1968: deja vu all over again?*

FIRST: We WIN!    Then: we FIGHT!

Of the Democrats (Senior and Junior) that have called for President Biden to step down, or aside, as a candidate for this years election, have any of them suggested a stronger standard bearer? I suppose not, since there’s plenty of time [36 days] between now and the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19. How hard could it be to pull together a majority of delegates from a coherent, well structured, tightly organized political party like the Democrats. After all, a similar approach worked in France for Macron, didn’t it?

Then, after having won the nomination at the convention, there’s a whole additional 75 days, approximately two and a half months, to convince a heavily fractured electorate to vote for a Johnny or Hilary come lately, because all the alternatives to President Biden are so well know and liked. Right?

I wonder how many of the Democratic leadership are old enough to remember the debacle that was the 1968 Democratic National Convention? Follow the link if you need a refresher. This year is beginning to look disturbingly similar. In 1968 the Democrats performed so well that they put Richard Nixon in the White House. I’ve stopped making any contributions to Democratic candidates this year until and unless the party strongly coheres behind the best available option to beat the orange turd and his hurd of MAGAts. Remember, there’s always the 25th Amendment once Biden wins. Republicans aren’t ever likely to try something like that.

* apologies to Yogi Berra for the plagiarism. AI made me do it!

The Soul of Spain With McAlmon and Bird the Publishers

By Ernest M. Hemingway

In the rain in the rain in the rain in the rain in Spain. 

Does it rain in Spain? 

Oh yes my dear on the contrary and there are no bull fights. 

The dancers dance in long white pants 

It isn’t right to yence your aunts 

Come Uncle, let’s go home. 

Home is where the heart is, home is where the fart is. 

Come let us fart in the home. 

There is no art in a fart. 

Still a fart may not be artless. 

Let us fart an artless fart in the home. 

Democracy. 

Democracy. 

Bill says democracy must go. 

Go democracy. 

Go 

Go 

Go 

Bill’s father would never knowingly sit down at table with a Democrat. 

Now Bill says democracy must go. 

Go on democracy. 

Democracy is the shit. 

Relativity is the shit. 

Dictators are the shit. 

Menken is the shit. 

Waldo Frank is the shit. 

The Broom is the shit. 

Dada is the shit. 

Dempsey is the shit. 

This is not a complete list. 

They say Ezra is the shit. 

But Ezra is nice. 

Come let us build a monument to Ezra. 

Good a very nice monument. 

You did that nicely 

Can you do another? 

Let me try and do one. 

Let us all try and do one. 

Let the little girl over there on the corner try and do one. 

Come on little girl. 

Do one for Ezra. 

Good. 

You have all been successful children. 

Now let us clean the mess up. 

The Dial does a monument to Proust. 

We have done a monument to Ezra. 

A monument is a monument. 

After all it is the spirit of the thing that counts.

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Feeding you a line?

I saw a report today on social media that someone in or around Madison, WI saw Canada geese flying north. A different report from east-central Minnesota noted maple tree sap is flowing. I’d be more concerned but nature has been around for a lot longer than we have and I suspect Mother will sort it all out with or without us. More likely without us if we persist in our hubris.

The local ten day forecast has us close to seasonable high temperatures in the low 30’s by Valentine’s Day. We’ll have to wait and see what comes after that. Meanwhile, I’ve collaborated with the Better Half and we have her fly rods and reels sorted and organized. Now it’s time for me to tackle the morass that my gear has become. Maybe by week’s end (this or next) I’ll be joyfully reporting that the rods, reels and lines have been matched and lists made of options. I don’t think I’ve developed a moderate case of OCD as much as I’ve gotten tired of spending as much time as I do finding what I want in a reasonable period of time. It’s sort of my own version of the troubles caused by deferred maintenance. Or, if you prefer and are old enough, think about the aggravation finding "tab A to go in slot B and be held with screw D.”

do I really need one of each?

Photo by J. Harrington

Life was simpler when ninety-nine percent of my fly fishing was only for bluegills and pumpkinseeds. Trout are somewhat more selective and the water types in which they feed vary a lot more. Plus the types and shapes of fly lines have increased by leaps and bounds, or something like that. To borrow and corrupt a phrase, that’s what makes horse races, although I’m coming to believe it’s also what increases dependency on technologies rather than building personal skills. I don’t want to give you the impression I believe having options and choices is a bad thing, but I vaguely remember being a kid with a nickel in a penny candy store faced with what seemed like impossible decisions and again when the ice cream flavor choices expanded from vanilla or chocolate to twenty-six flavors.

Balance

By Alice B. Fogel

Balance is everything, is the only

way to hold on.

I've weighed the alternatives, the hold

as harbor: It isn't safe

to let go. But consider the hover,

choices made, the moment

between later and too late.

