Home territory

This is the time of year for cold and snow and wolves mating. We've got the cold. We're getting the snow. If their territory keeps expanding, we may soon have mating wolves. They're already in the general vicinity North and West of our county. That definitely gives us something positive to look forward to. The local coyote packs seem to be ineffective at keeping the local deer herd nervous enough to stay away from our low-hanging bird feeder and our landscape shrubbery.

members of the International Wolf Center pack

Photo by J. Harrington

We admit that, when we lived there, Massachusetts was not noted for its wolf population nor as a center of copper mining. The paper linked at the end of this sentence provides an overview of the current status of wolves in New England. [No resident populations.] Frank Woolner, in one of his stories published in My New England, describes a late Winter encounter between a whitetail deer and three --- dogs, not wolves!

There are many other points of comparison between our two home territories. For better, or worse, both New England and Minnesota fields yield bounteous root crops of stones. We know that, in New England, each Spring's harvest of stones are crafted into walls. We've noticed few stone walls anywhere in rural Minnesota but we do seem to recall reading Bill Holm, or Paul Gruchow, or both, expounding on stone piles growing in Minnesota's prairie regions. Come to think on it, Massachusetts, at least the Eastern end I'm most familiar with, was short on prairies too.

a stone wall in St. Paul that needs some mending

Photo by J. Harrington

In case you're wondering, we're not actually trying to compare Minnesota and Massachusetts/New England. We are pondering why it seems to be that, despite having lived in Minnesota for more than half of our life, we still think of New England as "home." Perhaps the best explanation is no explanation at all, but a statement of premise. Woolner, in the Foreword to My New England, succinctly notes:

Know this, and know it very certainly: a man or a woman born in New England will never be completely happy anywhere else on earth. In his dreams, if not in reality, this is "the place to return to, to be buried in."

Fortunately, it's a bit premature for us to fully concur with Woolner's premise, but we must admit his track record on the subject is awfully good so far. Maybe that's why we feel a need, from time to time, to see if we can no more understand why we can't be completely happy in Minnesota than we can explain why good fences make good neighbors.

Mending Wall

By Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

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So Human an Animal

Late yesterday, a little before sunset, we watched a doe and her yearling daughter emerge from the oak woods and head toward the pear tree behind the house. Another doe, already under the pear tree, by herself, wasn't noticed until she dashed out from under the tree's branches and chased away the newcomer mother doe. The yearling stood still as mom was pursued over the hill. When it became clear that mom wasn't returning anytime soon, the yearling followed over the crest of the hill looking for mom and her aggressor. About ten minutes later, a single doe, presumably the chaser, was again feeding under the pear tree.

whitetail doe under pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

All Summer we've watched similar aggressive behavior from at least one of the couple or more pairs of hummingbirds feeding at the nectar feeders we hang. Even if it's not feeding, just let another hummer arrive at a feeder and someone arrives, streaking past as if on a strafing run. As Summer has gone on, the other hummers have become less readily intimidated and a game like whack-a-mole, but with hummingbirds, gets played around the feeders.

panorama at International Wolf Center

Photo by J. Harrington

We've watched films of wolves and ravens, and sometimes eagles, feeding on deer carcasses. The wolves would have it that no one eats until they're finished, and, maybe not even then. Although we're not very inclined to lean toward Social Darwinism, perhaps it would behove us humans to more readily remember that, on an evolutionary scale, we're not all that far removed from the rest of the animals. Our lizard brain stick has more than enough capacity to get us into more trouble than we can easily handle. Just ask Rene Dubos.

