Are you ready to spring into summer?

The first ice cream (Java chunk) cones (waffle) of the season were consumed here last night. That means summer has officially begun in our household. We only jumped the gun on meteorological summer by a couple or three days. As I’m sure you know, that starts on June 1.

A tray of wild bergamot seeds is sitting on the deck in overcast sunlight. I haven’t decided yet whether to put it out on a rainy day but I’m hoping the sun’s warmth will encourage a higher rate of germination than was attained in our first efforts this year. Meanwhile, I’m caught between the recommendations of several on-line guidelines to plant the corn in three sisters garden on a leveled mound and a lack of quick and easy ways to create such mounds. Plus, there’s the question of where to create such mounds if I could. We’ll see if I get inspired to actually tackle that fantasy instead of just dreaming about it.

a field of beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus) in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

I bet you've heard about Parkinson’s law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Around here we’re thinking Parkinson was an optimist. It seems like work, especially outdoor chores, expands to exceed the time available for its completion, and the weather rarely cooperates. There’s a couple of brush piles I’d like to get reduced to ashes but we’ve gone from drought to rainy to windy to rainy etc. Today is definitely too windy and if the wind weren’t blowing or lightning flashing, I’d want to go fly-fishing, not stand around and watch flames die down. I think the only solution is to relax and assume everything will get done in good time, or not. At least I don’t have a home owners association fussing at me, and the Better Half is pretty understanding about limitations and priorities.

Locally, columbines are blooming and penstemon has just started to flower. Over the next month or two we may begin to see whitetail fawns and turkey poults. We’ve already observed Canada goose goslings and sandhill crane colts. Witnessing the births of the next generation(s) of a species is always heartening.

Relax

Ellen Bass

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

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As time and the seasons turn

Welcome to June, the month of and for:

• whitetail fawns
• Canada goose goslings
• wildflowers
• thunderstorms
• Summer solstice
• father's day
• fill in your favorite June events.

wildflowers surround a fawn and doe

Photo by J. Harrington

We're still hoping to get a three sisters garden planted this month. The tiller is off at the small engine doctor to see if they can get it to run. We may not get it back until some time next week. We'll see how things turn out over the Summer and Fall growing seasons. If I look at it as a learning experience then the prospect of being rewarded with a bountiful harvest as a reward for our work becomes less important. After all, I spend time fishing and hunting without needing to kill fish or game as a reward. (In view of my success rate over the years, that's just as well.) If you can't quite grasp what I'm talking about, let me refer you to sone of Gene Hill's writings. He captures much of my meaning in this excerpt:

Remember when time was cheap? The songs we sang about it told us that we had time on our hands, that time stood still, that tomorrow would be time enough. And now we find it was not. Suddenly times to come have become times past, and we must hoard it and spend it cautiously as the tag ends of a small inheritance . . . which is what it really was all along—except no one told us.

next year's geese are this year's goslings

Photo by J. Harrington

You've probably read about and seen reports on the now worldwide protests against the Minneapolis police role in the death of George Floyd. I've no idea what songs or singers accompany any of the protestors. I do hope they have music as meaningful to their times and places as much of the folk music I grew up with was, and is, to me. One of the better examples, of many, was created by Pete Seeger from passages in the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes for “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain that which is to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time of love, and a time of hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

I sincerely hope that the turning of Spring into Summer, as May has turned into June, brings us times to embrace each other and the changes our country needs; a time of peace so that we may chose wisely and well come November; a time to heal between now and November; a time to rededicate ourselves to the purpose of this country's democracy in which all are created and treated equal. Let's let a young Mr. Seeger and Ms. Collins help us regain some perspective on where we are and where we're trying to get to (and how time can seem never-ending, never-changing).

At the Justice Department November 15, 1969

By Denise Levertov

Brown gas-fog, white

beneath the street lamps.

Cut off on three sides, all space filled

with our bodies.

       Bodies that stumble

in brown airlessness, whitened

in light, a mildew glare,

       that stumble

hand in hand, blinded, retching.

Wanting it, wanting

to be here, the body believing it’s

dying in its nausea, my head

clear in its despair, a kind of joy,

knowing this is by no means death,

is trivial, an incident, a

fragile instant.    Wanting it, wanting

          with all my hunger this anguish,

          this knowing in the body

the grim odds we’re

up against, wanting it real.

Up that bank where gas

curled in the ivy, dragging each other

up, strangers, brothers

and sisters.    Nothing

will do but

to taste the bitter

taste. No life

other, apart from.