Hesitation is later, regret

too late. You can't keep turning

and turning, or expecting

to return. This earth

is not a wheel, it is a rock

that erodes, mountain by mountain.

And I have been too soft,

like sandstone, but there is a point

where I stand without a story,

immutable and moved, solid

as a breath in winter air.

I have seen my death and I know

it is my neighbor, my brother,

my keeper. In my life

I am going to keep trying

for the balance,

remembering the risks and the value

of extremes, and that experience

teaches the length of allowable lean;

that it is easier — and wiser —

to balance a stone as if on one toe

though it weigh a hundred pounds

than to push it back against the curve

of its own world.

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Time to adjust? or adapt?

It’s been a cloudy, showery day around here. The weather contributing to a feeling of ennui and malaise, which is probably just as well. We did a little outside work in yesterday’s heat and almost knocked ourselves out. At least we’re not coping with the floods of Yellowstone.

The rollercoaster weather is making it difficult to impossible to develop a syncopated rhythm or comfortable pattern to inside or outside chores. The good news is that we’re using the weather spasms as an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the philosophy displayed in the wonderful poem Desiderata. That revised attitude or perspective has been partially triggered and reinforced by a gift we received recently. It’s a book titled Things to Look Forward to. I’m just getting into it but, so far, I find I’m mostly in agreement.

trout streams are on the “TO DO” list

Photo by J. Harrington

As another clue that I may be on an improved track with a slightly improved outlook, today I got an email that informed me that I’m not the only fly fisher whose attempts at fishing get thwarted by the weather. The person who sent the message reported that two of his recent trips had been abruptly terminated or canceled by lightning or the threat thereof. Standing in water waving a 9 foot graphite rod is NOT RECOMMENDED when there’s lightning around. Usually, I’m more concerned about the prospect of having to get a hook removed from my head if I miscalculate an errant gust of wind during a forward cast.

If the forecast holds, we’ll get most of the poison ivy spraying done tomorrow and see if we can fit in some kind of playing before Father’s Day. We look forward to reporting on having had some kind of fun in the near future.

Desiderata: Original Text

This is the original text from the book where Desiderata was first published.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

by Max Ehrmann ©1927

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A different kind of gas lighting

I hope I haven’t jinxed us. Today I finally pulled the winter floor mats from the jeep and rinsed the salt, sand and grit off of them. Some time over the summer they’ll get a thorough cleaning. Meanwhile the summer mats have been pulled from storage and are on their way to the front floor hooks that hold them in place. This may be the weekend in which we shut down the snow blower for the summer season. We’ll test it again come September or October.

winter’s salt streaks on the jeep’s hood

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve been thinking about, fantasizing actually, what life might be like if all my tools and toys were electric instead of internal combustion powered. The chain saw and micro tiller are each two stroke powered so I have to keep looking up the proper oil/gas ratio. Neither has a very large gas tank so I have to keep a supply of gas stabilizer around and remember to use it. Of course, every once in awhile I forget and that means the tool gets a trip to the shop to get cleaned and tuned so it will start again.

At the moment, I have a battery powered leaf blower and pole chain saw. Recharging batteries is much easier and less complicated than keeping two or four stroke gas engines running properly. If I’m not dealing with gas / oil mixtures, I have to remember to do at least an annual oil change in the snow blower and push mower and tractor. None of this is terribly difficult but it is more work than changing a battery and placing one in the charger.

Have any of you read or seen descriptions of how life might be better and/or simpler with a low carbon life? I’m just beginning to think about the details. I know that the information technology I’ve come to rely on, computers, cell phones, all the chips and software in the jeep, often seem to be more trouble than it’s worth. I still miss the CD player we used to be able to order in our vehicles. Too often my cell phone play list and my jeep sound system end up speaking different languages or not talking to each other at all.

Meanwhile, corporations like Apple and John Deere present major obstacles to the right to repair effort. This presents another front on the make it simpler, easy to operate and repair. Much of the contemporary complexity we’re faced with looks to me like it’s as much to increase corporate profits as to provide a better product.

I know, I’m once again sounding like a pro-luddite, or maybe like Wendell Berry. There’s a lot to be said for either or both.

The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer

by Wendell Berry

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,
and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,
and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven's favor,
in spite of the best advice. If I have been caught
so often laughing at funerals, that was because
I knew the dead were already slipping away,
preparing a comeback, and can I help it?
And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed
my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom
had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not
be resurrected by a piece of cake. ‘Dance,’ they told me,
and I stood still, and while they stood
quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
‘Pray,’ they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth's brightnesses, and then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
When they said, ‘I know my Redeemer liveth,’
I told them, ‘He's dead.’ And when they told me
‘God is dead,’ I answered, ‘He goes fishing every day
in the Kentucky River. I see Him often.’
When they asked me would I like to contribute
I said no, and when they had collected
more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.
When they asked me to join them I wouldn't,
and then went off by myself and did more
than they would have asked. ‘Well, then,’ they said
‘go and organize the International Brotherhood
of Contraries,’ and I said, ‘Did you finish killing
everybody who was against peace?’ So be it.
Going against men, I have heard at times a deep harmony
thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what
I say I don't know. It is not the only or the easiest
way to come to the truth. It is one way.

