Previews of coming attractions

Happy World Wetlands Day and Groundhog Day! Lack of a shadow for Phil may be the only good thing about this extended run of cloudy weather we've been having. Wetlands, on the other hand, are where I've often had lots of fun, especially back East in the salt marshes. One of the few times in my life that I've actually sunk a boat was in the salt marshes of the South River in Marshfield, Massachusetts. I had been scouting for the upcoming duck season and tried launching my canoe, with me in it, off the top of a mud bank. Let's just say it didn't go well and I never tried it again, although I still have that same canoe. Unfortunately, when it comes to salt marshes, Minnesota has precious few (actually -- none), but it does have more than a few other types of wetlands that haven't yet been drained.

leaves emerging on dog wood branches

Photo by J. Harrington

Depending on how much snow we get today and tomorrow, I may or may not be in/on some frozen wetlands in the very near to near future. It's getting to be time to collect a few dogwood branches and maybe some pussy willows to help welcome the pending arrival of Spring. I thoroughly enjoy watching the leaf buds open and leaves emerge despite the fact that such a display really rushes the season and depends on a warm house for its existence.

Since I started this posting, the snow has arrived and is now approaching white-out conditions. I'm going to adjust the dogs' schedule today and walk and feed them before we have to do it in a full-fledged blizzard. Meanwhile, I'll keep thinking warmer thoughts of Spring. I don't want to disappoint Phil.

Willow

By Anna Akhmatova

Translated By Jennifer Reeser

...and a decrepit handful of trees.

—Aleksandr Pushkin

And I matured in peace born of command,

in the nursery of the infant century,

and the voice of man was never dear to me,

but the breeze’s voice—that I could understand.

The burdock and the nettle I preferred,

but best of all the silver willow tree.

Its weeping limbs fanned my unrest with dreams;

it lived here all my life, obligingly.

I have outlived it now, and with surprise.

There stands the stump; with foreign voices other

willows converse, beneath our, beneath those skies,

and I am hushed, as if I’d lost a brother.

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No longer hooked on politics as usual

Welcome to February, the month of the Snow Moon or Hunger Moon; the month that brings us Groundhog Day; the month when we start to hope we can see the beginning of the end of political silly season. Unfortunately, we can be sure whether or not Mr. Groundhog sees his shadow tomorrow, we're in for more than six plus months of presidential politics. Over the weekend I read that the founders of our country have designed a system in which even our most egregious choices for chief executive are limited in the amount of damage they can accomplish. Of course, all too often, we then turn around and give such a president another term to further make a mess of things. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to see that we're still here despite having been led with widely varying degrees of incompetence over several hundred years.

birds at feeders in February snow storm

Photo by J. Harrington

It was not quite three years ago when My Minnesota first quoted Robert Traver's Testament of a Fisheman. As we await the results of tonight's Iowa caucuses and the forecast Winter storm (you'd think all the hot air would melt the snow as it fell) we're going to do a repeat performance for the sake of what's left of our sanity, and to help you protect yours. Our intent is to provide a healthy framework for or background to the political considerations and conditions to which we will be subjected between now and the beginning of November. Although politics is the art of the possible, Nature is often the art of the magical. I know which I prefer. How about you?

Testament of a Fisherman

John D. Voelker, under the name Robert Traver

1903 - 1991

"I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on fishing waters; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup tastes better out there; because maybe someday I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many other concerns of men are equally unimportant -- and not nearly so much fun"

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.