Time for rebirth

The snow cover is leaving, again. This time perhaps until the start oof next winter. We’ll see. It’s about time, since sandhill cranes should arrive soon. Signs of open water have appeared on the creek north of the property. The Sunrise river has been at least partly open for more than a week now. Perhaps the rebirth of nature will help trigger a similar rebirth of sanity and what passed for democracy for US. The continued and increasing insanity emanating from Washington, D.C. and Mar-a-Lardo has put me in a deep funk. I may have done better anticipating the outcome of last November’s election if I had kept in mind H.L. Mencken’s all too true observation: “No one in this world, so far as I know... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” I doubt we’ll accomplish much to increase their intelligence by banning books, words, or ideas but that won’t stop kakistocrats from trying.

ice and snow melts, open water flows

Photo by J. Harrington

I continue to hope that what we’re experiencing will turn into a non-fatal wake up call that facilitates a societal, economic and cultural transformation for US. Money has become too dominant a measure of success in life. I continue to look toward (the original) Robert F. Kennedy’s assessment:

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.

Perhaps the current malaise among Democrats could be eased, even erased, if they read, contemplated, and responded to Kennedy's entire speech from which the extract above was derived. Some of US are reaching a point at which we are no longer “proud that we are Americans.”

Rebecca Solnit has written about “Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.” For any who ever claimed democracy was easy, they probably changed their mind when they discovered the barbarians inside the gates. We can do better. We have done better. We will do better. We must. It’s imperative for US to share why we are proud too be Americans as we work together to fulfill the promises embodied in our Declaration of Independence as we recognize our interdependence on each other and the air, water, soil and habitats on which we are totally dependent.

Narcissus

Patricia Hooper

Near the path through the woods I’ve seen it:
a trail of white candles.

I could find it again, I could follow
its light deep into shadows.

Didn’t I stand there once? 
Didn’t I choose to go back

down the cleared path, the familiar?
Narcissus, you said. Wasn’t this

the flower whose sudden enchantments
led Persephone down into Hades?

You remember the way she was changed
when she came every spring, having seen

the withering branches, the chasms,
and how she had to return there

helplessly, having eaten
the seed of desire. What was it

I saw you were offering me
without meaning to, there in the sunlight,

while the flowers beckoned and shone
in their flickering season?

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Approaching Samhain

Great clouds of leaves have floated away from their homes of origin. They now clutter the ground and complicate the last grass cutting of the past growing season. Bare branches begin to dominate country skylines. Halloween / Samhain arrives Thursday. Candles are lit at dinner time. Autumn is here and next weekend we begin to anticipate celebrating Thanksgiving in hope that “our fellow Americans(?)” will leave US something to celebrate after November 5.

All Hallow's Eve visitors

Photo by J. Harrington

Not only was Halloween itself more fun when I was a kid, I didn’t know enough in those days to worry about elections and outcomes. An example that getting older doesn’t always mean getting wiser? Anyhow, I’m anticipating that, again this year, we’ll have at least one Trick or Treater, our 4 year old granddaughter. I think she’s the only one that’s shown up in the 25+ years we’ve lived here. I’ll spend some time over the next few days debating whether to bring in our political signs for the haunted evening rather than leave them subject to pranks or vandalism.

Flocks of Canada geese and sandhill cranes are still to be seen in our local airways. So far there’s still plenty of food and open water so no reason for them to head south. The Son-In-Law has captured some pictures of a nice buck oor two on his trail cam. I tried deer hunting off and on over the years. I just don’t enjoy sitting that still for that long to get good at it. When I was younger, I’d rather bust brush for grouse or fiddle with decoys for ducks than sit in or on a deer stand. If I had had an enclosed stand, I’d probably been guilty of too much napping. This reminds me, after Samhain, I need to send Santa a letter asking for more accommodating weather next fly fishing season.

