Reading into the season

Winter is approaching, a time for slowing down and storytelling. For some of us that also means more reading, although I suspect the Better Half is dubious that, for me, more reading is possible. She may have a point but I'm now working hard to limit doomscrolling and reading more positive content. You'll see what I mean below when you get to the cluster of links.

some years the deer don't wait 'til after Halloween

Photo by J. Harrington

The pumpkins and jack-o'-lantern have been put in the field behind the house so deer can feed on them. The local firearms season ends today so no one is likely to be accused of hunting over bait. I didn't hunt this year (again) and the Son-In-Law only hunted here one day after we saw a wonderful buck just before dusk one afternoon this past week.

This year I've done a much better job of managing and mulching leaves than I have in years past. We've got lots of bare ground that needs reseeding with shade-tolerant grass. Maybe next year I'll look for shade-tolerant sod. Is there such a thing?

The replacement serviceberry bushes seem to be surviving. Their leaves changed color this past week. I may try to water them once more before the snow sets in. The local weather forecasts have been including showers that never arrive so I've been holding off watering in hope that....

There is a wonderful, thoughtful "featured essay" in The Guardian. I urge you to take some time to read Megan Mayhew Bergman's The last frontier of empathy: why we still struggle to see ourselves as animals. I particularly enjoyed it since I've recently started reading David R. Boyd's The Rights of Nature. I suspect there's a number of folks who might be more comfortable if such themes were reframed as the responsibilities of humans. A long time ago I was taught that having rights incurs corresponding responsibilities, a lesson that seems to have been lost on all too many of our "leaders."

Ada Limón captures many themes related to nature and rights in her wonderful poem Startlement, from her new collection of the same title. See what you think as you read the version printed in a recent interview with her.

Startlement. It is a forgotten pleasure. The pleasure of the unexpected blue-bellied lizard skittering off his sunspot rock, the flicker of an unknown bird by the bus stop. To think, perhaps we are not distinguishable, and therefore, no loneliness can exist here. Species to species in the same blue air, smoke, wing flutter buzzing, a car horn coming, so many unknown languages to think we have only honored this strange human tongue. If you sit by the riverside, you see a culmination of all things upstream. We know now we were never at the circle's center. Instead, all around us, something is living or trying to live. The world says what we are becoming, we are becoming together. The world says one type of dream has ended, and another has just begun. The world says once we were separate, and now we must move in unison.

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November's heritage: memories and memorials

It was fifty years ago tomorrow that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the tragedy with his song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Please pause for a moment of silence after following the link and listening to him perform. Then check some interesting background to the song.

Minnesota's Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

Locally, on November 10 the Split Rock Lighthouse and the Minnesota Historical Society will host a memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Fitzgerald's sinking, as has been done for the past four decades or so.

Our area's firearm’s deer season opened yesterday with colder temperatures than we’ve seen so far this season. Warmer days are forecast for later in the week. One of the reasons I was more of a grouse and waterfowl hunter than a whitetail seeker is that I can't manage to sit still enough to blend into the landscape when experiencing the frequently cold temperatures we get during deer season in the North Country. Plus, when I tried deer hunting back in New England, before moving to Minnesota, I did it with a mixed group of bow hunters and bird hunters. It rarely failed that the bird hunters spooked deer and the bow hunters watched grouse strutting around their stands.

UPDATE: Local ponds are forming ice cover. First snow of the season is falling as graupel and forming snow snakes along the roads.

Since November is Native American Heritage month, as well as the season for early gales on Superior, and since Lightfoot referred to Superior by her Ojibwe/Anishinaabe name, Gitche Gumee, it seems fitting to close today with a Kimberly Blaeser poem. Water, in Great Lakes and elsewhere, has long been a source of both life and death.

Wellspring: Words from Water

A White Earth childhood water rich and money poor.
Vaporous being transformed in cycles—
the alluvial stories pulled from Minnesota lakes
harvested like white fish, like manoomin,
like old prophecies of seed growing on water.
Legends of Anishinaabeg spirit beings:
cloud bearer Thunderbird who brings us rain,
winter windigo like Ice Woman, or Mishibizhii
who roars with spit and hiss of rapids—
great underwater panther, you copper us
to these tributaries of balance. Rills. A cosmology
of nibi.  We believe our bodies thirst. Our earth.
One element. Aniibiishaaboo. Tea brown
wealth. Like maple sap. Amber. The liquid eye of moon.
Now she turns tide, and each wedded being gyrates
to the sound, its river body curving.
We, women of ageless waters, endure;
like each flower drinks from night,
holds dew. Our bodies a libretto,
saturated, an aquifer—we speak words
from ancient water.

