Respite, despite ...

This was a heartening and fun morning following a beautiful sunset yesterday. First, we saw the sun rise, a rare occurrence these days. Second, we had several hours worth of blue skies and sunshine. Gone now, of course. Third, the two wild turkey hens that have been visiting the back yard searching for feeder droppings returned. Fourth, one of the hens flew up to and landed on the deck. [I didn’t see that.] Fifth, Harry the beagle noticed a wild turkey on his deck and scampered across the living and dining rooms toward the walkout door. An oncoming beagle prompted the turkey to fly away across the yard. [I did see that.] Harry seemed satisfied with the job he had done and settled down instead of running into the glass door.

January sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

The best part of all of that was experiencing SUNSHINE! The second best part was the look on Harry’s face as the turkey flew off the deck.

Most of January is gone and I’ve done little but start to organize the tax filing info and complain about cloudy, cold, snowy days. No playing with the fly fishing toys; nor trying to tie one of the flies from the kit we bought a year, or was it two, ago. We hereby publicly announce that, after the envelope of materials has been delivered to the tax preparer [by mid-February we hope] we will promptly clear a desk, start tying a fly, and report back here by the end of February any progress. This will be a Valentine’s Day present to prove we love ourself at least sometimes. It is also a motivation to help us endure the upcoming return of single digit high temperatures later this week and at least into next. Sigh!

Sounds of the Winter

Walt Whitman - 1819-1892

Sounds of the winter too,
Sunshine upon the mountains—many a distant strain
From cheery railroad train—from nearer field, barn, house
The whispering air—even the mute crops, garner’d apples, corn,
Children’s and women’s tones—rhythm of many a farmer and of flail,
And old man’s garrulous lips among the rest, Think not we give out yet,
Forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt.

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The growth of Spring #phenology

We have a few, very few, patches of green showing up in the duff in front of the house. It's not clear what's growing in one location although the Better Half believes they may be dame's rocket. The second spot includes violets and wild strawberry plants that are encroaching on what used to be lawn. We've decided we prefer the more natural look.

dame's rocket? perhaps

Photo by J. Harrington

violets and wild strawberry leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

The buds on the red maples have begun to swell noticeably. If we get a string of sunny days, a big if, we expect hope to see the start of leaf out in a week or three. That brings us to the point where we feel obliged to call your attention to the classic Spring Is a New Beginning. After all, from where we sit typing this, we can almost see the beginning of April.

This morning the deck sparkled with frost and much of the pond north of the house was covered in skim ice. Despite such temporary setbacks, we know that warmer days and greener landscapes will arrive on unspecified but inevitable future days. We're doing our part by slowly but surely letting a little more optimism slip into our outlook every day. There's not much point in carrying old baggage to a new beginning.

April Come She Will

Lyrics:

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks, she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning of her flight

August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old

© 1965 Words and Music by Paul Simon

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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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Happy February!

No sooner had January said au revoir than the sun came out this morning! That's at least a little bit of progress. Driving home from dinner last night, there was still light in the sky until a little after 5:30 pm, so that might have been a (can't resist) foreshadowing. Now that February's here, before we know it, we'll be complaining about heat and humidity. 😉

We all know that February is Black History Month. It's also the month in which we celebrate:

• Groundhog Day
• Valentine's Day
• Presidents Day
• Leap Day
• Love your pet day, and, my favorite,
• Do a grouch a favor day

early February hoarfrost

Photo by J. Harrington

For a complete list of other observances in February, click here. February is also the month in which the Better Half's birthday, which occurs in early March, sneaks up on me almost every year to surprise me with a "how did the day after tomorrow get to be her birthday and why haven't I ordered a cake and bought a present?" There are disadvantages to this being the shortest month, another one being that, since presidential elections occur on leap years, we're subjected to an extra day of political campaigning and fundraising. Then again, February is the month in which we've had the most beautiful hoarfrost occurrences I've ever seen. The full moon this month, known as the Snow Moon, occurs February 9 locally.

Convergence

By Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Through the bedroom window 

a February sunrise, fog suspended 

between pines. Intricate crystals— 

hoarfrost lace on a cherry tree. 

My son calls out, awake. We sway, 

blanket-wrapped, his head nuzzling 

my neck. Hoarfrost, tree—I point, 

shaping each word. Favorable 

conditions: a toddler’s brain, hard 

data-mining, a system’s approach. 