Samhain

By Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother's mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

"Carry me." She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

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Spring’s stutter steps

A pair of hanging baskets with pansies, or something like, have been added to the front stoop. Their hanging height, and the ease with which they can be brought into the house, should protect them from any frosty nights. The planting pots won’t get plants until sometime next month. Plus, this afternoon we actually started the lawn mower. We didn’t mow anything (yet) but it’s reassuring that it works. Maybe we’ll use it to capture the leaves in the dog run. The dogs are reaching a point where they need some time outside, off lead, to blow off some steam. One or both of the owners could use something similar I suspect.

bergamot seed trays in sunshine

Photo by J. Harrington

The bergamot seed trays got to spend a couple of hours in the sunshine today, before the wind got strong enough that I brought them in before they got blown over. Some cells have germinated well. Others show no signs of life. I may have made a mess of planting (too deep) or the planting medium just hasn’t been warm enough for long enough. Time will tell and the experience is helping me learn to forego expectations and live in the present. Better late than never, right?

We’re approaching peak woodland wildflower season over the next eight to ten weeks. I hope the weather gets more cooperative. But seasons change in stutter steps and temperatures rise and fall; precipitation comes and goes. As Lao Tzu is report to have observed: 'Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ That’s a lesson we all could stand to relearn each year at this time.

The peace of wild things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the Peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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A corner turned

The fuel line shutoff has been turned off on the snow blower. The lawn mower’s electric start batteryis charging. I may even wash the Jeep one of these days. Although the record shows there’s only one month of the year in which we haven’t had snow in Minnesota, we’re declaring winter of 2023-24 over. The best times of the year (according to me) are ahead of us.

green is busting out all over

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning, as a band of rose began to brighten the eastern sky, we noticed three or four whitetails gnoshing their way through the narrow band of woods between the front of the house and the road. Today was the first time we’ve seen deer in that location. Yesterday afternoon a displaying tom turkey and his harem of hens were parading around the hill behind the house. It’s truly encouraging to see the country come alive. On my way home from an errand this morning I saw a fair-sized flock of what I think were teal zipping over the Sunrise River pools near HWY 36. The water there is up and flooding most of the surrounding marshes. If we get a bunch of rain (is “bunch" the correct technical term?) there may be some issues about where the water all goes before it flows to the St. Croix.

Leaf-out is becoming more prominent by the day. Dandelions are popping into bloom overnight. With the rain expected Friday through Monday, I won’t be surprised if we can actually hear trees, bushes and plants growing, sounding like a susurrating bowl of rice crispies. Spring can be an awesome time in the North Country.

At the Spring Dawn

Angelina Weld Grimké
1880 – 1958

I watched the dawn come,
    Watched the spring dawn come.
And the red sun shouldered his way up
    Through the grey, through the blue,
Through the lilac mists.
The quiet of it! The goodness of it!
    And one bird awoke, sang, whirred
A blur of moving black against the sun,
    Sang again—afar off.
And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun,
    Stretched to my finger tips,
        And I laughed.
Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love,
    At the dawn,
        At the spring dawn.

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’Twas the week before Christmas....

Last night someone must have left open the door between northern Minnesota and Canada. Today is about half the temperature yesterday was and tomorrow is expected to be. At least we’re finally enjoying some sunshine. My sister, who lives in a Boston suburb, informs me today’s weather on the East coast is like a hurricane, not what one expects around Boston in mid December. It’s almost like something has disrupted the climate.

the Star of Bethlehem

Photo by J. Harrington

With the exception of light pollution, satellites and space junk, I think earth's night skies are pretty much the same as they’ve always been. That isn’t true of the surface of the planet. The dinosaurs are no more. The atmosphere is now oxygen rich. At one time it wasn’t. At various times and places, parts of the earth’s surface have been covered by sheets of ice miles thick. Now there are forecasts that both poles could be mostly free of ice in less than one hundred years. When we consider baselines, I think we should learn to be more nuanced than we generally are. According to most historical records, there were no christians slightly more than two thousand years ago. That means there was a significant baseline shift about two millennia ago.

Although many (most?) of us would do well to live more in the present, i.e., now, we also need to become more sensitive to the realization that change is constant; that it frequently results in differential changes, some for the better for some folks, some not so much. We have reached a point at which our technology allows us to reach toward the star of Bethlehem but our ethical capabilities lag far behind. If you doubt this assessment, please consider Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, Israel and numerous other current war zones and the growing pushback against more inclusive cultures and politics. Once there were few, if any, oxygen-breathing creatures on earth. Is that a state of purity to be desired?

If evolution is to be believed, almost all of us are, or were at one time, immigrants. Our predecessors developed on the plains of Africa and/or China. Then again, at one time, before there were humans, all the continents are theorized to have been part of Pangaea.