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If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are. ~ W. Berry

This morning I finished reading a couple of books that had been in my morning meditation collection and, in their place, added A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Ed. by Rose McLarney and Laura-Gray Street. I've also recently begun to read McLarney's Its Day Being Gone as an example of poetry of place. All of which indicates my readings and mediations are slowly bringing me back to roots as a bioregionalist. I started many years ago with a degree in English and a job as a regional systems planner. That, to my way of thinking, fits nicely under  the heading of bioregional, although I hadn't heard of that term back in those days.

is the St. Croix River watershed a bioregion?

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm continuing to work at getting an understanding of Minnesota's bioregions. I'm not referring strictly to the ecoregions of Minnesota, although they are elements of the identification of a bioregion. Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmond have crafted art least the four following definitions of "bioregion":

0. Definitions of “Bioregion”
   
   “A bioregion is defined in terms of the unique overall pattern of natural characteristics that are found in a specific place. The main features are generally found throughout a continuous geographic terrain and include a particular climate, local aspects of seasons, landforms, watersheds, soils, and native plants and animals.” (Peter Berg)
   
   “A bioregion can be determined initially by use of climatology, physiography, animal and plant geography, natural history and other descriptive natural sciences. The final boundaries of a bioregion, however, are best described by the people who have lived within it, through human recognition of the realities of living-in-place.” (Peter Berg & Raymond Dasmann)
   
   “People are also counted as an integral aspect of a place’s life, as can be seen in the ecologically adaptive cultures of early inhabitants, and in the activities of present day reinhabitants who attempt to harmonize in a sustainable way with the place where they live.” (Peter Berg)
   
   “A bioregion refers both to geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness -- to a place and the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place.” (Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann)

a black bear statue in the Minnesota Goose Garden

Photo by J. Harrington

Part of what refocused my attention onto bioregions is the recognition that several of the species in the Appalachia Field Guide are also found in Minnesota, the smallmouth bass and the lake sturgeon among fishes and the black bear among mammals. I'll work toward a more complete comparison during the upcoming week. I'm more convinced than ever that we humans need to redevelop a closer and better identification with the places we "live, work and play" as the saying goes. Globalism has become unbalanced and will continue doing the same to us until we reach a (tipping) point at which our initial identity is as a citizen of Earth and a member of her community. We have a way to go yet.

The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain

By Wallace Stevens

There it was, word for word,

The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,

Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed

A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,

Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,

Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactnesses

Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,

Recognize his unique and solitary home.

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November: Native American Heritage Month. Time for Thanksgiving

Welcome to November, the month of Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Month. The Academy of American Poets has compiled a wonderful listing of "poems, essays, books, and more by and about Native American poets." If there are any teachers reading this, the Academy has also included several lesson plans and related materials. (Would those lesson plans also work for parents? Take a look, try one and see. It has to be better than the traditional distorted stories of the first Thanksgiving.) Now is also an appropriate moment to remind or inform you of an online resource that identifies territories, languages and treaties related to Native Land particularly in North America. It can be useful in identifying whose homeland you're occupying if you do a Land Acknowledgement. Much of Minnesota has been and is home of the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ or the Santee and Dakota.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (All Are Related) 

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that November is officially underway, we can theoretically prune and trim our oak trees without exposing them to oak wilt disease. It's also prime time to notice all the still green buckthorn understory while driving around. With all the reservoirs of buckthorn available for reseeding throughout the area, it becomes challenging to stay motivated to control that invasive on our property. On the other hand, it's unattractive and limits the growth of indigenous plants so we'll keep picking away at it. If only pocket gophers would eat the roots of buckthorn, or deer consume its foliage and twigs... but then that wouldn't be this imperfect world we live in, would it? Since buckthorn is a relatively recent arrival turned into an invasive species, it's doubtful there are traditional Native American practices for managing it although the use of "controlled burns," similar to the way prairies were kept open by Native Americans, is noted by one of Minnesota's conservation agencies.

MIIGWECH = thanks BII IZHAAYAN for coming(?)

Photo by J. Harrington

This month, weather permitting, might be a prime time to visit at least one of the places, other than a reservation or a casino, that honors Minnesota's Native American heritage. There's:

• The Goose Garden (near Sandstone)


• The Mille Lacs Trading Post


• The American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis

And, without leaving your chair, you can explore the bdote Memory Map. No doubt there are others we haven't mentioned or discovered yet. We look forward to learning more about this country's heritage.