Hoar, he hears. His hand reaches 

to the wallpaper lion. Phenomena 

converge: warmth, humidity, 

temperature’s sudden plunge;  

a child’s brain, objects, sound. 

Eyes widening, he opens his mouth 

and roars. 

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Yule like this, we bet!

In our neck of the woods, the shortest day is less than a week away. Our Winter Solstice will occur at 10:19 pm CST on Saturday, December 21. Today, after resisting its purchase four or five times, we decided to honor the Solstice and bought a copy of Susan Cooper and Carson Ellis's The Shortest Day. It's nominally a children's book. At this time of year, each of us should honor our inner child as well as our outer children. The book mentions a web site and an organization that performs the poem on which the book is based. The organization is The Revels. It's based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, our old stomping grounds. It's almost like home for the holidays time.

Also today, a Christmas present arrived early(?). We've been enjoying blue skies and sunshine since late morning. Our mood is improved about 317%. Shorter days leading up to and away from Winter Solstice can be, and often are, hard to take. Lack of sunshine has been too often compounded by cloudy days. Joni Mitchell warned us about it in her song Big Yellow Taxi:

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

We have dearly missed the sun this month. In fact, to complement our heartiest endorsement of The Shortest Day, and in anticipation of days getting longer, brighter and full of peace next year, we'll share the lyrics to one of our favorite John Denver songs.

sunshine can be magical

Photo by J. Harrington

Sunshine on My Shoulders

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a day that I could give you, I’d give to you the day just like today.
If I had a song that I could sing for you, I’d sing a song to make you feel this way.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
If I had a tale that I could tell you, I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile.
If I had a wish that I could wish for you, I’d make a wish for sunshine for all the while.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry.
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely, sunshine almost always makes me high.
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high.  Sunshine almost always…

(written by John Denver)

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As Solstice approaches...

The Better Half [BH] spent much of this morning whipping together dough for Christmas cookies, while I baked a loaf of artisan sourdough whole wheat bread. As the bread finished cooling, BH started baking cookies. Working at the kitchen counter, there's a view through the walkout doors to the deck that was dazzling this morning with the sun-brightened snow cover. All in all we had one of the more pleasant mornings to come along in awhile.

Winter sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

Family have been hinting that my Christmas list was more than a little on the sparse side. Since most of my needs and wants can be readily met, it took some serious thinking to come up with additions, almost all of which have to do with fly fishing. That's left me in a looking-forward-to-Spring mode with all of Winter and then some still ahead of us. If we had made more trips to some of the waters open to Winter fishing, ... but no, we hadn't. So now we're feeling a bit like the atheist wearing a tuxedo in a coffin, all dressed up with no place to go.

cookies for every occasion

Photo by J. Harrington

Back in our younger days, we made occasional trips to the Rexberg, Idaho area to fly fish in the Summer. It was always a challenge to wait until the snow melt runoff had ended and the waters were more fishable. We may be looking at something similar around here with the high waters we have going into Winter. That's something to keep an eye on. Meanwhile, there's Christmas cookies and New Year's cookies and Valentines cookies and we'll research to see if there's such a thing as Winter Solstice cookies or Imbolc cookies. According to Druidry, this time of year

... the words of the Druid ceremony ask "Cast away, O wo/man whatever impedes the appearance of light." In darkness we throw on to the ground the scraps of material we have been carrying that signify those things which have been holding us back, ...

During the next few weeks, we're going to see if we can identify those scraps of material we want to throw on the ground as the year is being reborn. As we get older, the fewer things impeding the appearance of light, the more delight we find in our days. May your holiday season be full of light and  love.