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It's the system, stupid, or is it the stupid system?

Before there was the internets, before there was social media, was the world as crazy as it is these days and we just didn't know about it? Although I can't prove it, I'm dubious. The lines of fracture used to be more limited, I believe. During my younger days, there was the civil rights movement (1954 — 1968), followed by the anti-vietnam war movement (1964 — early 1970s), followed by the environmental movement (1970 — present).

Taking a look at today's headlines, it's clear none of these movements actually resolved the issues they were intended to address. It's also clear that there's been a lot of cross-linkages among once relatively disparate issues. Many, many years ago I was introduced to the concept of multi-objective multi-purpose optimization while developing plans to address land use and water quality issues. I wonder if either our legislators or our public sector executives are familiar with the process.

What we're seeing in the case of the Chauvin trial is an individual being tried. What we also need is the ability to put an entire law enforcement system on trial. Recently I've seen several references to not one bad apple but a bad barrel or a bad tree. That's a pretty clear description of a systemic problem.

William Beebe quotation, International Crane Foundation

Photo by J. Harrington

We have such systemic problems creating global weirding; abusive and racist policing; unhealthy food systems that create excess waste and fail to feed those who would benefit from discarded, but edible, food. We grow corn to produce ethanol and consume more energy than the process and product yields, or so I've read.

I'm pretty much reached my limit supporting dysfunctional systems that don't solve today's complex problems. If someone wants to call for a worldwide general strike, sign me up!

13 Questions for the Next Economy

Susan Briante

On the side of the road, white cardboard in the shape of a man,
     	     illegible script. A signpost with scrawl: Will pay cash for 
              diabetes strips.
 
A system under the system with its black box.                    	Disability hearing?
a billboard reads. Trouble with Social Security? Where does the riot begin?
 
Spark of dry grass, Russian thistle in flames, or butterflies bobbing
as if pulled by unseen strings            	  through the alleyway.
        	
My mother’s riot would have been peace. A bicycle wheel
              chained to a concrete planter. What metaphor
 
              can I use to describe the children sleeping in cages in 
                  detention
centers? Birds pushed fenceward by a breeze? A train of brake lights
 
extending? Mesquite pods mill under our feet
on a rainless sidewalk. What revolution            will my daughter feed?
 
A break-the-state twig-quick snap or a long divining       	    as if
for water? A cotton silence? A death?          	      Who will read this
 
in the next economy, the one that comes after the one that kills us?
What lessons will we take from the side of the road? A wooden crucifix,
 
a white bicycle, a pinwheel, a poem
waiting to be redacted:                         Which would you cross out?

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A necessary errand in the cold

The temperature was about -3℉, and the windchill between -25℉ and -30℉, when we headed out a bit ago to get some bird seed. The metal trash can in the garage, that we use for rodent-proof storage, was down to a few crumbs. The cold spell has at least another week to go and we're not sure how many of this winter's seeds the chickadees and their buddies have already cached. It's not an ok time to stop feeding, so off we went for a 50 pound bag of coarse chipped sunflower seeds at the local feed and grain shop.

iced rim of heated bird bath - waterer

Photo by J. Harrington

As cold as it's been, we suspect the open water in the heated bird bath may be at least as helpful as sunflower seeds to the birds and squirrels in the neighborhood. This weekend, in fact, beginning today, it's the Great Backyard Bird Count. We haven't yet decided if we'll participate. We need to get a better idea if our collection of goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, cardinals, woodpeckers, etc. would add anything meaningful. This is, from our perspective, more a case of the mountains (birds) coming to Muhammad (feeders) and that doesn't feel quite right. We did see an all too infrequently glimpsed bird the other day as we were driving near the wetlands along County Road 36, a ruffed grouse. (No, it wasn't a hen pheasant.) There are few grouse around and we'd really like to see more of them and the even more rare woodcock.

White-Eyes

By Mary Oliver

In winter 

    all the singing is in 

         the tops of the trees 

             where the wind-bird 

with its white eyes 

    shoves and pushes 

         among the branches. 

             Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep, 

    but he's restless— 

         he has an idea, 

             and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings 

    as long as he stays awake. 

         But his big, round music, after all, 

             is too breathy to last. 

So, it's over. 

    In the pine-crown 

         he makes his nest, 

             he's done all he can. 