The Future is an Animal

Tina Chang, 1969

In every kind of dream I am a black wolf 
careening through a web. I am the spider 
who eats the wolf and inhabits the wolf’s body.
In another dream I marry the wolf and then 
am very lonely. I seek my name and they name me 
Lucky Dragon. I would love to tell you that all 
of this has a certain ending but the most frightening
stories are the ones with no ending at all. 
The path goes on and on. The road keeps forking, 
splitting like an endless atom, splitting 
like a lip, and the globe is on fire. As many
times as the book is read, the pages continue
to grow, multiply. They said, In the beginning, 
and that was the moral of the original and most 
important story. The story of man. One story. 
I laid my head down and my head was heavy. 
Hair sprouted through the skin, hair black 
and bending toward night grass. I was becoming 
the wolf again, my own teeth breaking 
into my mouth for the first time, a kind of beauty 
to be swallowed in interior bite and fever. 
My mind a miraculous ember until I am the beast. 
I run from the story that is faster than me, 
the words shatter and pant to outchase me. 
The story catches my heels when I turn 
to love its hungry face, when I am willing
to be eaten to understand my fate.

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Nice to travel, nice to be home, MN Nice?

We're back home in the South end of the North Country. The snow showers stopped a little South of Cloquet but the clouds continued to precede us and are still hanging around. A few of the wolf photos from the International Wolf Center turned out well. Many others show a wild animal's desire to avoid eye contact. The ravens look like ravens feeding on roadkill or the equivalent. We're still frustrated at an ongoing inability to readily identify ravens compared to crows. It's one that we'll just have to keep working on / at?

ravens feeding on carcass

Photo by J. Harrington

Something we've neglected to report on before this are the swans we saw on our drive North Saturday. One pair South of Cloquet, flying in the low clouds, crossing the road, and two pair flying plus a flock on the water North of Cloquet. We don't remember ever seeing swans in the vicinity of Duluth / Cloquet in all the times we've visited. In addition, other wildlife observations include one whitetail beside the road near Embarrass, one or two bald eagles, multiple ravens and / or crows [see preceding paragraph] and several flocks of small birds.

wolf stalking raven

Photo by J. Harrington

As is often the case, it was nice to travel and visit places rarely seen or never seen before and also nice to return home to familiar surroundings. We remember reading that the typical home range for a whitetail deer is about one mile square. We noted maps of the ranges of several wolf packs (see p. 3) during our visit to the International Wolf Center. Do we humans have a home range and if so, what is it? Would it be established by our average commute? Our shopping radius (not counting mail order)? How much of a sense of community among adults depends on having children in the same schools? Christopher Alexander, in A Pattern Language writes about a Community of 7,000 and about Community Networks. We're overdue for a relook at his descriptions of Community and at thinking about the relationships among community, rural life and wilderness.

Raven’s Last Dream

Red Hawk

Raven was in a deep sleep,
dreaming the world. He saw things
and they happened, He dreamed things
and they came to life. He hardly knew 
where to begin or what to do 

once the world was. At last He understood 
Fodder’s dilemma. It troubled Him, 
made Him restless, disturbed His sleep. 
Then the terrible thing happened:
He had a thought.
 
Everything dream? He wonder.
Then the worst thing happened:
He had another thought, one thought
following the other.
Who dreaming Raven? He wonder and
 
this woke Him up.
He looked up, He looked down, He
looked all around.
Don’t know, He say and
He couldn’t get back to sleep.

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Wolfing down the North Country

We spent much of the day in and around Ely. Since we neglected to pack the cables that let us download photos from any of our cameras to our laptop, and we're too lazy to email ourselves some photos, new pictures will be available during the upcoming week.

Our visit to the International Wolf Center didn't disappoint. Although we arrived about mid-day, not the best time for viewing the wolves, most of the members of the resident pack presented themselves for observation and photos. Local ravens added alternative subjects and acted as expected when members of the pack approached them. (We've got our fingers crossed that our lens' troubles with focus through a window were minimal or nonexistent. Time, and access to the proper cables, will tell.)

can you guess where in Minnesota, and in which month, this was taken?