The Coming of Light

Mark Strand - 1934-2014

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light. 
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, 
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, 
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine 
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

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A morning's magic moments

Most days early morning dog walks come closer to being a daily chore than a climb through a wardrobe door to Narnia. This morning wasn't one of those walks. The air was humid and the fields were cloaked in mist. Something had walked along the road and left an intriguing trail that SiSi was determined to follow. The sky was magically clear and highlighted with a few puffy clouds, a half moon and a morning star. As we approached the entrance to our fields, I noticed some movement in the neighbor's fields across the road and several hundred yards South of us. One whitetail doe stepped out of the mist to the edge of the road, noticed the dog and I walking slowly in her direction, raised her flag and scampered across the road and into the pine plantation on the West side of the road.

magical morning mist

Photo by J. Harrington

Hanging back, where the mist was denser, were three other whitetails. A second deer walked out of the fog, stopped on the road, and stared at the dog and I. The dog was patiently attending to what we had walked to take care of and I was standing stock still with my hands in my jacket pockets. In effect, the dog and I had become statues. After watching us for a few moments, the second deer startled across the road, Whatever we were, she wanted no part of us.

While the third deer decided to quickly follow the second across the road and into the pines, the fourth was slowly, very slowly, approaching the dog and I, still trying to decide what we were and if we were a threat. She would take a step or two, stop, stare, snort or stamp a hoof, and watch for a moment, then repeat the procedure. Within a brief time, she had come about halfway toward us from where she had started. The dog and I were still being still. Suddenly, the doe looked off to her right, our left. I glanced toward where she had looked to see a  flock of Canada geese, 7 or 8 of them flying in a checkmark (✔) at about treetop height toward the West, over the fields headed for the waters in the Carlos Avery pools. When we looked back, the fourth deer had disappeared, as if by magic.

the magic of new life

Photo by J. Harrington

If every morning were as full of magic as today, would we then come to take magic for granted? Being human, we fear the answer is "quite possibly." If magical moments happened more often, but not necessarily all the time, would we be happier? Definitely. In fact, we've reached a point where we've come to believe that sunny days, as few and far between as they've been this Spring (and last Winter) contain magic in and of themselves. May we all find more magic in our lives. In fact, with just a little luck, we hope to see the magic of whitetail fawns appearing in our fields sometime soon. This is about the time of year when does drop (give birth to) their fawns. Late next month to mid-July is when they may start to appear.

The Place I Want to Get Back To

The place I want to get back to
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let’s see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can’t be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

Mary Oliver

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Doesn't that just frost you?

Minneapolis and St. Paul get an average of 42% sunshine in December. Duluth gets a little less, 39%. We're between the Twin Cities and Duluth, so, to make this easy, let's say we average 40% sunshine. That means that 60% of our daylight hours are cloudy. This would be even more disruptive of our normally sunny personality (see what we did there?) if it weren't for the ghostly beauty added by the combination of fields and wood lots covered with fog/mist/frozen fog and, sometimes, honest to goodness hoarfrost. Today, and for the past few days, we've been seeing lots of frost-covered grasses and forbs in our piece of prairie/sand plain, plus some pine needles coated with frost. The ethereal quality of the dead and sleeping plants shrouded in frost provides a wabi-sabi patina to the area.

frost-covered local marsh grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of impermanence, the loaf of bread we baked to go with last night's beef stew is almost gone. The Daughter Person and Son-In-Law arrived about dinner time to facilitate some sort of Christmas cookie swap and help consume the stew and bread. We had tried a new kind of flour for the first time. The loaf of bread turned out more "off-white" than we would have expected and the taste of wheat overpowered any hint of sourdough. The bread tasted good and looked good and was fun to make, but we prefer more of a sourdough flavor. We'll probably play some games with a mixture of the organic wheat flour and some of our regular King Arthur bread flour and see if we like that any better. Now that the Daughter Person has nudged us out of our bread-baking rut, there's no telling what may happen. Meanwhile, the Christmas cookies may have a slightly greater air of permanence, but only because there is a greater quantity of them and it will take us longer to work our way through the supply. If Christmas came every Winter month, we would soon take on the dimensions of a certain portly old elf and. come Spring, probably wouldn't fit into our waders.

the latest bread experiment

Photo by J. Harrington

After Apple-Picking

Robert Frost, 1874- 1963

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

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Swan, no song

We walked the dogs a little later than usual today. Our adult children are Harry Potter fans so we all went to see "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." We can't honestly recommend it but neither was it a disaster. If and when there's another like it, we'll check the reviews more carefully before deciding.

Back to the dog walking: it was a blue-sky, sunny afternoon, with a half moon floating up there somewhere. We got to watch a single swan, fairly high up, fly past toward the Southeast, looking as if s/he wanted to find open water. That's a challenge these days. A long, white neck leading a white body propelled by large white wings, with the sun shining on all that whiteness, was a gorgeous sight.

