A different September song.

The holiday weekend is over. The furnace tech visited this morning and said we’re good to go for the winter. We have two family birthdays coming up this month, autumn Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] shares begin next week, the Equinox occurs on the 22nd and World Rivers Day is the 25th. Those are the current, known, high points this month for us. I’ll see what I can do to sneak in some pleasant surprises between now and month’s end.

Brake for Snakes

Photo by J. Harrington

Female ruby-throated hummingbirds are still coming to the sugar water feeder. Yesterday and the day before we say a “baby” snake about six inches long in the woods on the south side of the house. I think it was a hog-nose snake but wouldn’t want to have to swear to that in court. As I recall, that’s the only (live) snake we’ve seen all spring and summer, but we haven’t been walking the property much so that’s not surprising. Since the township paved the gravel road, it’s been more hazardous for reptiles to warm themselves on the roadway. We did see a couple of snake corpses last spring. It would be nice if the county and township would put up some snake crossing signs to go with the turtle crossing signs already in place, although we could use a few more of the latter, also. Isn’t this about the time of year when little turtles hatch and head for the ponds? It was the end of August a couple of years ago that I rescued a baby snapper from the road, parked him or her in the birdbath overnight and released the critter the next day in the pond up the road.

turtle crossing

Photo by J. Harrington

(Today's title refers to this.)

SEPTEMBER

by: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

HE golden-rod is yellow;

The corn is turning brown;

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down.

 

The gentian's bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun;

In dusty pods the milkweed

Its hidden silk has spun.

 

The sedges flaunt their harvest,

In every meadow nook;

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook.

 

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes' sweet odors rise;

At noon the roads all flutter

With yellow butterflies.

 

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer's best of weather,

And autumn's best of cheer.

 

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

 

'T is a thing which I remember;

To name it thrills me yet:

One day of one September

I never can forget.

"September" is reprinted from Poems. Helen Jackson. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892.

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Finally? spring? #phenology

We finally seem to have moved away from a persistent threat of overnight frost. Highs in the sunshine are now in the upper sixties. Yesterday we saw a large garter snake sunning in the roadside ditch (a much safer location than on the road itself). Today we noticed the first dandelion puffball of the year. There are still many, many, yellow flowers, but an early starter has already set seeds. Speaking of seeds, many of the local farm fields are in the midst of being planted. Tractors, harrows and planters are cluttering the local roads and slow-moving semis are hauling last year's grain someplace.

Today we observed, for the first time this year, a male ruby-throated hummingbird. It was at the front feeder. He may have been here before, but we couldn't see any ruby-red throat feathers until this morning. Late yesterday the downey woodpeckers kept startling hummingbirds away from the big nectar feeder hanging from the deck railing.

male rose-breasted grosbeak

Photo by J. Harrington

Male goldfinches have, for some time now, been wearing chrome yellow mating colors. When they share the feeders with male rose-breasted grosbeaks, it looks like someone spilled a box of bright-colored crayons on the perches.

The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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Signs of Summer #phenology

Yesterday was the first full day of Summer. Today we noticed the year's first day lilies in bloom. They're on the South side of the house in a sheltered ell, so it's not surprising they're often the first to blossom. From now into August, one or another version of a day lily will most likely be in flower around here.

first daylily blooms of the year

Photo by J. Harrington

First thing this morning, as I was hanging the bird feeders (June has historically been a prime month for bear visitations), I startled a whitetail doe who headed toward the pear tree; stopped; looked around; and wandered away. What was a little unnerving is that the doe's hair made her appear to be almost blond, or maybe strawberry blond. I've seen few such pale deer in Summer time. (Or in Winter for that matter.) If I didn't have some pictures from years past of pale deer I might think what I saw was actually a ghost deer. Most of our local herd is more a reddish / tan color like the one below.

whitetail doe at pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier this month the Better Half made an interesting discovery near the front hose. If you look carefully at the picture below, you should be able to make out the snake skin that was shed (grayish band between the house and the violet leaves). What's visible in the picture is about half the total length. (I carefully retrieved the whole thing a couple of days after the picture was taken.) I'm full of hope and glee that the snake belonging to the skin (hognose or gopher?) is busily prowling the pocket gopher tunnels in the fields behind the house and having to frequently rest to digest a meal.

shed snakeskin

Photo by J. Harrington

Snakeskin

By Stephen Behrendt

Pruning back the old spirea bushes

that sprawled for years in summer's heat,

I bared the snake skin, a yard and a half long:

its naked empty length rippled in the streaming wind

lifting its ghostly coils from the dead shoots

that scraped the slough from the slithering body

that shed it in that narrow, shaded space.

