Reaping what we sow time?

Much of the local field corn has tasseled. Late yesterday we noticed a whitetail buck in velvet. This year's fawns seem to be everywhere. Wild turkey poults? Not so much. Heat, humidity, and fine particulates from northern wild fires in Minnesota and Canada have dominated the weather recently and look like they'll come and go for the rest of the season. Does anyone know of a place where it's October-like year round?

whitetail doe with two fawns

Photo by J. Harrington

At least July is more than half gone and "normal" maximum temperatures would begin to decline late this coming week, on Friday the 24th. I'm not sure what that may portend in reality, since so little is normal these days. I am sure that we'll find a way to celebrate Lughnasadh in about two weeks, on August 1. If nothing else, it will start a countdown to the Autumn Equinox which will then bring US closer to National Election Day on November 3. Some of US are hoping there's meaningful symbolism with the Day of the Dead immediately preceding Election Day. No doubt the other side is wishing for the same thing, but in their favor. Can't we find a way to make politics win-win instead of zero sum?

The Guardian recently published an article about the increase in political violence worldwide. It attributes much of the cause to political rhetoric increasingly demonizing the opposition spouted by the same politicians who deplore actual violence against politicians. Does anyone else see a classic case of "Do as I say, not as I do"? Political types claiming to be Christian might want to recall the dictum "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Perhaps, since we're approaching the harvest season, recalling Galatians 6:7-9 would be better: ".... for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

A Quest for Universal Suffrage

Kimberly Blaeser

I.

Suffrage:

In late middle English

intercessory prayers,

a series of petitions.

Not the right—but the hope.

 

Universal:

applicable to all cases—

except those marginalized

and unnamed.

A belief, but not a fact.

 

II.

In the trombone slide of history

I hear the suffer in suffragette

the uni uni uni in universal—

each excluded ikwe: women

from five hundred tribal nations

mindimooyenh or matriarchs

of ancient flourishing cultures

still disenfranchised by race,

still holding our world together

in the dusky and lawless violence

manifest in colonial america.

 

Twenty-six million american women

at last granted the right to vote.

Oh, marginal notes in the sweet anthem

of equality, Indigenous non-citizens

turn to the older congress of the sun

seek in the assembled stories of sky

a steady enlightenment—natural laws

(the mathematics of bending trees,

sistering of nutrients—maizebeanssquash,

or wintering wisdom of animal relatives)

each seasonal chorus colored with resilience—

earth voices rising in sacred dream songs.

 

Even now listen, put on the moon-scored

shell of turtle, wear this ancient armour

of belonging. In the spiral of survivance

again harvest the amber sap of trees

follow the scattered path of manoomin

the wild and good seed that grows on water.

Oh water, oh rice, oh women of birch dreams

and baskets, gather. Here reap and reseed

raise brown hands trembling holy with endurance.

Now bead land knowledge into muklaks

sign with the treaty X of exclusion.

Kiss with fingers and lips the inherited

woodland flutes and breathy cedar songs.

Say yea, eya, and yes. Here and here cast

your tended nets—oh suffered and sweetly mended

nets of abundance. This year and each to follow

choose, not by paper but by pathway, a legacy:

woman’s work—our ageless ballad of continuance.

 

Copyright © 2020 Kimberly Blaeser. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative.

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As January prepares to leave....

 A (late) January thaw is on its way. The combination of days of bitter cold and a barrage of Executive Orders has put a major crimp in my sunny personality. I confess to spending entirely too much time sitting and brooding and bitching. Several days of even mild melting may also help thaw my grumpiness, I hope. The fact that Minnesota’s legislature is a dysfunctional mess doesn’t really improve one’s outlook on the state of the state, the country, or the world.

pileated woodpecker at suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Backyard sightings of deer or turkeys have been slim to none, although there are deer tracks in the snow behind the house where they’ve been searching for acorns under the snow at night. So far, no pileated woodpeckers have visited the suet feeder, at least while we were watching. 

On to more pleasant themes: my forced bulb garden is developing nicely. The dogs appreciate the slight improvement in temperatures. My sourdough bread is improving as I get back to baking more frequently. We’re approaching Valentine’s season. The Vikings didn’t tease us along only to break our hearts again. The best parts of the year are still ahead of us and I’ve lots of good books to read to get through the rest of winter. (Spring Equinox is 52 days away. Meteorological Spring begins March 1.)

Joy Harjo’s poem seems to capture only too well the times and the season we’re living through. Pllease be kind to each other.

