Going with the flow?

First things first. Along the back roads to pick up this week's community supported agriculture [CSA] share, we saw a handful of deer, including one buck in velvet and a mostly grown fawn who dashed across the road in front of us after I had slowed the Jeep. Apparently no one has explained to the deer they aren’t supposed to be standing at the edge of a road or in the middle of a soy bean field at 8:45 am in a sunny Saturday morning, even if they’re in a rural area near the St. Croix River.

Sunrise River flowing into the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s what we picked up once we got to the farm:

• Tomatoes
• Green Tower Lettuce
• Green Bell Pepper
• Summer squash 
• Bulb onion
• Parsley 
• Genovese Basil

I'm grateful there was no zucchini included, although the Better Half did a great job hiding the last batch in a spicy veggie sauce for our dinner of shrimp and grits the other night. I suspect the green peppers will show up in tomorrow’s stuffed peppers dinner. I’n not really against veggies, I just don’t want to overdo a good thing. ; >)

Last evening we watched a PBS segment on Ada Limón’s poet laureate project on poetry in the parks. It was a treat to see her and the effort National Park Service is putting into the project. We could use more of this kind of project. I join with Michael Garrigan who "strongly believes that every watershed should have a Poet Laureate.” That could take more than 80 poet laureates for Minnesota river basins. How can we make that happen?

Michael Garrigan

The River, a Mouth

We walk the river’s jaw
along its curved bone ledges,
long palates growing eelgrass,
spooking baitfish and bass, to the dam.

Rusty crayfish flick through
summer teeth slick boulders as we slip
the weight of our bodies becomes buoyant
and we float until our boots touch bottom.

Lightning bugs splatter
shorelines as storms split us in two.
Rain downstream, lightning upstream,
dam at our back, we are halves of all we held.

We wade deeper into the dark
our feet become a bed of pebbles
our legs tooth roots buried in bone
our waists eddies, our chest hair - hibiscus.

We follow the river’s tongue
down its throat into its lungs
and feel the crack of thunder choking
our names in the language of water and rock.

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Why? Fish!

Here’s an early holiday present for those who celebrate Hanukkah, Solstice, Alban Arthan, Christmas, New Year’s, or anything else at this time of year. File it under Nature Bathing, Self Care!

the charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope

Photo by J. Harrington

Testament of a Fisherman

I fish because I love to. Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly. Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape. Because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing what they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion. Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed, or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility, and endless patience. Because I suspect that men are going this way for the last time and I for one don’t want to waste the trip. Because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters. Because in the woods I can find solitude without loneliness. … And finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important, but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant and not nearly so much fun.

— Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Fisherman

The Song of Wandering Aengus

By William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun. 

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Sweet autumn’s days slide away

This morning’s low temperatures, in the mid-20’s, brought the first ice cover of the season to shallow pools and ponds. Local families of Canada geese are beginning to flock up as migration season nears. Deciding how much of what to wear at any particular hour of almost every day is a challenge. Must be mid-November near mid-Autumn in southern North Country.

approaching a season of bare branches and murders of crows

Photo by J. Harrington

We took a drive along parts of the Sunrise River as we returned from a morning visit with the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter. I‘ve noticed my old habit of poking around just to see what’s there has faded over the past few years. Today seemed like a prime time to check out some places not recently visited. We do live in some pretty country and would no doubt appreciate it more if we explored more often. It seems entirely too easy to create ruts by going the same ways to the same places almost all the time. Then, again, the world at large, with local spillover, appears to be getting more chaotic by the day. Discovering how to balance on the bubble is never easy.

As ice forms, stays and thickens, many local critters enter some form of hibernation or diminished activity. No pollinators until Spring. But, also no mosquitoes or biting flies. Ticks can be active any time the temperature gets over 40℉, so next week should end their feeding season for the year. Once again I’m hoping to spend time between New Year’s and Valentine’s, maybe even St. Patrick’s, regrouping and getting organized. Most years recently, I’ve ended up spending too much of that time snow blowing and or sulking with cabin fever. Next year offers another fresh start. Once again I intend to “do better,” but first I need to figure out what I mean by that. If I succeed by Thursday, next week, I’ll really have something special to be thankful for.