I paused—who wouldn't?—shears poised,

slipped off gray canvas gloves, extracted

the sere, striated casing from the brown stalks

that had held it, silent, hidden.

I coiled the paper-thin curling sheath with care,

delicately, eased it into a simple squatty box

for keeping, for care, for my daughters

to take to school, to show, to explain

how some sinuous body we've never glimpsed,

that haunts about our shrubs, our porch,

left for us this translucent, scale-scored wrapper,

this silent hint of all that moves unseen.

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What is as rare as a day in May? #phenology

This morning a solitary hen turkey decided the top of the slope on the far side of the back yard was a good place for a dust bath. We watched in some amusement and will upload some photos tomorrow. Meanwhile, multitudes, or so it seems, of songbirds and woodpeckers are descending on the feeders, plus the ruby-throated hummingbird returned to the sugar water feeder on  a front window.

bullsnake sunning on gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday afternoon, while picking up roadside trash, we noticed a large, quite dead, bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi), a subspecies of Gopher snake, lying in the ditch. We suspect it was warming itself on the blacktop and someone, intentionally or otherwise, ran over it. Since these snakes are a species of Special Concern in Minnesota, we wish drivers would be more careful, although it's also likely, and unfortunate, that no one in the vehicle was any more aware of the snake's status than of the snake itself.

prairie smoke flowers

Photo by J. Harrington

As we reviewed photos taken in prior months of May, we noticed that the local patch of prairie smoke has emerged earlier in the month than we recalled. Full flowering probable won't happen until late May or early June, but we can start looking for emergent flowers sometime this week. One of the nice aspects of this month  is  that looking for and finding wildflowers in bloom is relatively easy to accomplish while physical distancing, since, over the years, we've collected a number of our-of-the-way spots that are rarely crowded.

May Day

Sara Teasdale - 1884-1933

A delicate fabric of bird song
  Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
  Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
  Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
  The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
  Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
  The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
  I shall see again
The world on the first of May
  Shining after the rain?

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A tale of two rodents

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. (with apologies to Dickens) This morning I think I set a record for the earliest date I started pocket gopher trap setting. One of those rodents has been making mounds between the back yard's vernal pond and the edge of the small patch of oaks behind the house. If it weren't for their mounds, and their tendency to eat the roots of freshly planted fruit trees, I might be willing to take more of a live and let live approach. I truly wish we had more gopher snakes (Pituophis catenifer) on the property. I'd rather let them take care of the gopher population.

a pocket gopher predator looking for lunch

Photo by J. Harrington

A different rodent, one that I enjoy having as a neighbor, keeps trying to move back into the neighborhood. When we first moved here, a quarter century or so ago, a beaver, or two, lived in a den in the South bank of the pond up the road. We watched the pair for a year or two and then they were there no more. Whether they became coyote dinner or were trapped for their pelts we'll never know. Then, just last year, the flowage that feeds the pond sprouted a beaver dam.

is this a pond to which beavers are returning?

Photo by J. Harrington

Either the watershed district, or the county, or the township, or one or more of the contiguous property owners, or some combination thereof, decided that the large existing wetland that drains to the flowage shouldn't be allowed to hold more water. First about half the dam was removed. Then, I think someone set traps for the beaver. Then the rest of the dam was removed.

This Spring, we've noticed what we think are beavers back in the pond where we first saw some, across the road from where the dam was removed last year. We have no intention of telling anyone that they're back or where they are. Beavers have yet to eat any of our roots, bulbs, plants etc. I'd rather have them as neighbors than pocket gophers. At least we get to watch beavers every once in awhile. It's very rare that we every see a pocket gopher push dirt our of a tunnel.

