Can you feel it getting warmer?

It's Winter, cold, snow showery, cloudy, but there's a batch of chili cooking. I'm sitting in an easy chair, watching the birds come and go at the feeders, writing a blog post and nursing a tooth ache. The snow blower is back in the garage, with hopes that this time the cables are dry, lubricated and set to stay that way. As you may have heard, we're due for a January thaw later this week.

The nice folks at the Twin Cities weather service have provided a delightful graph showing that the days now keep getting warmer, on average. We haven't forgotten last January's polar vortex at month's end, with outside actual temperatures dropping to twenty to more than thirty below (without wind chill). How long do you think average daily highs and lows will hold up with the increased volatility of the weather? Do you think we can count on having turned a corner in this year's Winter's onslaught?

January 31, 2019 = -31℉

Photo by J. Harrington

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier
(after Wallace Stevens)

Craig Santos Perez

I

Among starving polar bears, 

The only moving thing 

Was the edge of a glacier.

II

We are of one ecology

Like a planet

In which there are 200,000 glaciers.

III

The glacier absorbed greenhouse gases. 

We are a large part of the biosphere.

IV

Humans and animals 

Are kin. 

Humans and animals and glaciers 

Are kin.

V

We do not know which to fear more,

The terror of change

Or the terror of uncertainty, 

The glacier calving

Or just after.

VI

Icebergs fill the vast Ocean

With titanic wrecks. 

The mass of the glacier 

Disappears, to and fro. 

The threat

Hidden in the crevasse

An unavoidable cause.

VII

O vulnerable humans,

Why do you engineer sea walls?

Do you not see how the glacier

Already floods the streets

Of the cities around you?

VIII

I know king tides, 

And lurid, inescapable storms; 

But I know, too, 

That the glacier is involved 

In what I know.

IX

When the glacial terminus broke, 

It marked the beginning 

Of one of many waves.

X

At the rumble of a glacier

Losing its equilibrium, 

Every tourist in the new Arctic

chased ice quickly.

XI

They explored the poles 

for offshore drilling. 

Once, we blocked them, 

In that we understood 

The risk of an oil spill

For a glacier.

XII

The sea is rising.

The glacier must be retreating.

XIII

It was summer all winter. 

It was melting 

And it was going to melt.

The glacier fits

In our warm-hands.

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

Water is life, food is too, and...

There are multitudes of local birds descending on the sunflower seeds and suet. After spending several hours on the tractor, using a back blade because the brand new Husqvarna snow blower cable refroze overnight after the local hardware guys thought they'd fixed it, I'm highly empathetic to the birds need for calories to stay warm and alive.

how can a person this size survive five years or so?

Photo by J. Harrington

Think about the size of the spark of life in each of those tiny, feathered bodies, as they try to maintain some warmth in negative wind chills. Have you read the section in the December chapter of A Sand County Almanac about chickadee 65290? It appears s/he survived five Winters near the Leopold shack in Wisconsin. I'm not sure how that translates into human years, or even if it does. I do find it astounding that the spark could have been kept burning for that long.

one of our local producers sells through a local food co-op

Photo by J. Harrington

In a few minutes I'm headed off to a meeting of local folks who are focused on building a food system that can help neighboring farmers and respond to climate change. In preparation, I recently read the Land Stewardship Project's Long Range Plan: 2019-2024. I'm hoping there will be some cross-fertilization instead of everyone inventing their own version of a wheel.

when local fruits aren't in season, they come from far away or we do without

Photo by J. Harrington

Back from the meeting. I learned that the Better Half and I already support about 80% of the local producers who were there. It's good to see growing recognition of the role played in local economies by farmers and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and food co-ops. It would be better if there were more dot connecting going on. Food waste and large CSA shares and more consistent quality from suppliers are unexplored themes. Industrial foods are consistently mediocre and rarely beneficial to the environment. Where are there more stories of local farmers who don't pollute the waters on or under their farms and do provide quality vegetables and meats and, in season, fruits? All the pieces tie together whether we recognize the linkages or not. Food. Water. Shelter. Companionship. Humans and more than human animals, all have these needs. But you knew that, right?

The Farmer

By W.D. Ehrhart

Each day I go into the fields to see what is growing

and what remains to be done.

It is always the same thing: nothing

is growing, everything needs to be done.

Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray

till my bones ache and hands rub

blood-raw with honest labor—

all that grows is the slow

intransigent intensity of need.

I have sown my seed on soil

guaranteed by poverty to fail.

But I don’t complain—except

to passersby who ask me why

I work such barren earth.

They would not understand me

if I stooped to lift a rock

and hold it like a child, or laughed,

or told them it is their poverty

I labor to relieve. For them,

I complain. A farmer of dreams

knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams

knows what it means to be patient.

Each day I go into the fields.

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