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It’s not all bad this autumn

In several ways, this has been literally a shitty week My dog SiSi has had diarrhea for the past few days and, since we’re getting the septic tank pumped out soon, I had to locate and dig out the pumping port. Ah, the joys of country living! I won’t trouble you with a list of all the recent political stunts that fit the theme.

On the bright side, our son, a Vikings fan, is quite happy that they’re well ahead of the NY Giants at the beginning of the fourth quarter of today’s first game of the regular season. The Daughter Person is enjoying a weekend visit from a friend who was the maid of honor at Daughter’s wedding a decade ago. Granddaughter is excited about an upcoming fourth birthday and her weekly horseback riding lessons. Most to all of us have been enjoying the drop in temperatures and humidity that occurred this week. I’ve been pleased with autumn’s other encroachments such as increasing color in some trees and bushes,, although the temperature drop has lead to increased time for the sourdough’s bulk rise due to house temperatures several degrees less than 70℉. Plus, the Better Half informs me there are pears on the pear tree this year. Maybe some neighbors will come and help themselves.

a pair of whitetail deer at our pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Our community supported agriculture autumn shares started yesterday. The farm hasn’t yet sent a list of what’s in the box this week, or, they sent an email and I inadvertently lost it. If a list is found, we’ll add it next posting.

The latest issue of TROUT magazine arrived yesterday and included an announcement that one of the staff had won the 2024 Colorado Book Award for Poetry. You might want to check out Erin Block’s writing online and How You Walk Alone in the Dark at Middle Creek Publishing. Here’s a sample from an alternate source:

Swallows

Just before the storm moves in, violet-green 
swallows fly overhead. 
I thought they were mayflies,
like what trout eyes see, looking up 
from a plunge pool.
Like a hermit thrush being my mother’s voice 
before dawn. 
With nothing to measure against,
how do you size something up.
This is chasing a horizon.
This is looking valley to valley from a ridgeline 
saying, it’s not all that far. 
Saying, sure, we can get there by dark. 

(Published in The Dodge, Spring 2024 issue.) 

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As Summer fades, Autumn glows emerge

Twice this past week I’ve seen a flock of four or five sandhill cranes standing on a road. A few days ago they were on our paved road, with wetlands on either side. Yesterday, Saturday, they were standing just before a curve on a gravel road I was traveling to pick up our weekly community supported agriculture [CDA] share. I’ve never before seen live cranes on a road. No idea what’s going on.

Yesterday’s CSA share included:

Tomatoes Red Leaf or Simpson lettuce Broccoli  Cantaloupe Sweet Corn  Green Pepper

This week past also brought several deer sightings. Mid-week, one of this year’s fawns stood in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway and stared at the dogs and me as we walked past. It was still there on our return a few minutes later, but had had enough of visiting and took off into the bushes. On yesterday’s CSA trip, does and fawns were scattered in several fields and at the curve in the gravel road just past where the cranes had been.

August: full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Our early morning dog walking this morning brought a view of one of the most gorgeous orange “full” moons I’ve seen in a long time. Technically the full moon arrives tomorrow and I’m looking forward to a repeat performance.

More and more trees are showing color changes in their leaves. Two maple trees in widely different locations have turned all red, almost crimson. On the other hand, temperatures have crept back to seasonable and the humidity is uncomfortable. There was a recent report [TPT Almanac, 8/16/24] that so far, this has been the second wettest year on record at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. It appears to be a tossup whether we’ll top the all time annual record. Stay tuned.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

Jane Kenyon
1947 – 1995

A second crop of hay lies cut   
and turned. Five gleaming crows   
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,   
and like midwives and undertakers   
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,   
parting before me like the Red Sea.   
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned   
to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.   
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;   
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks   
over me. The days are bright   
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today   
for an hour, with my whole   
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,   
and a crow, hectoring from its nest   
high in the hemlock, a nest as big   
as a laundry basket....
                     In my childhood   
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,   
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off   
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,   
and operations with numbers I did not   
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled   
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien   
I stood at the side of the road.   
It was the only life I had.

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Going with the flow?

First things first. Along the back roads to pick up this week's community supported agriculture [CSA] share, we saw a handful of deer, including one buck in velvet and a mostly grown fawn who dashed across the road in front of us after I had slowed the Jeep. Apparently no one has explained to the deer they aren’t supposed to be standing at the edge of a road or in the middle of a soy bean field at 8:45 am in a sunny Saturday morning, even if they’re in a rural area near the St. Croix River.