Bone Lake, single swan on the snow

Photo by J. Harrington

Why it was only a single swan, we can't begin to guess. There was a single swan two years ago come December perched on the snow covering Bone Lake. We thought that one might have needed rehabilitation but s/he was gone (without leaving blood on the snow) the next day when we drove past again. Perhaps today's and the one from 2016 were part of the flock that over-Winters on the St. Croix done at Hudson.

Seeing that swan today promptly put us in mind of the poem below. We suspect many of you learned it in grammar school, as we did. We continue to enjoy it from time to time.

To a Waterfowl

By William Cullen Bryant

Whither, 'midst falling dew, 

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way? 

Vainly the fowler’s eye 

Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong, 

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek’st thou the plashy brink 

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chaféd ocean side? 

There is a Power, whose care 

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,— 

The desert and illimitable air 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere; 

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end, 

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven 

Hath swallowed up thy form, yet, on my heart 

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He, who, from zone to zone, 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 

In the long way that I must trace alone, 

Will lead my steps aright.

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A needed case of hero worship

Fifty years ago today, one of our personal heroes died. He never became president, as his brother had. We've listed below those who have served as president since the death of Robert Kennedy. The old saying "couldn't hold a candle" to him seems, to us, very fitting. Your mileage may vary.

• Richard Nixon (1969 - 1974)
• Gerald Ford (1974 - 1977)
• Jimmy Carter (1977 - 1981)
• Ronald Reagan (1981 - 1989)
• George H.W. Bush (1989 - 1993)
• Bill Clinton (1993 - 2001)
• George W. Bush (2001 - 2009)
• Barack Obama (2009 - 2017)
• Donald Trump (2017 - )

Massachusetts state house, Boston
(Brookline, Kennedy's birthplace, is a "streetcar suburb" of Boston)

Photo by J. Harrington

Allowing for some anomalies, we sense a distinctly downward trend in the qualities of those we have chosen as our leaders for the past two generations. Are these really our "best and brightest" or are we "better than that?" Humor us be reading a couple of quotations from a speech Bobby Kennedy gave (Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968) and then think about which president listed above would have challenged us this way.

...For we as a people, we as a people, are strong enough, we are brave enough to be told the truth of where we stand.  This country needs honesty and candor in its political life and from the President of the United States.  But I don't want to run for the presidency - I don't want America to make the critical choice of direction and leadership this year without confronting that truth.  I don't want to win support of votes by hiding the American condition in false hopes or illusions.  I want us to find out the promise of the future, what we can accomplish here in the United States, what this country does stand for and what is expected of us in the years ahead.  And I also want us to know and examine where we've gone wrong.  And I want all of us, young and old, to have a chance to build a better country and change the direction of the United States of America....

...And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year.  But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.  Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

For the next several months, we will be in the midst of political campaigns. We would respectfully suggest and request that we use the two paragraphs above as a standard against which we will measure the quality of those who as us for our votes. Some of us believe we, as a people and a country, have gone terribly wrong. More of the same will not solve our problems. We need to get back to the "US of A" and away from the "ME of A." Division diminishes US. Addition or multiplication doesn't. America is not now and never has been a zero sum game. To quote a truth brought to us by another Kennedyesque political hero, "We all do better when we all do better."

This has been a public service announcement. We return you now to our regular programming.

A Poem on the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

By Nikki Giovanni

Trees are never felled . . . in summer . . . Not when the fruit . . .   

is yet to be borne . . . Never before the promise . . . is fulfilled . . .   

Not when their cooling shade . . . has yet to comfort . . .

Yet there are those . . . unheeding of nature . . . indifferent to   

ecology . . . ignorant of need . . . who . . . with ax and sharpened   

saw . . . would . . . in boots . . . step forth damaging . . .

Not the tree . . . for it falls . . . But those who would . . . in

summer’s heat . . . or winter’s cold . . . contemplate . . . the   

beauty . . .