I don't know the name of this bird, 

    I only imagine his glittering beak 

         tucked in a white wing 

             while the clouds— 

which he has summoned 

    from the north— 

         which he has taught 

             to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall 

    into the world below 

         like stars, or the feathers 

               of some unimaginable bird 

that loves us, 

    that is asleep now, and silent— 

         that has turned itself 

             into snow.

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Poetry saving America Day 7 #NationalPoetryMonth

Today we're back to a poem about which Tony Hoagland has written in Twenty Poems That Could Save America and spoken about in a Public Television interview. You'll have to draw your own conclusions about how this poem could help save America. Ours lean toward the idea that the current, long-standing, emphasis on pop culture, consumerism, materialism, neoliberalism and several other isms undermine and become the antithesis of respecting solitude and self-discovery. You can find more on that theme in Naomi Klein's No Logo and similar works.

does a solitary swan experience loneliness?

Photo by J. Harrington

POETRY RESPECTS SOLITUDE AND SELF-DISCOVERY

Here’s another scenario. A woman, recently divorced from her husband of twenty-five years (he fell in love with his yoga instructor). Living in the city where they shared a life together, she’s discovering what it’s like to be single at fifty. She has a busy professional life and can handle the daylight hours, but the nights are hard, and she’s decided she’d better stay away from wine in the evening. She believes she might be alone for the rest of her days.

One night on the train home, she remembers a poem from tenth grade called “Bamboo and a Bird.” When she gets back to her apartment, she looks it up on the Internet. It’s by Linda Gregg.

In the subway late at night.
Waiting for the downtown train
at Forty-Second Street.
Walking back and forth
on the platform.
Too tired to give money.
Staring at the magazine covers
in the kiosk. Someone passes me
from behind, wearing an orange vest
and dragging a black hose.
A car stops and the doors open.
All the faces are plain.
It makes me happy to be
among these people
who leave empty seats
between each other.

Reading the poem, the divorcée finds focus. “It reminded me,” she says to her friend the following week, “that there can be dignity in being alone. Remember the woman in the poem? She sees everything so clearly because she’s alone.”

“Yes,” says the friend. “She has this pride about being alone.”

“No, it’s not pride, exactly — she just sees what is in front of her. Because she’s tired. She can see because she’s exhausted and by herself. And even though those other people are maybe unhappy and poor, like her, she isn’t responsible for them. They don’t need to be changed. They can’t change. All of them, they just are what they are.”

“No shame, no pity.”

“It’s all right to be lonely, because everyone else is, too. There’s company in loneliness.” She pauses.

“It’s like existentialism with a hand warmer.”

“What about that guy in the poem, who goes past, pulling the hose? We could never figure that out in class. “

“I don’t know what that hose is about. Does everything have to represent something?”

Hoagland also discusses this poem in an interview on PBS with Jeffrey Brown, Here's that piece:

TONY HOAGLAND: ... I think it’s a wonderfully unpretentious, lucid capturing of a moment that we all can recognize. And there’s just a pleasure in recognition of the world that we live in. And then, also, there’s a feeling tone underneath it and there’s an intelligence which isn’t assertive, but which offers us the chance to hold that moment in our hands and say, ‘Look at this moment, how unusual it is that the poet says, ‘It makes me happy to be among these people who leave empty seats between each other.’ There’s ‘Too tired to give money.’ Those are not look at me moment. It’s not a poem that laments loneliness or tiredness or poverty. It says that there’s a secret pleasure in the individuality, in self-enclosure, and so that’s not a truth that is popularly represented. It’s sort of off the map. It doesn’t connect with any kind of utilitarian economic motive. It’s not something you can test for, but when it’s held up to us and we can examine it, we think, ‘Yes, it’s true. Loneliness is a strange kind of pleasure and I often take pleasure in it.’ 

What do solitude and self-discovery make you think about? As alluded to in Hoagland's comments, they seem to be avoided by many Americans these days. And yet, one of America's great philosophers has this to say about solitude:

“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Aldo Leopold notes, in the April section of A Sand County Almanac:

There are degrees and kinds of solitude. … I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood; nor do the geese, who have seen more kinds and degrees of aloneness than I have. 

To the extent Bamboo and a Bird encourages us to not simply hide in a crowd, to the extent we learn solitary pleasures, Linda Gregg's poem could well be one that could help save America. Didn't the United States begin with a Declaration of Independence?

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Turning chicken

The Better Half [BH] has decided she wants to raise chickens, primarily laying hens. She thinks she's spending too much money on eggs. (We think that's like reverse egg money, but we're not sure.) We haven't yet shared with her our observation that reasoning such as she's applying is akin to our trying to claim we save money on fish and meat by hunting and fishing. Once, when we were much younger and dumber, we added up the prorated costs of four-wheel drive pick-up trucks, boats (large, small and canoe), guns, dogs, clothing, shells, waders, rods, reels, gas, bait, lures, etc. and divided that by the number pounds of fish we caught and ducks, geese and grouse we shot. 'Nuff said. We figure chickens and eggs may be a comparative bargain.