The Flight of the Crows

Emily Pauline Johnson

The autumn afternoon is dying o’er
   The quiet western valley where I lie
Beneath the maples on the river shore,
   Where tinted leaves, blue waters and fair sky
   Environ all; and far above some birds are flying by

To seek their evening haven in the breast
   And calm embrace of silence, while they sing
Te Deums to the night, invoking rest
   For busy chirping voice and tired wing—
   And in the hush of sleeping trees their sleeping cradles swing.

In forest arms the night will soonest creep,
   Where sombre pines a lullaby intone,
Where Nature’s children curl themselves to sleep,
   And all is still at last, save where alone
   A band of black, belated crows arrive from lands unknown.

Strange sojourn has been theirs since waking day,
   Strange sights and cities in their wanderings blend
With fields of yellow maize, and leagues away
   With rivers where their sweeping waters wend
   Past velvet banks to rocky shores, in cañons bold to end.

O’er what vast lakes that stretch superbly dead,
   Till lashed to life by storm-clouds, have they flown?
In what wild lands, in laggard flight have led
   Their aërial career unseen, unknown,
   ’Till now with twilight come their cries in lonely monotone?

The flapping of their pinions in the air
   Dies in the hush of distance, while they light
Within the fir tops, weirdly black and bare,
   That stand with giant strength and peerless height,
   To shelter fairy, bird and beast throughout the closing night.

Strange black and princely pirates of the skies,
   Would that your wind-tossed travels I could know!
Would that my soul could see, and, seeing, rise
   To unrestricted life where ebb and flow
   Of Nature’s pulse would constitute a wider life below!

Could I but live just here in Freedom’s arms,
   A kingly life without a sovereign’s care!
Vain dreams! Day hides with closing wings her charms,
   And all is cradled in repose, save where
   Yon band of black, belated crows still frets the evening air.

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Going with the flow

I’ve been playing in and around, and working on and for, rivers, streams and oceans for more than half a century. I keep finding that my knowledge of water quality, hydrology, land use and pollution abatement could always stand more breadth and depth. I probably would benefit from a better understanding of human psychology, too.

Somehow, I’ve not yet read any of Luna Leopold’s books, nor have I read any of the tomes on riparian zones. One of my earliest reads was The Ecology of Running Water plus several photo essays on rivers. Then there’s the classic A River Runs Through It and multitudes of volumes on trout, trout streams, aquatic invertebrates, hatch matching, fly casting, and the ever critical “reading the water.”

heron in a riparian zone

Photo by J. Harrington

All the preceding is a lead in to a recent discovery of the only book like it I’ve come across: Field Guide to Wisconsin Streams:  Plants, Fishes, Invertebrates, Amphibians, and Reptiles. The book originally sold for $30.00. Most copies I can find these days are being offered for anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. (Most stocks wish they appreciated like that.) The original publisher notes they don’t know when it will be available again.

This leads me to (leaves me and you with) several questions:

• What would it take for the University of Wisconsin to republish / reprint the volume at a reasonablle price? There seems to be a market.
• Why aren’t comparable volumes available for the other states?
• Should Trout Unlimited and its chapters be encouraged to create comparable volumes to accompany the Trout in the Classroom program and stream restoration projects such as DARE? 

Damselfly, Trout, Heron

By John Engels

The damselfly folds its wings

over its body when at rest. Captured,

it should not be killed

in cyanide, but allowed to die

slowly: then the colors,

especially the reds and blues,

will last. In the hand

it crushes easily into a rosy

slime. Its powers of flight

are weak. The trout

feeds on the living damselfly.

The trout leaps up from the water,

and if there is sun you see

the briefest shiver of gold,

and then the river again.         

When the trout dies

it turns its white belly

to the mirror of the sky.

The heron fishes for the trout

in the gravelly shallows on the far

side of the stream. The heron

is the exact blue of the shadows

the sun makes of trees on water.

When you hold the heron most clearly

in your eye, you are least certain

it is there. When the blue heron dies,

it lies beyond reach

on the far side of the river.

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Fishing for satisfaction

With luck, we may get some rain tonight and tomorrow. We could use it. Much of our area is back under moderate drought. I’m debating if a wet day tomorrow means Mother Nature is giving us a father’s day present of some much needed rain or if she’s spoiling father’s day barbecues with rain. Is the cup half full or half empty?