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Now and zen, emergence #phenology

Down the road a couple of miles there's a hillside that's been covered with trillium the past few years, sometime in late May or early June. I slowed down this morning long enough to take a careful look and the drive-by didn't show any blooms yet. At least around here Spring may have started a few weeks early but it now seems to have reverted to a more traditional schedule. If you watch much horse racing, you may have noticed that many who set the pace early in the race aren't always among the top finishers. Maybe that's how Spring is running this year's race through the season. Just because Nature is never hurried doesn't mean she doesn't occasionally pick up the pace.

sun-dappled woods sprinkled with trillium

Photo by J. Harrington

As the weather's warmed and the season's progressed, we've noticed dandelions are now joined by ground ivy (the cursed creeping Charlie to turf lawn lovers), which is encroaching on our wild strawberry-filled front yard, and common blue violets, I think, on the gravel road side. Once again the local herd of whitetails appears to have spent part of the Winter nibbling on our black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) bushes. Maybe this year, come Autumn, we'll remember to use some repellant. I wonder if dog hair would work. Lord knows we've got more than enough to spare.

ground ivy with strawberry leaf

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is the birthday of Gary Snyder, one of the best writers and wisest, most sane, people I know of. Please join me in wishing him a Happy Birthday and many, many happy returns of the day.

Riprap

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
              placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
              in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
              riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
              straying planets,
These poems, people,
              lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
              and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
              four-dimensional
Game of Go.
              ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
              a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
              with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
              all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

Gary Snyder

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Mom's rhyme, rhythm and reasons #NPM17

There's a strange light in the sky today. I'm not sure what it is. If it were farther away, it might be a star. I'll watch and see if it shows up again. If I figure out what it is, I'll report back. Not having the sky covered over with clouds is kind of freaky as we near the end of April. April showers, May flowers, all that.

two purple finches, one gold finch

Photo by J. Harrington

Next month's May flowers help celebrate Mother's Day two weeks from tomorrow. That should give each of us plenty of time to do personal cards and avoiding the saccharine tone of many commercial cards. Every mother I've ever met has always said she preferred something home-made by her own children's hands so, for National Poetry Month's suggestion 29, on April 29, let's "Get ready for Mother’s Day by making a card featuring a line of poetry."

If you want to be even more original, try using some, most, or all of these words, prompted by visitors to our feeder this morning. This is just an example. Make it easy and use a rhyming dictionary for your own list.

• finch
• cinch
• pinch
• flinch
• clinch
• Grinch
• inch

Put together with a little inspiration, a drawing, and lots of love, you could please your Mom with something like this:

Mom, it's a cinch
That you could pinch
Mr. Grinch
Into a clinch
And make him flinch,
Step back and inch,
And save a house finch.

I hope your day is sunny and warm and full of poetry and Mother love.

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry

Howard Nemerov, 1920 - 1991

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow 
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

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

Does sunshine cloud #phenology?

Earlier this week, a dusting of snow became a white board on which red squirrels and (I think) downy woodpeckers left messages. Today the board and its messages have been erased by some rare sunlight. Another sign that we're closing in on the Vernal Equinox is that the sun is now warm enough to melt some of the snow and ice on the brown gravel road, even though the temperature is well below freezing. I know it's still some way off, but I'm looking forward to Spring this year more than usual, I think, despite the fact that our Winter has been less painful than typical. Actually, more than anticipating Spring, I'm just sick of cloudy, cold, contrary weather. You know, the feeling of "Sunshine on My Shoulders makes me happy." (Check out the Minnesota connection to Denver's song.) I'd rather see tracks on muddy road shoulders or soft stream banks than on snowflake-covered decks.

tracks in snow dust: red squirrel, downy woodpecker, and ???

Photo by J. Harrington

The sun's movement toward northern skies is inexorable. There may be occasional spells of cold or snow or both, but each day for the next several months, sunrise and sunset grow a little farther apart. If there's no cloud cover, we get more daylight sunshine. If there are clouds, we get more daylight. One of the recently reported downsides of climate change is a forecast decline, somewhere around 10%, in the number of "nice" days we get each year. Since trout (and walleye) don't particularly care for bright sunshine, that may not be all bad if trout (and walleye) anglers can adjust. I wonder if this kind of change will affect aquatic macroinvertebrates at all. Warmer climate will mean warmer waters but fishing a hatch is often better on overcast days.

As I try to convince myself that something approaching a "normal" life will be possible in the future, I notice that other folks are going through similar adjustments. I hope you enjoy the upcoming equinox as much as ever you have.