Our next concern centered on the notion that the BH wants to take more trips--long weekends or week-long vacations, to explore regional attractions such as the Driftless Area, Superior's North Shore, western Minnesota's prairies, etc.... Chickens need regular food and watering. We learned that there are feeders and waterers that hold a week's or more quantity. So that seems to be that, as they say. Heaven knows our sand plain soils can use all the organic matter we can provide and the wild turkeys don't hang around long enough or scratch enough to help out much.

chickens in a chicken tractor would do a more thorough job scratching

Photo by J. Harrington

The location of the prospective coop is being negotiated. The BH's preferred location is inconvenient due to Winter's snow falls and drifting, plus there's no electricity nor any paved path that could be readily snow blown. Alternatively, behind or beside the garage has been proposed as an alternate location with electric plugs readily available and snow-blowing thrown in for free.

If we were younger, we might seriously consider including a few birds for fly-tying feathers. Actually, if the egg-layers aren't as much of a pain as we fear they may be, we might add in some hackle growers just for the heck of it. But first we want to see how well we manage to hold off any skunks, raccoons, coyotes, weasels, mink or black bears that occasionally wander through the property. On the plus side, if we put the birds in a chicken tractor (check Joel Saladin's PolyFace farm) during warmer weather, they should consume most, maybe all, of the ticks. Perhaps their scratchings might even help level out some of our pocket gopher mounds. This could get interesting. Stay tuned! We're getting all organic as hell around here!

                     Woman Feeding Chickens

By Roy Scheele

Her hand is at the feedbag at her waist,

sunk to the wrist in the rustling grain

that nuzzles her fingertips when laced

around a sifting handful. It’s like rain,

like cupping water in your hand, she thinks,

the cracks between the fingers like a sieve,

except that less escapes you through the chinks

when handling grain. She likes to feel it give

beneath her hand’s slow plummet, and the smell,

so rich a fragrance she has never quite

got used to it, under the seeming spell

of the charm of the commonplace. The white

hens bunch and strut, heads cocked, with tilted eyes,

till her hand sweeps out and the small grain flies.

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Weaving a Simple Living Guide

Do you remember the song about "the hip bone's connected to the leg bone?" Simple living skills have similar structural connections. Start with something basic, such as clothing. Cloth comes from fibers which come from plants (flax-farming) or animals (wool from sheep, mohair from goats, etc.-farming or ranching-husbandry) which are collected, processed, spun (Rumpelstiltskin-folk tale) into threads or yarns and then woven into cloth or knitted into garments.

The Yankee magazine guide lists only Spinning and Weaving.

The North House Folk School (Grand Marais) has current classes in:

• clothing & jewelry
• fiber arts (including natural dyes), and
• knitting

tapestry loom

Photo by J. Harrington

My Better Half (proud owner of the loom shown above) shared the following two local (Twin Cities area) resources:

• Textile Center
• Weavers Guild (fall 2015 classes-likely new offerings will post soon)

We've also found the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival in Washington County at the fair grounds to be a fun and educational resource each Spring. And, don't forget to check My Minnesota's side bar for blogs such as Sheep Notes. Interest in folk arts, and therefore folk schools, is growing. We'll see what we can do about creating a separate category just for local folk schools.

Back to those connections again. We recently bought a Midwest Foragers Guide, which includes some plants that can serve for dyes, so foraging resources are probably another resource to keep in mind, in addition to books dedicated to natural dyes. Scout & Morgan book store in Cambridge often has a good selection of both kinds of such books.

Rag Rug

By Rachel Hadas

It has arrived—the long rag rug

    multiply folded. On top, one alien hair.

       I put my face to the folds and smell despair

            palpable as salt air

       in all those rooms and houses, small and smug—

enclosures I passed through on my way where?

Whoever did the weaving appears old

    in my mind’s eye. I can’t make out her face,

       can only conjure up the faintest trace

            of an abstracted grace,

       clack of the loom. Does she know they’ll be sold

these precious things, in some unheard-of place?

I perch her on a hill, precariously

    beyond the reach of waves’ daily boom.

       Sun blazes overhead, but her dim room

            (no bigger than the loom)

       is proof against the violence of the sky

From it I further spin what I once called my home:

Endless horizons fading into haze,

    the mornings dawn came up so rosy clear;

       snails in the garden, sheep bells everywhere,

            the brightness of the air,

       terraces, valleys organizing space

and time’s cessation. So this package here

I’m now unwrapping, in New York, today

    (rugs like rainbows, woven with a grace

       my strands of language barely can express;

            dishrags of dailiness

       dispersed and recombined and freshly gay)

comes to me imbued with images,

slowly and faithfully across the water,

    across the world. It represents a time

       I myself snipped and recombined as rhyme

            as soon as I went home,

       if that is where I am. These rugs recover

the sense of stepping twice into a single river.

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On giving thanks and gratitude

monarch butterfly in a Minnesota driveway

Photo by J. Harrington

Today I'm grateful for the announcement that the first wave?, flock? flight? of monarch butterflies are arriving in Mexico (scroll down on the linked page). That helped me shake off the mood I've picked up from our gloomy, overcast, unseasonably warm weather. I'm not wishing for cold, just sunshine.

goldfinch and nuthatch at feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

The birds, chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches and bluejays, have been piling in to the sunflower feeders as if they expected a major storm. The woodpeckers, red-bellied, downy and hairy, have discovered the suet I set out late last week. That seems to have gone onto whatever they have as a list of things for which they're grateful. Given their size overall, I suspect that birds have small hearts. I wonder if they manage to emulate Piglet.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
– A.A. Milne in Winnie-the-Pooh

I won't even try to speak for anyone but myself on this, but I spend too much time and effort focused on what I don't have and how to get it, rather than on what I do have and how to enjoy it. It's past time for me to follow the advice of a fellow New Englander:

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph's phrasing isn't quite as memorable as Roger Miller's in the eponymous song

"Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
But you can be happy if you've a mind to"

but they both get at pretty much the same thing. I find it much easier to be happy if I've a mind to appreciate what (and who) I have in my life.

There Is No Word

By Tony Hoagland 

There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store

with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack

that should have been bagged in double layers

—so that before you are even out the door

you feel the weight of the jug dragging

the bag down, stretching the thin

plastic handles longer and longer

and you know it’s only a matter of time until

bottom suddenly splits.

There is no single, unimpeachable word

for that vague sensation of something

moving away from you

as it exceeds its elastic capacity        

—which is too bad, because that is the word

I would like to use to describe standing on the street

chatting with an old friend

as the awareness grows in me that he is

no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,

a person with whom I never made the effort—

until this moment, when as we say goodbye

I think we share a feeling of relief,  

a recognition that we have reached

the end of a pretense,   

though to tell the truth

what I already am thinking about

is my gratitude for language—

how it will stretch just so much and no farther;

how there are some holes it will not cover up;

how it will move, if not inside, then

around the circumference of almost anything—

how, over the years, it has given me

back all the hours and days, all the

plodding love and faith, all the

misunderstandings and secrets

I have willingly poured into it.

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The seeds of change

For the first several years after we moved onto The Property, we tried, repeatedly, and failed, repeatedly, to grow prairie flowers and/or fruit bushes on our little piece of sand plain. The blue stem grasses (little, I think) have taken hold but haven't, as far as I can tell, thrived. Nor have they disappeared. We didn't, and still don't, want to spend the money to have someone like Prairie Restoration come and do a controlled burn prior to a replanting. Plus, one of us was, and still is, very nervous about controlled burns close to the house we moved into when we moved onto The Property.

pear tree blossoms

Photo by J. Harrington

In my typical American instant gratification way, I wanted results, now. I thought since the land "belonged" to us, I should be able to bend it to my will. That was twenty-plus years ago. One of the handful of fruit trees that we've planted, a pear tree, has survived. It provides beautiful blossoms in May, pears for us, and dead fall fruit and browse for the neighborhood deer. I'm hopeful that two new apple trees, planted cared for by the Daughter Person and her Husband Person, will make it successfully through this, their second, Winter.

apple tree blossoms

Photo by J. Harrington

For most of the time we've lived here, I've been trying to figure out some way to make The Property earn its keep. Occasional hoards of black flies and deer flies make Summer vegetable gardening work extremely annoying. The blueberry bushes didn't do all that well on the rapidly draining sand. Slowly, very slowly, it started to occur to me that perhaps the best thing to do with The Property was to relax and enjoy what it provides: regular views of deer, turkeys, song birds, wood peckers, geese, ready access to the fields and woods, and much peace and quiet. Just about the time I started thinking I'd finally got a handle on this Living with Nature routine, I read Adrian Ayres Fisher's A Private Solstice Celebration [see right hand side bar] and learned just how far I have to go on my journey to becoming a naturalist. It's more complicated than I remember reading about in A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm.

one of the neighbors

Photo by J. Harrington

To be honest, I'm not sure it would ever have occurred to me to collect local seeds, nor would I have known how to do so. Waterfowl, game fish, deer, a little foraging for fruits and berries, I had learned about them for entertainment and utilitarian purposes. Those who impress me these days can list "Rudbeckia, Echinacia, cup plant, rosin weed, prairie dock, milkweed, goldenrod, aster, Helianthus, bee balm, big and little bluestem, Indian rye, bottlebrush grass..." and know what they're referring to. 

I used to wonder why anyone these days would bother to learn about all those different "useless" plants. Then I remembered a trip I took to Canada years ago for a bear hunt. (It was so long ago I didn't even need a passport, nor did I reduce to possession a bear.) I was in awe about the knowledge the local guides and outfitters had about black bears. They seemed similarly impressed by my ability to identify the various species of ducks in the flooded roadside ditches. We learn about what we care about. We often see only what we're looking for. Recognizing the locals is a sign we know we're home. 

I'm still wondering about setting up bee hives, since we have some frequently hungry neighbors who don't always settle for bird feeders. Maybe I'll decide that watching bears without watching bee hives is the way to go. Maybe not. Whatever I decide will have more to do with what I want to spend time doing than with what I think The Property owes me. It's paid me plenty over the years. In addition to learning from people like Adrian, I try to learn from those like Wendell.


February 2, 1968

In the darkness of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.

- Wendell Berry

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Does greater Minnesota need more more or more better?

I think I've mentioned already that, back when I was in college, taking a course on fundamentals of sociology, the professor said something I've never forgotten when he announced that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." I found myself remembering that this morning as I was reading the Star Tribune's story about greater Minnesota's perception that they are falling behind. I'm only too willing to concede that, in much of politics, perception is reality. That's one of the underlying problems with politics. If we can have Reality TV, why can't we have Reality Politics?

There's a fairly recent analysis done by Minnesota experts that reports that many of greater Minnesota's urban centers are growing (page 10, graphic above). Maybe greater Minnesotans are suffering from that widespread malaise that, not matter what we have, we always want more. We depend on more. I think that's called addiction in various forms, such as former President Bush's reference to America being addicted to oil. That's the way our whole economy is structured, because we fail to distinguish between growth and development. Unlimited growth is an indication of cancer. It isn't feasible on a planet with finite resources. Development is something that can, if done well, continue in perpetuity. We need to think about and act on what we want and what we need to get it. Former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz was noted for his advice to farmers "Get big or get out." According to Wikipedia, "His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs...." Now it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 4 160 acre family farms are much more likely to support local trade center businesses than will one 640 acre corporate farm managed by one family. (That's an oversimplification, but it makes the point.) That approach leads to things like recent proposals to subsidize "workforce housing" to help greater Minnesota communities and businesses grow. A diversified economy that supports the kind of jobs that enable families to buy new homes is a more strategic approach it seems to me. Aaron Brown has noted time and again the need for the Iron Range to diversify its economy. He's correct. The most promising strategy I encountered in more than a decade of working at economic development is know as Economic Gardening. (As an aside, I have a strong preference for earlier versions, before the focus shifted to identifying and supporting "gazelles.")

not all of the Twin Cities is under industrial cranes

Photo by J. Harrington

There are increasing numbers of studies that support the idea that, once humans have a certain level of income, more money doesn't lead to greater happiness. I suspect that may be true of communities as well as individuals. Other than wanting "more," can greater Minnesota's newly elected representatives, or those who have been in office for awhile, tell the rest of us what is needed and wanted? New copper mines to risk polluting some of our greatest natural resources? A state highway moved to permit taconite mining to continue in the face of dropping global demand? More funding to foreign mining entities that promise jobs that don't materialize? Price supports and public policies that help fund the growth of corporate agriculture so we can continue a cheap food policy with fewer families living in farm country? Maybe those in greater Minnesota who believe they should have more might want to spend some time reading the story of King Midas. He got what he wished for.

Work Song

By Joshua Mehigan 

This fastening, unfastening, and heaving—

this is our life. Whose life is it improving?

It topples some. Some others it will toughen.

Work is the safest way to fail, and often

the simplest way to love a son or daughter.

We come. We carp. We’re fired. We worry later.

That man is strange. His calipers are shiny.

His hands are black. For lunch he brings baloney,

and, offered coffee, answers, “Thank you, no.”

That man, with nothing evil left to do

and two small skills to stir some interest up,

fits in the curtained corner of a shop.

The best part of our life is disappearing

into the john to sneak a smoke, or staring

at screaming non-stop mills, our eyes unfocused,

or standing judging whose sick joke is sickest.

Yet nothing you could do could break our silence.

We are a check. Do not expect a balance.

That is a wrathful man becoming older,

a nobody like us, turned mortgage holder.

We stay until the bell. That man will stay

ten minutes more, so no one can complain.

Each day, by then, he’s done exactly ten.

Ten what, exactly, no one here can say.

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Happy New Year! Today is the first day of ...?