Streamflow along much of the Minnesota side of the St. Croix river is below the 7 day average for this time of year. I’m going to see if I can manage a half day or so of field check on the Wisconsin side one day next week. Smoky air kept me inside more than I’d planned for the week just ending. Then again, next week is forecast to be at or near 90℉, a little warm for pleasant field work even if it is near, but not in, a cold water stream. I seem to recall predicting last winter that Mother Nature would compensate for excessive winter conditions by providing excessive conditions this summer. Looks like she’s making an honest man of me, so far.

cool looking trout water

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re coming up on one of my favorite times for fishing for trout, when the tricos (Tricorythodes sp.) begin to hatch. It will be interesting to see (literally) if I can still tie on a size 18 or 20 fly to the end of a very fine tippet. Maybe I’ll just tuck a rod and some hip boots in the back of the Jeep if I get out to field check conditions. Many years ago, when I was a boy scout, I learned to “be prepared.”

Trout

By Kathryn Starbuck

I do my best 

to keep pointlessness 

at bay. But here, 

wet above my 

knees, I let it fly. 

Here, hot and cold, 

fingers thick with 

thinking, I try to 

tie the fly and look 

for the net, loosening 

the philosophical   

knot of why I came 

here today, not yet 

knowing whether 

I’ll free or fry 

the rainbows 

and browns once 

they’re mine.

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Will April Fool’s weather last all month?

Yesterday evening we saw dragonflies hovering over the backyard wet spot that is now snow and ice free. Some plants in the front flower garden are emerging through the leaf mulch. In the quarter century we’ve lived here, I’ve never seen as many “gopher” mounds and tunnels as there are this spring. I’ll knock them down next week with the drag harrow. I can’t pull the harrow with the back blade still on the tractor and we don’t want to tempt fate by taking the back blade off with snow in Sunday’s forecast (despite today’s 80+℉).

While watching the dragonflies, we heard a number of frogs making different sounds. In fact it was because we went out onto the deck to hear the frogs that we saw the dragonflies. I’m not sure but we may also have observed a bluebird. While putzing about the yard today I closed the door to the back bluebird house. [Writing that reminded me to go close the door on the front yard house. That’s done and as we finished, we noticed a lot of day lily plants just beginning to emerge.]

emerging day lilies April 15, 2020

Photo by J. Harrington

Reports are that local rivers may crest over the weekend. It’s not clear if anyone’s factoring in the precipitation we’re expecting on top of the snow melt flows. This April’s weather qualifies for an “All of the above and other” award. I don’t recall any other April in which I’ve managed to get myself overheated before mid-month whille outside doing not much of anything.

In April

James Hearst

This I saw on an April day:
Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,
A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,
And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path
Shy and proud.


And this I found in an April field:
A new white calf in the sun at noon,
A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,
And tips of tulips promising flowers
To a blue-winged loon.


And this I tried to understand
As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:
The movement of seed in furrowed earth,
And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear
From a green-sprayed bough.

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Damn dams, don’t damn fisheries!

 I think I’ve mentioned that I’m a Trout Unlimited member involved in fundraising and related efforts in support of removing two dams on the Kinnickinnic River in River Falls, WI. Much background on that effort can be found at the Kinni Corridor Collaborative web site.

part of Kinnickinnic River restoration

Photo by J. Harrington

Although restoration of a free-flowing Kinni is important, I don’t believe there are threatened or endangered species involved, unlike a situation involving Atlantic salmon in Maine, back in my native New England. In a message I recently received, Trout Unlimited asked:

Did you know that wild Atlantic salmon are on the brink of extinction in U.S. waters? Salmon once returned to rivers from Connecticut through Maine by the hundreds of thousands. Today, fewer than 1,000 salmon return to just a few rivers in Maine.

Our best chance to save this majestic species is to remove four aging dams on the Kennebec River. Right now, federal agencies are weighing that very question, providing what is likely our last opportunity to restore a self-sustaining run of Atlantic salmon (and other important migratory species) to the Kennebec watershed.

Please join TU in urging federal fisheries officials to save our salmon by decommissioning those dams and allowing the lower Kennebec River to flow free to the sea once again.

Learn more

More and more research is supporting the physical and mental health benefits of fishing. To attain those benefits, folks need someplace to go fishing. The Kinni offers the prospect of adding miles of Class 1 trout water in a city in a large metropolitan area, the Twin Cities. Among most fly fishers, Atlantic salmon are a prized quarry. Let’s not find ourselves bemoaning the truth of Joni Mitchell’s lyrics:

Don't it always seem to go 
That you don't know what you've got 
Till it's gone 

Elegy ["I think by now the river must be thick"]

By Natasha Trethewey

For my father

I think by now the river must be thick

        with salmon. Late August, I imagine it

as it was that morning: drizzle needling

        the surface, mist at the banks like a net

settling around us — everything damp

        and shining. That morning, awkward

and heavy in our hip waders, we stalked

        into the current and found our places —

you upstream a few yards and out

        far deeper. You must remember how

the river seeped in over your boots

        and you grew heavier with that defeat.