Sunrise River flowing into the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s what we picked up once we got to the farm:

• Tomatoes
• Green Tower Lettuce
• Green Bell Pepper
• Summer squash 
• Bulb onion
• Parsley 
• Genovese Basil

I'm grateful there was no zucchini included, although the Better Half did a great job hiding the last batch in a spicy veggie sauce for our dinner of shrimp and grits the other night. I suspect the green peppers will show up in tomorrow’s stuffed peppers dinner. I’n not really against veggies, I just don’t want to overdo a good thing. ; >)

Last evening we watched a PBS segment on Ada Limón’s poet laureate project on poetry in the parks. It was a treat to see her and the effort National Park Service is putting into the project. We could use more of this kind of project. I join with Michael Garrigan who "strongly believes that every watershed should have a Poet Laureate.” That could take more than 80 poet laureates for Minnesota river basins. How can we make that happen?

Michael Garrigan

The River, a Mouth

We walk the river’s jaw
along its curved bone ledges,
long palates growing eelgrass,
spooking baitfish and bass, to the dam.

Rusty crayfish flick through
summer teeth slick boulders as we slip
the weight of our bodies becomes buoyant
and we float until our boots touch bottom.

Lightning bugs splatter
shorelines as storms split us in two.
Rain downstream, lightning upstream,
dam at our back, we are halves of all we held.

We wade deeper into the dark
our feet become a bed of pebbles
our legs tooth roots buried in bone
our waists eddies, our chest hair - hibiscus.

We follow the river’s tongue
down its throat into its lungs
and feel the crack of thunder choking
our names in the language of water and rock.

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More flowerings of summer daze

On this penultimate day of July 2024, the weather forecast is changing by the moment. Thunderstorms come and go in the hourly forecast without, so far, arriving at our door. We’ve reached a time of year when fawns, wearing rapidly fading spots, stand in the road and stare quizzically at oncoming vehicles thinking “Who are you and what are you doing on my road?” We slowed to a crawl twice last evening, thanks to our policy of sharing the road with fawns.

milkweed plants with seed pods

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ll have to look more carefully because the milkweed growing along the road in front of the house doesn’t look anywhere near close to having developed seed pods. Perhaps the difference is that those in the picture are part of a rain garden at a local library and not subject to mowing as our roadside milkweed is. The photo above was taken early August several years ago. We saw Joe Pye weed in bloom recently, and that’s about on time. That was growing along a township road that’s generally not supposed to be mown before August 1. As with many things these days, it gets complicated.

Out in the fields behind the house, mullein are in flower. I couldn’t see any milkweed behind the house but will check on the far side of the rise one day soon, probably while doing some yard chores once the temperatures cool down a little. One of the nicer things about August is that October then is but two months or less away.

Milkweed

Helen Hunt Jackson

O patient creature with a peasant face, 
Burnt by the summer sun, begrimed with stains, 
And standing humbly in the dingy lanes! 
There seems a mystery in thy work and place, 
Which crowns thee with significance and grace; 
Whose is the milk that fills thy faithful veins? 
What royal nursling comes at night and drains 
Unscorned the food of the plebeian race? 
By day I mark no living thing which rests 
On thee, save butterflies of gold and brown, 
Who turn from flowers that are more fair, more sweet, 
And, crowding eagerly, sink fluttering down, 
And hang, like jewels flashing in the heat, 
Upon thy splendid rounded purple breasts.

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Oh! Deer!

It started yesterday afternoon with a doe munching the lower branches of the elderberry bush in the back yard’s “wet spot.” She then proceeded to knosh her way across that wet spot, then to the barren pear tree, and finished with a few tastes of oak at the edge of the woods. Later, a forkhorn(?) buck browsed across the top of the hill behind the house while two does nibbled around the wet spot. Finally, early evening visitors were a pair of does checking the back yard next to the house. I don’t know and couldn’t tell if the does were one pair or five individuals. Why the visitors chose our place with, presumably, lots of other forage available, isn’t at all clear but they were fun to watch.

the first of yesterday’s visitors

Photo by J. Harrington

This summer there appears to have been an underground explosion in the vole / mole(?) population. There are way more tunnels than usual, due to the mild winter? I would be very happy to see a substantial increase in predators but may settle for getting some “new and improved” mole traps. The one I have has caught only one or two moles in the last twenty years or so. Of course, that may be because I’m never sure if a tunnel is active when I set the trap.

