A day to live in infamy!

We interrupt our normal posting due to the protests / riot / attempted coup currently underway in Washington, D.C. Despite the fact that "protesters" have breached entrances to the Capitol building, we've neither seen nor heard reports of the use of tear gas, dogs, rubber bullets nor fire hoses by the Capitol Police or other authorities. It is no doubt simply a coincidence that the predominant color of the skin of the "protesters" is white.

Lawmakers given gas masks as protesters breach US Capitol

We wonder if what is happening in Washington today, and what has been happening since before the States were United, is what Carl Sandburg is writing about in the poem below. We hope not, although we have long been frustrated by how readily political charlatans have counted on "the People" to fail to pay attention to poetry, especially such as that in the penultimate stanza.

I Am the People, the Mob

By Carl Sandburg

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

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

Bird of the year, 2021

We learned, just this morning, that the American Birding Association has declared the pileated woodpecker its Bird of the Year for 2021. Since our suet feeders frequently are visited by pileated woodpeckers during the Winter, this is interesting news.

pileated woodpecker on suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Additional information about this bird can be found at

• Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas
• Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
• All About Birds (Cornell Lab), and
• Audubon's Guide to North American Birds

We've occasionally found evidence of pileated woodpeckers' work on/in some dead trees in the neighborhood, although we've not yet noticed them foraging or nesting in any of the dead oaks we've found on the property during the past few years. Come Spring we'll try to remember to bring a pair of binoculars as we wander through our woods. We'll be looking up higher in still standing trees for cavities that look like the ones in the photo below.

pileated woodpecker cavity in dead tree

Photo by J. Harrington

The Woodpecker Keeps Returning

By Jane Hirshfield

The woodpecker keeps returning

to drill the house wall.

Put a pie plate over one place, he chooses another.

There is nothing good to eat there:

he has found in the house

a resonant billboard to post his intentions,

his voluble strength as provider.

But where is the female he drums for? Where?

I ask this, who am myself the ruined siding,

the handsome red-capped bird, the missing mate.

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