All day I kept turning to watch you, how

        first you mimed our guide's casting

then cast your invisible line, slicing the sky

        between us; and later, rod in hand, how

you tried — again and again — to find

        that perfect arc, flight of an insect

skimming the river's surface. Perhaps

        you recall I cast my line and reeled in

two small trout we could not keep.

        Because I had to release them, I confess,

I thought about the past — working

        the hooks loose, the fish writhing

in my hands, each one slipping away

        before I could let go. I can tell you now

that I tried to take it all in, record it

        for an elegy I'd write — one day —

when the time came. Your daughter,

        I was that ruthless. What does it matter

if I tell you I learned to be? You kept casting

        your line, and when it did not come back

empty, it was tangled with mine. Some nights,

        dreaming, I step again into the small boat

that carried us out and watch the bank receding —

        my back to where I know we are headed. 

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Wanna help restore a local river, the Kinnickinnic?

I hope everyone is enjoying sunshine, blue skies and above average temperatures at least as much as I am. Today we finished the paperwork on our 2022 taxes, so that’s done. We visited one of our favorite independent book stores this morning and I proved sometimes I can behave myself. I still have a stack of books from Christmas that I haven’t read so no additions to that stack today.

Valentine’s cards and gifts are, I think, taken care of. Tomorrow we’ll visit our son for awhile. For a change, I’m feeling as if I might be holding my own. We’ll see come Wednesday morning if I’ve been too optimistic. Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy watching snow and ice melt and flow away.

Last night’s clear sky allowed viewing some stars, which I hadn’t done for some time. The fact that the moon is no longer as bright and full as it was helped, although it was bright and beautiful in this morning’s sky.

Kinnickinnic upstream of River Falls

Photo by J. Harrington

For the past year or so, I’ve been involved with the Twin Cities chapter of Trout Unlimited helping to raise funds to restore the Kinnickinnic River from River Falls downstream by first determining the feasibility of getting Corps of Engineers funding to facilitate removal of two dams and then undertaking restoration of the river and its environments at the former impoundments and downstream toward the St. Croix. The latest chapter newsletter has a story by the chapter president with links to some recent articles explaining what’s involved and an invitation to participate in a silent auction fund raiser. Please take a look at the excerpt below and consider bidding or making a donation.

This is a big year for the Kinni. You may have read about the progress we have made in removing the dams and restoring the riparian corridor in Trout Magazine and Fly Fisherman. Locally, the River Falls Reader featured an in-depth article in January .

Last summer, the Wisconsin DNR made a $1 million award for the Kinni dam removal. This spring, the US Army Corps of Engineers (COE) will commence a feasibility study that could unlock an additional $10 million in federal funding. Donations by TCTU members in 2022 provided critical seed money to obtain the WI DNR grant and to get the COE feasibility study going. We have a bit more money to raise to support the feasibility study and we hope to finish by the time the Spring Caddis hatch starts! 

You can help by:

• Making a donation by credit card or check.

• Participating in our Silent Auction. We are offering a limited number of items contributed by TU members who care deeply about the Kinni. The auction is live now, and will end on March 15th.

• Attending the River Falls Fly Fishing Film Festival on March 3rd. Tickets are available here. A share of the proceeds will help fund the feasibility study.

If you are interested in more information on the Kinni, please check out the Kinni pageof our website. This is a once in a generation opportunity to restore an iconic trout stream in our backyard, and I appreciate your support!

 Last year ArtReach St. Croix published a chapbook of poems by local poets of the St. Croix valley. If you follow the preceding link and scroll to page number 20 [not the 20th  page], you’ll find today’s poem. It’s about a trip down the Kinni.

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As we fall out of autumn

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

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

leaf fall, Upper St. Croix River, October

Photo by J. Harrington

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

UPDATE: LET FALLEN LEAVES LIE

A Short Story of Falling

By Alice Oswald

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass

as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip

turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance

the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong

and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue

to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain

that rises to the light and falls again

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Celebrate Rivers! Water Is Life!

Today is World Rivers Day. Here in the US, we have an abundance of rivers but less and less an abundance of clean water, and, with climate change, many of our rivers are running dry.

US Rivers

Yesterday I promised some resources on Minnesota’s rivers. Here they are:

• A Primer on Minnesota’s Rivers
• Minnesota’s federal Wild and Scenic River
• Minnesota’s Rivers and Streams resources
• Minnesota’s Watershed Districts

Watersheds often form the core of a bioregion.

Rivers and watersheds are the responsibility of an extremely fragmented array of governmental entities, making holistic management almost impossible. As our environmental crises continue to become more serious, fragmented approaches will become more problematic in adapting to and minimizing those crises.

In the US, the American Rivers organization and Trout Unlimited are doing an abundance of good work to protect, restore, reconnect, and sustain our rivers and streams.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is responsible for the water quality in our rivers and streams. There’s lots of room for improvement. The screen shot below identifies in red the rivers and streams that fail to meet water quality standards.

Minnesota’s Impaired Waters

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

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Time to take a flying...

This is not a good day for outside work. Temperatures exceed 90℉. I confirmed that when I emptied the compost bucket into the tumbler. This is a good day to get something done inside. The house is air conditioned. My fly-fishing gear needs organization. I will make some progress organizing some of the pockets in my fly-fishing vest.

I keep trying to find the book with the ideal arrangement of flies so I can imitate it. There’s dry flies and nymphs and terrestrials and streamers and... There’s also attractors and imitators. There’s also spring and summer and autumn and winter. Then there’s the cross combination of dry flies and nymphs for winter organized by attractors or imitations. You have just read an explanation of why my flies and fly boxes aren’t better organized. But, there’s an even more significant reason. I’m not fishing enough these days.

I’ve noticed over the years that one of the better ways for me to decide how to organize something is to do a fair amount of that something on a regular basis. I think that may be the basis for the old saying “Use it or lose it.” It’s been too many months since I’ve wet a line (“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”). The weather has been too cold, too wet, too windy....(“Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”)

caddis (top) and tricos

Photo by J. Harrington

So, all the abstract organizational schemes needed to be tested against reality. Since it’s my fly vest with my flies and other gear, it needs to be tested against my reality. How do I want to fish? Since most of my fishing skills were developed on or near the Atlantic Ocean, I’m pretty much a chuck and chance it angler. That probably means I’m most at home fishing an attractor and matching the hatch comes second. I’ve also noticed, through a lot of reading and rereading over the past year or so, that many flies are hybrids, between an imitation and an attractor. That makes it even easier for me to get more confused in the abstract over something that may have no real importance on the stream. Last winter I picked up some size 18 or 20 tricos that have florescent pink wings. There is, to my knowledge, no such critter in the real world, but the pink makes it easier to see where the fly is on the water. So, rather than spend time sitting in my chair thinking about whether that flly is an imitator or an attractor (of fly anglers), I’m going to get me to the stream and see if it spooks any fish or attracts one.

The next time you end up reading a post like this, it will probably be because I started overthinking my artisan bread baking, or my poetry, or something. One of my long-standing skills is taking something intended to be fun and turn it into work. I hope I live long enough to break that habit.

Trout

By Kathryn Starbuck

I do my best 

to keep pointlessness 

at bay. But here, 

wet above my 

knees, I let it fly. 

Here, hot and cold, 

fingers thick with 

thinking, I try to 

tie the fly and look 

for the net, loosening 

the philosophical   

knot of why I came 

here today, not yet 

knowing whether 

I’ll free or fry 

the rainbows 

and browns once 

they’re mine.

********************************************
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It’s about dancing with systems

 One of the nice things about below average temperatures in June is that the bread baking season continues to warm the house and make it smell good. Come late July and August, the heat and humidity diminish the need for taking a chill off and offer a chance the baker may get even more light-headed than usual if he overdoes the amount of baking. Then again, June’s below average temperatures mean the furnace is off and it takes much longer for the dough to rise. During the actual heating season I use the upstairs bathroom, with the door closed, as a proofing room. That doesn’t work worth a damn when there’s no heat or the AC is on.

beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus)

Photo by J. Harrington

The beardtongue will be in bloom later today or tomorrow. Then we’ll be “in the pink.” [Couldn’t resist.] Using the dates on photos from other years, those blooms are just about on schedule. Climate scientists have alerted us to the likelihood of greater variability and intensity of storm events. I don’t recall seeing anything about greater variability in seasonal events due to climate weirding. I suspect I may have a better feel for that in a few weeks because I’m now in the midst of doing some stormwater research to see what, if anything, is projected as future “design storms.” In that process, I may well stumble into some descriptions of seasonal variability effects.