In one week, we will again celebrate the birth of one who was first known as King of the Jews, not founder of Christianity. Is nothing sacred?

Museum of Tolerance

By Michael Miller

The shirtless man by the ticket counter

  has already broken the gloom here, his crowd

    of two boys and the cashier with the Star of David

      gathered around and mouthing astonishment

as he tells the tale behind every scar.

  Yes, this one on the side was from the camp—

     he tells them not to be shy to ask—

       when he tripped into the ditch

on the run after stealing cigarettes,

  the one on the knuckle from punching the soldier

   in the bar, brave with whiskey, a decade after.

     Touch it, he snarls, jutting out his fist.

That split a real Nazi’s lip.

  In the rooms behind him, the voices lay low

    but touch is the rule, the extended families

      passing in fours and fives as tight

as at church or the carnival. Are they

  all survivors here, dazed and exhilarated

    by the fate that dropped them so far from blight?

      A father heads the line, shirt fat with muscles

and a single proud thumb pushing the stroller;

  the woman and girl hug sideways, then again,

     tight as dancers in a row. At each display,

       the time lines and the whispered assurances

reiterate that what is done is done.

  Pol Pot is dead, the children of Kampuchea

    reading again to go to college; Rwanda

       has forgiven itself and opened supermarkets;

the ghettos are demolished, the Cold War won.

  Sudan, they skip. For now, the beasts are gone.

    They face the new life, the one after the mending,

      after the last mistakes were made.

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We’re almost there

Winter solstice is a week from tomorrow. Christmas follows a few days later. Are you beginning to feel a sense of relief that, no matter what else happens, soon the days will be getting longer and, in a couple of weeks, we’ll have the clean slate of a whole new year ahead of us? It’ll be up to US to see what we can make of it.

For the past two years, I’ve been intending to try planting a three sisters garden. There’s an old saying that the third time's a charm. Maybe next spring I’ll break ground. We’ll see what the weather holds in store. Meanwhile, I’m wondering why we haven’t been seeing cardinals more frequently at the feeders. Maybe I need to try a tray feeder again, although all they usually do is attract squirrels.

presents under the tree

Photo by J. Harrington

A package arrived today from my sister in Massachusetts. We now have the first present under this year’s tree. No doubt it’s the start of a short-term trend until the tree looks something like the picture above from a Christmas past. This Christmas is going to be more convoluted than usual. Usually we celebrate the holliday in the morning and our son’s birthday from noon on. This year staff from his group home are ony available in the morning so we do Christmas/birthday for him, birthday for all in morning and Christmas for the rest of the family in the afternoon, except for the three-year-old Granddaughter who gets to celebrate what she wants when she wants.

Now, if only we can locate the missing package of Christmas books, we’ll be in even better shape. Holidays are such fun!

December

Christopher Pearce Cranch      1813 – 1892

No more the scarlet maples flash and burn 
       Their beacon-fires from hilltop and from plain; 
The meadow-grasses and the woodland fern 
       In the bleak woods lie withered once again.

The trees stand bare, and bare each stony scar 
       Upon the cliffs; half frozen glide the rills; 
The steel-blue river like a scimitar 
       Lies cold and curved between the dusky hills.

Over the upland farm I take my walk, 
       And miss the flaunting flocks of golden-rod; 
Each autumn flower a dry and leafless stalk, 
       Each mossy field a track of frozen sod.

I hear no more the robin's summer song 
       Through the gray network of the wintry woods; 
Only the cawing crows that all day long 
       Clamor about the windy solitudes.

Like agate stones upon earth's frozen breast, 
       The little pools of ice lie round and still; 
While sullen clouds shut downward east and west 
       In marble ridges stretched from hill to hill.

Come once again, O southern wind,—once more 
       Come with thy wet wings flapping at my pane; 
Ere snow-drifts pile their mounds about my door, 
       One parting dream of summer bring again.

Ah, no! I hear the windows rattle fast; 
       I see the first flakes of the gathering snow, 
That dance and whirl before the northern blast. 
       No countermand the march of days can know.

December drops no weak, relenting tear, 
       By our fond summer sympathies ensnared; 
Nor from the perfect circle of the year 
       Can even winter's crystal gems be spared. 