The live trap that was repositioned to catch the chipmunk that moved under the front stoop has been unproductive so far. Maybe we have a chipmunk that doesn’t care for chunky peanut butter. Would an apple slice do the trick? We’ll soon see if the critter isn’t caught in a day or two.

Varmints like moles and pocket gophers make a mess of the grounds but they don’t bite us and suck our blood the way mosquitos and deer flies do. The Better Half hasn’t fussed about deer eating her flower plants since she started hanging mouse/deer repellant I bought to protect the wiring harness of the tractor from mice. I’ve been reading a fair amount about treating all of nature as relations, which I suppose works if we accept the old adage about being able to choose our friends but not our relatives.

Catching the Moles

By Judith Kitchen

First we tamp down the ridges 

that criss-cross the yard 

then wait for the ground 

to move again. 

I hold the shoe box, 

you, the trowel. 

When I give you the signal 

you dig in behind 

and flip forward. 

Out he pops into daylight, 

blind velvet. 

We nudge him into the box, 

carry him down the hill. 

Four times we’ve done it. 

The children worry. 

Have we let them all go 

at the very same spot? 

Will they find each other? 

We can’t be sure ourselves, 

only just beginning to learn 

the fragile rules of uprooting.

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the moon in June is the berries

Yesterday’s full moon, which was completely cloud covered around here, is called the Strawberry Moon by the Ojibwe and the Good Berries Moon by the Lakota. The community supported agriculture [CSA] share we picked up this morning included the season’s first container of strawberries. Coincidence? I think not!!

Strawberry moon of 2013

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s a full list of this week’s CSA share:

• RHUBARB
• STRAWBERRIES
• ASPARAGUS
• GARLIC SCAPES, and
• LETTUCE

We almost collected a load of venison on the way to the farm. Just after we had rounded a sharp curve on a township gravel road, a couple of whitetail does came barreling out of the brush on the right-hand side of the road. Fortunately, the curve had caused us to slow enough that we could promptly brake and let the critters safely pass in front of the Jeep. In fact, there were surprising numbers of deer standing at or near the side of various roads this morning.

The day length today is 6 seconds shorter than yesterday, which was 1 second less than the solstice. It will take awhile before we really notice, but the days are getting shorter already. For those trapped under a heat dome, autumn probably can’t come soon enough. Some of us beleaguered by mosquitos and teeny little flies are already looking forward to the first frost. Plus, grocers this summer are selling peaches that look ripe but are firm as a rock and don’t soften sitting on the counter at home. Another case of mis- or dis-information?

I am pleased to announce that I baked a boule of high-hydration sourdough and it turned out to be one of the best loaves I’ve baked in a long time. If you’re looking for some good guidance on baking sourdough, let me recommend (again) Emilie Raffa’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.

Strawberrying

May Swenson
1913 – 1989

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbird’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He’s left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We’re picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Here and there,
their squishy wounds . . . . Flesh was perfect
yesterday . . . . June was for gorging . . . .
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

“Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,”
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. “Don’t step on any. Don’t
change rows. Don’t eat too many.” Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfuls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this thick begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cows when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the backs of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed—too soft—
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems—
families smothered as at Pompeii—I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

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Summer’s thunder songs

We got lots of lightning and thunder and rain last night, but no hail nor tornadoes. As the storm(s) were moving east, the sunset sky took on some of the brightest golden-rose colors I’ve ever seen. We’re filing the whole episode under “Count our blessings!” We hope you were as lucky.

Earlier yesterday, I finished baking a boule of “Everyday sourdough” following the recipe in Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. It turned out to be one of the best loaves I’ve baked in quite some time. Even the Better Half agrees. Sometimes, returning to your roots is helpful when learning to appreciate what you have. Artisan Sourdough was my transition from no knead artisan to sourdough many years ago.

one of this year’s whitetail fawns with mom

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we were gifted with another visit by a whitetail mom and her scampering fawn. This time we managed to grab a quick picture. Enjoy! We hope they become back yard regulars. It’s a treat watching young'uns grow up.

Have you marked your calendar to remember that Summer Solstice is a week from today? If you want to check the local time, try here. At least as important for many of us is Father’s Day this Sunday. All in all, after last night’s stormy excitement, I’m feeling summery lazy and sleepy. Until tomorrow.

Twelfth Song of Thunder [Navajo Tradition]

By Anonymous

The voice that beautifies the land! 

The voice above,

The voice of thunder

Within the dark cloud 

Again and again it sounds,

The voice that beautifies the land. 

