin to adapt to climate breakdown and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, I’ve spent some of the past day thinking about the reliability of the systems on which we’ve come to depend. The loss of power yesterday might have been mitigated if we had a generator, but only if we could still pump gas to keep a generator running during an extended power outage such as Superstorm Sandy’s. Much of the emphasis of responding to climate breakdown has been on the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Not enough, in our opinion, has been stressed about increasing the reliability of our electrical system, nor about shifting to a more decentralized generation pattern and microgrids. If indeed we commit to no more burning of fossil fuels and become solely reliant on electricity, we’ll need to be much better at 100%+ uptime of the electrical system, particularly for hospitals and comparable institutions. Given last winter’s Texas breakdown, neither the public nor the private sectors seem capable of safely meeting our  needs.

Meanwhile, we have a political system, including SCOTUS, that does serve the short term needs of (s)elected officials and their corporate sugar-daddies much more so than the needs of present and future citizens of the country or the planet. About the only positive thing I can share regarding the Democratic party is that it’s not the Republicans. I look forward, with little expectation, to being able to post something more positive in the near future.

I’m coming to believe that the cumulative effects of user-unfriendly design of many of our systems, plus their growing lack of reliability, is contributing substantially to a society that, more and more, seems prepared to “go postal.” We certainly shouldn’t want to return to the kind of normal that brought us to this point. Nor do we think it acceptable to pay more for slower postal deliveries. Sigh!

The Promise We Live By

By Simon J. Ortiz

On the West Coast, days of rainstorm wrestle

the Coast Range, their wet fury driven landward.

We never quite known what the sky promises,

and there is certain assurance in that fate.

It is for that we wait. We’ve already weathered

more than promises. They’ve passed us by.

So I’m not sure this morning when I step outside,

and suddenly it’s not winter anymore but some

warm mask that molds the contours of my face

with unbidden warmth. It’s almost unnatural

but I hope not, having already found reliable

the promise of loss. My expectation is unfulfilled.

Somewhere within the universe of the prairie hills

is a climate that is yet unnoticed, and from it

is welling a warm rupture of another sure season.

Believe it is not unusual, I urge myself

whose myths are always changing in the light.

So it’s this we arrive into daily, always

another season, warm or frigid, and it’s we

who wage weather within our furious spirits.

Tomorrow’s dawn is a promise that will fulfill.

Never mind if the sky does not quite agree.

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On Labor Day

Happy Labor Day. Have you noticed we live in times when change means jobs are being lost to automation and/or Artificial Intelligence. Will the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate soon become meaningless statistics? Care providers are suffering burnout due to COVID and resistance among many to common sense. Service jobs are going begging. School Board members are resigning rather than cope with hysteria over masks.

solar farm: growing  electricity?

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, honest laborers earn far less than hedge fund managers. The number of those with secure food supplies and/or housing or access to affordable, honest medical care (surprise bills anyone?) diminishes each year it seems. Concurrently, more and more farms are becoming investments owned by investors who farm them for subsidies while they're operated by former family farmers to produce commodities for industrial feedstock and/or export. Those with money and power (often the same .01% to 10% of the population) have the rest of US at each other’s throats, distracted from storming the castles with torches and pitchforks (if we don’t count January 6, 2021).

Seamus Heaney raises a question, at least in my reading, of whether digging with a pen is a labor as honest as digging sod or potatoes. Looked at another way, what’s a fair exchange rate between poems and potatoes?

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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How about a Green New Deal for Christmas?

Note the title doesn't mention which year's Christmas. Next year, to go along with a Blue Wave in elections, a Green New Deal would make for a wonderful present to the earth and everyone on it, human and nonhuman persons alike.

wind turbine at University of Minnesota, Morris MN

Photo by J. Harrington

What's your email inbox look like these days? Mines full of money asks to help solve crisis after crisis, most related to the climate we've broken and/or the political system that maintains the break in the climate. An organization known as the Bioneers has put together a "Media Collection" ... "to remind us that we have the expertise on hand to do what must be done."