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As the year winds down

Thanks to temperatures in the mid-40’s, much of the snow has melted. Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer. No complaints here, although the persistent cloudiness is wearing, or at least wearying.

We did a birthday lunch today at the Nicollet Island Inn for the Daughter person. Everyone had a good time and the Granddaughter was extremely well behaved. (I suspect that comes from her maternal grandmother’s side of the family.) it’s been some time since we ate at the Inn and I’d sort of forgotten how much I like the place. 

Nicollet Island Inn

Photo by J. Harrington

So, there’s some odds and ends of holiday shopping still to tend to but, for the most part, it looks like we get to glide into Christmas after we’ve celebrated Winter Solstice. As the days grow longer again, we’ll snuggle down and settle in until spring thaw, baking bread, reading poems, wearing sweaters and eating soup for several months(?).

Left off that list are filing taxes, organizing books, and clearing snow. As a present to myself, I can avoid at least two, and maybe alll three of those chores until New Years or later. As the world continues to deteriorate, we do what we can to make our life livable and enjoyable. May you do the same and may we all support love, kindness and sanity and disown the opposites now and through the future.

When Giving Is All We Have 

Alberto Ríos     1952 – 

                                              One river gives
                                              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

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(s)No! vember?

Some Novembers deer come at night and eat the driveway pumpkins and the Jack O’Lantern faces. Other years I dump the pumpkins under the pear tree behind the house and the deer come day or night to fill their stomaches. We’re waiting to see which happens this year.

unofficial deer feeding station

Photo by J. Harrington

It’s definitely looking like November outside, although the snow and ice mixed with leaves on the driveway isn’t as attractive as the usual “light dusting” of snow we get at this time of year. A male cardinal appeared on the back deck after sunset the other night, the first cardinal we’ve seen in months. Suet feeders will get hung in a few weeks, after we’re sure the bears have settled down for a long winter’s nap. That should bring a pileated woodpecker or two to visit. No juncos in sight yet.

Looks like this will be a year without sightings of woolly bear caterpillars, so we’ll just take “winter" as it comes, one day at a time. The Celtic approach of dividing the year into only two seasons, winter and summer, simplifies what to call these transition periods when the calendar claims it’s one season and the weather disagrees.

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, I want to bring to your attention Chris La Tray, a Métis storyteller and Montana poet whose writing I’ve been enjoying for several months. He even has a connection to Minnesota since Milkweed Editions will be publishing Becoming Little Shell next year.

Umpaowastewin

By Margaret Noodin

Ode’iminibaashkiminasiganke

She makes strawberry jam

ginagawinad wiishko’aanimad, waaseyaagami

mixing sweet wind and shining water

miinawaa gipagaa nibwaakaa,

with thick wisdom

bigishkada’ad, dibaabiiginad

pounding, measuring

gakina gaa zhawenimangidwa

everything we’ve cared for

gakina gaa waniangidwa

everything we’ve lost

nagamowinan waa nagamoyaang

the songs we have not yet sung

miigwanag waa wawezhi’angidwa

the feathers yet to decorate

ezhi-zhoomiingweyaangoba

and all the ways we’ve smiled

mooshkine moodayaabikoong

into jars filled to the brim

ji-baakaakonid pii bakadeyaang.

to be opened when we are thin.

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’tis a ghastly, ghostly Halloween landscape

Last night and this morning we got flurried on to the tune of a couple of inches of sticky, wet, snow. Unless we get lots of melting this afternoon, it will be hard to spot ghosts this evening but at least, unlike 1991, it’s not going to snow for the better part of three days straight. The dogs were mildly traumatized as they stepped into a newly snow-covered world this morning. It wasn’t there when they went to bed. They’re now sleeping off the shock, napping in the living room.

Getting a dusting of snow on or around Halloween is par for the course [note to self: stop using golf metaphors] in our region, but a couple of inches is more than reasonable. Psychologically, we may be in for a longer than usual winter unless the temps warm up and stay there for the next month or two. Our average high for today is 50℉. The actual high won’t br much more than the normal low of 35℉. I wonder if there’ll be enough snow still covering the driveway this evening to look for ghoul and goblin tracks tomorrow. I have no intention of clearing the mix of snow and leaves from the driveway since there’s a better than fair chance Mother Nature will take away the snow and continue to dump more leaves for a while.