 

The voice that beautifies the land! 

The voice below,

The voice of the grasshopper 

Among the plants 

Again and again it sounds,

The voice that beautifies the land. 

Source:The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony

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Now we’re cutting it

I spent much of the morning mowing overly tall, excessively thick, grass in the back yard. It’s not been tended to for weeks, thanks to our rain every day or other day pattern. There’s more to be done but at least we’re now at the beginning of summer mowed (heh, heh). I wouldn’t want anyone to find out, but it felt good to have my butt on a tractor seat instead of in an arm chair. Being outside and noticing what’s sprung up from seeds long dormant due to lack of rain is more fulfilling than doom scrolling on any and all social media and news platforms. Now I just need to remember to pace myself to levels of effort more consistent with my seriously advanced [but unspecified] age. The primary objective for the afternoon is to hit the poison ivy with some Roundup. Rain plus morning dew have hindered those efforts for about a week now.

whitetail doe and fawn

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half is excited because flax seeds that were sown several years ago have finally germinated and bloomed. We’ll see about some photos this afternoon. I’m going to take a chance on jinxing the effort and start to give serious consideration to where the germinated bergamot seeds should get planted. I’m thinking maybe at the top of the hill where the dead apple tree needs to get removed. Someplace that I’m not likely to be tempted to mow plus where we can watch for flutterbyes and bumbling bees.

Perhaps the best and most exciting news of the day is that this morning we enjoyed the first fawn visit of the year. As mom slowly munched her way through the field behind the house, junior scampered and gamboled south, west, east and north at top speed plus. I hope they become regular visitors for the summer and autumn.

Written Deer

Maggie Smith

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
                            —Wisława Szymborska

My handwriting is all over these woods.
No, my handwriting is these woods,

each tree a half-print, half-cursive scrawl,
each loop a limb. My house is somewhere
here, & I have scribbled myself inside it.

What is home but a book we write, then
read again & again, each time dog-earing

different pages. In the morning I wake
in time to pencil the sun high. How
fragile it is, the world—I almost wrote

the word but caught myself. Either one
could be erased. In these written woods,

branches smudge around me whenever
I take a deep breath. Still, written fawns
lie in the written sunlight that dapples

their backs. What is home but a passage
I’m writing & underlining every time I read it.

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the phenologies of North Country Spring

There’s a day lily bed on the south side of the driveway. Today, for the first time this season, about 3/8ths of an inch of leaf was visible from a dozen or so plants. If their growth and development follows typical patterns, we’ll see orange blossoms in June. If Minnesota weather follows typical patterns, we may see green leaves emerging through inches of snow before the plants get to blooming stage. Or, next week’s forecast rain may stay rain.

day lilies: April 15, 2020

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning was about the noisiest the birds have been this season. The were crows, maybe ravens, robins, maybe chickadees, maybe sandhill cranes and “others.” Our local world is definitely coming alive. We’ve even started doing spring chores and today, for the first time this year, we’re wearing sneakers. We’re also remembering to pace ourselves rather than getting frenetic and trying to do everything in the first two days so we can relax and go fishing. Last time we tried that approach, we wore ourselves out so much that we didn’t have the energy to go fishing for weeks, by which time summer thunderstorms had arrived.

Last evening, just at sunset, we were returning from a visit to the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter’s. Several of the fields we drove past were being visited by groups of whitetail deer, from a single in one field to more than a dozen in another. Next month the does will be busy with new fawns, which we’ll get a glimpse of come mid-summer.

April Rain Song

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

 

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

 

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

 

And I love the rain.

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On Veterans Day

In the past day or so, we’ve seen a few deer and even fewer hunters. Neither was in any sort of proximity to the other. It almost reminds me of the days, long ago, when the folks I hunted with were stuck in a pattern in which the grouse hunters kept spooking deer and the deer hunters, on their way to and from deer stands, flushed grouse. Even when hunters swapped quarry, the pattern held.

The Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter have their Christmas tree up and partially decorated. Lights have been strung on their outdoor tree. This morning the Better Half brought home poinsettias for the top of our piano. Christmas decorations are going up unusually early this year it seems. I believe lots of folks are doing what they can to boost their spirits. I hope whatever they try, works for them.

poinsettias on the piano

Photo by J. Harrington

On this Veterans Day, I find myself pondering about what those who have served US think about the state of the country they served. We’re within a week of a government shutdown if Congress fails to enact funding legislation. It’s the second or third time this kind of crisis has come up in the past year or so? Pope Francis has recently relieved a Texas bishop for being obstructionist. We would be better served if we had such decisive leadership in Congress. Elimination of a dozen or so of the most radical extremists might be all it takes for Congress to reach the kind of necessary, but distasteful, compromises needed for government to function.

