September signs

Warm and humid summer-like weather continues through Labor Day weekend. Five months from now I will probably be thinking wistfully about it, but today I'm looking forward to more autumnal weather. At least I'm not faced with sitting quietly at my desk in a classroom while it's still Summer outside.

wild turkey flock in the back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

Signs of impending seasonal change continue to increase. Leaves, and acorns, are dropping from the oak trees along the driveway. We've noticed a couple of woolly bear caterpillars during the past few days. Their "orange" bands look wide, supporting concerns about the probable effects from a significant El Niño this winter, during which local temperatures are expected to be above normal while precipitation may, or may not, deviate from average. 

A large flock of wild turkey hens with almost fully grown poults has been pecking its way daily through the back yard for the past couple of days. This year's whitetail fawns have almost grown out of their spots. No sign yet of roadside asters coming into bloom. Leaf color is changing slowly. Peak color is several weeks away.

With all the outrage and craziness in the news, I find a degree of reassurance in tracking seasonal changes. We've had so much cloud cover over so many days that experiencing sunrise or sunset is a challenge. Being able to observe reproductive success through the growth of this year's deer and turkeys is somewhat compensatory. Life goes on.

Porch Swing in September

Ted Kooser
1939 –

The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.

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Illegitimi non carborundum*

Hints of gold are arriving amongst the greens of roadside grasses. Splashes and tints of tan can be seen in the verdant treetops. We're about a third of the way through August. Rumor has it that grammar school students have started to announce, with dismay: "Summer's almost over! Soon we'll be back in school!!" I'm discounting a number of reports about adults responding "Yes!!!" Even in this day and age I'm not ready to believe in that level of cruelty.

wild turkeys walking through August-ripe grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

About 3 am we were awakened by a round of thunder and lightning, and rain, that had been forecast for several hours later. It's been cloudy much of the day. Temperatures have pretty much dropped out of the nineties, for which we are thankful. In the midst of the current and continuing national and international madness, I'm really looking forward to Autumn's arrival, followed by the mid-term elections. Will the fractured and fragmented Democrats unite enough to oust the party of pedophile protecting Republicans? Will POtuS find a way to successfully disrupt the election outcome? If so, how will the country respond? The United States is emulating that old joke: "I'm not the man (country) I used to be; never was." If only we had no where to go but up. Do you think we've hit bottom yet? Are enough voters fed up with an international crime syndicate masquerading as a government? How bad and wide-spread do the wildfires and droughts have to get?

Meanwhile as I rearrange the deck chairs on our Titanic, I've been fly-fishing several weeks in a row now. That's an improvement over the past few years. All I've caught so far is one bush on a misplaced backcast, but that's better than staying home, not catching anything, and then bitching about not going fishing because it's too windy wet, etc. A similar perspective might be beneficial come voting time. I don't like being faced with an option of choosing the lesser of two options, but would like it even less if the greater clown won by one vote because I stayed home. Meanwhile, we'll probably wear out the tv's mute button due to political ads during the next couple of months. Maybe if we're good little girls and boys, by Christmas this will all be over until 2028 at least!

*  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum

Good Bones

Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

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What are we here for?

It’s the end of March; the beginning of Spring. The back yard and the driveway are covered in an inch or so of fresh snow. More storms, with a possibility of more snow, are forecast for Tuesday night and Wednesday. Meanwhile,, a flock of more than a dozen wild turkey hens came out of the woods to visit the back yard Sunday. On Monday, three or four toms and jake turkeys were displaying to most or all of the flock of hens. A few whitetail deer also have wandered through from time to time. Springtime in the North Country is full of surprises. I’m working hard to temper my expectations and enjoy much of whatever comes next. That seems to work better with Mother Nature than with current versions of American government and politics.

hen turkey flock sunning in the back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning I presented myself with a challenge: what would happen if I tried to find as many opportunities to demonstrate in favor of things I want instead of things I don’t want. I suspect I’d be more than a little frustrated. Then again, the country doesn’t yet have an Equal Rights Amendment. We are far from where we should be to respond effectively to a growing climate crisis. We seem to need many more leaders like Ayana Elizabeth Johnson to move the climate needle far and fast enough. (Full disclosure: I’ve yet to complete my own version of a climate action Venn diagram. I hereby make a public commitment to completing a personal version before posting again on this blog.) We’re nowhere near meeting the 1972 Clean Water Act's 1983 goal of “fishable-swimmable” water. Let’s not even get started on the loss of biodiversity issue and/or the increase in economic inequality. I bet the Venn diagram worksheet could readily be adapted to other issues that need support.