Happy Halloween from the Jack O'Lanterns

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half and I have behaved as responsible adults and foregone (until this evening) eating our special Halloween candy that’s been sitting on the dining table. It’ll be a nice desert starting today. Maybe we’ll be able to stretch it out until almost Thanksgiving. Each adult has one chocolate bar and two chocolate pumpkins. 🎃 

We’re expecting a three year old granddaughter to arrive for a late afternoon Trick or Treat visit and will be surprised if anyone else shows up during the evening, but will leave the front light on. Meanwhile, may you and yours enjoy the magic of Samhuinn. Tomorrow is the traditional Celtic New Year. May it bring US all of what we need and some of what we want.

Chansons Innocentes II

E. E. Cummings     1894 – 1962

hist     whist 
little ghostthings 
tip-toe 
twinkle-toe 

little twitchy 
witches and tingling 
goblins 
hob-a-nob     hob-a-nob 

little hoppy happy 
toad in tweeds 
tweeds 
little itchy mousies 

with scuttling 
eyes     rustle and run     and 
hidehidehide 
whisk 

whisk     look out for the old woman 
with the wart on her nose 
what she’ll do to yer 
nobody knows 

for she knows the devil     ooch 
the devil     ouch 
the devil 
ach     the great 

green 
dancing 
devil 
devil 

devil 
devil 
     wheeEEE 

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The more things change ...

There’s not much new and exciting to report on today. Deer flies are becoming more numerous. We’ve responded by installing a new blue ball covered with sticky goo. The flies are attracted to the color and get caught in the sticky stuff. Last summer we end up with a blue ball encrusted with the blackish bodies of dead flies. Our dogs and our skins appreciated the results and we didn’t spray pesticides hell, west, and gone around the place. There’s already a couple of dozen flies stuck on the ball after a few hours.

would you expect this from a caterpillar?

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier this year members of the younger generations of the family got together and gave me a new iPhone for my birthday. Since I had been using an iPhone 6, you have an idea of how much new technology I’m trying to adjust to. This morning I got my new hearing aids. My old ones had served for about a decade. The technology for hearing aids has gotten quite a bit more complicated over the past ten years. I’ve read that I can use my new iPhone to adjust my new hearing aids, once I find and learn how to download a couple of apps, and then learn how to use those apps. I’m wondering why I didn’t plan better and schedule these changes for the winter, when I’d be fine sitting in the house playing with new toys. Each of our offspring were born in December. I could have borrowed one of their birthdays last year.

Did I mention I’m (over)due for a new laptop computer. This is getting typed on a five or six year old MacBook Pro with a sticky keyboard and slightly erratic trackpad. I’m not sure if I should try to get the phone and hearing aids under control first or just immerse myself in updates and let the bytes fall where they may. I’ll decide as soon as I get used to how much noisier the world is this afternoon than it was this morning. At least we’re not living in Russia, or China, or Texas, where the technology is failing while the  heat, literal and figurative, increases. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go study a manual or two, or three, or....

Meditation 29

Philip Pain

How mutable is every thing that here
Below we do enjoy? with how much fear
And trouble are those gilded Vanities
Attended, that so captivate our eyes?
   Oh, who would trust this World, or prize what's in it,
   That gives, and takes, and changes in a minute?

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Seasonal adjustments

The mower deck is back on the tractor. Once again I’ve demonstrated that “Easy On, Easy Off” is a marketing phrase that doesn’t meet truth in advertising standards. Does it ever go on and come off easily? Sometimes. Does it do so consistently? No. Do I have the level, smooth, garage floor shown in the commercials and the you-tube videos? Not even close. With our budget and obligations, that would be a luxury we can’t afford.

On the bright side, this morning I read the transcript of a rewarding and insightful conversation between Camille T. Dungy and Pam Huston. It reminded me of some things I know but haven’t been thinking about for awhile (seeking progress, not perfection) and brought me some new perspectives I need to integrate with other fragments of my still morphing personality and outlook. (I’m trying to do as Dylan implied and keep busy being born.)

On an even brighter side, the Better Half and I snuck off this morning and got this year’s (Minnesota and Wisconsin) fishing licenses. Since the tractor activity summarized in the first paragraph is a taste of what I would end up doing more of, if I don’t get out fishing as often as I should, I believe the motivation to exercise this year’s licenses has been markedly heightened. May we all enjoy tight lines and the places where we tighten them.