Elegy for a Gopher

Ellen Bass

The pads of your paws scrabble
as I drag you from the tunnel
clamped to the shiny green trap,
a baby, hell-bent on saving
your twist of life, spun
from the same cells as I am, the common
intelligence of fins, wings, limbs.
The first time you see the sun
you’re splayed on your back, the shadow
of my blade above you.
Your ears, tiny colorless petals,
and at the tips of your articulated fingers,
ten frantic claws. When I strike,
your mouth opens stunningly
wide, a scream so silent
all sound is sucked down the naked
whirlpool of your throat. I hate
that I can salvage nothing.
I can’t skin and eat you, stuff or display
your fur on the mantel.
I won’t carve a needle
from your bone. Bit of breath
I bury under a stone.

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Spring blues and riotous others #phenology

As we drove past the marshes North of county Highway 36 today we spotted a great blue heron quietly keeping an eye on things. Some sort of small, blue butterfly has been flitting about the local fields the past few days. We're hopeful it could be a Karner Blue, but haven't got a close enough look to be sure. One of these days we'll see if the bluebirds have nested in their house.

did you know grosbeaks like grape jelly?

Photo by J. Harrington

A male Baltimore oriole (and maybe a female) has been seen at the grape jelly feeder. Most of the prior tasters had been male rose-breasted grosbeaks. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are regularly stopping at the feeders in front and behind the house. A male turkey was strutting and displaying this morning in the field about 150 yards West of the house. Neighborhood fruit trees and lilac bushes have developed magnificent flowering. More and more dandelion blossoms are appearing daily, sometimes, it seems, hourly.

bull snake sunning, mid-May 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

So far we haven't seen any reptiles warming themselves on local roads, but we did notice a number of barn swallows nesting under the eaves of a local Family Pathways store when we swung by to make  a donation this morning. They were almost as thick as Minnesota's state bird, the mosquito, which, thankfully, haven't yet hatched in numbers. All in all, Spring is getting more and more colorful by the day.

Colors passing through us

By Marge Piercy

Purple as tulips in May, mauve

into lush velvet, purple

as the stain blackberries leave

on the lips, on the hands,

the purple of ripe grapes

sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,

like a new flower in a bud vase

on your desk. Every day

I will paint you, as women

color each other with henna

on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,

as coals after the fire is banked,

the cardinal in the feeder,

the roses tumbling on the arbor

their weight bending the wood

the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit

hanging their globes on the glossy tree,

orange as pumpkins in the field,

orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs

who come to eat it, orange as my

cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,

yellow as a hill of daffodils,

yellow as dandelions by the highway,

yellow as butter and egg yolks,

yellow as a school bus stopping you,

yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing

song of all the things you make

me think of, here is oblique

praise for the height and depth

of you and the width too.

Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green

as a frog on a lily pad twanging,

the green of cos lettuce upright

about to bolt into opulent towers,

green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear

glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,

bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,

blue as Saga. Blue as still water.

Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.

Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring

azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky

when day has gone without a trace

and we lie in each other’s arms

eyes shut and fingers open

and all the colors of the world

pass through our bodies like strings of fire.

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Snakes (a)cross the road #phenology

We had to go into "The Cities" this morning on some financial business. The temperature was somewhere between mid-50's and low 60's. Two egrets were working the shallows of the Sunrise River pools near County Highway 36. After we finished our business, we met up with the Better Half at one of our favorite hangouts, Nina's Coffee Cafe. The BH had a work meeting that wrapped up about the same time as our financial meeting and we hadn't had coffee together for some time. Nina's still has some of the eclectic ambiance we used to really like, but it's picked up a hipsterish veneer that tamp's down a feeling of comfort we used to get. It's still one of the better coffee houses in St. Paul, but feels a little less user friendly to this aging hippie.

gopher snake sunning on gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

Driving home, the temperatures had climbed into the mid-70's and the sun-warmed asphalt induced one large bull snake/gopher snake to warm itself in the middle of the west-bound lane. We fully, and regretfully, expect to see what's left of the corpse in the next day or so when we drive back that way. Later, much closer to home, while walking the dogs today we noticed the small, stiffening body of a redbelly snake near the edge of our gravel road. We strongly suspect it was "sunning" itself and the driver may well never have noticed it as the tires passed on the snake. We had always thought it was only in Springtime that reptiles warmed themselves on roadways. Clearly, that judgment was in error, although the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources mentions only one of the snakes in Snakes and Lizards of Minnesota as sunning itself both Spring and Fall. We bet that's simply an editorial decision and not a substantive difference among snakes. We also suspect that the snakes we've recently seen were not simply headed to their hibernacula although, again, that judgment could well be in error, it seems early for Winter preparations, especially since MNDNR writes that our snakes are active through October [p 3].