In his book, Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough writes about "Why Being ‘Less Bad’ Is No Good.” Among the things we make are environmental laws. What if we work more, and harder, and smarter, to create better laws that support indigenous rights of nature, for clean water, and air, and productive soils that exist for their own sakes. What would Venn diagrams for that approach look and read like? Can we afford to settle for any less? Do you remember the punch line from the old joke about “the operation was a success, but the patient died?” Isn’t that what we’re setting ourselves up for?

Characteristics of Life

Camille T. Dungy
1972 – 

^{A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists.
—BBC Nature News}

Ask me if I speak for the snail and I will tell you
I speak for the snail.
                          speak of underneathedness
and the welcome of mosses,
                                        of life that springs up,
little lives that pull back and wait for a moment.

I speak for the damselfly, water skeet, mollusk,
the caterpillar, the beetle, the spider, the ant.
                                                        I speak
from the time before spinelessness was frowned upon.

Ask me if I speak for the moon jelly. I will tell you
                        one thing today and another tomorrow
        and I will be as consistent as anything alive
on this earth.

                        I move as the currents move, with the breezes.
What part of your nature drives you? You, in your cubicle
ought to understand me. I filter and filter and filter all day.

Ask me if I speak for the nautilus and I will be silent
as the nautilus shell on a shelf. I can be beautiful
and useless if that's all you know to ask of me.

Ask me what I know of longing and I will speak of distances
        between meadows of night-blooming flowers.
                                                        I will speak
                        the impossible hope of the firefly.

                                                You with the candle
burning and only one chair at your table must understand
        such wordless desire.

                                To say it is mindless is missing the point. 

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‘Twixt Valentines and Spring

We hope you had a warm Valentine’s Day full of hugs, kisses and loves. Ours did and added too much candy to be good for us since we were just finishing off the Christmas stash. Time to start practicing self control again. Wish me luck!!

Over the past few days we’ve watched a flock of a baker’s dozen turkey hens scratch the daylights out of our back yard. Where there had been a couple of inches of snow cover, after the birds’ visits, oak leaves cover the ground. They no doubt found most of the acorns they were looking for or they’d still be scratching for them. Yesterday, as they trod downhill, they looked like a division of miniature tanks coming toward the house. By sometime next month, toms may start to gobble as mating season begins.

red osier dogwood brightening

Photo by J. Harrington

At the moment, we’re under an “Extreme Cold Watch” with wind chills from minus 33 to minus 39 forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday. By next weekend, daytime highs are forecast to reach above freezing. Remember the old saying “If winter’s here, can spring be far behind?” Let’s hope it’s right (behind)!! Meteorologically we’re now less than two weeks from the beginning of spring on March 1.

It’s about that time of year when red osier dogwood begins to brighten tamarack swamps. Soon we’ll be hearing the tinkles and tunks of snowmelt dripping and flowing as nature begins to climb out from under her winter blanket. Spring is a season the Minnesota does not usually do well. The pattern is too often cold, cold, cool, warm, hot, over about that many days. Maybe this year will be an exception to the usual and we’ll get to enjoy an extended, gradual warming over weeks to come. Maybe some year the Vikings will win the Superbowl, too. Lots of natural, and naturalized, Minnesotans have become quite good at saying “Wait ’til next year.”

Here in the North Country, by the time we leave Black History Month, we will be entering the

Country of Water

Mahogany L. Browne

I know who I am because I believe it

The breath in my chest
Insistent in its choice

The skin that I’m in
The bones and blood and veins
It carries like a promise

          Have you witnessed the ocean

Moving with so much gust and life
Have you witnessed the river
Still waters bubbling the rebirth of school

           Have you witnessed your body

Its own country of water
Moving against the tide of a world
So heartbreaking      it’s forgotten its own voice

Be still friend
Be still
Be kind to yourself in the gift of stillness

I know who I am because I believe it
I know
I know
Who I
Who I
Believe
Believe
Believe
In three’s we will come
A drip of water moving against a boulder
Water slow and steady can turn rock
Into a pebble
Like anxiety
Like self-doubt
Smaller
Smaller
Until gone
Let your love for yourself be the water
Be the rise
Be the mist
Let you be

I know who I am because I believe it
I believe I am my mother’s daughter
I believe I am my grandmother’s prayers
I believe I am my great-grandmother’s backbone revealed