Photo by J. Harrington

We also visited Piragis Northwoods Company and after inspecting their other departments (camping, canoeing, hiking, gifts, etc.) made a pleasant discovery that their entire second floor is a book store. Yes, we bought more books, but only a few, just part of our efforts to support local businesses and local economies, you know. (We now wonder if Amazon will ever find it advantageous to try drone delivery in Minnesota's North Woods.)

Another aspect of support to local businesses involved an extended stay at a table in Northern Grounds. The cappuccino was delicious, once it cooled enough to taste, and nicely accompanied the ghost-frosted sugar cookie we munched our way through.

 Meeting Wolf 

by Mary Oliver

There are no words

inside his mouth,

inside his golden eyes.

So we stand, silent,

both of us tense

under the speechless but faithful trees.

And this is what I think:

I have given him

intrusion.

He has given me

a glimpse into a better but now broken world.

Not his doing, but ours.

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Eclipsing the eclipse

Minnesota: 100% cloud cover

The good news is we didn't travel 500 or 1,000 miles to have cloud cover obscure the eclipse. The bad news is cloud cover is obscuring our eclipse. It'll be interesting to see if the degree and type of darkness triggers any noticeable aberrant behavior among the local critters.

an August full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

We walked down the drive with a pair of eclipse glasses in hand. Trees surrounding the house interrupted a direct line of sight exposure to the sun. Through the clouds we could see a bright light, like the sun behind clouds. To protect our eyes, we put on the eclipse glasses, looked up, and saw --- nothing! It was as black as a coal bin at midnight or, for those of you who never had coal bins, as black as the inside of an upside-down oil barrel. The movies and television coverage of the eclipse are fascinating, but I think I'll wait to read the book. It is getting darker, about the way it would look if a thunderstorm were in the neighborhood.

wolf pup exploring

Photo by J. Harrington

Since we're not going to have any photos of the eclipse we can share, we want to offer something visual, more than just cloud cover. The first photo above is of the full moon from exactly two years ago today. The second is of a Wildlife Science Center wolf pup from a visit a little more than one year ago. The pup hadn't yet mastered howling at the moon but I bet it's doing better these days. It may even be howling at the eclipse, if the clouds ever break up.

A Solar Eclipse

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In that great journey of the stars through space
     About the mighty, all-directing Sun,
     The pallid, faithful Moon, has been the one
Companion of the Earth. Her tender face,
Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that race,
     Which at Time’s natal hour was first begun,
     Shines ever on her lover as they run
And lights his orbit with her silvery smile.
Sometimes such passionate love doth in her rise,
     Down from her beaten path she softly slips,
And with her mantle veils the Sun’s bold eyes,
     Then in the gloaming finds her lover’s lips.
While far and near the men our world call wise
     See only that the Sun is in eclipse.

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Wolfing down Summer #phenology

some human and canine "nannies" with The Pups at WSC

Photo by J. Harrington

I can now claim to have been surrounded by a pack of ravenously hungry wolves and walked away from the encounter unscathed. Last night the Better Half [BH] accompanied me (or vice versa, but I drove) to the Wildlife Science Center [WSC] to listen to Mike Link and Kate Crowley read from their book Meandering, Notes of a Mississippi Riverlorian. We, actually the BH (I have to reimburse her), bought a copy of the book and made a small donation to WSC to help finance their move to a new home for the pack. Our hearts were thoroughly softened by the time we spent prior to the reading, when we visited with this year's fifteen wolf pups who were nannied by several human staff and even more dog nannies.

Blue Vervain blooming

Photo by J. Harrington

Closer to home, Blue Vervain is in bloom, has been for several days. Maybe it's my eyes, but most of the blue vervain that I see, in real life and in photos, looks to me like it's purple, not blue. Of course, many time the Minnesota Vikings "purple" game jerseys look blue to me in certain lights. I suppose that, since purple is a combination of blue and red, my confusion is to be expected. As written in Prairie Plants of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, when the blooms have reached the top of their spikes, "according to old timers, the first frost will occur." Locally, at Wild River State Park, we can expect, with a 50% probability, the first freeze sometime in the third week of September.

pups searching for kibble

Photo by J. Harrington

If you haven't visited the WSC, consider adding it to this year's bucket list, and stop by before we get to that first frost, whenever it occurs. See if watching the pups for awhile doesn't loosen your purse strings and encourage you to make a contribution to help Move The Pack.