One of the ancillary issues of a benighted spring such as we had until recently is that  it really compresses the transition period from winter to summer. When I was younger, I could handle such  an adjustment more easily. Abrupt transitions don’t fit well with my desire and need to pace myself. I think that brings me back to going fishing, or at least scouting, more often as a way to manage the change in life between seasons.

our pear tree in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

As an example of a rapid change, last week or so the pear tree was bare branches. Earlier this week, leaf out occurred. This morning it’s covered with  blossoms. I hope we have some pollinators around.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

By William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

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Goodbye and good riddance!

Some minutes ago, today’s raindrops turned into snowflakes. They are among the last of the season, since Monday is Spring Equinox, but probably not the last until summer. This is a winter I will not be sorry to see end. We’ve reached the 8th snowiest winter on record for our area and that makes it hard to accept the reports that we’re experiencing global warming which affects Minnesota’s winters more than our summers. It almost comes down to who are we going to believe, the scientists or what we see out the window. Speaking of which, here’s a picture of the owl that’s been visiting, perched on the railing of the deck stairs landing. Would that we were all that wise and able to hang on ’til the current storms blow over.

barred owl perched in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

But then, (Isn’t there almost always one of those?) it’s been reported to have been a winter of poor ice in many locations. Those reporting poor ice conditions obviously haven’t visited our driveway. This may be the snowfall that we decide to let melt instead of clear from our drive. After a cold weekend, we’re forecast to reach the 40's all of next week, but (there we go again) it depends on how much accumulation we end up with. If it’s much more than an inch, we’ll scrape and/or blow snow to expedite getting the drive back to bare dirt as soon as possible.

I’ve noticed more and more during the past week or ten days that I’m far from the only one grumpily commenting on the extent and duration of the winter almost past. Although I don’t have numbers handy, I suspect that this winter has had more cloudy days than usual. That, plus state, national and world events is enough exacerbate Seasonal Affective Disorder with gloominess due to continuing COVID, irrational Republicans, bank failures, stock market volatility, and a level of social, cultural and economic contentiousness not seen for awhile.

Last Snow

By Heid E. Erdrich

Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground

that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.

Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light

making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.

Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.

Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.

We could head north and north and never let this season go.

Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,

knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.

Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.

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A Treat for this Halloween and the holiday season

 Halloween is one week from today. We discovered how we might be able to watch some holiday season classics beginning with It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! It took us about an hour to find this little nugget of information:

Apple TV+ said in a press release that will provide free windows for nonsubscribers to stream the iconic holiday specials. These movies are available to subscribers year-round.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown - Oct. 28-31

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving - Nov. 23-27

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Dec. 22-25

follow the press release link to bigify

I found it more convenient last year to watch on PBS, but that deal isn't in the holiday cards for this year. As my mother used to remind me, "beggars can't be choosers." If this all works well, with minimal irritation and no aggravation, I may even forgive Apple for some of the things they've done over the past year that really annoyed me, to the point I'm seriously considering moving to Linux.

In any event, please feel free to share this information, especially the press release link, as widely as possible. We need to keep the Charlie Brown holiday traditions alive and well throughout the 21st century!

Theme in Yellow

By Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o'-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.

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Summer’s cusping

 Our local goats beard plants have gone to seed. The seed heads look like oversized dandelion plumes. Another sign that summer is on the cusp, although with today’s temperatures, it’s hard to tell.

yellow goatsbeard seed head

Photo by J. Harrington

Some plants growing in the roadside that I was convinced were milkweed haven’t yet produced blossoms. Most of the other milkweed I’ve seen along ditches had blossoms in abundance. I began to wonder: don’t all milkweeds flower? were these not milkweed? A little searching among the internets turned up some answers. Drought can limit blooming. We’re back into drought conditions around here. Also, some varieties don’t bloom their first season of growing. I’m not sure which variety, but the majority of plants around the property are common milkweed, so I suppose the non-bloomers are also. But I wasn’t sure, when they didn’t bloom, that the plants in question are actually milkweed, so what do I know? Maybe next year we’ll be able to tell for sure.