I don’t know if Neville Chamberlin was the first or most obvious example of why it’s useless to negotiate with terrorists, but he did make it clear that giving in to the Nazis’ demands only yielded more Nazi demands. Both my father and my father-in-law became Veterans to help fix that mess. I’m projecting here, but I doubt either of them would be very admiring of what we’ve made of the world they, and their peers, gave back to US. By this time next year we will have made it clear whether their, and their compatriots, sacrifices were in vain or not.

Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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Oh, deer! November

For the next eight days or so, local style guides call for fluorescent orange or pink outerwear. Through November 12 it’s deer firearms season in our neighborhood.

I’ve never been much of a deer hunter, although I love being out in the woods, I have trouble sitting still. I’ve usually been happier chasing grouse or ducks, or, many springs, turkeys.

early snow, whitetail deer

Photo by J. Harrington

Compared to years past, we’ve seen few “backyard” deer or turkeys this year although yesterday afternoon, while walking the dogs, we saw a small flock of turkeys emerge from the neighbor’s woods, walk a short way down the middle of the road, get spooked and fly away. Maybe they encountered a spirit or two left over from Halloween.

Back in the years when I was a more dedicated duck hunter, I recall getting annoyed by the fluoresccnt orange requirement since we didn’t want to wear it in a duck or goose blind. Of course, neither did we want to take a chance on getting shot by mistake nor written up by a conservation officer on purpose.

These days I’ll get my exercise and fresh air clearing as many leaves as I can from the driveway in hopes they won’t clog the snow blower come that season.

November

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;	
    Long have I listened to the wailing wind,	
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,	
    For autumn charms my melancholy mind.	
 
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
    The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;	
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail	
    Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!	
 
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,	
    The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year’s bier,	
    These waiting mourners do not sing for me!	
 
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,	
    Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;	
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
    The loss of beauty is not always loss!

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Hints of days to come

Yesterday I think I caught a glimpse of at least some pears in our pear tree. If so, there should be a few whitetail deer seeking some freebies come autumn. Last year there was nary a fruit on the tree. I think a lack of pollinators was the problem. Nearly a decade ago, we had quite a few pears, and visitors, come mid-October.

autumn visitors to our pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

The driveway and yard under the bur oak are covered with acorns. They don’t look like they’re fully developed, but I’m far from an expert. So far there are few no signs anyone has been feeding on them but we’ll keep our eyes open just in case. I don’t know if it’s a mast year for the bur oak or not.

Today’s high temperature hasn’t yet reached 70℉ at mid-day. Hardly the kind of weather we expect in August. The forecast has us roller-coastering up into the low 90’s a couple of times over the next ten days. It feels as though we’re transitioning more than enjoying peak summer. We just haven’t yet reached a point at which I feel more energized than enervated. Maybe in a couple of weeks? By then the summer community supported agriculture season will have ended. Autumn shares will start mid-September, just before the equinox. Meanwhile, I’m slowly getting back into my routine of sourdough bread baking. Another loaf will go into the oven Friday or over the weekend. This time I think we’ll add some kernza flour for flavor.

Pear

By Paisley Rekdal

after Susan Stewart

No one ever died for a bite

of one, or came back from the dead

for a single taste: the cool flesh

cellular or stony, white

as the belly of the winter hare

or a doe's scut, flicking,

before she mates. Even an unripe one

is delicious, its crisp bite cleaner

almost than water and its many names

just as inviting: Bartlett and Comice, 

Anjou, Nashi, Concorde

and Seckel, the pomegranate-skinned

Starkrimson, even the medieval 

Bosc, which looks like it dropped

from an oil painting. It is not a sin

to eat one, though you may think

of a woman's body as you do it,

the bell-shaped swell of it

rich in your hand, and for this reason

it was sacred to Venus, Juno, all women

celebrated or dismissed 

in its shape, that mealy sweetness

tunneling from its center, a gold 

that sinks back into itself with age. 

To ripen a pear, wrap it in paper, 

lay it in cloth by an open window

or slip a rotten one beside it

on a metal dish: dying cells call always

to the fresh ones, the body's 

siren song that, having heard 

it once, we can't stop singing.