I’m not an engineer, but I’ve worked with several. As I understand it, the current “period of record” for stormwater management is 1971 - 2000 for most of Minnesota. I’ll look for updates because I believe that the variability of storms and precipitation patterns have increased over the past few decades. Is it possible to assess if the climate has become a nonlinear, complex, adaptive system displaying emergent properties? Has the climate always been such a system but in a more stable pattern? A University of California, Berkeley, seminar notes:

The environment is a classic complex system, composed of multiple interacting “agents,” or variables, that cause emergent behavior. Applying a complex-systems approach to environmental problems such as climate change, landscape evolution, or societal-ecological sustainability can yield valuable insight into risk, potential drivers of change, likely outcomes of perturbation, and whether it is even possible to forecast or manage the system.

I wish I’d had this kind of insight when I first began working on environmental planning and management. At least I think I do. At the moment I’m trying to sort out, to paraphrase an old saying, if we’re hunting gnats with an elephant gun, or elephants with a gnat gun. The whole question of restoration of an urban trout stream is looking more interesting by the week, day, hour. Stay tuned.

My Debt

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

Like all
who believe in the senses,
I was an accountant,
copyist,
statistician.

Not registrar,
witness.

Permitted to touch
the leaf of a thistle,
the trembling
work of a spider.

To ponder the Hubble’s recordings.

It did not matter
if I believed in
the party of particle or of wave,
as I carried no weapon.

It did not matter if I believed.

I weighed ashes,
actions, 
cities that glittered like rubies,
on the scales I was given,
calibrated
in units of fear and amazement.

I wrote the word it, the word is.

I entered the debt that is owed to the real.

Forgive,
spine-covered leaf, soft-bodied spider,
octopus lifting
one curious tentacle back toward the hand of the diver
that in such black ink
I set down your flammable colors.

—2018

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Wait for the world to become perfect?

Easter this year is relatively late, but one can’t tell that by the weather. Today would be a beautiful March day and even more so if it were a day in February. Something I’m now curious about is, when spring is running two to four weeks behind “average,” does the phenological pattern get compressed or does the whole year shift? I suspect the latter. I suspect even more that the answer isn’t that simple. What prompted such ponderings is that today is stream trout opener and I’ve been looking at hatch charts. The screen shot below shows what can usually be expected to be hatching at this time of year. Would the weather delay hatches by several weeks? I don’t know but it may be fun trying to research that over the next few days.

Hatch Chart for Southeast Minnesota Trout Streams

Midges hatch year round in southeast Minnesota. Fishing something like a mole fly or a parachute Adams in a smaller size would probably be wise unless there’s an obvious hatch that the fish are feeding on. I confess that, as often as I’ve read about the benefits of watching a stream for ten or twenty minutes before beginning to cast, I’ve yet to reach a fishable stretch  of a stream without already having a fly attached to the end of my tippet. That may well be the result of too many years fishing for panfish and bass and, in saltwater, stripers and bluefish. Finesse was rarely, if ever, needed for that kind  of fishing. Plus, patience is not one of my strong points.

Since this is Easter weekend, and Passover began recently, let me suggest you lay your hands on a copy of, and promptly read,  A River Runs Through It. If you’ve already read it but it’s been a long time, a reread would be worthwhile. Perhaps a couple of quotations will help convince you of the value and appropriateness of that suggestion, plus, it’s that time when apostles became fishers of men.

“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. […] As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word ‘beautiful.‘”

“Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart—I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.” 

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 habit

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The wonder of water

The last place I lived in Massachusetts, I could launch my boat and be fishing the Atlantic ocean or I could drive about 20 miles inland and be fly fishing for bluegills and bass, either within about half an hour of leaving home.

At one time in Minnesota, the Better Half and I lived on a lake and I (we) could be fishing in five or ten minutes. Unfortunately, our family outgrew that house, plus we had the misfortune of having a world class barefoot water skier move in a few houses away. (At least this was before the invention of wake boats.)