During the next few weeks, we’ll begin watching for whitetail bucks with their antlers in velvet. This is the time replacements for the antlers they dropped last winter will begin growing. It’s always a treat to see bucks in velvet, even though it’s been years since I’ve hunted deer.

MILKWEED

James Wright

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At a touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.

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Springing into season change (again) #phenology

This week we still have a chance of snow showers on Thursday. That tells me we’re in a transition from third winter to mud season. Mid-week next we can expect a thunderstorm. Could that bring a transition from mud season to actual spring? Maybe, if we’re lucky. “Do you feel lucky, punk?” (As Dirty Harry would ask.)

some years late April looks like this

Photo by J. Harrington

This past winter has been long and dreary enough that I’m almost looking forward to spring cleanup. The dogs are happier when there’s no snow underfoots to complicate doing business [with 4 paws X 2 dogs, underfoot is inadequate]. The pond north of the property is almost all open water and the pools north of County Road 36 are in about the same condition. This afternoon even the sun came out from behind the clouds. Things are improving, at least locally, at least weatherwise. Much of the rest of the world remains in suboptimal condition.

On a brighter front, we can now look and listen for emergent skunk cabbage, mating songs of chorus frogs, budburst and eventual leafout. This morning we noticed a pileated woodpecker on the oak trees east of the red maples in the front yard. Maples which underwent their own budburst in the past day or so. Maybe with my own equivalent of budburst I’ll manage to shake the winter blahs and take on the spring spirits.

Much of the poetry I’ve been reading recently has been written by lesser known poets, or lesser known poems by better known poets. Larry Gavin’s A Fragile Shelter, New and Selected Poems is a fine example of a poet and poems that should be more widely known and read.  Warren Winders’ Wild River, which includes poetry and prose about my old stomping grounds in southeastern Massachusetts, is another. Then, again, I’m fascinated by the startling similarities in the cover photos of Ted Kooser’s well known Local Wonders and Gary Lark’s lesser known Without A Map. Is it a similarity or a distinction between prophets and poets that neither or either is “...not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

Spring Snow

By Linda Gregerson

A kind of counter- 

blossoming, diversionary, 

doomed, and like 

the needle with its drop 

of blood a little 

too transparently in 

love with doom, takes 

issue with the season: Not 

(the serviceberry bright 

with explanation) not 

(the redbud unspooling 

its silks) I know I've read 

the book but not (the lilac, 

the larch) quite yet, I still 

have one more card to 

play. Behold 

a six-hour wonder: six 

new inches bedecking the 

railing, the bench, the top 

of the circular table like 

a risen cake. The saplings 

made (who little thought 

what beauty weighs) to bow 

before their elders. 

The moment bears more 

than the usual signs of its own 

demise, but isn't that 

the bravery? Built 

on nothing but the self- 

same knots of air 

and ice. Already 

the lip of it riddled 

with flaws, a sort 

of vascular lesion that 

betokens—what? betokens 

the gathering return 

to elementals. (She 

was frightened 

for a minute, who had 

planned to be so calm.) 

A dripline scoring 

the edge of the walk. 

The cotton batting blown 

against the screen begun 

to pill and molt. (Who 

clothed them out of 

mercy in the skins 

of beasts.) And even 

as the last of the 

lightness continues 

to fall, the seepage 

underneath has gained 

momentum. (So that 

there must have been a 

death before 

the death we call the 

first or what became 

of them, the ones 

whose skins were taken.) 

Now the more- 

of-casting-backward-than-of- 

forward part, which must 

have happened while I wasn't 

looking or was looking 

at the skinning knives. I think 

I'll call this mercy too.

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Without trust, we have ...

Moonset was beautiful this morning, very cold, but beautiful. It looked a lot like the photo below, which was taken in December several years ago.

winter moonset

Photo by J. Harrington

I wish I could train myself to spend more time enjoying the good things in life and less time focused on what’s wrong. That would mean I’d spend more time enjoying life instead of fretting about what I want but don’t have at the moment. In the current example, that would be spring and warmer weather. If I were more accepting of what is, in winter I would not complain about walking dogs in bitter cold weather, nor spring’s rain and ice and mud, nor about summer’s flies and mosquitoes. Instead, I’ve limited the potential enjoyment of much of three seasons, not because of pain but because of discomfort, irritation or aggravation. I don’t believe this kind of dissatisfaction is what Robert Browning had in mind when he wrote 

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”

Alternatively, Jane Hirshfield has said:

I have been given this existence, these years on this Earth, to accept what has come into my lifetime — wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness. I must take them. I must find a way to live in this world. You can’t refuse it. And along with the difficult is the radiant, the beautiful, the intimacy with which each one of us enters the life of all of us and figures out, what is our conversation? What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed? How can I meet this in a way which both lets me open my eyes the next day and also, perhaps, if I’m lucky, can be of service?