Once the World Was Perfect

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.

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To whom are we "The Other?"

Probably because of some of what I've been reading over the past few years, and, before that, the fundamentals of sociology course I took in college, and, especially, the way politics have been going both nationally and internationally, I've been thinking more and more about binaries. I don't particularly care for them although I can make choices when needed. Back in my college days, I came across a psychologist named Fritz Perls. He crafted what is know as the "Gestalt prayer."

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.
(Fritz Perls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim", 1969)

Simple concepts that many of us find hard to remember and even harder to live by. It depends on the existence of a you and an I. But, how does a Gestalt prayer fit with the Native American concept that the world, indeed, the universe, perhaps, is made up of each of us and "all my/our relations" [Lakota or Ojibwe].

Minnesota Goose Garden near Sandstone

Photo by J. Harrington

In sociology, "Otherness" is a fundamental concept. It is also a major theme in literature. So, it would seem that, depending on our cultural background, we may find ourselves focused on what makes us different or what we have in common. Is it clear how much either focus is a matter of choice? Not often nor entirely. It seems to me more like the emphasis on nature versus nurture.

Much of what we do is based on the kind of world we live in and the kind of people we live with, more so than on the kind of world we would like to live in and the kind of people we would like to live with. I know that, on an off day, when I try to envision living in a world full of people just like me, I shudder. I couldn't stand it. Not that I don't like myself, but that I've watched one too many times the "Dirty Harry" movie in which Clint Eastwood says "It takes a good man to know his limitations." Change, variety, unlikeness, other, is the spice of life, isn't it?

I don't have any clear answers to offer in today's ponderings. In fact, I'm not even sure I've got the questions right, or is it the right questions? I am sure that we need to transform our culture and, especially, our politics, into a celebration, rather than a condemnation, of our differences because the differences increase our options and are facets of that diamond, still in the rough, that is our common humanity. I think it was good old Ben Franklin who warned us "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

By William E. Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

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#OptOutside #BuyNothingDay IT'S TODAY!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and, if not, that you enjoy a speedy recovery. Today is the day to Opt Outside while we Buy Nothing, but first give any nearby family members and significant others a hug. We're going to follow the hash tags in today's title. You might want to VISIT FOR FREE a Minnesota State Park. Beat that, Black Friday merchants. Tomorrow we'll support Small Business Saturday at a book store or two.

It's late November and supposed to be a little warmer. There's a couple of oak tree branches that need to be pruned so they won't shade part of the indigenous plants garden that's going in next Spring. We'll promptly use pruning sealer anyhow, but November is supposed to be a time that's safe from oak wilt.

three amaryllis, posing as Wise Men

Photo by J. Harrington

Each of the three amaryllis bulbs on the window sill is sprouting nicely. (Each is, all are!) We're thinking they might represent the Three Wise Men if all goes well and none get lost to amaryllis wilt or something.

Taylors Falls Christmas Lighting

Photo by J. Harrington

Tonight is the Christmas Lighting Festival at Taylors Falls. We suspect (and hope) that's all it will take to get us really into the Christmas mood. Having Thanksgiving dinner with some suspected of supporting Trump had us on our best behavior, and that get's really stressful after the first five minutes or so. Today we're back to our hopeful and golden-hearted curmudgeonly selves. We wish you all the same.

                     A Christmas Song

By Norman Williams

Christmas is coming. The goose is getting fat

                        Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.

                        If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do.

                        If you haven’t got a ha’penny, Gold bless you.

Tonight the wide, wet flakes of snow

Drift down like Christmas suicides,

Layering the eaves and boughs until

The landscape seems transformed, as from

A night of talk or love. I’ve come

From cankered ports and railroad hubs

To winter in a northern state:

Three months of wind and little light.

Wood split, flue cleaned, and ashes hauled,

I am now proof against the cold

And make a place before the stove.

Mired fast in middle age, possessed

Of staved-in barn and brambled lot,

I think of that fierce-minded woman

Whom I loved, painting in a small,

Unheated room, or of a friend,

Sharp-ribbed from poverty, who framed

And fitted out his house by hand

And writes each night by kerosene.

I think, that is, of others who

Withdrew from commerce and the world

To work for joy instead of gain.

O would that I could gather them

This Yuletide, and shower them with coins.