De'an

By Heid E. Erdrich

Dogs so long with us we forget

that wolves allowed as how

they might be tamed and sprang up

all over the globe, with all humans,

all at once, like a good idea.

So we tamed our own hearts.

Leashed them or sent them to camp’s edge.

Even the shrinks once agreed, in dreams

our dogs are our deepest selves.

Ur Dog, a Siberian, dogged

the heels of nomads,

then turned south to Egypt

to keep Pharaoh safe.

Seemed strange, my mother sighed,

when finally we got a hound,

. . . a house without a dog.

Her world never knew

a yard un-dogged and thus

unlocked. Sudden intrusions

impossible where yappers yap.

Or maybe she objected

to empty armchairs,

rooms too quiet

without the beat

of tail thump or paw thud.

N’de, Ojibwe say, my pet,

which also suggests ode, that spot in the chest,

the part you point to when you pray,

or say with great feeling—great meaning,

meaning dog-love goes that deep.

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Wolves at our doors

Aldo Leopold (1887 - 1948) is the author of a number of profound and thought-provoking essays. High among my favorites is Thinking Like a Mountain. It includes a sentence that I hope never to forget: "Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf." Wolves are native to much of North American, although they have been extirpated from many places they where they once were indigenous. One of the reasons I consider myself fortunate to live in Minnesota is that it is a state that has wolves. There were few, if any, known instances of live wolves in New England while I was growing up there.

Do Minnesota's Sawtooth Mountains listen objectively to wolf howls?

Photo by J. Harrington

When yesterday we considered some thoughts on the themes of native - nonnative and indigenous - invasive, we hoped to raise questions more than provide answers. We haven't lived as long as a mountain and often find it difficult to be objective when listening to our local pack of coyotes, never mind the howl of a wolf. To again quote Leopold: “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” I count myself among those who cannot live satisfactorily without wild things.

deer and pines think differently about wolves

Photo by J. Harrington

I also find myself wondering if our focus on eradicating invasive species, or attempting to, is because we have been taught so little about how the world really works and that consequences won't happen to us (just our children?). The last time I checked: 

• We were in the process of creating potential problems for ourselves and future generations by trying to eradicate many kinds of bacteria in many places and, in the process, creating antibiotic resistant superbugs.  

• Some of us are busy building, expanding, or trying to get permitted new oil pipelines when we can't even effectively and safely operate the ones we have, even in critically important habitats. 

• A majority of the United States Senate recently voted against the idea that human activity significantly contributes to climate change.  

• Invasive species can serve some beneficial purposes that native species aren't as suited for. We aren't likely to be able to have a global economy and avoid invasive species.

I think in previous postings I've suggested the Sorcerer's Apprentice seems to be a model we have adopted for a national economic development strategy. Leopold I think would want us to learn that there are no simple solutions. Wolves (predator) and deer (prey) and their habitat need to be in balance. Monoculture is a very difficult model to sustain. Diversity and equity usually help create balance in complex systems.

Most of these thoughts aren't original with me. Unfortunately, they seem lost on congress and state legislatures more interested in playing one-upmanship games than in trying to find reasonable and realistic strategies and tactics to follow regardless of which side is "right."

First Grade

By Ron Koertge 

Until then, every forest

had wolves in it, we thought

it would be fun to wear snowshoes

all the time, and we could talk to water.

 

So who is this woman with the gray

breath calling out names and pointing

to the little desks we will occupy

for the rest of our lives?

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