In 1988, legendary scientist James Hansen testified to Congress about the dire threat the human caused climate change posed to the planet. Three decades later, we’re still dragging our feed. The longer we wait to take meaningful action, the more comprehensive and rapid the transition will need to be in order to respond to the urgent situation; hence the scope and scale of a Green New Deal.

southwestern Minnesota wind farms in corn fields

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota has its own version of a Green New Deal initiative, but it could use lots more public support. We haven't yet tried to do a comparison of the Green New Deal elements with the solutions proposed by Project Drawdown. As this is written, the location from which it is being written was, about 10,000 years ago, under a glacier. Although unlikely to occur during my lifetime, I don't find it difficult to accept that, unless greenhouse gases are indeed drawndown, earth could become much like Mars.

Christmas is a time of darkness and renewal, of endings and rebirth. As December ends, the days will again be lengthening. For Christmas this year I'd like many hearts to be warmed to the desirability and need to support a New Green Deal. As a carryover for Christmas next year, I'd like to see Green New Deal legislation passed and packaged under everyone's trees. May all our Christmases and Winter solstices be celebrated with greenery and renewable energy and a circular economy with balanced stocks and flows and jobs with living wages for all. Remember, Santa's sleigh doesn't burn fossil fuels.

SANTA AND THE REINDEER

by Shel Silverstein 

"This is the hour," said Santa Claus,

"The bell rings merrily."

Then on his back he slung his pack,

And into his sleigh climbed he.

"On, Dancer! On, Prancer! On, Donner and Blitzen!

On, Comet and Cupid!" cried he.

And all the reindeers leaped but one,

And that one stood silently.

He pulled the sleigh for a thousand years,

And never a word spoke he.

Now he stood in the snow, and he whispered low—

"Oh what do you have for me?"

"I have games and toys for girls and boys,"

Said Santa cheerily.

The reindeer stood as if made of wood—

"But what do you have for me?"

"The socks are hung, the bells are rung!"

Cried Santa desperately.

The reindeer winked at a falling star—

"But what do you have for me?"

Then Santa reached into his beard,

And he found a tiny flea,

And he put it into the reindeer's ear,

And the reindeer said, "For me? Oh gee!"

And into the blue away they flew,

Away they flew with the flea.

And the moral of this yuletide tale

You know as well as me.

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Climate Strike aka #FridaysForFuture

The Climate Strike is two (2) weeks from today. In a very pleasant surprise, we learned that there's a local event in the county. On September 20 at 7:45 am:

I'm attending a Climate Strike event at the Chisago County Government Center in Center City, Minnesota.

Workers and youth connecting in the community for a livable planet

Can you join me? Click here for details and to RSVP: 

https://actionnetwork.org/events/chisago-county-government-center-in-center-city-minnesota

Thanks!

Once upon a time we were a youth and we've just about always been a worker. Not long ago we finished reading a book by Parker Palmer, On the Brink of Everything, in which he borrows a phrase from a Kris Kristofferson song, made famous by Janis Joplin: "“Old is just another word for nothing left to lose,..." We're always loved that song and, although we're not sure we'll ever have enough years to become a kinder, gentler version of ourselves, that's something we've let slip away, but we absolutely want to do what we can with the time and energy we have to make a world better for our offspring, descendants and fellow inhabitants of planet earth. We're too close to losing anything like a decent future to be comfortable pleading "old and tired." Parker Palmer has it right. Hope to see you on the 20th and at other actions to create a livable planet.

The Question

by Theo Dorgan

When the great ships come back,
and come they will,
when they stand in the sky
all over the world,
candescent suns by day,
radiant cathedrals in the night,
how shall we answer the question:

What have you done
with what was given you,
what have you done with
the blue, beautiful world?