Rarely, if ever, do I do well with acceptance. Not because I don’t try but because it does not seem to be in my nature to be zen-like. My focus has been much more on the questions “What is my responsibility? What must be suffered? What can be changed?” Perhaps the issue is one of balance rather than absolutes. 

If your email inbox is like mine, it daily fills with please to help alleviate one crisis after another. Rarely is there an acknowledgement than any given crisis has been abated, even for the moment. Such beleaguerment feeds guilt but rarely accomplishment. But then there’s the story of saving starfish.

If, come November of this year, democracy is extinguished in the US by US, due to indifference and/or incompetence, it will be tragic but, at least for awhile, the world will continue. Chile lost and then restored its democracy under political conditions that seem quite similar to those of our current time and place: a loss of trust between the two major political parties. In our case, compounded by a loss of trust between the each of the parties and many of its proponents.

As a recovvering planner, I well remember the old dictum “More of the same never solved a problem.” We continue to elect people who believe their side is always right, the other side is always wrong and gridlock is preferable to letting the other side look good or a problem get solved. Until we cease repeating that mistake (those mistakes?), nothing we do is likely to improve things very much. If politics is the art of the  possible, then we’ve elected too many politicians who’ve made art impossible. Can we do better?

Trust

By Susan Kinsolving

Trust that there is a tiger, muscular 

Tasmanian, and sly, which has never been 

seen and never will be seen by any human 

eye. Trust that thirty thousand sword- 

fish will never near a ship, that far 

from cameras or cars elephant herds live 

long elephant lives. Believe that bees 

by the billions find unidentified flowers 

on unmapped marshes and mountains. Safe 

in caves of contentment, bears sleep. 

Through vast canyons, horses run while slowly 

snakes stretch beyond their skins in the sun. 

I must trust all this to be true, though 

the few birds at my feeder watch the window 

with small flutters of fear, so like my own.

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What’s democracy worth?

We’re finishing the first full week of a new year. That’s about 2% of the year gone. Today we had 8 hours and 59 minutes of daylight but zero hours of sunlight. Tomorrow is the first quarter moon. Next week we may get to enjoy a January thaw that lasts two or three days. A major improvement over yesterday’s -24℉.

daylight isn’t the same as sunshine

Photo by J. Harrington

But first we have to get through a couple of days in which  high temperatures aren’t expected to get out of the low single digits. Neither of the dogs approves of that kind of cold but, like their owners, neither  can they do much about it except tolerate it as best they can. It  doesn’t help that the tree is down and, slowly, very slowly, the rest of the decorations are being dismounted and packed away.

At the moment, it’s hard to imagine what next Christmas may be like, since it will not come until after the elections later this year. Will we still be a democracy? That’s something for which we hope to be able to give thanks although we may find ourselves having to work as hard as the Sons of Liberty once did to overturn the British loyalists to void the voter suppression and fascist behavior of today's Republicans. Perhaps it’s time to form the Sons of the Sons of Liberty?

When I was much younger, an occasionally popular phrase was “Suppose They Gave a War and No One Came.” Recently, The Guardian published a piece titled The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it. It argues that Americans must reinvent America. If fails to address how that can happen when there is little, if any, discourse, let alone trust, between the Right and the Left.

Perhaps we could start by carefully and deeply considering a refrain written by an American singer--songwriter named Kris Kristofferson: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin left to lose.”  To that we can add some advice Will Rogers gave US years ago:  “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Ask yourself these questions: who really benefits by having Americans at each other’s throats? who gains through  the weakening of our long-standing democracy?

Freedom

By Langston Hughes

Freedom will not come

Today, this year

            Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

 

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

            To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.

 

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

            Freedom

            Is a strong seed

            Planted

            In a great need.

            I live here, too.

            I want my freedom

            Just as you.   

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