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

- Mary Oliver

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

Like the old days

Yesterday's snow certainly "freshened" the landscape. The new snow makes it obvious that the squirrels haven't yet been at the bird feeder in front of the house, but what looks like a couple or three whitetails checked the pear tree behind the house during the night.

Winter deer tracks under pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

The combination of fresh snow, blue skies and sunshine reminds me of the Minnesota winters I used to know. The Winter Misery Index, I think, should be adjusted to include the number of cloudy days. I admit we don't have to shovel cloudiness, but neither does it help my normally sunny(?) disposition. At the moment, the wind seems to have died down and the sun is shining. Time for me to go blow last night's snow out of the driveway before it gets all driven over and packed down. Here's a reminder of how cheery our Winter woods can look when the sun is shining.

Sun-dappled Winter woods

Photo by J. Harrington

The Double Leash

By Katharine Coles 

Blizzard to lilac. Dandelion

to leaf. Endless

variation of seasons I note

in passing, smells

I cannot smell: rotting

gardens, feces, musk of cat.

                                              These two      

run in front of me, golden

shoulder to patchwork, heads

lifted or lowered into

scent, tongues lolling. Ears

damp with their own

spittle and each other's

tell me, tethered a pace behind,

their journey's epic: tipping

forward to the familiar or

stranger's distant yap; angling

to my breathing, whispered

praise, my slightest

suggestion.

                                              Ignored.

                                                          The shepherd

throws herself into

any whirring wheel, to herd

the neighbor's tractor mower or

the UPS truck's packets

home; pulling her back,

the golden's oblivious

ballast, instinct heading

always for the gutter's

deepest puddle, her own way

within the forked leash's

one-foot range. As we pass,

the clans set up

their barking, as if we

were news, gathering center

of a congenial warning

din—mine answer with

disturbances of pace, an extra pull

or lollop, grins thrown

slant-eyed over shoulders

until one hears a call

she can't ignore, surrenders

to baying's ferocious

joy moving through

muscle and bone. Moving

storm, storm's eye: happy

universes whirl in their skins

as I do in mine. Unknowable,

their fate. Mediums between

foreign principalities, they're tied

to me, to each other, by my will,

by love; to that other realm

by song, and tooth, and blood.

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

Sunshine on my shoulders

We're "enjoying" double  and single digits below zero temperatures, with about a 10 mph wind, making the windchill about 20 to 30 below. The birds and squirrels seem to be taking these temperatures in stride or wing beat, as the case may be. At any rate, as they help themselves to what's in the feeders, they complain less than I do each time I have to go out in this cold with more sunflower seeds and suet for them.

two gray squirrels and a hairy woodpecker

Photo by J. Harrington

The heated bird bath is working well but the dryness of the cold air creates evaporation and interesting ice sculptures on the side of the rim opposite the prevailing wind. Our winds have been from the south and the north side of the bath is ice coated.

heated bird bath with ice sculptures

Photo by J. Harrington

Despite the windchill, the Better Half and I went out for coffee as a cabin fever preventative. On the way home, we took back roads to enjoy the sun shining on the countryside. I mentioned that I hadn't seen any deer or turkeys in our backyard for several weeks. She said that she'd regularly seen deer crossing local roads mornings and evenings. Shortly after this comparison of ourfield observations, we spotted a flock of last year's turkey poults along the road side. That, plus the sunshine on my shoulders, generally brightened my outlook on the pleasures of country living during a spell of Minnesota's world-class Winter. January thaw by next weekend?

Cold Blooded Creatures

By Elinor Wylie 

Man, the egregious egoist,

(In mystery the twig is bent,)

Imagines, by some mental twist,

That he alone is sentient

Of the intolerable load

Which on all living creatures lies,

Nor stoops to pity in the toad

The speechless sorrow of its eyes.

He asks no questions of the snake,

Nor plumbs the phosphorescent gloom

Where lidless fishes, broad awake,

Swim staring at a night-mare doom.

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

Happy Solstice! Welcome to Summer!

Where I am, and for most of Minnesota, there's a good deal of sunshine in store for us today. We're overdue. Clouds plus fairly heavy fog this morning dimmed the sunrise, which might have been more important if this were Stonehenge. Now that we're officially into Summer, I can't wait to see what weather's in store for us after our outside the box Winter and Spring. Do we return to something we'll recognize or continue to explore new variability?