I am I am because I believe so
I am because a woman believed in me
What a continent I became
What a country of water I be
I flow and fluid and rise and ebb and I believe in me

           I am not wrong
I am wronged

In this skin I’ve reclaimed
From this trap of this country’s tourniquet
Only to find the sweet solace is a river bed
Its mud beckons me closer to its silt
Small fish and forgotten glass unearth themselves
Like baby teeth
Only one can cut into flesh purposely
Only one does not know what it is capable of

I believe in the air as much as I believe in the fire
I believe in the fire as much as the water consumes
I believe in a higher source
Energetic and wise
I believe in my ability to thrive

This body
        This body is a good thing

Turning two miles walked over a bridge into a family’s meal
Creating poems that become cashier’s checks
Dentist bills and rent
I’ve three holes in my teeth
And a nation that pretends I didn’t almost die for it to survive

I am I am still here still here
I am still here and like the ocean, full of salt and shells
Full of ship remnants and noble ones
I bleed and the sand grieves
I be because someone survived for me to be here
Today

Breathing this almost air
Marching for cleaner belongings
My front seat beneath the deadening stars
Is still a seat
Is still a ground
Is still a home that I can pronounce my given name
To write amongst the forgotten names
The taken and the ignored
But today

            There are no tombstones

Today
There is no true death

Only life
Only life
Only a song of the living
Maybe even a belief system
With water as its minister

            I am water

I dive into my own currents
I dress my dreams in the satin breath
Of my ancestors

I know
I know
I know who I am
I know who I am because I believe it

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Another mixed bag

I’d be outside doing some yard work if not for a fresh hatch of deer flies that set upon the dogs and I a little earlier. I decided that today’s “better part of valor” was to freshen the permethrin spray on my bug hoodie and wait for the flies to die off a little. It’s not like I live in suburbia with a home owner’s association breathing down my neck. So, despite delightful weather, I’m inside learning to take the biter with the sweet.

turkey poults and hens

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of sweet, this morning brought to the back yard the first visit of the year by a flock of turkey poults, chaperoned by three hens showing the young’uns around the neighborhood. Their appearance brightened my spirits, which had been dampened by the past week’s political turmoil. I’m left with concern for the future of democracy and our species, since we seem to be losing the ability to govern ourselves effectively. At least I hope we don’t take the rest of nature with US. Thank heavens Mother Nature isn’t dependent on computers or Microsoft and CloudStrike software. (I refuse to make the obvious joke about different kinds of turkeys appearing on the same day.)

This Sunday we’re off to hear one of our favorite local authors, Kent Nerburn, at an art gallery about an hour north of our place. According to the description: Kent joins us to speak primarily on “what we as a dominant culture can learn from Native America” rather than on the art of writing. That’s a theme I’ve been exploring in my reading recently. Given Nerburn’s background, it should be interesting.

The Way In

By Linda Hogan

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.

Sometimes the way in is a song.

But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,

and beauty.

To enter stone, be water.

To rise through hard earth, be plant

desiring sunlight, believing in water.

To enter fire, be dry.

To enter life, be food.

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Mid-May musings

Early this morning we enjoyed some mild thunder and lightning as thundershowers rolled through. Later, we watched a wild tom turkey displaying for a sole hen in the backyard. She didn’t seem interested, but maybe she just thought the field was too open to engage in intimacies. In any case, after ten minutes or so, the hen wandered into the woods, followed by a somewhat distraught tom. I’m guessing that at this time of year, most of the hens are incubating eggs and the mating season is winding down.

backyard tom turkey in mating display

Photo by J. Harrington

Once the back yard performance ended, we headed off to the farm to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. It includes:

• ARUGULA
• MESCLUN
• SPRING "SPACE” SPINACH
• SIMPSON OR PIRAT LETTUCE, and
• CHIVES

One of the high points of my week is the drive to the CSA farm through the countryside of the St. Croix River valley, noting changes in the season’s displays. This year some farmer’s are either planting very late or leaving what looks like an unusual number of fields fallow. Other fields, that got corn planted early(?), are showing emergent corn plants already.

Now it’s time for me to go and refresh the planting trays and try again to successfully germinate some bergamot seeds. Cross your fingers for us, please.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

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A between storms lull

More signs of spring, better than spring blizzards, are appearing in the lull between storms. The Sunrise River pools were hosting several bunches of mallards, fresh from southern grounds. A tom turkey was displaying for his harem of more than a dozen hens along a nearby county road. Birdsong persists in the morning despite the fresh snow cover. If only the forecast weren’t for an additional six to twelve inches tomorrow, on top of the nine inches we got Friday, I might feel almost springy myself. Ah well, all the more to look forward to!

tom turkey: fan-tailed mating display

Photo by J. Harrington

Between a basically snowless winter and an early Easter (next weekend), my sense of spring as an emergence has been thoroughly disrupted this year. Once the latest round of snow melts, I’m promising myself a wander into the nearby wetlands to look for skunk cabbage. Marsh marigolds should show up some time late next month and trilliums after that. In the midst of tomorrow and Monday’s storm, reading about fly fishing and turkey hunting will serve as a comfortable substitute for the real things. Until Palm Sunday..., unless I get worn out clearing snow.

For the Bird Singing before Dawn

Kim Stafford

Some people presume to be hopeful
when there is no evidence for hope,
to be happy when there is no cause.
Let me say now, I’m with them.

In deep darkness on a cold twig
in a dangerous world, one first
little fluff lets out a peep, a warble,
a song—and in a little while, behold:

the first glimmer comes, then a glow
filters through the misty trees,
then the bold sun rises, then
everyone starts bustling about.

And that first crazy optimist, can we
forgive her for thinking, dawn by dawn,
“Hey, I made that happen!
And oh, life is so fine.”

Contingency planning in the anthropocene

Yesterday and today, the dogs and I walked up to the pond North of the house. It’s a longer walk than we usually take at this time of year but with the warmer temperatures and lack of snow cover, we need the exercise. The ice cover on the pond is deteriorating for at least the second time this season. We’ll see lots of open water by the end of the week. If the general weather pattern continues, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see much of the Spring turkey hunting season to be a bit of a waste. Many of the hens may be bred, and the toms worn out, by the time hunting season opens in mid April. Or I may be way off base, depending on what the Wild Turkey Foundation means by “Unusually warm or cold spells may accelerate or slow breeding activity slightly."

local turkeys: early March past

Photo by J. Harrington

Then again, this being the North Country, we could be up to our armpits in snow by Valentine’s Day. I just don’t know what to make of it, but the dogs and I do prefer above freezing to below zero temperatures, when given the option, a very rare occurrence around here. We even got to enjoy approximately 49 seconds of sunshine today. More may be delivered later this week, or not.

One thing I feel relatively certain of: if I buy a turkey license, it’s likely to snow and rain and freeze and blow and maybe even blizzard. That assessment is based on the Spring weather we encountered in our younger days when we were know to join a few friends and hunt the birds in southeast Minnesota or South Dakota. We’ll see how the weather pattern plays out. I could be convinced to go trout fishing instead, or if the weather turns miserable enough, stay in, drink coffee, and read.

Turkey Fallen Dead from Tree

By Dore Kiesselbach

Startled from snow-day slumber by a neighbor’s mutt, 

it banged its buzzard’s head then couldn’t solve 

the problem of the white pine’s limbs 

with wings nearly too broad for a planned descent. 

Somewhere an awkward angel knows 

whether it was dead before it hit the ground.

Any sinner could tell it was dead after—

eyes unseen beneath bare and wrinkled lids,

feet drawn up almost as high as hands.

I loved to watch thistle and millet 

disappear beneath it in the yard.

As snow covers feathers that will still be 

iridescent in the spring I remember seeing 

a businessman take a dripping handful 

of pocket change and throw it down 

a subway grate beside a homeless man. 

The coins bounced and clattered, vanishing 

in the humid dark. The rich man said 

now you’re having a shitty day too. 

But it’s not a shitty day and won’t be 

when I retrieve the bird and walk it—

toes curling stiff from a shopping bag—

to a houseless scrap of oak savannah 

birdseed drew it from and dig it 

into deeper snow so what was hoarded 

by a man may by the thaw be doled.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

In our family, at these times, grandfather and grandmother go over the river and through the woods to enjoy Thanksgiving at the  house of Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter. The old folks don’t yet need diaper bags nor car seats and, for a while longer, can get out of the Jeep with fewer complications than faced by the parents of a three year old. So far this year, we’ve been lucky to not need a sleigh nor 4WD on the Jeep for the trip.

Photo by J. Harrington

May each of you and all of yours enjoy a happy, healthy, and together Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day [“Over the river and through the wood”]

By Lydia Maria Child

Over the river and through the wood,

    To grandfather's house we go;

         The horse knows the way

         To carry the sleigh

    Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river and through the wood--

    Oh, how the wind does blow!

         It stings the toes

         And bites the nose,

    As over the ground we go.

Over the river and through the wood,

    To have first-rate play.

         Hear the bells ring,

         "Ting-a-ling-ding!"

    Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river and through the wood,

    And straight through the barn-yard gate.

         We seem to go

         Extremely slow--

    It is so hard to wait!

Over the river and through the wood--

    Now grandmother's cap I spy!

         Hurrah for the fun!

         Is the pudding done?

    Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!

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Autumn prelude

For the past eighteen hours or so, there were storms to the east of us; storms to the west of us; storms to the north of us; and storms to the south of us. Amidst the torrents, we got drizzled on. To quote an old saying: “close to, but better than, nothing.”

a damp autumn day

Photo by J. Harrington

Under this morning’s cloudy, drippy skies, we watched a skein of geese in their classic V plus a flock of cranes in a ragged line. That was in addition to several gaggles of geese feeding on a local lawn and two or three (four?) flocks and families of wild turkeys out foraging in the drizzle. Autumn’s urge for going is growing. The preceding observations were made as we headed for the credit union to deposit our 2021 tax rebate check, the one that looks suspiciously like some sort of junk mail or scam. Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where folks didn’t feel a need to be so skeptical? The last time I emptied my email spam folder, there were more than 250 messages that had accumulated. Sigh!

Despite a number of interesting and appealing new books on the shelves and tables of our favorite local bookstore, located just down the road from the credit union, I uncharacteristically behaved myself. The number of unread and partially read books sitting on my tables and shelves is enough to give even me a slightly guilty conscience. Writers keep writing, poets keep poeting, and publishers keep publishing faster than a guy can read. Definitely not a case of “close to, but better than....” 

Next to the book store is one of the food coops to which we belong and where the Better Half took a walk through to emerge with a bag of “First Kiss” apples (juicy and delicious and traditional deep red) plus a small collection of pumpkin candles that will bring the dining room table more into seasonal alignment. I’m going to have to watch my step. A few more mornings like this and I might end up in a good mood!

September

by John Updike

The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.

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Gee! Oh! Poetics?

Canada is once again smoke-bombing the Midwest. We’re under an air quality alert until noon tomorrow. I’m once again deferring burning fallen, dead branches so I don’t contribute to the problem of fine particulates. By the time winter approaches, I have no doubt our neighbors to the north and west will be only to ready to share a different kind of particulate with US. Obviously, we can’t all live upwind or upstream, right?

summer turkey flock

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning a flock of more than eight wild turkeys, all or mostly hens, some poults(?), pecked their way through the back yard. I’m not sure what they were feeding on, but they’re welcome to the ticks and beetles we’ve been dealing with all season. Goldenrod blooms are appearing in more and more places. Remember, it’s more ragweed than goldenrod that triggers hay fever outbreaks.

Several weeks or so ago I was unaware of the existence of the field of geopoetics, at least by that name. I’ve been interested in bioregionalism for some time. More recently I’ve become enamored of a growing genre know as literary field guides. I had read that the first of that genre is The Sonoran Desert, co-edited by Eric Magrane. Magrane is also a co-editor of Geopoetics in Practice. If you visit us from time to time, you may well be interested in the projects Magrane has been involved in. Here’s a link to the projects page of his web site.

One of Magrane’s co-editors of Geopoetics is Linda Russo, who also has some fascinating work on her web site. I hope you’ll visit each of these sites and poke around. It’s encouraging, I find, to discover folks who are working on alternative ways in which we can relate to and cocreate the world around us. It’s pretty obvious that the way we’ve been doing it through colonial capitalism isn’t working out all that well.

Various Instructions for the Practice of Poetic Field Research

April 13th, 2012

By Eric Magrane

 

These instructions were created by poet, naturalist, and Spiral Orb editor Eric Magrane in celebration of National Poetry Month 2012, and in conjunction with Spiral Orb Five: A Poetic Inventory of Saguaro National Park and a reading by the same name that took place at the Poetry Center on April 16, 2012 (listen to the event on Voca).

They are designed to get you out into any given environment and enhance your awareness of that given environment in unexpected ways.

 

1. Note your elevation above sea level. What poems occur here?

2. Map the ¼ mile radius around your home in a poem.

3. Draw a line. On one side of the line, note observations. On the other side, write responses to those observations. Which is which?

4. Choose an object in your field. Make the object the title. Make it the title three times. Write three pieces with this title.