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Goosing the season #phenology

The goslings we wrote about a few days ago now have lots of company. Today we noticed a couple of Branta canadensis families walking the roadside, proud parents leading the children through the neighborhood. I wonder if MNDNR and / or the Chisago County Highway Department could be convinced to install some "Reduce speed, Goose crossing" signs along county highway 36. Every year it seems, later in the Summer, geese end up loafing on the blacktop and one or more looses a game of chicken to a fast-moving vehicle. (The goslings are just above the red arrowhead. That's a red-winged blackbird on the post for comparison.)

if you see goslings, look for trillium and lilacs to bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

I thought, but was not sure, that hatching is a week or two earlier this year than in the past. It's also possible that I've learned to pay more and better attention and the geese are on their normal schedule. MNDNR informs us that "The mating season runs from March to April, after which eggs are laid. Hatching begins 25 to 30 days later." If we count 25 days from the Ides of March (15th), then just beyond the end of the first week in April it would be time for hatching. Looks like I've learned to be more observant rather than an early arrival for goslings this year. From now on, I'll remember to look for goslings when the local lilacs and trillium are in bloom. How's that for a phenological observation? And to add to that, yesterday afternoon we saw the first dragonfly of the year in the back yard. It was reddish colored and I would have guessed a Ruby Meadowhawk, but they're not supposed to be in the air until next month. I'd suggest maybe a juvenile chalk-fronted corporal or a variegated meadowhawk but didn't get either a photo or a close look.

blooming trillium mean it's time to look for goslings

Photo by J. Harrington

Several months ago, just before the geese arrived this year, I discovered Charles Goodrich, a poet and essayist I hadn't read previously. Last night I finished reading his Going to Seed, Dispatches from the Garden. It was a delight from cover to cover. If you find yourself in need of a "nature break," but can't actually get outside, take time to read one of his dispatches. It will refresh you in in less time than it takes to tell. I lean very heavily toward poets and poetry that's "approachable." Goodrich very much fits that standard in the poems published in Going to Seed. Here's an example previously shared on Writer's Almanac.

Wild Geese

by Charles Goodrich

            I'm picking beans when the geese fly over, Blue Lake pole
beans I figure to blanch and freeze. Maybe pick some dilly beans.
And there will be more beans to give to the neighbors, forcibly if
necessary.
            The geese come over so low I can hear their wings creak, can
see their tail feathers making fine adjustments. They slip-stream along
so gracefully, riding on each other's wind, surfing the sky. Maybe
after the harvest I'll head south. Somebody told me Puerto Vallarta is
nice. I'd be happy with a cheap room. Rice and beans at every meal.
Swim a little, lay on the beach.
            Who are you kidding, Charles? You don't like to leave home
in the winter. Spring, fall, or summer either. True. But I do love to
watch those wild geese fly over, feel these impertinent desires glide
through me. Then get back to work.  

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"Indigenous Wisdom" #CleanWaterWednesday

Water is often described as following the path of least resistance. These days the same may be said about oil, or at least oil pipelines. The federal government rejected the Keystone Pipeline; in Minnesota, Enbridge's Sandpiper pipeline proposal has been withdrawn; the Dakota Access Pipeline [DAPL] is encountering fierce resistance, especially from Native Americans. An interesting and worthwhile perspective on what's happening at the Missouri River DAPL camp, and why, has been written by a North Dakotan and published here. Clay Jenkinson, the author, includes a list of books he recommends we read to gain some perspective into the Native American perspective on the issues at Standing Rock. I would respectfully suggest at least two more books be added to that list.

Sweetgrass at Minnesota Goose Garden

Photo by J. Harrington

If you really want to make a contribution to a sustainable future for all who live in the US, and that's what I believe is at stake in North Dakota, read Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. In one of the later chapters, she highlights why what we have seen, and seen accomplished, to defeat Keystone, Sandpiper and, we hope, DAPL, is so critically important.

"Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth. Environmental despair is a poison every bit as destructive as the methylated mercury in the bottom of Onondaga Lake. But how can we submit to despair while the land is saying 'Help'? Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It's not enough to grieve. It's not enough to just stop doing bad things."

moss on a decaying log

Photo by J. Harrington

The other book I would add to the list is Kimmerer's  Gathering Moss. In it she notes:

"...In indigenous ways of knowing, all beings are recognized as non-human persons, and all have their own names, It is a sign of respect to call a being by its name, and a sign of disrespect to ignore it. Words and names are the ways we humans build relationships, not only with each other, but also with plants."