Grace

Joy Harjo
1951 – 

                                    For Darlene Wind and James Welch

I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn't stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace. 

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.

I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn. 

I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn't; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it. 

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Weathering August

I finally managed to get some mowing done in the back yard. The tractor was moving slowly enough that a frog had no trouble jumping out of the way and into the water in the wet spot behind the house. We tore up a little of the still damp soil in areas that need reseeding anyhow. More rain is in the forecast for later today and tonight. Sigh! NOAA’s early forecast for the upcoming winter keeps our part of Minnesota wetter than usual. At least so far I’ve not had to shovel the rain.

Also on the home front, today we translocated a third chipmunk that’s tried setting up house under the front stoop. That’s about one a week for the past three weeks. Would that we could reduce the mole/vole/pocket gopher population as quickly and easily as live trapping chipmunks.

bees tending Giant Blue Hyssop

Photo by J. Harrington

Multitudes of bumblebees are visiting the Blue Giant Hyssop flowers in the yard. There are a few small clusters of flowers on the lilac bushes. Within the past week, several ruby-throated hummingbirds have begun battling over the feeder hanging from the deck. Morning temperatures are running in the mid50’s. The return of joy to the Democratic presidential campaign is almost giving me some hope for the future. Maybe it will turn into a joy filled autumn for many of US. Stay tuned.

For the Chipmunk in My Yard

By Robert Gibb

I think he knows I’m alive, having come down 

The three steps of the back porch 

And given me a good once over. All afternoon 

He’s been moving back and forth,

Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs, 

While all about him the great fields tumble 

To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky 

To be where he is, wild with all that happens. 

He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows 

Living in the blond heart of the wheat.

This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires 

Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots, 

Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter 

On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.

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The reign of rain

Well, we now know what it’s like to be the recipient of almost 3.5 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. Just to our west, and again to our south, reported amounts were less than a half inch and a little more than an inch, respectively. One might almost begin to believe the weather has become hyper-volatile, almost as if we were experiencing anthropogenic climate change, but Americans would have to be hyper-gullible enough to vote for a known con man as POTUS, believing that someone inept enough to bankrupt a casino is actually a successful business man, for that to happen, right?

this driveway was dry a few hours ago

Photo by J. Harrington

Anyhow, after our overnight deluge, we were visited this morning by a couple of whitetail bucks with antlers in velvet, a doe, a fawn who has lost its spots, and a flock of half a dozen or so turkey hens, but no poults that we could see. Yet another example of feast or famine? Each day there are hours and hours with no signs of wildlife in the fields behind the house other than the birds coming to the feeders. Some seasons, like late autumn through deep winter, there are weeks and months with little, if any, views of critters other than at the feeders.

By this point in the summer last year, we had had almost a couple of dozen days in the 90’s. This year there’s been two. There’s only one more in the ten day forecast. Which year should we consider “normal,”  or dow we average the two as normal? I think I’m trying to raise the issue of times of tempestuous change make it difficult to establish a new baseline that we can at least consider “normal.” Even if meteorologists use something like a 30 year rolling average for some factors, if we continue to experience the “hottest day on record,” year after year, that’s not going to tell us what humans used to consider normal before we created the Anthropocene. We all need to do more to keep context in mind. For more, check shifting baseline.

to the orange still green

Patty Seyburn

Your desire for metamorphosis heard and filed away:
frustration noted, conveyed to proper authorities,
soil and rain. Issues of identity never so labored as today.
I have heard, however, if you hail from Valencia,

it’s quite normal, and as far as dye—why would you
tamper with natural beauty in search of convention, 
in this state where the prophetic sun anoints every
being? Merely for the sake of reinvention?

O Orange, unmatchable trochee except by slant,
by dint of the imagined word, yet to be created,
word of a new world, green world, seamless sphere
content, unbruised by fear of being belated,

join the trend—shed your insecurity, take pride
in the mother country, Brazil, in the year yours arrived
here, 1873, planted by the future scions of Riverside.
Rumor has one of three founding trees still alive,

and that could be your branch, your seed—while my kin
found themselves in Jersey City, trying their damndest 
                                             to speak American.