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A different kind of power

Chicago county is at the southern end of Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District. With the exception of some sand and gravel operations, we don't know of any significant mining operations in the county. Toward the northern extremities of the CD, iron/taconite mining has been in operation for some time. More recently, "hard rock" sulfite ore mining is being proposed, primarily for copper-nickel mining. From what we've read, mining is an energy intensive operation with numerous opportunities to improve energy efficiency. Electricity is the second largest fuel consumed in the US mining industry. The United Nations has identified how mining can contribute to the world's Sustainable Development Goals. Minnesota continues to oppose the prospect of copper mining because of the risk/reward profile of such untested operations. Meanwhile, at the southern end of the CD, Chisago county has been successfully moving ahead with a previously untested approach to providing power to the school system and enhancing the profitability of marginally useful spaces such as school roof tops and sub-prime farm land. Is there a lesson here that would help diversify the economy of the entire CD?

At the #Chisago Lakes Schools, 1,000 panels are located on the roofs of five schools. Over the next 30 years, @IPSsolar predicts that power along with power the district is purchasing from panels in other parts of the county, will save the district $100,000 each year. #powerofmn pic.twitter.com/CDdAUq1Q2u

— The Power of Minnesota (@PowerOfMN) September 24, 2018

What we've been trying to understand for months and months and ... is how such a "leftish, progressive" sequence of actions took hold and got implemented in a basically conservative, Republican county that supported Trump over Clinton by almost 2 to 1.

source: Politico

Part of an explanation can be found in this piece from MinnPost: "Chisago County has become a case study in the possibilities and politics of solar energy in Greater Minnesota." [We'll wait while you read it.]

Chisago county solar farm under construction

Photo by J. Harrington

There's a theory and strategy in the economic development field known as "plugging the leaks." Picture a local economy as a bucket that has some holes in it. The holes are where funds (electric utility profits?) leave the community rather than recirculating as a local flow. Chisago county and the school district are plugging holes in their local economy, in addition to adding to its diversity. And yet, the Chisago voters went heavily for a candidate who's doing his best to revive coal power and expand oil development, climate change be damned. Are people not connecting the dots, or are they connecting dots in ways that progressives and neoliberal don't yet understand?

Chisago county solar farm in operation

Photo by J. Harrington

It's becoming more and more clear to us that, if humans have much of a future ahead of them, then the future needs to be much more sustainable, even restorative, than has been the case in the past. Chisago county seems, in at least some surprising ways, headed in the right direction. (No pun or political observation implied.) We're constantly surprised as we drive around the county with the way "solar farms" seem to pop up like mushrooms during a wet Spring.

Minnesota is becoming known more and more for its growth in clean energy jobs. But, conservative think(?) tanks such as the Center of the American Experiment would have us return to those dirty energy days of yesteryear (Rising Electricity Prices Threaten Mining Jobs, the Iron Range). The mining industry itself is turning more and more to renewable energy. Here's a link to a data base of Solar & wind systems in the mining industry. Perhaps Minnesota's Iron Range leadership, as well as the Center of the American Experiment, should spend some time talking to those in Chisago county who helped bring about the transformation of marginal lands (and unused roof tops) into profitable, cost saving, energy generating activities. Could it be time for mining in northern Minnesota to help lead the way back to the future?

Heaven's Light (lyrics)
Playful waves of water Caught the colors of the sky, And cast the hues of sunset Rippling softly in my eyes. Mesmerizing moments, Opened...wide to heaven's, Heaven's light. Then the lovely moon arose She shimmered on the sea; Sunlight beaming from her face, To playful waves, then me... Memserizing moments, Opened...wide to heaven's, Heaven's light. Mesmerizing moments, Opened...wide to heaven's, Heaven's light... Mind adrift, From troubled shores...	[Guitar Solo] Then the lovely moon arose She shimmered on the sea; Sunlight beaming from her face, To playful waves, then me... Mesmerizing moments, opened... Wide to heaven's, heaven's light... Mesmerizing moments, opened... Wide to heaven's, heaven's light... Mind adrift from troubled shores... My mind adrift from troubled shores... I feel the gift of heaven's light... Mmmm Mmmm Heaven's light... Mmmm Composed and performed by Cherilynn Morrow and Jeff Ballard

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Clear choice: clean air, clean water, clean jobs

This morning's Star Tribune has two pieces that, it seems to us, clearly frame Minnesota's future, sort of the way last November 8 framed our present. The parenthetical notes list the section of the paper in which each piece can be found. That, in itself, should give us a clue. Herewith are the pieces in question:

• Growth of green energy sector surges in Minnesota [business]


• Enbridge's Line 3 project is necessary and prudent [commentary]

The commentary reads like an attempt to counter Minnesota's Department of Commerce expert analysis, released early last month, of the proposed pipeline project. (The Commerce Department's mission includes protecting the public interest and serving as a trusted public resource.)

"Oil market analysis indicates that Enbridge has not established a need for the proposed project; the pipeline would primarily benefit areas outside Minnesota; and serious environmental and socioeconomic risks and effects outweigh limited benefits" [emphasis added]

clean air

Photo by J. Harrington

The business story emphasizes how rapidly Minnesota is outgrowing its historic reliance on foreign energy sources, and growing its economy at the same time.

...Minnesota’s clean-energy jobs grew 5.3 percent in 2016 to 57,351 jobs. That compares with all-industry growth of 1.4 percent and 4.2 percent for professional and business services, the fastest-growing of the 11 major industrial sectors tracked by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Those claiming the need for and prudence of a replacement pipeline (primarily to serve non-Minnesota interests) claim that it would put "...6,500 Minnesotans to work over two years..." That would be roughly equivalent to two or three years worth of clean energy job growth, many of which would be "permanent" jobs. Which do you think is more sustainable?

clean water

Photo by J. Harrington

If there's a solar spill, we get a sunny day. Oil spills are a whole different story. Enbridge has a history of oil spills at their facilities. (If some argue that clean energy jobs are different than pipeline construction jobs, please talk to Republican legislators about fully funding Minnesota's transportation system and create beneficial construction jobs.)

clean jobs

Photo by J. Harrington

The preceding, we hope, should help reinforce the realization that an alleged choice between jobs or the environment is a false choice. A wise choice is to create a future that protects our environment, reduces health costs by contributing to cleaner air and water, and build a better Minnesota with a New Economy.

                     Statement on Energy Policy

By Carter Revard

It’s true we have invented quark-extraction,

and this allows our aiming gravity at will;

it’s true also that time

can now be made to flow

backward or forward by

the same process. It may be true as well that

what is happening at the focal point,

the meristem of this process,

creates a future kind of space,

a tiny universe that has

quite different rules. In this, it seems,

whatever one may choose to do or be becomes

at once the case. In short,

we have discovered heaven and

it’s in our grasp. However,

the Patent Office has not yet approved and cites

less positive aspects of this invention. First, it

does not generate profit, and

it does make obsolete all present

delivery systems for our nukes. Then,

it will let private citizens do things that only

a chosen few, that is, OUR sort, should be allowed—

fly freely from one country

to any other, spreading diseases

and bankrupting transportation.

Home-heating, auto-making industries will be trashed,

employment shelled, depressions spread worldwide,

sheer anarchy descend.

For these and other reasons,

no one must know of this. . . .

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The Internet of Energy

About this time last year, we were in the midst of having a new roof, new windows, and siding installed. One of the purposes was to increase the house's energy efficiency. Although we're no where near passive house standards, we have made progress, at least as indicated by frost coverage on the windows when it's really cold.

North side sliding (old) window, heavily frosted

Photo by J. Harrington

North side casement (new) window (almost no) frost

Photo by J. Harrington

The top picture shows what the old (circa 1978) sliding window on the North side of the study looked like in January 2013. The bottom shows the same window opening with our new casement windows. That looks like a major improvement to me. So we retained most of the energy embodied in our house, increased the energy efficiency and, hopefully, made it more durable. In temperatures such as we've had the past few days, we can still feel cold air seeping in through the windows, but it used to be worse.

I think that's how we're going to get to a more sustainable world and levels of greenhouse gases we can live with. It's going to be a step-by-step, incremental process that probably won't get us there as soon as we need to, and will require some life style changes (I now wear sweaters and flannel shirts instead of turning up our 97% efficient natural furnace that replaced our old oil burner.) There are no silver bullets, but we can be more strategic in our choices. Here's a link to a carbon footprint calculator. I'm one of those folks who doubt that all of our individual actions together will solve the problems we face as a species, but that doesn't mean we get a pass either. Depending on which variation we're looking at, this nice summary comes either from Helen Keller (misattribution?) or Edward Everett Hale. We also need the Xcel Energy's of the world to start focusing more on managing the grid instead of building power plants. We need something like an internet of energy, with micro grids and co-generation in addition to renewable solar and wind.

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

Gary Snyder tells us why this is important.

By Frazier Creek Falls

Gary Snyder

Standing up on lifted, folded rock
looking out and down—

The creek falls to a far valley.
hills beyond that
facing, half-forested, dry
—clear sky
strong wind in the
stiff glittering needle clusters
of the pine—their brown
round trunk bodies
straight, still;
rustling trembling limbs and twigs

listen.

This living flowing land
is all there is, forever

We are it
it sings through us—

We could live on this Earth
without clothes or tools!

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How you live -- energy tax credits

What type of tax credits are offered by your state and local governments for installation of energy efficient devices (such as solar hot water heaters)? [sic]

free-standing photovoltaic panels, northern Minnesota

Photo by J. Harrington

The phrasing of the question may cause some confusion, at least it confused me, because solar hot water heaters are usually considered renewable energy devices rather than energy efficiency devices. Also, many of the available tax credits relate to the federal income tax. Finally, it doesn't include the economic incentives associated with a currently contentious "solar garden" net metering debate that's occurring in Minnesota. Now that those quibbles are out of the way, let me direct your attention to Minnesota's Clean Energy Resource Team helpful list of Minnesota Residential Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Incentives, which includes links to the other standard resources on the (too frequently) changing tax credits and other incentives for improving our energy efficiency and source portfolio. There are other sources of information on wind and solar tax credits and other energy incentives, perhaps the most inclusive of which is the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency® [DSIRE®], which lists 171 programs for Minnesota, 64 of which match my zip code (many are utility-based programs).

roof-mounted photovoltaic panels, Marine-on-St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

Forecast

By Josephine Miles 

All our stones like as much sun as possible.

Along their joints run both solar access and decline

In equal splendor, like a mica chipping

At every beat, being sun responsible.

How much sun then do you think is due them?

Or should say, how much sun do you think they are apt to have?

It has misted at their roots for some days now,

The gray glamour addressing itself to them.

I should think possible that it go on misting likewise

A good way into next year, or time as they have it,

A regular cool season every day for our stones.

Not a streak that low of any sun or longed surprise. 

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If we don't try, we'll never know

A couple of days ago I pulled a number of dame's rocket plants from the area behind the house. Out of curiosity, I tried cut their stems if there were lots of flower blooms and promptly put them into a bucket of water. Admittedly, many of the plants were pulled when they were past their prime, but before they had gone to seed. From the bucket of cold water, the stems got retrimmed and placed in a vase with fresh water. The next day they were all looking droopy and very lifeless. They serve pollinators better than those of us looking for the beauty of cut flowers. If I hadn't tried, I wouldn't have known.

dame's rocket flowers

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm also learning just how much the window screens can mess with my camera's autofocus. Here's an out-of-focus photo of the independent fawn we've been seeing for the past week or so. Yesterday it was exploring the north side of the house.

whitetail fawn

Photo by J. Harrington

Once again, if I hadn't tried it, I wouldn't have known. From now on I'll try to remember to use manual focus and see if that helps.

This morning, again out of curiosity, I started wondering about the recent special session deal cutting a break for northern Minnesota's major energy consuming industries. Minnesota Power is claiming that the change will make it more equitable, that industry has been subsidizing residential users for years. (They didn't provide supporting numbers.) It seems to me that, if Minnesota's legislature, and the IRRRB, wanted to be creative and helpful, they could have worked on putting together an accelerated program to convert to greater use of renewables, especially solar, thereby helping to further diversify the Iron Range's economy. As it is, they ended up doing little more than cost shifting of a relatively small element of taconite production's total costs. Last minute, middle of the night deals almost always leave much on the table for the public to pick up.

These Lacustrine Cities

By John Ashbery 

These lacustrine cities grew out of loathing

Into something forgetful, although angry with history.

They are the product of an idea: that man is horrible, for instance,   

Though this is only one example.

They emerged until a tower

Controlled the sky, and with artifice dipped back

Into the past for swans and tapering branches,

Burning, until all that hate was transformed into useless love.

Then you are left with an idea of yourself

And the feeling of ascending emptiness of the afternoon   

Which must be charged to the embarrassment of others   

Who fly by you like beacons.

The night is a sentinel.

Much of your time has been occupied by creative games

Until now, but we have all-inclusive plans for you.

We had thought, for instance, of sending you to the middle of the desert,

To a violent sea, or of having the closeness of the others be air   

To you, pressing you back into a startled dream

As sea-breezes greet a child’s face.

But the past is already here, and you are nursing some private project.

The worst is not over, yet I know

You will be happy here. Because of the logic

Of your situation, which is something no climate can outsmart.   

Tender and insouciant by turns, you see

You have built a mountain of something,

Thoughtfully pouring all your energy into this single monument,   

Whose wind is desire starching a petal,

Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears.

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

Live off the interest, not the principal

Last night when I went to bed, the pear tree blossoms were all wrapped up tight in their buds. This morning many of the buds have burst into flowers. There must have been an overnight visit from the flower-opening fairies.

pear tree blossoms

Photo by J. Harrington

We've added a meal worm feeder, full of rehydrated meal worms, for the bluebirds and orioles; a hummingbird feeder is full and hanging out front and we're moving into a Summerish mode after yesterday's warm temperatures. The Daughter Person and Mr. Daughter Person (I'll get in trouble for that) bought, filled and hung a nectar feeder in hopes of attracting orioles. The aesthetics of grape-colored nectar in a bright orange based feeder leaves a lot to be desired, but we'll see if it works. It looks as if the local gray squirrels have been sampling the meal worms so that feeder will probably get moved to someplace less readily accessible by rodents.

Earth's only real source of energy

Photo by J. Harrington

We had a family conversation last night about clothes lines and clothes dryers and drying clothes. I started from a perspective that the younger generation should be more concerned about global warming and relying on electric dryers than about road dust collecting on their line-dried clothes. As we continued to talk, it occurred to me that, if all of our electricity came from renewables, much of my perspective on "clothes lines to save the world" would be unneeded. I suppose it's too much to hope for that our utilities might wake up some day and see renewables as a major marketing strategy. Instead, Xcel is fussing about oversized community solar gardens. There does seem to be an unfortunate direct correlation between the size of an organization and the ossification of its corporate thinking, not that small organizations and individuals, large and small, aren't capable of egregious stupidity. If you don't believe me, check the Star Tribune's comment section on almost any story they run. I can't decide if most of the commenters are posting intentional troll-bait or are really as clueless as they seem. (I'll probably get in trouble for that too.) I seem to be moving from my Winter funk to my Summer feist as rapidly as the weather patterns are changing. Change can be good. Maybe I can find some "eye-opening fairies" to visit utility executives during the night.