This is not the fruit

that will send you to hell

nor keep you there;

it will not give you knowledge,

childbirth, power, or love;

you won't know more pain

for having eaten one, or choke

on a bite to fall asleep

under glass. It has no use

for archer or hero, though

anything you desire from an apple

you can do with the pear, like a dark sister

with whom you might live out

your secret desires. Cook it

in wine, mull it with spices, roast it

with honey and cloves. Time sweetens

and we taste it, so gather the fruit

weeks before ripeness,

let summer and winter both

simmer inside, for it is 

a fall fruit whose name in China

means separation, though only the fearful

won't eat one with those they love.

To grow a tree from seed,

you'll need a garden

and a grafting quince, bees, a ladder, 

shears, a jug; you'll need water

and patience, sun and mud,

a reverence for the elders

who told no true stories

of this fruit's origin,

wanting to give us the freedom

of one thing that's pleasure alone. 

Cool and sweet, cellular and stony,

this is the fruit I'll never die for, 

nor come back from the dead

for a single taste. 

The juice of the pear

shines on my cheeks.

There's no curse in it. I'll eat

what I like and throw the rest

to the grasses. The seeds

will find whatever soils they were meant for.

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Babes in the woods

For the past few days, we’ve been seeing a small flock of wild turkey hens traveling with their assorted poults through our yard and across the street in the neighbor’s field. Yesterday morning a whitetail doe stood on the hill behind the house for quite a while. She was briefly joined by a spotted fawn who did a series of zoomie circles around the yard and disappeared back into the woods. Some time in the past few days, a young downey woodpecker knocked itself out on the walkout door to the deck. An hour or two after seeing the “body” lying on the deck, it was gone. Flown away with a headache? It’s that time of year when young’uns learn their way around a home range and some, while exploring, make more mistakes than others. Watching fawns and poults dash and scurry around is one oof the joys of country living.

back yard: whitetail doe

Photo by J. Harrington

Then, today, after having lived in the country here for something like twenty-five years, for the first time we saw a pair of sandhill cranes in our very own back yard. Before now, we’ve seen them in the neighbor’s fields, on mown lawns at a subdivision down the road, in distant farm fields, and, often, in the nearby Carlos Avery marshes. We can now largely confirm the old British saying “All things come to Thames that wait!” Unfortunately, patience has never been one of my stronger points, but I no longer feel discriminated against by the crane population.

back yard: sandhill crane

Photo by J. Harrington

This afternoon we’re getting thunder with no rain. Yesterday we had a brief downpour with no thunder and almost no clouds. Sun-shower, anyone? More thunder is in the forecast for the evening. We can use the precipitation, preferably without any severe side effects. As of today, we’re down to just over 15 hours of daylight and dropping. It’s less than two weeks to Lammas, or Lughnasadh, the beginning of harvest season. In anticipation, I’m again back to refreshing (resurrecting?) my sourdough starter. That’s it for now.

In Harvest

By Sophie Jewett

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;

I linger, for the hay is sweet,

New-cut and curing in the sun.

Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,

Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent

When, yesterday, the west wind went

A-rioting through grass and grain.

To-day no least breath stirs the plain;

Only the hot air, quivering, yields

Illusive motion to the fields

Where not the slenderest tassel swings.

Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings;

A goldfinch dangles from a tall,

Full-flowered yellow mullein; all

The world seems turning blue and gold.

Unstartled, since, even from of old,

Beauty has brought keen sense of her,

I feel the withering grasses stir;

Along the edges of the wheat,

I hear the rustle of her feet:

And yet I know the whole sea lies,

And half the earth, between our eyes.

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Summer sightings

We started the morning with the discovery that raccoons(?) had disassembled the freshly refilled hummingbird feeder. [Last night we absentmindedly forgot to bring the feeders in after participating in a mid-evening Zoom meeting.] I have no idea what he, she, it or they were trying to accomplish by unscrewing the bottom of the hummer feeder but, as we were in the midst of taking stock and deciding where to clean up next, a very large black bear walked across the field right behind the house. At least the bear didn’t destroy the sunflower seed feeder last night but we suspect it was probably the culprit the smashed a bluebird house a couple of weeks ago.