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A full moon of Spring

Night before last, an almost full moon, surrounded by a glowing halo, played peek-a-boo behind a thin layer of clouds. Last night [this morning], it shone in a clear sky. Tonight it will be full. Cloud cover remains to be seen, or not. Our copy of the Minnesota Weather Guide Calenday notes that the Ojibwe call this full moon Maple Sap Boiling Moon and to the Dakota, it’s Fattening Moon. (Other sources list the Fattening Moon in June.) Regardless of the name, moonrise tonight occurs a little after 8 pm and moonset about 6 am tomorrow.

two sandhill cranes in our back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

As days lengthen and temperatures warm, migrations from southern locales continue and locals become more active. Yesterday evening on the way to and from a visit with the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law, and Granddaughter, the Better Half and I saw swans, geese, pheasants, deer, turkeys, multiple species of song birds, and sandhill cranes. The trip reminded me of Aldo Leopold’s wonderful observation:

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.” - A Sand County Almanac foreword

Another sign of warmer days arriving is the increasing number of locations where road work of one kind or another is getting underway. Those who claim there are only two seasons in Minnesota, winter and road work, aren’t entirely joking. I wish work crews would put signs face down when not relevant, instead of just moving them to the shoulder.

Uncharacteristically, I’m going to take in stride the fact that my plans for the week have been disrupted by wet weather and slow to germinate bergamot seeds (which are showing increasing signs of life, thank you for asking). If I can’t play outside, I’ll read inside about the outside, and bake bread. Tomorrow’s project: a whole wheat sourdough rustic boule, The dough is currently undergoing bulk fermentation in preparation for oven time tomorrow.

My Debt

Jane Hirshfield
1953 – 

Like all
who believe in the senses,
I was an accountant,
copyist,
statistician.

Not registrar,
witness.

Permitted to touch
the leaf of a thistle,
the trembling
work of a spider.

To ponder the Hubble’s recordings.

It did not matter
if I believed in
the party of particle or of wave,
as I carried no weapon.

It did not matter if I believed.

I weighed ashes,
actions, 
cities that glittered like rubies,
on the scales I was given,
calibrated
in units of fear and amazement.

I wrote the word it, the word is.

I entered the debt that is owed to the real.

Forgive,
spine-covered leaf, soft-bodied spider,
octopus lifting
one curious tentacle back toward the hand of the diver
that in such black ink
I set down your flammable colors.

—2018

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Mixed bag today

There’s something different about the air today. For the first time it feels like the beginning of the end of winter rather than unseasonably warm weather. The sun’s warmth could be felt through the windows of the Jeep. Parts of the Sunrise river are ice free, again. One can almost begin to believe in the possibility of an eventual green-up.

On the off chance you’re wondering, the only skin I have in today’s football game is related to Taylor Swift’s progressive politics and so I hope her boyfriend’s team wins. I lost almost all interest in Superbowls after the Minnesota Vikings lost for the fourth time, decades ago. We’ll munch some nachos and have the game on so we can talk to our son about it later. He’s a big sports fan. That’s the extent of my interest in who wins.

Carlos Avery WMA Sunrise river pools

Photo by J. Harrington

Much closer to home, I need to spend time this week taking a look at a proposed update to the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area Master Plan. We’ve lived on the eastern boundary for more than a quarter century and I was unaware there’s an existing master plan from 1977. I have noticed that invasive species don’t appear to be well controlled on many state properties and I doubt there’s much in the 1977 plan about that.

Football

By Louis Jenkins

I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back...

I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...

What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's

brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same

skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.

I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and I

understand, also, that one often has to make do with what one

has. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn

syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they

weren't very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My man

downfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities,

one has to make choices. This isn't right and I'm not going

to throw it.

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Winter wonders

Today I’m reporting on two events that are, unfortunately from my perspective, unrelated. A couple of mornings ago, wile taking our dogs for their very early walk, hours before sunrise, we heard a pack of coyotes in the nearby woods. Our dogs were unphased but I got excited, although I don’t understand dog psychology enough to have any sort of handle on why our two go crazy barking at some weird sound on the tv but ignore a pack of coyotes. Perhaps they didn’t want to attract attention by barking?

The second event is the discovery, a couple of days ago, of fresh pocket gopher mounds near the wet spot behind the house. In January, in Minnesota, the ground is still unfrozen enough for those critters to be tunneling instead of hibernating or whatever they usually do in winter. If only the pack of coyotes would pass through the yard and dig out and eat the gopher(s), I’d be one of those known as a “happy camper.” Instead, I’m going to see if I can shovel into a tunnel and set a couple of traps, unless gophers can tunnel through soil too tough for me to dig? In which case we’ve just started our list of spring chores.