5. List everything that is alive around you. List everything that is not alive around you.

6. Go to a different elevation. What poems occur here?

7. Choose a species you know little about but that lives in your ecosystem. Learn everything you can about that species. Then, go find the species. Write what happens.

8. The first object-poem (see #4) will be your control. Analyze the second and third against the control. What are your conclusions?

9. Find an urban ecotone. Stand there. Write a poem from the dual space.

10. Imagine a rise in sea level. How will that affect your elevation poem?

11. List everything that is natural around you. List everything that is not natural around you.

12. Observe lists #5 and #11. Why did you organize them as you did? Is there such a thing?

13. Stand up and put your arms out. The length of your arms is the circle of the poem.

14. Choose a field you know little about. Find someone in that field to interview. Research the person’s work beforehand, so that you can ask relevant questions. Conduct the interview, then write a poem.

15. Write a poem that takes place over 4.5 billion years.

16. Write a poem that is 3 degrees Celsius warmer than it is now.

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Peak summer phenology

Earlier today we saw a small flock of turkeys on the rise behind the house. The exciting news is that there was a bunch of poults scurrying around among the adults. We’ve not seen any poults this year until this morning, and if memory serves, there were few sightings last year. It’s encouraging to see the next generation has arrived and is ready to thrive if we give them the chance.

Canada thistle

Photo by J. Harrington

Roadside Canada thistle is developing fluff or down. American goldfinches will be collecting some to line their nests. In a month or so, there should be goldfinch hatchlings.

Again, and again, forecast rain hasn’t arrived. Maybe this evening’s thunderstorms will dampen the ground as well as the dog’s spirits? The grasses and other plants on the rise behind the house are in very poor shape. All of the state is abnormally dry to moderate drought. On the rise, turkeys have turned several locations into sandy dust baths. A handful of black-eyed Susans provides a little color. Meanwhile, at the foot of the rise, the grasses surrounding the wet spot are flourishing.

Some to much, but not most, of the field corn is beginning to tassel. A number of the local corn fields are full of bald spots where seeds were washed out last spring or otherwise failed to germinate. A second cutting of hay is getting baled and a few nearby small fields are up for sale. Will they soon be growing single family detached houses?

The Drought

By Gary Soto

The clouds shouldered a path up the mountains

East of Ocampo, and then descended,

Scraping their bellies gray on the cracked shingles of slate.

They entered the valley, and passed the roads that went

Trackless, the houses blown open, their cellars creaking

And lined with the bottles that held their breath for years.

They passed the fields where the trees dried thin as hat racks

And the plow’s tooth bit the earth for what endured.

But what continued were the wind that plucked the birds spineless

And the young who left with a few seeds in each pocket,

Their belts tightened on the fifth notch of hunger—

Under the sky that deafened from listening for rain.

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Talking turkey

For all the times we’ve seen wild turkeys around the place, and the few times we’ve heard toms gobbling, this morning is the first time I can remember hearing a hen yelping. I was busy loading the tractor onto the trailer so we could take it off to the dealer for service, and amidst my hearing the tie-down straps ratchet tight, were the hen’s calls. Was she calling poults to stay away from me, the Jeep, and the trailer? Was she just trying to gather a family together? Could she  have been responding to the ratchet noise? I’ll never know, but it was fun to hear a real version of what I’ve been trying, off and on, to imitate during years of (unsuccessful) spring turkey hunting.

either sex is legal quarry in fall season

Photo by J. Harrington

Since Minnesota has a fall turkey season, this may be a year to get a license and spend some mornings sipping coffee on the deck and seeing if anyone wanders through the yard. Maybe I’ll even try playing with some of my turkey calls, although I’ll need to practice to minimize the likelihood of scaring the quarry away rather than drawing it in close. All of this presume that the smoke from Canadian wildfires has ceased and none is being generated by Minnesota burns. The past week or so has been smokey enough that I’ve even held off on burning some of the downed dead branches in the burn pit. It also depends on the disappearance of most all of the mosquitoes by the end of September. Think we’ll have had our first hard frost by then?