Minnesota is recognizing its need for a new, more vigorous water ethic. We will need to show respect for each other to be successful. The values being shown by Native Americans at Standing Rock, and reflected in the quotes above, should help Minnesotans develop that ethic and others respect the value of a Missouri River without additional contamination from pipelines that shouldn't be built if we hope to have a world in which our descendants can thrive rather than just survive. A similar argument applies to unnecessary and unduly risky copper-sulfate mines proposed for northern Minnesota.

Eagle Poem

By Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

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Why? #phenology

I've no doubt that much of my interest in phenology can be attributed to reading Gary Snyder and Robin Wall Kimmerer and their concepts regarding how it's only being polite to know the names of the neighbors; in part it's due to my interest in trout fishing and the questions of what's hatching that the trout may be feeding on (there are very few grasshoppers in mid-April, often lots in August); and in part to my interest in local food foraging and eating (looking for morel mushrooms in August is as productive around here as looking for blackberries in early May). Plus, there's a whole list of things I (we) might be able to do with local plants that I (we) usually don't bother with. I'm slowly learning about them while picking and choosing my way through the entirely fascinating Strength of the Earth-the Classic Guide to Ojibwe Uses of Native Plants, compiled by Frances Densmore. It lists the following categories of uses:

• Plants as food
• Plants as medicine
• Plants used in dyes
• Plants used as charms
• Plants used in useful and decorative arts

Just like Sherlock Holmes, I've cleverly figured out that before any plant could be safely and effectively put to use, it would need to be accurately identified. A great aid in this, better than any field guide since it provides real plants with labels (and a representation of Frances Densmore), is the Minnesota Goose Garden up near Sandstone. We've visited in late Autumn and again in early Spring and learned something worthwhile each time we've been there, including how sometimes a plant can look different than it does even in the best set of photographs.

"The earth is what we all have in common." ~Wendell Berry

Photo by J. Harrington

There's at least one other fundamental reason that makes it worthwhile to observe phenology. It comes from one of my favorite writers, Wendell Berry, who wrote "The Earth is what we all have in common."  [pictured above on the parking lot wall at St. Croix Falls library] Not everyone sees it that way and I've learned that I enjoy the company of those who do more than that of those who don't, who see the earth only as an aggregation of natural resources to be exploited rather than as home. Phenology becomes a way to meet others who share values I find important and satisfying to live by. For a very related perspective on these themes, read, or reread, Robert Traver's Testament of a Fisherman.

Now, instead of writing about phenology, let me note that yellow hawkweed is blooming, yesterday's wishing Spring "au devoir" seems premature in today's 60ish temperatures, and I'm grateful for readers who gently point us in a more correct direction when we mistakenly label one of our "discoveries" incorrectly. Thanks, Molly. I fixed yesterday's wood Canada anemone.

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Remembering

I'll admit that September is not usually when I think about wildflowers. My photographic record clearly shows that, by September, the meteorological beginning of Autumn, I'm thinking about leaves turning color, fresh apples, and chrysanthemums. My Better Half notes that asters often are in bloom in September. Minnesota Wildflowers lists more than 250 native plants that bloom in September, so clearly I've been missing quite a bit. I'll be better organized and have an additional focus on wildflowers this September. I'll also try to get back to the Minnesota Goose Garden before the asters are past their prime.

New England aster (in October)

Photo by J. Harrington

Something I've noticed during the past few years is a lack of field guides organized by county or, better yet, by bioregion.  For example, the Sierra Club covers the entire "North Woods" of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan in one volume. Minnesota has a high degree of flora that are shared throughout the state, depending on habitat, but I've wondered how challenging it might be to try to identify the 25 most common trees, plants, reptiles etc. by county or bioregion. I have no doubt we'll return to this topic after I've finished with the blooming by season listing and compared that to the Chisago County list of plants. It seems to me that, as many of our lives drift further and further from direct links with the natural world (other than mowing the Kentucky blue grass lawn) it would make sense to try to localize our natural resources inventory as a way to provide an easier entry to going local, so to speak. On the other hand, I know there are ruffed grouse living in greater numbers north of here in the forests and south of here along the Mississippi River bluffs. Why there are so few to none here I haven't figured out yet. Things like that might complicate any "most common" approach, although the Minnesota wolves' range is still limited to northern Pine County and hasn't reached this far south, yet. Might it someday, he asked hopefully?