September 2023: coyote passing through back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

At least we’re not (yet) dealing with bitter cold or deep snow. I’m truly grateful for a lack of both, especially after some of the polar vortices we’ve experienced the past few winters. It has been cold enough to make soup and stew entirely appropriate. For now, I’ll settle for that.

Developing the Land

By Stephen Behrendt

For six nights now the cries have sounded in the pasture:

coyote voices fluting across the greening rise to the east

where the deer have almost ceased to pass

now that the developers have carved up yet another section,

filled another space with spars and studs, concrete, runoff.

Five years ago you saw two spotted fawns rise

for the first time from brome where brick mailboxes will stand;

only three years past came great horned owls

who raised two squeaking, downy owlets

that perished in the traffic, skimming too low across the road

behind some swift, more fortunate cottontail.

It was on an August afternoon that you drove in,

curling down our long gravel drive past pasture and creek,

that you saw, flickering at the edge of your sight,

three mounted Indians, motionless in the paused breeze,

who vanished when you turned your head.

We have felt the presence on this land of others,

of some who paused here, some who passed, who have left

in the thick clay shards and splinters of themselves that we dig up,

turn up with spade and tine when we garden or bury our animals;

their voices whisper on moonless nights in the back pasture hollow

where the horses snort and nicker, wary with alarm.

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Mid-October #phenology

Lots of local farmers beat the storm we’ve had the last couple of days and got their crops in before the fields turned to mud. From what we’ve noticed driving around the last day or so, most of the soy bean fields and many of the corn fields have been harvested. The corn that’s still standing is looking shop worn, if that term can be applied to row crops.

St. Croix valley fall color

Photo by J. Harrington

Phase two of leaf color peak is well underway. Late September and early October brought many maples, perhaps those that had been stressed by drought and heat(?), into scarlet, yellow, and orange. Some windy days stripped those leaves and now we’re about halfway to peak color, with oaks lagging as usual. It’s hard to document, but it feels as though fall color is developing slower than normal this year, except for the early burst.

Still no signs of woolly bear worms. And, although some years we’ve had a barred owl as an October visitor in our woods, not yet this year. Also, if there’s been any major movement of waterfowl, we’ve not seen any signs around here. It is early for snow and ice, although some years we’ve had the bird bath freeze by now. It may not fit typical phenological observations, but we now have our Halloween candy in stock, although I’ll be really surprised if we get more than one Trick or Treater. Barring Halloween blizzards, we’re expecting a visit from a 3 year old Granddaughter late afternoon or early evening on the 31st.

Maybe one day next week I’ll feel energetic enough to gas up the snow blower and change the oil. I meant to last week but it seemed as if that might just be asking for trouble. At least I’m not going to leave seasonal chores hanging on having the Republicans select a Speaker of the House. That may be this year’s biggest Trick and/or Treat by Halloween.

October

By Jacob Polley

Although a tide turns in the trees 

the moon doesn't turn the leaves, 

though chimneys smoke and blue concedes 

to bluer home-time dark. 

Though restless leaves submerge the park 

in yellow shallows, ankle-deep, 

and through each tree the moon shows, halved 

or quartered or complete, 

the moon's no fruit and has no seed, 

and turns no tide of leaves on paths 

that still persist but do not lead 

where they did before dark. 

Although the moonstruck pond stares hard 

the moon looks elsewhere. Manholes breathe. 

Each mind's a different, distant world 

this same moon will not leave.

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Weather, Man! Which way’s the wind blow?

We’ve lived in our house at the eastern edge of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area for a generation (25 years +/-). During our occupancy, we’ve infrequently heard coyotes howling and yipping at night. Today is the first time we’ve seen one on or around the property. Looks like not much more than a pup. It would be great if s/he returns and captures a few of the pocket gophers.

backyard coyote

Photo by J. Harrington

There are several maple trees growing in front of the house. One of them has one leaf that’s turned bright red, plus one or two others that are multicolored. It could be another sign of autumn sneaking up on us, step by step, but the outside temperature of 92+ makes it hard to believe the meteorologists know what they’re doing with their claim that autumn begins September 1. Where we live, it seems it could work as well if they tried Autumn: Oct., Nov., Dec.; Winter: Jan., Feb., Mar.; Spring: Apr., May, Jun.; Summer: Jul., Aug., Sep. That way there would be less divergence (~ 10 days after) from equinoxes etc. than we have now (~ 21 days before). Shall we start a movement to adjust the meteorological calendar to bring it more into alignment with the astronomical calendar?

as a leaf turns

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m trying to rejuvenate my sourdough starter, rather than replace it. It will be interesting, as well as fun, to see if the instructions in Sourdough by Science, pay off. The weekend’s temperatures are too hot to try creating a starter from scratch by parking the mix outside, as I’ve done in the past. If the refresh fails, we’ll start from scratch later in the week. I’m enjoying rereading the book and am looking forward to cooler days and loaves of fresh bread.

Autumn

Alice Cary
1820 – 1871

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips
   The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
   And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
   And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
   And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
   Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
   And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire of red—
   The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
   Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,
   Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
   Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn—
   Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides—
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
   Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
   Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
   And live with me the poetry of Spring.

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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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Enjoying the weekend

Hordes of dragonflies have finally hatched. We look forward to their decimation of the swarms of mosquitos that have been harassing us for more than a week now. It seems to me that Minnesota has only two seasons: not winter and road construction, but frostbite and bugbite. I believe you read that here first.

four-spotted skimmer

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re in the midst of a beautiful holiday weekend with warm temperatures, sunny skies and enough of a breeze to minimize the clouds of flying insects that would otherwise be an annoyance. In fact, when we picked up this weeks Community Supported Agriculture share this morning, it didn’t take long for the Jeep to fill with skeeters as the Better Half [BH] worked with the rear hatch up dividing the veggies between those for us and those for the Daughter Person [DP] and her family. (There’s no way I’d try to eat half a share each week, with the BH eating the other half, so we split with the DP. I barely survive eating a quarter share of veggies each week. I’m a huMAN, not a rabbit nor a goat.) Here’s what was in this week’s box:

• Magenta lettuce
• Tokyo bekanna Greens
• Spinach
• Mixed greens

On the drive through the country to pick up the greens, mixed and unmixed, we saw several whitetail deer and a tom turkey with his harem of hens. I’m not sure why the hens weren’t nesting. In the same general area yesterday, we saw either a large coyote or a small wolf. We’re at the southern fringe of wolf range in Minnesota, and coyotes are almost common. I’m just not familiar enough with sightings to be sure of the identity of a single animal. I have a similar problem with crows and ravens.

A few yard chores got tackled today before the temp climbed too much. We’ll probably do a few more tomorrow but, even for us old, retired folks, it is a holiday weekend so we’ll do our best to relax and enjoy as much of it as we can.

Fly, Dragonfly!

By Joyce Sidman

Water nymph, you have

climbed from the shallows to don

your dragon-colors.

Perched on a reed stem

all night, shedding your skin, you dry

your wings in moonlight.

 

Night melts into day.

Swift birds wait to snap you up.

Fly, dragonfly! Fly!

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Make STEM STEAM

There are still a few widely scattered patches of snow remaining after a couple of days in the 80s.We are now into RED FLAG brushfire season plus flood warnings along some rivers. The rain and snow showers expected this weekend will help the former but not the latter. Meanwhile, after a record-setting winter’s snowfall, we’ve set several new daily high temperature records for the Twin Cities area this week. This is what happens when you don’t have an ocean nearby to temper wild weather swings.

haven’t yet seen a local red-winged blackbird

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m pondering why there seems to have been limited effort so far exploring the concept of bioregionalism in the upper Midwest. At least there’s little I can find on line about bioregionalism for Minnesota, Wisconsin, the St. Croix river and watershed, etc. I’m becoming more and more interested in learning about any potential relationship(s) between bioregional and traditional ecological knowledge. I’m also back to exploring questions around the concept of cultural appropriation. All of the preceding is because I am delighted by A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia and look forward to reading Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. 

All of the preceding is due to recent discoveries of online literary field guide type resources and a desire to find a useful model for organizing them. I’m convinced we must include the Arts as part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or we are likely to find ourselves in a position similar to the person whose only tool was a hammer. Consequently, every problem or opportunity looked like a nail. Plus, we’ve taken reductionist thinking beyond reasonable limits and need to put time and effort and resources into synthesizing new and improved world views. Perhaps it’s literally time to go “back to the future.”

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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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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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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Some blessings of a thaw

Last night, after sunset but before full dark, we had two, possibly three, visitors in the back yard. Whitetails, substantial shadows on the snow, made their way to the pear tree and on toward the road. They were acting like food was what they were looking for. I doubt they found much. It was a poor year for acorns and the pumpkins were well covered by snow. We don’t want to attract crowds of deer because of CWD, so we won’t be feeding them, but, if the thaw we’re starting today doesn’t carry on for awhile, we may find a few brave deer looking for spillage from one of our bird feeders.