Today’s air quality is much improved over yesterday’s but still not “Good.” It is, nevertheless, just bad enough to continue to provide me with an excuse to avoid out door chores. Lack of “Good” air and a desire to not get eaten by a bear weigh equally in our efforts to stay inside today. 😉

Yesterday, or the day before, while working in front by the road, I watched a whitetail doe stand in the middle of that road for about five minutes. She was nursing a very tiny fawn. All three of us were grateful for a lack of traffic. This morning as I drove toward the Daughter Person’s abode, a couple of miles north of our place an older, larger fawn came bursting out of some roadside bushes near the ditch, noticed traffic moving at 55 or 60 mph, promptly reversed direction and bounded back into the woods. I can relate.

the time of year for fawns and does

Photo by J. Harrington

Several folks I was chatting with this morning were speculating whether does had dropped fawns later than usual this year. The consensus was “could be.” As this was being typed, a couple of wild turkeys wandered out of the woods and through the field behind the house. I’m not sure if it’s the smoke, the bugs, the alignment of the stars, or what, but there seems to be much more wildlife active during full daylight than I’d expect.

Poem

Blanche Taylor Dickinson    1896 – 1972

Ah, I know what happiness is. . . . 
It is a timid little fawn
Creeping softly up to me
For one caress, then gone
Before I’m through with it . . . 
Away, like dark from dawn!
Well I know what happiness is . . . !
It is the break of day that wears
A shining dew decked diadem . . . 
An aftermath of tears. 
Fawn and dawn, emblems of joy . . . 
I’ve played with them for years,
And always they will slip away
Into the brush of another day. 

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Early June phenology.

Soon, if not already, there could be bluebird fledglings in the bluebird house in the back yard. That’s the presumption because, over the past month or so, adult bluebirds have been seen perching on and entering and leaving the house. Several years ago, we had this same house mounted on a 2” X 4” and a bear smashed the house down. We don’t know if the occupants escaped, but we hope so. We repaired the house and the next year mounted it on a 4” X 4”. So far, so good.

Meanwhile, out in the local woods, whitetail does have birthed or are birthing fawns. We’ll watch for some of them to show up behind the house sometime next month.

columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)

Photo by J. Harrington

Dame’s rocket, columbine, and hoary puccoon are in bloom. Day lilies, not yet. Several patches of wild strawberries are in flower. And lilac scent is pervasive. With luck, we’ll get some rain from the showers forecast for tonight. It’s pretty dry around here by now. The “wet spot” in our back yard is just barely damp these days. Although the cumulative precipitation is above average, much of it fell before mid-May and we’ve enjoyed warmer, drier weather since then.

Several species of dragonflies have been observed, as well as swallowtail and monarch butterflies and too many mosquitoes to count. As with so much these days, could be better, could be worse. The day after tomorrow the Ojibwe Strawberry and Lakota Good Berries moon will be full. By then we’ll be up to 15 hours and 25 minutes of daylight. It remains to be seen if the clouds will part enough for us to enjoy the moon. Meanwhile, we’ll keep watching for one of the local frogs to show up in the bird bath. It’s the time of year when they start to do that.

What Is June Anyway?

By David Budbill

After three weeks of hot weather and drought,

           we've had a week of cold and rain,

just the way it ought to be here in the north,

            in June, a fire going in the woodstove

all day long, so you can go outside in the cold

            and rain anytime and smell

the wood smoke in the air.

 

This is the way I love it. This is why

           I came here almost

fifty years ago. What is June anyway

          without cold and rain

and a fire going in the stove all day?

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Oh, deer! It’s snowing again!

 Late yesterday, we noticed a whitetail browsing on the lower branches of some conifers at the back edge of our property. This morning, after it began snowing again, we saw a couple of deer feeding on short conifers at wood’s edge along the northern side of the  yard. As the snow continued, six or eight deer walked (one scampered) through the yard right behind the house. All of them, plus a few others, ended up browsing along the field edge south of the house. This was more deer than we’ve seen all winter in total until today. It’s a tough time of year since there’s still deep snow cover, much of the easy browse has been consumed, and winter doesn’t want to acknowledge defeat. Plus, humans feeding deer isn’t acceptable due to chronic wasting disease. 

at the northern wood’s edge

Photo by J. Harrington

right behind the house

Photo by J. Harrington

south of the house, field edge

Photo by J. Harrington

If you live in or around the North Country, cross your fingers and say a prayer or two for the wildlife that has to make it through the next two to four weeks before things begin to improve. Remember, many of the does are carrying fawns from last autumn’s mating season.

Three Deer in Oquossoc

By Sonja Johanson

East will take me back. I drive

west. I wend between snowbanks,

until the road delivers me

to a sleeping boat launch.

 

They stand on the frozen ramp;

watch me with coats that are

better than mine. Ice houses

and snowmobiles edge the distance.

 

I have to turn around, I say

to them, I went the wrong

way. They stamp and chuff.

No, they tell me, this is the way.

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