It feels odd thinking about turkey hunting in midsummer, since it’s usually an early spring affair, but then this has been one of those decades, hasn’t it? One where the unusual is becoming more common and most of US are struggling to figure out what, if anything, to do about it.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

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As warblers warble and turkeys gobble

 If the weather around here follows a typical “spring” pattern, one day next month we’ll awaken to a day in the 90’s and thereafter it will be more like summer than spring. It’s not clear if that means we’ll also break the extended string of mostly cloudy days. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have been thinking a number of uncomplimentary things about those “science communicators” who first coined the concept of global warming instead of climate breakdown or disruption. We are a week from the beginning of May and the current temperature is 42℉, almost 20 degrees less than a normal daytime high for this date and location.

yellow-rumped warbler (Myrtle) male

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we managed to get a few photos and confirmed that our suspicion yesterday, that it’s a flock or so of Yellow-rumped Warbler Myrtle males that's passing through, correctly identified our visitors.

Meanwhile, as we’re writing this, rain showers are interrupting the tom turkey displaying at the back corner of our field, accompanied by a jake while trying to impress two hens. A third hen, back near the house, is having none of it and headed off on her own into a different part of the woods. All this prompted me to go get my turkey calls that I had intended to practice with last winter and try them out. That resulted in the dogs giving me some very funny looks. If I were actually turkey hunting these days I probably wouldn’t have been wearing rain gear so now I’d be damp and cold and cursing a tom that won’t come within range ‘cuz he’s got a harem already. If turkey hunting weren’t so much fun it would be really frustrating, or is it the other way around?

This Saturday we’ll pick up our first Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share of spring greens. Maybe that will help us feel more in the spirit of the season instead of feeling like we’re trapped in the dregs of a never-ending winter.

Audubon Warblers

By Kevin L. Cole

The Audubon warblers keep the time of their coming,

Arriving on stillness of a storm,

Their breast and backs as dark as low bruised banks of cloud,

Rumps and throats as yellow as blooms of buckwheat.

 

They throng this evening in the newly-leaved

Tender-tipped canopies nervously weaving

Through the catkins like frantic prophets

Bearing some divine prophecy of the coming spring.

 

I wait, hoping for nothing too grave:

News of ruinous lands, of cutting and swarming locusts,

Of withering vines and empty granaries,

Of fasting, weeping, and rending of garments.

 

No, I wait for lighter fare:

Perhaps a promise that the green heron will nest

On the west end of the slough and that the ironweed

And wood lily will once again together bloom.

 

This would be an ample prophecy for another year—

This and a promise to keep the time of their coming.

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No more passenger pigeons

 Today is opening day of Minnesota’s wild turkey season No, not the turkeys in the state capitol, their season begins back in January or February. Interestingly, both the wild and political turkey seasons end about the same time, at the end of May and each is often associated with major snow jobs in April.

tom turkey mating display

Photo by J. Harrington

When I first moved to Minnesota, about four+ decades ago, wild turkeys were confined to a few counties in the southeastern part of the state. Now, they’re widespread throughout much of Minnesota, including our back yard from time to time. Wild turkeys and bald eagles demonstrate our ability to restore critters to range from which they’ve been extirpated and from near extinction population levels. Wouldn’t it be great if we worked harder at avoiding the need for restoration by protecting nature. (Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati zoo more than 100 years ago.) We can and must do better.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

********************************************
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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Welcome, Spring!

On our first full day of Spring, the midday snow showers were mercifully brief and light. Melting commenced by midafternoon. I’m hoping by this time next week it will seem not unreasonable to go exploring for emerging skunk cabbage. The ten day forecast makes it look like we’ll get a slow melt with nightly refreezing, which should help limit flooding concerns. I’m old enough that visits from Santa don’t get me very excited, but the arrival of open water and bare ground after a winter like the one just ended has me gleeful.

emergent skunk cabbage

Photo by J. Harrington

In honor of the arrival of Spring, today I transplanted two shamrock plants from their plastic pots to a more respectable planter. We hope the effort proves successful. Gardening is not one of my strong points. I’m much more of a hunter/fisher/gatherer/forager. As I was removing the plants from their plastic pots, it appeared I’ve overwatered them and they haven’t been getting enough sunlight. The next week will give us an insight into whether the transplant will be accepted or rejected. Meanwhile, I’d like to find some potted crocuses (croci?) to brighten the place.

The pair of wild turkey hens that visit from time to time were back this morning. It would be great if they’d clean up the mess the squirrels and birds have made feeding on the whole, unshelled, sunflower seeds. As I was headed to visit the Granddaughter this morning, I almost ran over a wild turkey jake that decided to dash across the road about 75 yards in front of the Jeep. We tapped the brakes and swerved slightly left as the bird dashed frantically right and everyone went on their way unharmed.