Living on a lake tended to make me take for granted a bit the pleasures of fishing. If you can do something every day with little effort required, how special is it? These are not concerns that haunt me daily, but when I take time to think about them I realize how little I really know about myself and my fellow human beings and our relationship to each other and the world on which we live.

rivers bring more than fishing and swimming

Photo by J. Harrington

I share these thoughts because where we live now is about an hour’s drive from good to great trout waters and I’m now working as a volunteer on a project that, when completed, should greatly enhance some urban waters as a trout fishery. I’ve started wondering how that may relate to the urban quality of life. The planning profession has become more interested in integrating “nature” into the urban matrix. [My initial reaction to that was to wonder if that integration was to include mosquitoes and ticks.]

I’m in favor of having nature and the built environment complement each other. Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language, proposes several patterns on the relationship between the city and nature, for example:

71 STILL WATER    To be in touch with water, we must above all be able to swim; and to swim daily, the pools and ponds and holes for  swimming must be so widely scattered through the city, that each person can reach one within minutes.

I’m tempted to suggest we consider substituting fishing for swimming as another way to be in touch with water.  His pattern also suggests that there’s much to be gained by having nature be so much a part of daily life that enjoying nature as something special is then up to us when it’s regularly available. [Check Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder.]

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder." Writes Carson, "he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

It’s important to remember to ask the right questions in the right way, right?

The River

By Gregory Orr

I felt both pleasure and a shiver

as we undressed on the slippery bank

and then plunged into the wild river.

I waded in; she entered as a diver.

Watching her pale flanks slice the dark

I felt both pleasure and a shiver.

Was this a source of the lake we sought, giver

of itself to that vast, blue expanse?

We’d learn by plunging into the wild river

and letting the current take us wherever

it willed. I had that yielding to thank

for how I felt both pleasure and a shiver.

But what she felt and saw I’ll never

know: separate bodies taking the same risk

by plunging together into the wild river.

Later, past the rapids, we paused to consider

if chance or destiny had brought us here;

whether it was more than pleasure and a shiver

we’d found by plunging into the wild river. 

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It's National Rivers Month!

Once again the temperature has reached 90℉ and, today, kept climbing. We have more of this in store for the next several days. That makes it entirely appropriate to note that June is National Rivers Month. We're settling for relaxing in our air conditioned abode. Late next week it's supposed to br a bit cooler, or we can try getting up and out early in the day, and we'll go take a look at our local wild and scenic river, the St, Croix. We recently learned that the Saint Croix River Association, of which we're members, has changed its name to the Wild Rivers Conservancy of the St. Croix and Namekagon. On the one hand, that name doesn't exactly flow off the tongue, nor are we convinced it's as informative as the organization's former name. On the other hand, the river hasn't changed and there are other, more significant issues about which we can, and do, get readily perturbed, for example, the proposed swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation [CAFO] in the river's watershed. It looks suspiciously like the state of Wisconsin is engaging in a race to the bottom with the state of Iowa to see who can have the least stringent environmental regulations, forgetting or ignoring that it is much, much easier to pollute a river than to clean it up.

will hog manure improve this river?

Photo by J. Harrington

Green River

by William Cullen Bryant

When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

Yet pure its waters--its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone.
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum;
The flowers of summer are fairest there,
And freshest the breath of the summer air;
And sweetest the golden autumn day
In silence and sunshine glides away.

Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,
Beautiful stream! by the village side;
But windest away from haunts of men,
To quiet valley and shaded glen;
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still.
Lonely--save when, by thy rippling tides,
From thicket to thicket the angler glides;
Or the simpler comes with basket and book,
For herbs of power on thy banks to look;
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me,
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee.
Still--save the chirp of birds that feed
On the river cherry and seedy reed,
And thy own wild music gushing out
With mellow murmur and fairy shout,
From dawn to the blush of another day,
Like traveller singing along his way.

That fairy music I never hear,
Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear,
And mark them winding away from sight,
Darkened with shade or flashing with light,
While o'er them the vine to its thicket clings,
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings,
But I wish that fate had left me free
To wander these quiet haunts with thee,
Till the eating cares of earth should depart,
And the peace of the scene pass into my heart;
And I envy thy stream, as it glides along,
Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song.

Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen,
And mingle among the jostling crowd,
Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud--
I often come to this quiet place,
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face,
And gaze upon thee in silent dream,
For in thy lonely and lovely stream
An image of that calm life appears
That won my heart in my greener years. 

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Please be kind to each other while you can.