It looks like rain clouds are piling up. We're going to shorten this posting so we can go look for sunning snakes or wooly bear caterpillars before it starts to pour. Wish us luck.

Shaking the Grass

Janice N. Harrington

Evening, and all my ghosts come back to me
like red banty hens to catalpa limbs
and chicken-wired hutches, clucking, clucking,
and falling, at last, into their head-under-wing sleep.

I think about the field of grass I lay in once,
between Omaha and Lincoln.  It was summer, I think.
The air smelled green, and wands of windy green, a-sway,
a-sway, swayed over me.  I lay on green sod
like a prairie snake letting the sun warm me.

What does a girl think about alone
in a field of grass, beneath a sky as bright
as an Easter dress, beneath a green wind?

Maybe I have not shaken the grass.
All is vanity.

Maybe I never rose from that green field.
All is vanity.

Maybe I did no more than swallow deep, deep breaths
and spill them out into story:  all is vanity.

Maybe I listened to the wind sighing and shivered,
spinning, awhirl amidst the bluestem
and green lashes:  O my beloved!  O my beloved!

I lay in a field of grass once, and then went on.
Even the hollow my body made is gone.

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Some migrations are local #phenology

Monarch butterflies, hummingbirds, sandhill cranes, many songbirds and most waterfowl undertake moderate to lengthy migrations to avoid Winter in the North Country. Even some of those that live here year round undertake local migrations. We've been coping this week with some of those. In another sign of Autumn's impending arrival, barn spiders, or, maybe barn funnel weavers, or parson spiders, or one of each, we're really not sure, have been appearing (or apparating if you're a Harry Potter fan) in the house. So far we've captured and transported three of them (or the same one three times) back outside. The first one was under some clean clothes on a bed; the second on the wall of the stairs going down from the front hall; the third on a wall in the front hall itself. Each time we used the cup and paper method (see method 2 on the linked page). Since we aren't likely to take up eating spiders, and can safely remove them, there seems little point in killing them. We even hope this approach improves our karma.

It's still early in the seasonal change, so we may find more spiders looking for a mate or whatever motivates them to head indoors. (There's a wide range of opinions online about whether or why spiders head indoors in Autumn.) If we do have more invaders this year, we'll try to take a picture before cupping the culprit. (Did McGarrett ever say "Cup 'em Danno" do you suppose?)

bull snake on garage floor

Another creature that we sometimes find looking for a place to spend the Winter is a gopher snake or bull snake in Minnesota. Last year the one pictured above was seeking refuge in our garage, or perhaps it was just looking for a wayward rodent. As if it were a misguided spider, the snake too was transported back outside, but we used our hands instead of a cup. With luck, it eventually found, or made, an empty pocket gopher tunnel in which to hibernate.

Autumn oak leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning's rain brought some oak leaves down onto the driveway. Oaks will continue to drop leaves now for about the next forty-eight or fifty weeks or so, unlike more "honest" deciduous trees, that drop their leaves over a relatively short time frame, oaks, like our dogs, shed almost year-round. Many oak leaves hold on (it's called marcescence) until next Spring's expanding leaf buds swell with new growth. There's a couple of theories why marcescence may offer an advantage to oak-like trees. There's also many reasons humans sometimes migrate.