Enjoy your holiday weekend. Please remember why and for whom we have this holiday. I'll understand if you've better things to do than stop by and read. Of course, if it rains a lot, as noted in today's Writer's Almanac...

May opens wide

by Marge Piercy 

The rain that came down last night
in sheets of shaken foil while thunder
trundled over the Bay and crooked
spears of lightning splintered trees
is rising now up stalks, lengthening
leaves that wave their new bright
banners tender as petals, seventeen
shades of green pushing into sun.
The soil feels sweet in my hands
as I push little marigolds in.
Bumblebees stir in the sour cherry
blossoms floating like pieces of moon
down to the red tulips beneath
the smooth barked tree where a red
squirrel chatters at my rescued tabby
who eyes him like a plate of lunch.

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Ah, Spring!

This morning the air smelled of something other than arctic cold. There was dampness in the wind. Snow has melted from most of the local fields. The ground is still frozen. Ditches are collecting snow melt. The river is starting to open the ice cover in Carlos Avery. Ice on the pools is turning gray and yellow and rotten looking. Crows have started crazy flying. Ah, Spring!

downy woodpecker at the suet

Photo by J. Harrington

We've put out the last chunk of suet for the season. One of these days, very soon, the covered trash can we use to store sunflower seeds will get moved off the deck and into the house. Bird feeders will be brought in nightly. We're assuming that the local black bears will be active and hungry any day now. I would not be surprised to see waterfowl back in the next week or two. Ah, Spring!

canada goose and swan, early Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Now, here are today's shades of green:

• Casili's Green:     No information available
• Celadon Green:   Definition     Images
• Chartreuse:          Definition     Images

Mid-March

By Lizette Woodworth Reese 

It is too early for white boughs, too late

For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall

A few last flakes, ragged and delicate.

Down the stripped roads the maples start their small,

Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks

A rich and deepening red. The willow tree

Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks

The lean bush crouching hints old royalty,

Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows

Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose.

The days go out with shouting; nights are loud;

Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold;

The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold,

Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.

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A serendipitous discovery

Last October I took a trip to the Minnesota Goose Garden. My Minnesota has several previous posts from that trip.

Minnesota Goose Garden in Sandstone

Photo by J. Harrington

During that visit, I was pleased, but not surprised, to see an acknowledgement of Frances Densmore's ethnographic work. I knew her name from our copy of her book "The Strength of the Earth, The Classic Guide to Ojibwe Uses of Native Plants."

Explanation of the Goose Garden

Photo by J. Harrington

Today I encountered Densmore's name in a completely new context. This time I was surprised but delighted to see her name listed next to Minnesota's own Robert Bly, poet, editor and translator. That juxtaposition occurred thanks to Bly's role as editor of The Sea and the Honeycomb: A Book of Tiny Poems and his efforts, as translator, after Frances Densmore, of an Ojibwe prayer. Combined, Bly and Densmore, and the original author(s), brought this profound insight to us from Minnesota's past:

"Sometimes I go about pitying myself,

and all the time

I am being carried on great winds across the sky."

I will hold those thoughts close to my heart while crawling through the last weeks of Winter, toward Spring's renewal and another visit to the Minnesota Goose Garden where I will say "thank you" to Frances, to Ni'sucwe'yaci'kwe (Woman blown about by the wind), and to the Ojibwe people who have helped Minnesotans have both roots to grow and wings with which to fly.

Frances Densmore and Ni'sucwe'yaci'kwe

Photo by J. Harrington

Elemental Conception

By Heid E. Erdrich 

She wants to grow from the rich-rotten trunk

of the stamp left to sprout in the chain-linked

alley yard. She wants to be born there.

Or out of dry wind rushing debris around

and cleaning the world like a slate that

hasn’t yet written how her birth will be

if she be born slick-wet and shimmering

in rings like gas spill, born from long trickles

run off curb-piled snow that flows in curtains

any northern winter when it is possible to burn

in water, when flakes against skin so cold brand

their pattern on the new-thought, engraved self.

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What's in a name

A month or so ago, we were pondering the identity of a blue flower in the front garden. Susan Foss, the artist behind Minnesota Goose Garden, kindly suggested it "looks like vinca," rather than my guess of a Bottle Gentian. Anyone who's managed to get something like 400 plants used by the Ojibwe planted and identified in a walkable garden definitely outranks me when it comes to wildflower identification, but I haven't, until now, tried to double check and acknowledge her hypothesis. After taking a look at my usual reference sources, I think Susan is probably correct, although almost all of the periwinkle photos available portray an opened blossom, one of the main reasons I had trouble with identification (in case any field guide authors ever read this page). It's listed as an invasive species so either this Autumn or next Spring, once I can find it again, it will get weeded out, unless we decide to try it as a ground cover on the shady north side of the house.