This morning, while driving to the Granddaughter’s so we can read some more of the Yule Tomte book, I saw in a field by the road a large flock of turkeys that looked almost black, later there was a deer wandering down the middle of a snow-packed township road, and later still a pheasant scooting into the roadside bushes. Looks like the break in our extended spell of bitter cold has local wildlife moving about instead of hunkered down. If my choice is between warmer but cloudy or sunny but bitter, I’ll go shopping for a SAD lamp.

Photo by J. Harrington

Mother Nature saved her biggest and best surprise for the drive home, as I was passing through Carlos Avery and crossing the Sunrise River, three swans flew across the marsh in front of me. I might have seen more swans to the north, but couldn’t be sure based on the glimpse I got. I know some swans overwinter on the St. Croix down near Hudson, and maybe some of them had come exploring. Our local marshes are, as far as I know, frozen solid so I wouldn’t expect swans to be hanging out around here except for brief periods. Maybe we’ll go exploring tomorrow. I’ve seen few things in nature more beautiful than swans flying below cloudy skies and over snow-covered marshes.

The Swan

by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

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Swans’ song time?

Compared to most prior years, we’ve seen very few swans this year. Perhaps those that migrated north last spring haven’t yet returned. That would be consistent with  the fact that we’ve seen few waterfowl in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area pools all summer. Years past, there were often many Canada geese and a handful of swans. I’ve no idea what’s going on, or not going on for that matter. There is a location on the lower St. Croix river where flocks of swans often spend the winter. Maybe we need to take a drive and check out that place some day soon.

swans at Carlos Avery WMA

Photo by J. Harrington

We have been seeing more pheasants in the area fields during the past few years. Maybe their range is slowly increasing to the north as climate breakdown continues? There seem to be lots of changes in habitats and ranges as the effects of climate weirding continue. I know that one nearby major wetland complex is practically dry.  That could well affect both pheasants and waterfowl; better(?) for the former, worse for the latter.

I’m seeing, or reading about, more and more changes for the worse as climate breakdown continues. It’s affecting the habitats of fish, wildlife and humans. And yet, and YET, our government continues to under-respond while too many folks, especially those in rural areas, continue to vote for the party full of climate change deniers. I am not encouraged. I hope the upcoming elections prove that I’m a lousy trend extender.

The Wild Swans at Coole

By William Butler Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

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Celebrate Rivers! Water Is Life!

Today is World Rivers Day. Here in the US, we have an abundance of rivers but less and less an abundance of clean water, and, with climate change, many of our rivers are running dry.

US Rivers

Yesterday I promised some resources on Minnesota’s rivers. Here they are:

• A Primer on Minnesota’s Rivers
• Minnesota’s federal Wild and Scenic River
• Minnesota’s Rivers and Streams resources
• Minnesota’s Watershed Districts

Watersheds often form the core of a bioregion.

Rivers and watersheds are the responsibility of an extremely fragmented array of governmental entities, making holistic management almost impossible. As our environmental crises continue to become more serious, fragmented approaches will become more problematic in adapting to and minimizing those crises.

In the US, the American Rivers organization and Trout Unlimited are doing an abundance of good work to protect, restore, reconnect, and sustain our rivers and streams.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is responsible for the water quality in our rivers and streams. There’s lots of room for improvement. The screen shot below identifies in red the rivers and streams that fail to meet water quality standards.

Minnesota’s Impaired Waters

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on

or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   

old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin   

and thin until a ripple in October might mean carp.

Huge mills bang and smoke. Day hangs thick with commerce

and my favorite home, always overgrown with roses,   

collapsed like moral advice. Tugs still pound against   

the outtide pour but real, running on some definite fuel.   

I can’t dream anything, not some lovely woman   

murdered in a shack, not saw mills going broke,

not even wild wine and a landslide though I knew both well.   

The blood still begs direction home. This river points   

the way north to the blood, the blue stars certain   

in their swing, their fix. I pass the backwash where   

the cattails still lean north, familiar grebes pop up,   

the windchill is the same. And it comes back with the odor   

of the river, some way I know the lonely sources   

of despair break down from too much love. No matter   

how this water fragments in the reeds, it rejoins   

the river and the bright bay north receives it all,   

new salmon on their way to open ocean,   

the easy tub returned.

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