Halfway through No Mow May

Yesterday we mentioned trilliums and lilacs. This morning we were pleasantly surprised to discover trilliums we hadn’t previously noticed growing along a road we frequently travel. A more obvious  hedge of lilacs has developed flower clusters and will be in full bloom soon. It makes us feel as if we’re coming to know an area when we’re familiar with a variety of locations where domestic and wildflowers grow. Now we’re reminded that it’s time to check on our local patch of prairie smoke. Maybe tomorrow.

Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re more than halfway through May and so far we haven’t mounted the mower deck on the tractor nor have we fired up the mulching / bagging push mower. Looks like we may successfully celebrate all of No Mow May. On the other hand, we’re vacillating on brush piles versus burning the dead branches that keep falling from our oak trees. There’s only so much area I want to devote to brush piles and the branches decompose at a rate much slower than they fall from trees. We’ve yet to find an approach we’re comfortable with for managing dead branches in an ecologically sound fashion that isn’t more work than it seems to be worth. We’ve learned that throwing lots of branches onto a pile and then lighting the pile when weather conditions and our burn permit permit is less work than breaking up lots of branches so they fit in the burn pit and we don’t need a permit. We’ll keep working at this issue.

The Better Half claims she’s seen a handful or two of various kinds of bumblebees while she’s been gardening. I’ve not seen any except one on the violets earlier this month. It seems as though, this year, our bees have disappeared. We hope it's not permanent and will cross our fingers and keep our eyes open.

Pea Brush 

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

I walked down alone Sunday after church
   To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
   He said I could have to bush my peas.

The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
   Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
   From stumps still bleeding their life away.

The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
   Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
   To watch me and see what I came to get.

Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
   All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
   And got them off the wild flower’s backs.

They might be good for garden things
   To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings,
   And lift themselves up off the ground.

Small good to anything growing wild,
   They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
   And since it was coming up had to come.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Mid-May update #phenology

There are few places left where the sky is visible through the leafed-out oak trees. Roadsides are beautified by fruit trees in bloom. Lilacs are thinking about coming into bloom. Trillium are preparing for their moments on center stage. It must be mid-May in the North Country.

I keep thinking that, instead of doing spring chores, I should be on a local trout stream, and then I read several more reports of high, and rising, or falling, water almost everywhere from the St. Croix to the Boundary Waters. That makes me feel not quite as bad about getting the yard squared away before I start wading into the real waters nearby.

Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Photo by J. Harrington

The warmer weather and the explosion of green and flowers in and on the landscape does lighten spirits despite the socio-politico and environmental debacles that persist. My belief is that each and every one of us would come out ahead if we focused on managing transitions and/or mutual accommodations rather than fighting about climate weirding, COVID responses, loss of biodiversity and Red versus Blue.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that I have too many interests and not enough time or energy to enjoy them all. I’m not sure how I’ll resolve the conflicts that arise, such as a shortened spring stealing time and compressing what’s left to get spring yard chores done, bake bread, go fishing, eat, sleep, waste time on social media, read, write, pay bills, etc. You get the picture.

We’re already in oak wilt season so I shouldn’t be pruning dead branches from our oak trees. Oak wilt season ends just before we get into the winter holidays like Thanksgiving so there are other activities that compete for time and, with the leaves down, it’s harder to be sure which branches need pruning. That’s just one example. Another has to do with figuring out an efficient and effective way to manage oak leaves. Once upon a time we had a riding mower and yard vac that cleaned them up quickly. Both the mower and the vac are now leading other lives. The vac is no longer being manufactured so parts for repairs might not be available and it doesn’t readily fit the subcompact tractor we got to replace the riding mower that Toro had stopped making. We’d need lots more storage space if we followed the old saying about “if you find something you like, buy two before they stop making them.”

Trying to live a sustainable, environmentally neutral or even positive life seems to be much more complicated than we think it should be. Speaking of which, it’s time to go lay out the proposed three sisters garden by placing piles of compost where each of the plantings will go. Efficiently and effectively making compost is another skill set we’ve not yet mastered. Fortunately, we’ve recently found an approach we’re going to work on. Here’s a sample:

Rewilding the spaces around us doesn’t need to be complicated. We can start small, make mistakes and learn a lot along the way.

Wild Life

By Grace Cavalieri

Behind the silo, the Mother Rabbit

hunches like a giant spider with strange calm:

six tiny babies beneath, each

clamoring for a sweet syringe of milk.

This may sound cute to you, reading

from your pulpit of plenty,

but one small one was left out of reach,

a knife of fur

barging between the others.

I watched behind a turret of sand. If

I could have cautioned the mother rabbit

I would. If I could summon the

Bunnies to fit him in beneath

the belly's swell

I would. But instead, I stood frozen, wishing

for some equity. This must be

why it's called Wild Life because of all the

crazed emotions tangled up in

the underbrush within us.

Did I tell you how

the smallest one, black and trembling,

hopped behind the kudzu

still filigreed with wanting?

Should we talk now of animal heritage, their species,

creature development? And what do we say

about form and focus—

writing this when a stray goes hungry, and away. 

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