Peace Path

Heid E. Erdrich

This path our people walked
one hundred two hundred              endless years
since the tall grass opened for us
and we breathed the incense that sun on prairie
                                                             offers to sky
Peace offering with each breath
each footstep           out of woods
to grasslands plotted with history
removal   remediation                     restoration
Peace flag of fringed prairie orchid
green glow within white froth
calling a moth who nightly
seeks the now-rare scent                 invisible to us
invisible history of this place
where our great-grandfather         a boy
beside two priests and 900 warriors
gaze intent in an 1870 photo       
                                                             his garments white as orchids
Peace flag                                           white banner with red cross
crowned with thorns                       held by a boy            
at the elbow of a priest 
beside Ojibwe warriors                   beside Dakota warriors
Peace offered after smoke and dance
and Ojibwe gifts of elaborate beaded garments
thrown back in refusal
by Dakota Warriors                         torn with grief
                                                             since their brother’s murder
This is the path our people ran
through white flags of prairie plants
Ojibwe calling Dakota back
to sign one last and unbroken treaty
Peace offering with each breath
each footstep                out of woods
to grasslands plotted with history
removal   remediation                     restoration
Two Dakota    held up as great men
humbled themselves
to an offer of peace
before a long walk south
before our people entered the trail
walking west and north
                                                           where you walk now
where we seek the source
the now-rare scent
invisible as history
history the tall grass opens for us
                                                            Breathe the incense of sun on prairie
                                                            Offer peace to the sky

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The bloom is on #phenology

I haven't managed to get organized enough to take pictures, but the past few nights, light from the near full moon on the pear tree blossoms has been ethereal. With luck we'll avoid major wind, rain, or hail storms until after the blossoms have been pollinated.

imagine this in moonlight

Photo by J. Harrington

This past week, I've noticed two very small snakes, one a red-belly and the other either a garter or another red-belly, each run over near the West edge of the gravel road. Those are the only signs of snakes we've seen around here so far this year. On the other hand, it seems to be shaping up as a banner year for ticks.

last June's lilacs

Photo by J. Harrington

The lilacs in St. Paul are blooming. I noticed that while I was doing a Mother's Day related errand this morning. I'll take a look a the wild lilacs up the road this afternoon or tomorrow. By the beginning of June last year they were in flower still but well past their prime, so now may be time to again relive my childhood days - when the Catholic school nuns would tell us that we shouldn't bring too many bouquets of lilacs because the smells made us all sleepy and lethargic. Personally, I believed it was the warm sunlight coming through the windows that was the sandman culprit, but I also was pretty sure back in those days I wasn't likely to win a debate with a nun.

There are so many trees and bushes blooming right now that I'm surprised all the air isn't weighted with fragrance. Blossoms of white and pink and pale plum and... other colors are punctuating the roadside fringes with beautifully harmonized accents. If I were as clever as I sometimes believe, I'd take cell phone photos now so I'd have the GPS position to go back in late Summer or early Autumn and check for fruit. Maybe that's what I'll do once this afternoon's showers pass through.

Lilacs on My Birthday

By Joyce Peseroff

The flowerets look edible before they open,

like columns of sugar dots on tiny strips

I bought as a child. Hard to bite the candy without

some paper adhering, as adding machine tape will

to large, red numbers. Lilacs are like that: another year

unspools without major accomplishment,

while I question "major" and "accomplishment."

And when I find in Costco those clusters

of pointillist pastel, I hope they will become

someone else's nostalgia—honorable emotion

propelling Ulysses toward Ithaca, and a woman

to set lilacs in her dooryard as her mother did.

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Eve of the Ides report #phenology

Happy Pi Day! It's also the Eve of the Ides of March, a day when, once again, South-facing, sunny slopes are mostly snow free, even though the temperature's only in the mid-twenties. The local pond was partly open water exactly two years ago, and is entirely covered with ice and snow today. Oak and maple buds are swelling slowly, but I've not yet noticed any signs of bud burst. I suspect Spring transition activity will resume, and maybe pick up its pace, with the return of warmer weather, forecast for late this week into the weekend.

open water, March 14, 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

From time to time you may have read in these postings fusses and fumes, rants and raves, about the #*@%! pocket gophers and the damage they've done by eating the roots of most of the fruit trees we've planted over the years. As the recent snow fall was just beginning, it highlighted the gopher mounds left as they excavate their underground tunnels. Lord, do I wish there were more bullsnakes living around here. Maybe this year, as they come out of hibernation (brumation) a few more will decide to stick around and help thin out the pocket gopher population here.

a fieldful of pocket gopher mounds

Photo by J. Harrington

As a fallback, come warmer weather and thawed ground, I'll probably once again drive myself to frustration with unsuccessful attempts to trap the critters making all those dots. I've tried it in the past and rarely am I able to set the traps in an active tunnel. Hence the wish for more reptilian predators of pocket gophers. I've read enough Zen over the years to try to take a live and let live approach. Then a mouse will make a nest in the pocket of one of my favorite cardigans, and out come the mouse traps. Gopher mounds make cutting grass difficult to impossible (the phrase mowing lawn doesn't really fit much of our property). The mounds can be raked or harrowed level, but that's more reasonably accomplished if there are many fewer mounds, which requires fewer gophers.