This morning I headed for The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis to take a class on how to market writing and get it published. I've taken classes there in the past and it felt good to be back. On the way home, driving through our little section of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, I confirmed something I thought I noticed a few days ago. Different families of geese have goslings of wildly different sizes. There's little guys like the ones posted here yesterday, and below, plus some that look to be about half grown (not shown). Such variety wasn't obvious in years past. I also don't understand how Mother Goose teaches her kids to stay off the road. None of our semi-obedient dogs would be off leash that close to traffic.

goose and goslings                      © harrington

One of Summer's pleasures is taking time to relax and enjoy the sunshine. Amy Lowell tells all about it.

Bath

By Amy Lowell 

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
       The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
       Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.     

Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy!

Hi! What a treat: sunshine, after only four or five days of overcast and rain. I know it's too early in the season to start thinking about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or whatever they're calling it this year. Yesterday, the better half went off to do some grocery shopping and adding in a gleaning excursion. She came back with a bag of crab apples that were rendered into jam (or jelly). We're getting organic as everything around here. I love it.

cooking down crab apples        © harrington

So, thanks to my better half, we're members of a food co-op (Mississippi Market), have a Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share this year with the Women's Environment Initiative, and are now proud members of the gleaners. I, on the other hand, am now paying for a 97% efficient natural gas furnace that replaces our old fuel oil burner which was, I believe, less than 80% efficient. [I also do what I can to provide the occasional fish dinner but try to limit it to once a month. Too many accumulated toxins in too many of our local waters. ] So, we've reduced our carbon footprint and continue to improve our locavore standing. So far, I haven't noticed any sack cloth or ashes being worn around the house, although, maybe for Halloween this year? Probably not, at least not for trying to live in a way that meets our needs without depriving future generations of their ability to meet their own needs. We'd do more to grow our own food, but the black flies and deer flies in the Summer are just to fierce and the sand soil isn't very cooperative.Anyhow, not only did the better half bring back crab apples, she added nicely to the pumpkin collection. The front of the house is looking downright festive. That's a step up from last week's seasonal. See for yourself then enjoy David McCord's jack o'lantern poem.

Mr. Macklin's Jack O'Lantern

by David McCord

Mr. Macklin takes his knife
And carves the yellow pumpkin face:
Three holes bring eyes and nose to life,
The mouth has thirteen teeth in place.
Then Mr. Macklin just for fun
Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his
Wry mouth to Jack's, and everyone
Dies laughing! O what fun it is
Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade
And lights the candle in Jack's skull.
Then all the inside dark is made
As spooky and as horrorful
As Halloween, and creepy crawl
The shadows on the tool-house floor,
With Jack's face dancing on the wall.
O Mr. Macklin! where's the door?

Thanks for listening. Come again when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily.

Summer shadows shortened

© harrington

Hi! Ready for today's question? Here it is: "11.    On what day of the year are the shadows shortest where you live?" The answer is on the summer solstice, which, in the northern hemisphere occurs between June 20 and 22. The shortest shadows occur when the sun is highest in the sky. I'm sure each of you knew this and did well on this question. Gary Snyder doesn't mention short shadows in this poem, but he nails the sun straight high and blazing part.

Above Pate Valley

By Gary Snyder

We finished clearing the last   

Section of trail by noon,

High on the ridge-side

Two thousand feet above the creek   

Reached the pass, went on

Beyond the white pine groves,   

Granite shoulders, to a small

Green meadow watered by the snow,   

Edged with Aspen—sun

Straight high and blazing

But the air was cool.

Ate a cold fried trout in the   

Trembling shadows. I spied

A glitter, and found a flake

Black volcanic glass—obsidian—

By a flower. Hands and knees   

Pushing the Bear grass, thousands   

Of arrowhead leavings over a   

Hundred yards. Not one good   

Head, just razor flakes

On a hill snowed all but summer,   

A land of fat summer deer,

They came to camp. On their   

Own trails. I followed my own   

Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,   

Pick, singlejack, and sack

Of dynamite.

Ten thousand years.

Tomorrow's question will be a two parter: "12.    When do the deer rut in your region and when are the young born?" Join us if you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily.