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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Shining some light on the season

Sunrise in our area is clearly returning toward the north. Around Christmas it rose far enough south that it didn’t get in my eyes when I was at my desk looking out the window facing east. This morning I had to draw the drape on the southern side of that window to keep the sun out of my eyes so I could see the computer screen in front of me. By May, sunrise will have moved far enough north that it once again won’t be bothersome but for the next couple of months it will be rising in the middle half of the window.

February sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

Many of the oak trees around the house are still holding onto their dead leaves. Some will loosen their grip from time to time but many will hold on until this year’s leaf buds begin to swell along about late April. I’m not sure if any foresters have checked, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that Minnesota oaks drop leaves almost every one of the eleven months of the year that it snows in this state.

Based on what I glimpsed late yesterday afternoon after posting the day’s blog, I’m not the only one anticipating spring’s arrival. I saw what I think were four sandhill cranes fly over the house and treeline toward the Sunrise river pools in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. Alternatively, it might have been four Canada geese but the wing shapes looked more like cranes. By the time I noticed them they were too far away to be sure of the size/distance relationship. In either case, it was a sign of spring even if somewhat premature. I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open to affirm any  additional arrivals in the weeks ahead.

Day After Daylight Savings

By Margaret Hasse

Blue numbers on my bedside clock

tell I forgot to change the hour.

This sets routines on haywire.

 

Like a domestic goat staked

to its circle of earth,

I don’t do well untethered.

 

I have no hunger for early dinner,

become confused by the sound

of children who seem out

 

too late for a school night.

They’ve found an extra helping

of daylight to romp on new grass

 

and can’t contain themselves,

strip off jackets, scatter

like a rag of ponies.

 

Whatever time says,

their joy insists

on springing forward.

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Casting some light on Winter Solstice.

As this is written, we're midway through the briefest day of the year, leading to the longest night. Local sunrise this morning occurred at 7:48 am. Sunset will be 4:35 pm. If we've calculated correctly, that provides 8 hours and 47 minutes between sunrise and sunset today. We have no expectations of seeing any sunshine during that period although we've read somewhere on the internet (so it must be true) that December of last year was even more cloudy than this month has been. Sigh. Clear proof that less bad isn't the same as good.

Furthermore, we just noticed that yesterday's sunrise was at 7:48 am and sunset at 7:34 pm. That appears to give yesterday a minute less daylight than today. Tomorrow's sunrise and sunset are at 7:49 and 4:35, again a minute less daylight than today. Could our Minnesota Weatherguide be in error? It's time and dates are for the Twin Cities. The (online) Time and Date Calculator informs us that, at St. Croix Falls (about 30 to 35 miles North of St. Paul), today's sunrise was at 7:47 and sunset will be at 4:30 for a total of 8 hours and 43 minutes of daylight. The differences in day length at this time of year are measured in seconds (or less) and the Weatherguide doesn't reflect that level of sensitivity, but you may be heartened to know that, by month's end, we will have gained 47 seconds of daylight locally. No guarantee how much sunlight we'll actually get to enjoy, but that's standard operating procedure these days.

THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER

So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—Listen!!

All the long echoes sing the same delight,

This shortest day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

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This Summer Day #phenology

I checked in my copy of the Minnesota Weatherguide Engagement Calendar this morning. Sunrise is now about forty-five minutes later than it was on the Summer solstice. Sunset has shrunk by about the same amount. We're now enjoying an hour and a half less daylight than we did about eight weeks ago.

butterfly and bee nectaring

Photo by J. Harrington

We have lots of goldenrod in bloom around the "wet spot" in the back yard. The swamp milkweed is attracting butterflies and bees. Today's temperatures and humidity have dropped enough that it's a pleasure to have windows and doors open around the house to let a very pleasant breeze waft through. In response to the lower humidity and temps, I'm beginning to show a few indications of ambition but nothing serious enough  to warrant concern.

I have no idea what species they were, but today, while doing some outdoor chores, I noticed two different dragonflies in the back yard. There are several dozen possibilities for this time of Summer, according to the cheatsheet I created from Kurt Mead's Dragonflies of the North Woods, but it's been awhile since I've noticed any dragonflies flying about. Maybe I need to pay more attention and spend more time outside.

spotted horsemint

Photo by J. Harrington

The first tumbling seed heads from the purple love grass started bouncing across the fields today. Or, today was the first time I saw any pretending to be tumbleweeds. Late afternoon sun has the grass stems glowing pinkish-purple. If it was growing closer to the spotted horsemint's green-tinted white leaves, the combination would be spectacular.

Earlier today it dawned on me that, as I've written these posts over the years, I've identified quite a few different plants that are growing on our property, but haven't tried to list them all in one place. That probably means I know more than I know I know. I'm going to start a consolidated listing as a way to focus on what I've learned rather than how much there still is to discover. I suspect that will let me feel at least a little better about the state of my own little world. It has more biodiversity than I've acknowledged.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

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"Being there" on a Spring morning

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

Spring morning ducks in flight

Photo by J. Harrington

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

Spring morning swans sleeping (center right)

Photo by J. Harrington

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

Spring Morning 

Marion Strobel

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

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It's mud season! #phenology

a gravel road early in mud season

Photo by J. Harrington

One week from today is March 1, the first day of meteorological Spring. Today the temperature is in the mid-40's, the sky is blue and the sun is shining. That combination leads to melting snow turning into rills and rivulets which, on gravel roads and unpaved shoulders makes mud and puddles. I don't doubt that we'll see more snow this season and, perhaps, well into astronomical Spring. But we know it won't last, at least that's what we hope. I'll try to not spoil it all by becoming too optimistic.

some leaf buds balloon in early Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

In two weeks Daylight Savings will return, bringing with it longer evenings and later sunrises. I've yet to settle on the details for planting a Three Sisters garden, so that needs to move near the top of the list. There's a couple of branches on one of our oaks that  catch the roll over protection on the tractor each time I mow under the tree. If I'm going to trim them I need to do it in the next week or so to minimize the chances of exposing the trees to oak wilt. Can you tell I'm getting excited about spending time outside? A poet that I probably don't read often enough has a wonderful poem about this time of year. Here's e.e. cummings on Spring:

[in Just-]

By E. E. Cummings

in Just- 

spring          when the world is mud- 

luscious the little 

lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 

running from marbles and 

piracies and it's 

spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 

old balloonman whistles 

far          and             wee 

and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it's 

spring 

and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 

far 

and 

wee

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What color is February? #phenology?

Once upon a time, I might have answered "White," for the snow that seems to be forever falling. But, after scanning the pictures I've taken for the past handfuls of Februarys, I want to claim that February is the Red Month. Here's why:

Valentine's Day treats on red

Photo by J. Harrington

The easy, obvious, answer comes in five days, when we celebrate Valentine's Day. Hearts are red, candy, much of it, is red. Cookies are covered with red frosting or jam (raspberry or strawberry). That's stuff that we humans pretty much seem to take for granted.

red osier dogwood brightening in February

Photo by J. Harrington

February is also the month when red osier dogwood begins to turn bright red, helping to return color to the local floodplains. We're beginning to see hints of it and are hopeful for bright red branches soon. If we get enough snow melt, February can bring glimpses of British soldier lichens, with their red caps.

male cardinal on February snow

Photo by J. Harrington

We realize that male cardinals are red all year 'round, but their cardinal red is often highlighted in February by its contrast with the glistening whiteness of freshly fallen snow.

February sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

Finally, for now, February makes it obvious that the sun is returning, days lengthen, and yet, dawn occurs late enough that there's little suffering involved in getting to see a spectacular sunrise.

Some of these bursts of red may occur other months. Red strawberries raspberries ripen in Summer. Apples in Autumn, but, except for Christmas season, I can't think of another month with so much red becoming obvious throughout the countryside. Can you? If you can, we may have to start lists and compare which month brings the most red to us. Or, are we looking for the month with red that's most obvious?

The History of Red

By Linda Hogan

First

there was some other order of things

never spoken

but in dreams of darkest creation.

Then there was black earth,

lake, the face of light on water.

Then the thick forest all around

that light,

and then the human clay

whose blood we still carry

rose up in us

who remember caves with red bison

painted in their own blood,

after their kind.

A wildness

swam inside our mothers,

desire through closed eyes,

a new child

wearing the red, wet mask of birth,

delivered into this land

already wounded,

stolen and burned

beyond reckoning.

Red is this yielding land

turned inside out

by a country of hunters

with iron, flint and fire.

Red is the fear

that turns a knife back

against men, holds it at their throats,

and they cannot see the claw on the handle,

the animal hand

that haunts them

from some place inside their blood.

So that is hunting, birth,

and one kind of death.

Then there was medicine, the healing of wounds.

Red was the infinite fruit

of stolen bodies.

The doctors wanted to know

what invented disease

how wounds healed

from inside themselves

how life stands up in skin,

if not by magic.

They divined the red shadows of leeches

that swam in white bowls of water:

they believed stars

in the cup of sky.

They cut the wall of skin

to let

what was bad escape

but they were reading the story of fire

gone out

and that was a science.

As for the animal hand on death’s knife,

knives have as many sides

as the red father of war

who signs his name

in the blood of other men.

And red was the soldier

who crawled

through a ditch

of human blood in order to live.

It was the canal of his deliverance.

It is his son who lives near me.

Red is the thunder in our ears

when we meet.

Love, like creation,

is some other order of things.

Red is the share of fire

I have stolen

from root, hoof, fallen fruit.

And this was hunger.

Red is the human house

I come back to at night

swimming inside the cave of skin

that remembers bison.

In that round nation

of blood

we are all burning,

red, inseparable fires

the living have crawled

and climbed through

in order to live

so nothing will be left

for death at the end.

This life in the fire, I love it.

I want it,

this life.

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A North Country Winter status report

In meteorological terms, we'll hit mid-Winter in a few days, on January 15. Astronomically it'll be a couple of weeks longer, on February 4. That's at least mildly encouraging. Winter is like a deep, dark forest. We can only go halfway in before we're on our way out.

a January sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

One of the nice things about Winter in the North Country is that the sunrises and sunsets are often spectacular, and sunrise these days is late enough (about 7:45 am) to make it pretty painless to observe. On several recent days the dreary cloud cover that hangs around all day was, at sunrise, broken enough along the horizon and the tree line to permit enjoyment of our part of the earth turning toward the sun again. The rest of the day the sky and the sun were pretty much hidden behind a veil of clouds.

Another nice thing about Minnesota Winters is that they provide more guilt-free time for reading, and writing, when I don't feel I should be outside doing something else. Over the past Winters, I've enjoyed reading several of Terry Tempest Williams books, most particularly Finding Beauty in a Broken World. Late last year I read her most recent book, Erosion: Essays of Undoing, and a couple of years before that When Women Were Birds. This morning I stumbled into an essay by TTW on Why I Write. When I couldn't find that essay on TTW's web site, I discovered an internet blogger who had reformatted the essay into a manifesto which, to my eye, looks, and reads, suspiciously like a poem. I love it. What do you think?

"Why I Write"

by Terry Tempest Williams

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.
I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white.
I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue.
I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things
differently perhaps the world will change.
I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends.
I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure.
I write against power and for democracy.
I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.
I write in a solitude born out of community.
I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that make me complacent.
I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain.
I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know.
I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness.
I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy.
I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt.
I write out of my anger and into my passion.
I write from the stillness of night anticipating -- always anticipating.
I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around me.
I write because I believe in words.
I write because it is a dance with paradox.
I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in
sand.
I write because it is the way I take long walks.
I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness.
I write with a knife, carving each word from the generosity of trees.
I write as ritual.
I write out of my inconsistencies. I write with the colors of memory.
I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as witness to what I imagine.
I write by grace and grit.
I write for the love of ideas.
I write for the surprise of a sentence.
I write with the belief of alchemists.
I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short.
I write knowing I can be killed by own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by understanding and misunderstanding.
I write past the embarassment of exposure.
I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds -- and then I realise it doesn't matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass.
I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.
I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love. 

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A tale of two marshes

Our property abuts the Eastern edge of the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area [W.M.A.]. Several months ago we picked up a pamphlet published by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources briefly summarizing key information items about the W.M.A. We were aware of most of the information in the pamphlet but one item in particular surprised us.

The Carlos Avery W.M.A., with its extensive marshes, was purchased by the Minnesota Conservation Commission in 1933 after the Crex Carpet Company allowed the land to become tax forfeit.

early morning, Carlos Avery marshes, Pool 1

Photo by J. Harrington

Our surprise was triggered by the mention of Crex Carpet Company. We've visited Crex Meadows in Wisconsin a couple of times and have enjoyed browsing the visitors center there before we drove the roads to observe wildlife, especially waterfowl.

Crex Meadows history sign

Photo by J. Harrington

The "Wildlife Education and Visitors Center" at Crex Meadows is, we believe, operated under the auspices of The Friends of Crex Meadows. We have, from time to time, wondered why there isn't a comparable organization working with the Minnesota DNR and, logically, the Minnesota Audubon Society and/or the Wild River Audubon chapter to offer opportunities and services similar to those found at Crex Meadows. (One thing a "Friends of Carlos Avery W.M.A." could do is cross-link and update the fragmented and inconsistent official web pages for the W.M.A.)

Perhaps it's because Aldo Leopold settled in Wisconsin and not Minnesota. Perhaps it's because Gordon MacQuarrie, the "rock star outdoor writer" was from Superior and not Duluth. In any case, Wisconsin seems to do more with less in the outdoor recreation and natural resources sector than our adopted home of Minnesota. Could we here in the North Star state overcome any "not invented here" syndrome and emulate, but not copy, some of successful strategies of our neighbor to the East?

At Great Pond

by Mary Oliver

At Great Pond
the sun, rising,
scrapes his orange breast
on the thick pines,
and down tumble
a few orange feathers into
the dark water.
On the far shore
a white bird is standing
like a white candle ---
or a man, in the distance,
in the clasp of some meditation ---
while all around me the lilies
are breaking open again
from the black cave
of the night.
Later, I will consider
what I have seen ---
what it could signify ---
what words of adoration I might
make of it, and to do this
I will go indoors to my desk ---
I will sit in my chair ---
I will look back
into the lost morning
in which I am moving, now,
like a swimmer,
so smoothly,
so peacefully,
I am almost the lily ---
almost the bird vanishing over the water
on its sleeves of night.

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Does this pass the smell test?

Dog-walking time this morning was about 5:15 am. SiSi and I headed down the driveway and then South along the township road.There was almost enough daylight to see by so I turned off the flashlight and humored SiSi as she explored and inhaled whatever aromas she was encountering along the road and the roadside. I'm still trying to figure out if dogs have some sort of mental filing cabinet they use to match smells with creatures.

SiSi relaxing after a walk

Photo by J. Harrington

As we walked about a 10th of a mile or so, the light levels increased enough that we could see about that far. We turned and started to head back toward the house. That's when the first whitetail doe came bounding across the field on the East side of the road, left across the road and disappeared into the woods on our property. SiSi was mildly startled, since we rarely encounter other critters during our morning walks. A second doe stayed in the field, headed North, parallel to the road, and was waiting in the neighbor's drive to observe SiSi and I as we passed by. The "driveway" doe didn't cross the road while we were still outside.

what does a whitetail doe in Summer's grass smell like?

Photo by J. Harrington

When we walked past the area where the first deer had crossed the road and entered the woods, SiSi had to recheck all the aromas she could find. Perhaps that filing cabinet simply holds smells until the dog can match them with flora, fauna, or individuals? I'm still clueless and SiSi's not talking.

The Past

Louise Glück- 1943-

Small light in the sky appearing
suddenly between
two pine boughs, their fine needles

now etched onto the radiant surface
and above this
high, feathery heaven—

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine,
most intense when the wind blows through it
and the sound it makes equally strange,
like the sound of the wind in a movie—

Shadows moving. The ropes
making the sound they make. What you hear now
will be the sound of the nightingale, Chordata,
the male bird courting the female—

The ropes shift. The hammock
sways in the wind, tied
firmly between two pine trees.

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine.

It is my mother’s voice you hear
or is it only the sound the trees make
when the air passes through them

because what sound would it make,
passing through nothing?

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Getting the state squared away

As we've noted numerous times elsewhere on this blog, we were raised in New England, mostly in and around Boston, Massachusetts. Among the many things for which Boston is famous or infamous are the street layouts that wander like cow paths. Sections, section line roads and 36 mile square townships were not part of our New England heritage. Minnesota, on the other hand, was surveyed in accord with the Land Ordinance Act of 1785.

The Public Land Survey System is coordinate-based, with all distances and bearings made from north-south running meridians and east-west base lines. The largest subdivision of land is the Public Land Survey Township (as opposed to political township), and measures six miles square. Each township is comprised of 36 sections, and each section has an area of one square mile (640 acres).

Over the weekend, we started reading Creating Minnesota,  which we originally picked up a year or two ago in Ely at Piragis. The approach and writing are enjoyable, but we were somewhat taken aback when we read, in the first chapter,

The Land ordinance of 1785 established a system for surveying and dividing the United States into six-mile squares, counted westward from a point on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. Subsequent land-law refinements divided those squares into thirty-six one-mile square sections, then each of those into four 640-acre quarter sections, ...

We're in complete agreement down to that last phrase. A one mile square section is 640 acres. We're not sure whether the concept got lost in editing or the arithmetic wasn't crossed checked by a copy-editor at the Minnesota Historical Society Press, the publisher, but we hope, and expect, to find no more such anomalies in the book. How this one slipped through is beyond us, or maybe the description and arithmetic are fine and we need a remedial reading course? In any case, we're looking forward to learning more about the history of our adopted state and region of the country.

With no segue whatsoever, we'll note that this morning's cool pre-sunrise temperature was very much to our liking, much more so than the flocks of mosquitos that descended on us as, later, we did some maintenance on our utility trailer at mid-day. We had, incorrectly and foolhardily, anticipated that today's breeze would protect us. We subsequently discovered that one of our mosquito-repellant shirts needs a repellant refresh since the mosquitos seem to lick the material before trying to puncture it and me to get their drop of blood. Winter and road repair; polar vortex and legions of bugs. Our Minnesota really needs more than two seasons.

THE SURVEYOR

"Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set." 
---Proverbs 22:28

He thrives on patterns,
    his marks and monuments
    transform a wilderness
    and by his carefully tagged
    and numbered squares,
    neat roads, correction lines
    and small cadastral lots
    he clothes in certainty,
    in geometrical designs,
    man's ancient rights.

He scans the skies,
    reading some far-off star
    by which he plots
    meridians and makes his maps,
    stitching a new-found world
    into a patchwork quilt,
    a net of metes and bounds,
    so lands may know their own
    and live in peace.

                                        -- DON W. THOMSON

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Sunrise, Sunset

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

Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears

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

late July sunrise, DSLR

Photo by J. Harrington

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

mid-May sunrise, iPhone 6

Photo by J. Harrington

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

An American Sunrise

By Joy Harjo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz

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

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

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

soon.

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Spring? Ahead?

We sit here pensively awaiting the onslaught of today's "wintry mix" followed by hours of heavy wet snow falling. Earlier we did grocery shopping so we wouldn't run out of necessities like coffee, tissues or tp. Since the food co-op in Cambridge is next to a book store (as is the one in Stillwater), we picked up a couple more books, just in case it snows more than we are anticipating. It wouldn't do to be snow bound and run out of reading material. Around here that's highly unlikely but we wanted to be sure.

some years dogwood brightens as early as February

Photo by J. Harrington

While driving around this morning, we noticed that the local thicket(?), copse(?), of dogwood stems have gained their bright red Spring colors. The nearby Sunrise River is ice covered and the intervening marshes are snow bound. Will we get a slow melt or a rapid one once the new accumulations of snow cease?Is this Winter's pattern of relatively mild, then extreme cold, then record-setting snowfall, going to be a new "normal" in our disrupted climate? We hope not. A more gradual buildup, peak and diminishment is to be much preferred. It's easier to adapt to and design for more gentle transitions than abrupt extremes.

sunrise occurs at sun up and vice versa

Photo by J. Harrington

The fact that we "Spring ahead" tonight doesn't mean that we'll get any less snow. It'll just continue to fall until a later hour in the morning. Mother Nature is far from bound by our arbitrary and capricious boundaries, time zones, or seasonal definitions. But you knew that already, didn't you. Here's a history of Daylight Savings Time in case you care. Frankly, we don't care whether we're on standard or daylight time. We're tired of changing twice a year for no real benefit.

Day after Daylight Savings

By Margaret Hasse

Blue numbers on my bedside clock

tell I forgot to change the hour.

This sets routines on haywire.

Like a domestic goat staked

to its circle of earth.

I don’t do well untethered.

I have no hunger for early dinner,

become confused by the sound

of children who seem out

too late for a school night.

They’ve found an extra helping

of daylight to romp on new grass

and can’t contain themselves,

strip off jackets, scatter

like a rag of ponies.

Whatever time says,

their joy insists

on springing forward.

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Happy Thanksgiving! Will you choose to be thankful today?

Once again it's officially the "Holiday Season." Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is underway. That's the milestone we use each year. We wish you all the warmest, most desirable and wonderful holidays ever. Don't forget to share what you have with those who have less.

we're grateful for November sunrises like this

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we're trying to decide if it's time to be grateful that Minnesota's North Country has found a solution to global warming. This season our skies have been cloudy almost all day, almost every day. Yesterday's sunrise looked sort of like the picture above. Today we couldn't find a sunrise, the clouds are so solid and thick, but we are grateful we are free to choose to be cheerful regardless. [Read Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”] If sunlight is limited to around 10% or 20% of normal, does that solve climate disruption? Probably not, since the solution needs to be global, right?

With that out of the way, we can think of no better wish for all of us this season than to note and live by Frankl's observation and to choose to live in a way like the following:

Max Ehrmann

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and 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 the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and 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 with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

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Pining for locally grown decorations

Rarely, but every once in a while, a small dash of common sense strikes us in a timely fashion. This week we're slowly getting Christmas decorations in order. Along the South side of the drive, a number of pine saplings have grown where we don't want them. They've sprung up close enough together to at least partially block the discharge from the snow blower. We've now decided some of them will get cut tomorrow to fill in gaps around the decorations near the front porch, the decorations that are under the net lights (see yesterday's photo). Until this morning we had just been contemplating cutting those pines and throwing them on the brush pile to be burned. We feel much better having thought of an interim use. Might be some of our old New England "use it up, wear it out" background getting satisfied.

at least some of these will help decorate Christmas this year

Photo by J. Harrington

To be honest, someone, probably the Better Half, used pine branches for filler last year (or the year before) in the decorations, so that's most likely where we got the idea. We're just pleasantly surprised that this year we thought of cutting some pines before all the Christmas decorating was done.

Today we were grateful that we were awake this morning and looking our the window in time to watch a beautiful sunrise climb up over a band of clouds. We played a little with our camera but weren't really satisfied with any of the results. There seems to be something about digital cameras that dislikes the reds of sunrises and sunsets. Whenever we take pictures, they look washed out. After watching the Eastern sky for awhile, we then enjoyed the sunlight slowly descending down the tree tops behind the house. That didn't happen until half an hour or more after the sun came over the Eastern horizon. Seeing the fresh start to a day is often one of the best times of day as far as we're concerned. We're grateful we saw the sun today for a brief while first thing.

Home

Bruce Weigl

I didn’t know I was grateful
            for such late-autumn
                        bent-up cornfields

yellow in the after-harvest
             sun before the
                        cold plow turns it all over

into never.
            I didn’t know
                        I would enter this music

that translates the world
             back into dirt fields
                         that have always called to me

as if I were a thing
              come from the dirt,
                          like a tuber,

or like a needful boy. End
             lonely days, I believe. End the exiled
                           and unraveling strangeness.

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