Carrying The Snake To The Garden

by Mary Oliver

In the cellar
was the smallest snake
I have ever seen.
It coiled itself
in a corner
and watched me
with eyes
like two little stars
set into coal,
and a tail
that quivered.
One step
of my foot
and it fled
like a running shoelace,
but a scoop of the wrist
and I had it
in my hand.
I was sorry
for the fear,
so I hurried
upstairs and out the kitchen door
to the warm grass
and the sunlight
and the garden.
It turned and turned
in my hand
but when I put it down
it didn't move.
I thought
it was going to flow
up my leg
and into my pocket.
I thought, for a moment,
as it lifted it's face,
it was going to sing.

And then it was gone.

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Why don't pocket gophers hibernate? #phenology

Despite a week or so of subfreezing and lower temperatures, the pocket gophers in the back yard are still obviously active. Apparently, they didn't read Kansas State University's Managing Pocket Gophers observation that

"Shallow or sandy soils limit pocket gophers due to tunnel cave-ins, and provide poor insulation from warm summer and cold winter temperatures."

Winter pocket gopher mounds near brush pile

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps I should be grateful that the number of those critters tearing hell out of the yard during a Minnesota Winter is "limited?" From my perspective, it's grossly unfair that plains pocket gophers stay active during the Winter, while many of the creatures, especially snakes, that are their predators, become inactive. One of the differences between warm-blooded mammals and cold-blooded reptiles seems to give an advantage to the mammals.

close-up of fresh pocket gopher mound

Photo by J. Harrington

We've seen few hawks or owls around here over the past year or so, to my dismay. Then again, we've seen no skunks in the entire time we've lived here (great horned owl population?), and I am grateful for that. I find it hard to picture a hawk or owl capturing a pocket gopher, since on the few times I've tried, I haven't been able to shoot quickly enough to hit one as it sticks his/her nose out of its mound of dirt.

My vehement dislike of pocket gophers is only partially based on the mounds they leave behind to break mower decks and blades. By my estimation, they've "rooted" (eaten the roots) or girdled (eaten the bark) six to twelve fruit trees we've tried to grow on the hill behind the house. One pear tree is the only survivor and the deer are doing their best to love that to death.

whitetail deer doe eating pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Maybe, in keeping with the Christmas season, the 6 to 10 inches of snow we're forecast to get tonight and tomorrow will at least keep any more new mounds from being discovered until Spring. If I can't see them I might forget about them and then stop fussing and fuming about them, right? That's sort of like getting the Christmas spirit, isn't it?

My Dad, in America

By Shann Ray

Your hand on my jaw

              but gently

and that picture of you

punching through snow

              to bring two deer, a gopher,

and a magpie

to the old Highwalker woman

who spoke only Cheyenne

              and traced our footprints

on leather she later chewed to soften.

              We need to know in America there is still blood

for forgiveness.

Dead things for the new day.

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North Country? November? #phenology

While walking one of the dogs, we scattered several grasshoppers. Not as many as in August, but neither was it just one or two. As I was telling myself how weird I thought it was to be seeing grasshoppers and enjoying temperatures crowding 60F, the dog startled back from the edge of the road. I stepped closer to see what that was about and watched a medium to small snake, species undetermined because of the grass cover, slither away. (I think snakes would need to grow back their legs to be able to scurry, right?)

A November grasshopper, one of several

Photo by J. Harrington

Several weeks ago I speculated that we'll probably pay for this extended spell of warm weather. Now, as it continues, I could start to get really nervous but I've decided "the hell with it." I'm going to relax and enjoy this aberration because in a decade or two it won't be an aberration and there'll be lots of other ways we'll be paying for the way we've trashed the climate. Unless, of course, we all agree to change our ways and start functioning within the limits of the earth's systems. I figure I'm more likely to encounter, while I'm walking a dog, some of the souls wandering around at this time of year than to see that happen. We behave too much like grasshoppers rather than ants, although, according to the Shaolin, even some grasshoppers learn well.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

By John Keats

The Poetry of earth is never dead:    

  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,    

  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run    

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;    

That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead      

  In summer luxury,—he has never done    

  With his delights; for when tired out with fun    

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.    