The past few days have brought another sign of Spring’s arrival. Increased numbers of dead oak leaves are falling from the trees, their connections loosened as the buds for this years green leaves begin to swell. We know that Minnesota has experienced snow fall every month but one. I suspect the same may be true about oak leaves, they fall every month but one.

Skunk Cabbage

by Mary Oliver

And now as the iron rinds over
the ponds start dissolving,
you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers
and new leaves unfolding,
upon the brash
turnip-hearted skunk cabbage
slinging its bunches leaves up
through the chilling mud.
You kneel beside it. The smell
is lurid and flows out in the most
unabashed way, attracting
into itself a continual spattering
of protein. Appalling its rough
green caves, and the thought
of the thick root nested below, stubborn
and powerful as instinct!
But these are the woods you love,
where the secret name
of every death is life again - a miracle
wrought surely not of mere turning
but of dense and scalding reenactment. Not
tenderness, not longing, but daring and brawn
pull down the frozen waterfall, the past.
Ferns, leaves, flowers, the last subtle
refinements, elegant and easeful, wait
to rise and flourish.
What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty. 

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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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a winter’s day, after day, after ...

Baking a loaf of kernza sourdough artisan bread on another gray, cloudy January day helps, but not as much as a month’s worth of sunshine and blue skies would. It’s true that drought, wild fire, atmospheric rivers are both emotionally and physically devastating, but our persistent cloudiness makes me feel like I’m being subjected to eternal water torture, drip-drip-drip, and would confess to anything too make it stop, but there’s not even a guard within earshot that I can implore.

a taste of times to come

Photo by J. Harrington

I did get a good whiff of the fragrances from the bulb planter flowers this morning, which made me hope I might live long enough to once again enjoy a real spring day full of wildflowers and sunshine. I bet any wild animals susceptible to seasonal affective disorder are hibernating in a state of torpor. That’s similar to my current condition but, unfortunately, I’m awake, not asleep, although the Better Half might have a different perspective on that.

A hen turkey is again feeding on droppings from the deck bird feeders. I noticed her as I was checking on a load of clothes in the dryer and sneaking another peek at the jonquils and tulips near the west side downstairs window. For a scruffy-looking bird she’s quite handsome; for a handsome bird she’s quite scruffy-looking. I need to remember to dump some sunflower seeds on the snow for her, the cardinals, and squirrels.

Maybe tomorrow I need to take a ride and see if I can find some open, flowing, water and just sit and watch for awhile. Even if everything is frozen over, I’ll feel better for having tried. Beckett’s statement on “fail better” comes to mind, as does the idea that waiting for winter to end in Minnesota is about as useful and hopeful as Waiting for Godot.

The Song of the Happy Shepherd

By William Butler Yeats

The woods of Arcady are dead, 

And over is their antique joy; 

Of old the world on dreaming fed; 

Grey Truth is now her painted toy; 

Yet still she turns her restless head: 

But O, sick children of the world, 

Of all the many changing things 

In dreary dancing past us whirled, 

To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, 

Words alone are certain good. 

Where are now the warring kings, 

Word be-mockers? — By the Rood

Where are now the warring kings? 

An idle word is now their glory, 

By the stammering schoolboy said, 

Reading some entangled story: 

The kings of the old time are dead; 

The wandering earth herself may be 

Only a sudden flaming word, 

In clanging space a moment heard, 

Troubling the endless reverie. 

Then nowise worship dusty deeds, 

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, 

To hunger fiercely after truth, 

Lest all thy toiling only breeds 

New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth 

Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, 

No learning from the starry men, 

Who follow with the optic glass 

The whirling ways of stars that pass — 

Seek, then, for this is also sooth, 

No word of theirs — the cold star-bane 

Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, 

And dead is all their human truth. 

Go gather by the humming sea 

Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,

And to its lips thy story tell, 

And they thy comforters will be, 

Rewarding in melodious guile 

Thy fretful words a little while, 

Till they shall singing fade in ruth 

And die a pearly brotherhood; 

For words alone are certain good: 

Sing, then, for this is also sooth. 

I must be gone: there is a grave 

Where daffodil and lily wave, 

And I would please the hapless faun, 

Buried under the sleepy ground, 

With mirthful songs before the dawn. 

His shouting days with mirth were crowned; 

And still I dream he treads the lawn, 

Walking ghostly in the dew, 

Pierced by my glad singing through, 

My songs of old earth's dreamy youth: 

But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! 

For fair are poppies on the brow: 

Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

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