Mechanism

By A. R. Ammons 

Honor a going thing, goldfinch, corporation, tree,

          morality: any working order,

       animate or inanimate: it

has managed directed balance,

          the incoming and outgoing energies are working right,

       some energy left to the mechanism,

some ash, enough energy held

          to maintain the order in repair,

       assure further consumption of entropy,

expending energy to strengthen order:

          honor the persisting reactor,

       the container of change, the moderator: the yellow

bird flashes black wing-bars

          in the new-leaving wild cherry bushes by the bay,

       startles the hawk with beauty,

flitting to a branch where

          flash vanishes into stillness,

       hawk addled by the sudden loss of sight:

honor the chemistries, platelets, hemoglobin kinetics,

          the light-sensitive iris, the enzymic intricacies

       of control,

the gastric transformations, seed

          dissolved to acrid liquors, synthesized into

       chirp, vitreous humor, knowledge,

blood compulsion, instinct: honor the

          unique genes,

       molecules that reproduce themselves, divide into

sets, the nucleic grain transmitted

          in slow change through ages of rising and falling form,

       some cells set aside for the special work, mind

or perception rising into orders of courtship,

          territorial rights, mind rising

       from the physical chemistries

to guarantee that genes will be exchanged, male

          and female met, the satisfactions cloaking a deeper

       racial satisfaction:

heat kept by a feathered skin:

          the living alembic, body heat maintained (bunsen

       burner under the flask)

so the chemistries can proceed, reaction rates

          interdependent, self-adjusting, with optimum

       efficiency—the vessel firm, the flame

staying: isolated, contained reactions! the precise and

          necessary worked out of random, reproducible,

       the handiwork redeemed from chance, while the

goldfinch, unconscious of the billion operations

          that stay its form, flashes, chirping (not a

       great songster) in the bay cherry bushes wild of leaf. 

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

A New Economy for greater Minnesota

It shouldn't be a secret to even semi-irregular readers of this blog that I come from New England. Massachusetts is my home state, but I spent a fair amount of time in Vermont, either hanging around with some unreconstructed hippie types or, some years later, chasing ruffed grouse and whitetail deer. Vermont has a number of interesting episodes in its history. Of more relevance today is an initiative it's pursuing with the support of the Donella Meadows Institute, Vermont's New Economy. We've mentioned that effort before in these posts. We're bringing it up again in response to a guest posting of February 5 on Aaron Brown's Minnesota Brown blog. Both that post and the comments are worth a read if you care about northern Minnesota in general and the Iron Range in particular.

northern Minnesota, Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm aware of and sensitive to the Minnesotan "not invented here" syndrome, but I also have concerns about how many times the wheel has to be reinvented. Vermont is basing its New Economy  on "new approaches to food, energy, business, and finance that strive for wellbeing over growth....Through initiatives such as community food and energy networks, local investment opportunities, worker-owned businesses, cooperatives, and more, communities across Vermont are exploring new ways of structuring the economy. Their successes offer important examples of how a more participatory, resilient, value-driven economy can bring positive change to Vermont and other states." Their New Economy's focus on local solutions fits well with one of my recommended approaches to rural economic development, Economic Gardening. If insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expect different results, maybe it wouldn't be too insane for the Range and its leaders to consider a New Economy that places more emphasis on creating the infrastructure needed to grow local businesses and the cooperation required to support local Main Streets.

A Room in the Past

By Ted Kooser 

It’s a kitchen. Its curtains fill

with a morning light so bright   

you can’t see beyond its windows   

into the afternoon. A kitchen   

falling through time with its things   

in their places, the dishes jingling   

up in the cupboard, the bucket   

of drinking water rippled as if

a truck had just gone past, but that truck   

was thirty years. No one’s at home   

in this room. Its counter is wiped,   

and the dishrag hangs from its nail,   

a dry leaf. In housedresses of mist,   

blue aprons of rain, my grandmother   

moved through this life like a ghost,   

and when she had finished her years,   

she put them all back in their places

and wiped out the sink, turning her back   

on the rest of us, forever. 

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