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:    

  On a lone winter evening, when the frost     

    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills    

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,    

  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,    

    The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

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Seeking warmth #phenology

Yesterday, for the first time this Summer, we think, we saw a live gopher snake. It was warming itself on the garage floor. Earlier this week, two other young gopher snakes, each unfortunately dead, were lying on the gravel road in front of the house. I presume they were run over while sunning themselves in a much more hazardous location than our garage floor, although, if I hadn't noticed it while putting out the trash and recycling, I could have heedlessly backed over the one on the floor by the garage door.

adult gopher snake sunning on road

Photo by J. Harrington

Shorter days, cooler nights make reptiles seek ways to keep warm. Gopher snakes are noted for their habit of sunning themselves on warm roads. Personally, I'd much rather have gopher snakes than pocket gophers, despite the fact that, shortly after we moved into our house, a fully grown gopher snake in the garage startled the hell out of me. I suppose, nature being as it is, if we didn't have gophers, we wouldn't have gopher snakes, despite living in prime habitat (Anoka Sand Plain) and having lots of other prey, especially mice which have now started their annual efforts to migrate into the house for the Winter, the snakes could feed on. The signs of Autumn's imminent dominance continue to increase.

young of year gopher snake on garage floor

Photo by J. Harrington

As I picked up the snake from the garage floor to show it to the Better Half and then release it out of harm's way on the leaf covered, wooded edge of the drive, I remembered my younger days when I would, from time to time, capture a garter snake on my walk home from school. On a good day, I'd remember to release it before arriving home. Other times, I'd forget and leave it in my coat pocket for my poor, beleaguered mother to discover as she checked my pockets before hanging the garment in the front hall. My solution was to remember to always carry one of my socks as a capture bag. Mom didn't really find that satisfactory but probably decided it was less trouble than home schooling me.

?

Randall Mann

is only something on which to hang
your long overcoat; the slender snake asleep
in the grass; the umbrella by the door;

the black swan guarding the pond.
This ? has trouble in mind: do not ask
why the wind broods, why the light is so unclean.

It is summer, the rhetoric of the field,
its yellow grasses, something unanswerable.
The dead armadillo by the roadside, indecent.

Who cares now to recall that frost once encrusted
the field? The question mark—cousin to the 2,
half of a heart—already has begun its underhanded inquiry.

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When does a reptile cross the road? #phenology

I've read that one of the hardest things to notice is what's missing from a picture. Often, I've experienced that myself. This year, reptiles have been missing from the picture more than they have been other years.

road-crossing snapping turtle (5/30/14)

Photo by J. Harrington

So far, I've seen only a few small turtles, most likely painted, crossing the local roads. I've yet to see, or receive a report of, any snakes active in the area. I don't mean to suggest that all the snakes and turtles left town, only that by this time of year I've usually seen a hognose or bull snake along the gravel road and one or more snapping turtles on her way to lay eggs. I'm not pleased that they seem to be missing, but am grateful that I've noticed their absence.

The Adventures of a Turtle

By Russell Edson

The turtle carries his house on his back. He is both the house and the person of that house.
         But actually, under the shell is a little room where the true turtle, wearing long underwear, sits at a little table. At one end of the room a series of levers sticks out of slots in the floor, like the controls of a steam shovel. It is with these that the turtle controls the legs of his house.
         Most of the time the turtle sits under the sloping ceiling of his turtle room reading catalogues at the little table where a candle burns. He leans on one elbow, and then the other. He crosses one leg, and then the other. Finally he yawns and buries his head in his arms and sleeps.
         If he feels a child picking up his house he quickly douses the candle and runs to the control levers and activates the legs of his house and tries to escape.
         If he cannot escape he retracts the legs and withdraws the so-called head and waits. He knows that children are careless, and that there will come a time when he will be free to move his house to some secluded place, where he will relight his candle, take out his catalogues and read until at last he yawns. Then he’ll bury his head in his arms and sleep....That is, until another child picks up his house....

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