Common Periwinkle ("vinca")

Photo by J. Harrington

Now that it's late October, the suet feeder is back up. We bring that and the sunflower seed feeder in a night because we're still reasonably sure the local bear isn't yet in hibernation. The return of the suet has brought about the return of woodpeckers to the feeder, hairy, downy and pileated. They seemed to largely disappear over the Summer and their red feather patches add a nice spot of color on a cold, cloudy, dreary day like today. We're also seeing the usual chickadees, nuthatches and goldfinches, plus an occasional squirrel who shows up to give the dogs something to bark at and chase away. I often wonder what they think they're seeing when they bark at creatures not there. Sometimes it's hard to know what we see and what words to use.

Goldfinch and nuthatch

Photo by J. Harrington

What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use

By Ada Limón 

All these great barns out here in the outskirts,

black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass.

They look so beautifully abandoned, even in use.

You say they look like arks after the sea’s

dried up, I say they look like pirate ships,

and I think of that walk in the valley where

J said, You don’t believe in God? And I said,

No. I believe in this connection we all have

to nature, to each other, to the universe.

And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there,

low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,

and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,

woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.

So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky,

its clouds in simple animal shapes we could name

though we knew they were really just clouds—

disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.

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Solving an indigenous Minnesota mystery?

One of the trees included in the Minnesota Goose Garden is tagged as a red spruce.

red spruce tag

Photo by J. Harrington

This is what the tree looks like.

red spruce tree

Photo by J. Harrington

As I've mentioned previously on these pages, tree identification isn't one of my strongest skills. I remembered checking on black spruce and white spruce in my efforts to identify two clusters of conifers behind the house, but had no recollection of coming across a reference to red spruce in Minnesota. The first source I checked was Strength of the Earth, Frances Densmore's "Guide to Ojibwe Uses of Native Plants." There it was, about one third of the way down page numbered 291, Picea rubra (DuRoi) Dietr. But, there is no Picea rubra to be found in Welby R. Smith's Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota, nor is red spruce listed on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' listing of native trees of Minnesota. Finally, in checking the US Forest Service's online information, the range of the red spruce doesn't seem to come anywhere near Minnesota. As my lawyer friends might ask, was I dealing with a distinction without a difference or presuming facts not in evidence? Then, I remembered that I had read that oral history told that the Ojibwe had moved west from the area now known as New England / New York, a location right in the midst of the red spruce range. Mystery solved? I think so. Meanwhile, I'm still less than certain that the spruces I see daily are black and not white. I wonder if I'll ever become native to this place where I live.

Intimate Detail

By Heid E. Erdrich  

Late summer, late afternoon, my work

interrupted by bees who claim my tea,

even my pen looks flower-good to them.

I warn a delivery man that my bees,

who all summer have been tame as cows,

now grow frantic, aggressive, difficult to shoo

from the house. I blame the second blooms

come out in hot colors, defiant vibrancy—

unexpected from cottage cosmos, nicotianna,

and bean vine. But those bees know, I’m told

by the interested delivery man, they have only

so many days to go. He sighs at sweetness untasted.

Still warm in the day, we inspect the bees.

This kind stranger knows them in intimate detail.

He can name the ones I think of as shopping ladies.

Their fur coats ruffed up, yellow packages tucked

beneath their wings, so weighted with their finds

they ascend in slow circles, sometimes drop, while

other bees whirl madly, dance the blossoms, ravish

broadly so the whole bed bends and bounces alive.

He asks if I have kids, I say not yet. He has five,

all boys. He calls the honeybees his girls although

he tells me they’re ungendered workers

who never produce offspring. Some hour drops,

the bees shut off. In the long, cool slant of sun,

spent flowers fold into cups. He asks me if I’ve ever

seen a Solitary Bee where it sleeps. I say I’ve not.

The nearest bud’s a long-throated peach hollyhock.

He cradles it in his palm, holds it up so I spy

the intimacy of the sleeping bee. Little life safe in a petal,

little girl, your few furious buzzings as you stir

stay with me all winter, remind me of my work undone.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.