Welcome to 2015! Some day, perhaps far, far away, today may be referred to as "a long, long time ago." What you do today, and how you do it, may be unmentioned in future times or places, or it may be etched into the world's time line to be read as your legacy. Do you want to be remembered? How? What are you doing about it?

sunrise, the future starts now

Photo by J. Harrington

New Year’s Day

By Kim Addonizio 

The rain this morning falls   

on the last of the snow

and will wash it away. I can smell   

the grass again, and the torn leaves

being eased down into the mud.   

The few loves I’ve been allowed

to keep are still sleeping

on the West Coast. Here in Virginia

I walk across the fields with only   

a few young cows for company.

Big-boned and shy,

they are like girls I remember

from junior high, who never   

spoke, who kept their heads

lowered and their arms crossed against   

their new breasts. Those girls

are nearly forty now. Like me,   

they must sometimes stand

at a window late at night, looking out   

on a silent backyard, at one

rusting lawn chair and the sheer walls   

of other people’s houses.

They must lie down some afternoons   

and cry hard for whoever used

to make them happiest,   

and wonder how their lives

have carried them

this far without ever once

explaining anything. I don’t know   

why I’m walking out here

with my coat darkening

and my boots sinking in, coming up

with a mild sucking sound   

I like to hear. I don’t care

where those girls are now.   

Whatever they’ve made of it

they can have. Today I want   

to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk

a little longer in the cold

blessing of the rain,   

and lift my face to it.

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To protect (what?) and to serve (whom?)

I've been struggling today to not go off on a super rant. I completely disagree with the outcome of the grand jury's deliberations on the Michael Brown killing. I'm also distressed about the killing, by a uniformed police officer, of a 12 year old in Cleveland, OH. As I was pondering how to write about these events, and what they have to do with the themes usually found here, I found myself flashing back to the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. I was in college, being chewed out in the dean's office for something or someone or other that I hadn't shown proper respect. The news that the president had been shot came over the dean's radio and my alleged misdeeds became much less significant.

Five years later, in 1968, we lost, to assassins with guns, Martin Luther King in April and Robert Kennedy in June. Those two killings preceded a late August Democratic National Convention, which was noted for, among other things, its association with a police riot, according to the Walker Report. That time, eight police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury.

storm clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

In 1968, these United States were suffering, I believe, from a lack of community and comity almost as bad as today's. We were a nation motivated, in my opinion, too much by fear and too little by other fundamental characteristics of humanity. Today I believe that we have exceeded our previous nadir and are continuing to sink further  into hostility at a time when we need, more than ever, to find ways to work together.

To lead this back to today's title and to Ferguson, MO, Aldo Leopold, in his profound Sand County Almanac, proposed that we need a land ethic.

"Leopold understood that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of all. One of his philosophical achievements was the idea that this ‘community’ should be enlarged to include non-human elements such as soils, waters, plants, and animals, “or collectively: the land.”"

a new day

Photo by J. Harrington

How do you think we're going to be able to enlarge our sense of community to "the land"when we have seem to lack a sense of community with our fellow humans? Do you think we'll be able to respond successfully to issues that may require a land ethic, like climate change, if we can't, as a community, as a society, agree that police need better legal standards about when the use of deadly force is appropriate and reasonable and to provide those standards before we experience another tragedy? I fear that otherwise the police may become widely perceived as serving only to protect the property and wealth of the 1% from the rest of us. That is something I hope none of us would support. All of the models for a sustainable world I'm familiar with include as necessary elements: equity, economy and ecology. From what I see in the news these days, we have a long way to go on each of these fundamental considerations, but, perhaps, most of all on equity. A sustainable United States is something that should give all of us reason to be thankful, if we can attain it.

Justice, Come Down

By Minnie Bruce Pratt 

A huge sound waits, bound in the ice,

in the icicle roots, in the buds of snow

on fir branches, in the falling silence

of snow, glittering in the sun, brilliant

as a swarm of gnats, nothing but hovering

wings at midday. With the sun comes noise.

Tongues of ice break free, fall, shatter,

splinter, speak. If I could write the words.

Simple, like turning a page, to say Write

what happened, but this means a return

to the cold place where I am being punished.

Alone to the stony circle where I am frozen,

the empty space, children, mother, father gone,

lover gone away. There grief still sits

and waits, grim, numb, keeping company with

anger. I can smell my anger like sulfur-

struck matches. I wanted what had happened

to be a wall to burn, a window to smash.

At my fist the pieces would sparkle and fall.

All would be changed. I would not be alone.

Instead I have told my story over and over

at parties, on the edge of meetings, my life

clenched in my fist, my eyes brittle as glass.

Ashamed, people turned their faces away

from the woman ranting, asking: Justice,

stretch out your hand. Come down, glittering,

from where you have hidden yourself away. 

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