The family is one of nature’s greatest masterpieces. –George Santayana
I’m happy to be spending time with family! I will be back in two weeks. Enjoy this end of summer warmth and sunshine!
Archives for August 2018
Modern Day Hay Haulers
There is something to be said for hauling hay bales. Those of us who have done it may run the gamut of feelings about doing so—from ‘I hated having to haul bales’ to ‘gotta get it done’ to ‘I love being out there on the hay rack’—all are legitimate things to say. I fall towards the ‘love’ side. Some of that has to do with my love of the animals we were feeding the hay to—if you have horses, you have to put up hay, even if it’s stacking the bought hay in the hayloft. The same goes for straw bales for bedding in the stalls. It’s all part of caring for the animals we love. I also loved being outdoors—driving the tractor or bracing my legs on the hay rack as we bumped over the stubble or stacking high on the pile as we completed a load. It was usually hot, sometimes muggy, always sweaty and dirty. And it was awesome! The thing about putting up hay—small square bales and back in the day—was it was a team effort. (Not that my Dad never let the tractor run down the field by itself while he picked up and stacked by himself.) For efficiency and some peace of mind, family, friends, and young, strong helpers were recruited to help with the work that needed to be done. So we did it together.
This photo was taken in the early 60’s when I was too young yet to help with hay, but this is my Mom and Dad and Grandpa Andrew.
Most of the hay these days is rolled up into big round bales and hauled with tractors and trucks. But we did something this week that reminded me of the old hay-hauling days. We did some outreach in our ‘Battle of the Buckthorn.’ Most of the large buckthorn trees on our property have been removed thanks to the diligence and hard work of Chris, so we were glad to help some young friends of ours with their overgrown buckthorn problem. Armed with gloves, saws, pullers, and loppers, we went to work in the hot, slightly muggy afternoon. We sweated, got dirty, made big piles, and cleared the invasive trees from under the pines, oaks, and cedars.
While working, we also kept an eye on the kids who ran a lemonade stand for the passersby in the neighborhood. When the afternoon’s work was done, we sat down together for ‘a little lunch’ as my Grandmas used to call it. With tired bodies and a distinct feeling of satisfaction for the work we just accomplished together, we ate a sweet treat with relish and appreciation. We were like modern day hay haulers—working together to do a big, physical job and feeling the satisfaction in our bodies and souls that we could do it together.
Down the Road With Me
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” –Henry David Thoreau
These past days have been the epitome of Summer—very warm, slightly humid, and sunny. But we are past full-on Summer; when we roll the calendar over to August, we see changes. The Ash trees have a tinge of yellow in places, Sumac and Poison Ivy leaves are turning red, Goldenrod is blooming gold, Crabgrass grows and goes to seed, and the noisy chatter of the House Wren no longer interrupts the sounds of the day. The mornings have been still—in movement and in sound. Into that stillness I walk with my pal Tamba—she limps now, groans when she lays down, has lumps and bumps, so I know that our twice-daily walks are numbered. Yet every morning she pulls herself up and eagerly heads down the road with me. I hear the low, melodic call of Mourning Doves, and instantly my mind transports me back to my Grandma and Grandpa’s farm. What amazing brains we have that we can time-travel when we hear or smell something! The stillness and humidity allow dew to form on everything during the cool night, and the morning sun freely transforms all into a treasure of shining gems.
The intense sunlight soon dries the dew, but the late summer flowers—Gray-headed Coneflower, Liatris, Sunflower, Purple Coneflower, and Allium—shine on in all their glory.
On the other end of the day, when dusk was settling around us, it was still quiet and calm. Tamba lay in the grass. We sat on the patio as the smokey sky turned the sun red. The setting sun streaked through the trees and shone on the rose-colored Joe Pye Weed and etched burning embers onto the live Oak trees.
Soon we heard noises in the woods—a Blue Jay was tapping on a branch with an occasional squawk. Then bigger noises—was it squirrels? It seemed too loud for squirrels. Then I saw a big tail in an Oak tree—a big, feathered tail. It was a turkey! Two mama Wild Turkeys and their chicks were flying from tree to tree. Wild Turkeys love acorns, and we wondered if they were eating the acorns from the trees since few have fallen to the ground yet. Like chickens, Wild Turkeys have a crop for storage of food and a gizzard where grinding of nuts and seeds occurs. When the mama flew to another tree, she and the chicks would cluck and chirp to one another and soon the little ones followed. At dusk, Turkeys fly up into trees to roost for the night for protection from predators like coyotes, foxes, skunks, and raccoons. Soon the turkeys in our trees settled down for the night. At dawn, they will fly down to the ground again to begin another day.
The sounds and sights of August, despite the heat and humidity, allude to the waning Summer and the upcoming Autumn. Summer in the North is indeed short and sweet. But Nature prepares us always for the transition. We are gathered up in the progression of time, seasons, and lives whether we are aware of it or not. Just as an early morning walk can tune us in to the blessings of a day, silent stillness can hone us in on those things in our lives that matter, that are important, that are the shining gems in our treasure box. One of those gems for me is a big, Black Lab dog who has walked with me for ten years now. Her transition time, our transition time, is nigh. Dusk is settling around us. And each day I am so very grateful to walk down the road with her, as we are, where we are, in all our glory.
The Art of Being Stuck
I don’t know about you, but there have been a number of times in my life when I have been stuck. Not stuck in the mud or snow—though that has happened a couple of times, too—but stuck in my life. To be fair to myself, most of those times the stuckness was only in a certain area of my life while there was movement and growth in other areas—all at the same time. Like one boot sucked down into the mud so far that your foot comes out of it as the rest of your body propels forward, but you falter because you want to save your boot. And you don’t want to take the next step into the muck with only your sock on. Being stuck isn’t a good feeling, and I would venture to guess that no one chooses it. There is a convergence of thought, belief, and circumstances that stop us in our tracks—and keep us there for a while.
Chris and I, after wandering around St. Cloud trying to find the parking area, went hiking on the Beaver Island Trail that follows the Mississippi River south of the University. It is a biking and hiking trail that follows the old railroad path and the area of the River that contains the fifteen or more islands known as Beaver Islands, as named by Zebulon Pike in his expedition up the River in 1805.
One of the first places where we were able to get close to the River, we saw a log stuck on a rock. The water was rushing around it, and we laughed about how it ended up there. It almost looked like a sculpture of some sort!
We walked farther to another island with a sandbar of rocks that was populated by crows, not beavers. They were noisy and chippy with one another.
As we walked on, we saw a ghostly dead tree among the varied greens of the other trees. We saw pretty, but noxious Purple Loosestrife swaying in the wind beside the water. And we saw another log stuck on a rock.
The paved bike path was getting farther away from the River, and with all the trees and horrible Buckthorn, we couldn’t see the water. We did see a historical marker that commemorated where the original St. John’s Benedictine Monastery was located in 1857 to provide for “the spiritual and educational needs of German immigrants.” Ten years later the monastery was relocated to its present location in Collegeville. We saw the belltower of the Catholic-run St. Cloud Children’s Home high on the hill above the tree tops.
Flowering Sumac and robust Poison Ivy grew along the tree-lined bike path.
We took a narrow trail off the bike path to go down to the River, trying to skirt our bare calves around the poison ivy. There were large Jack-in-the-Pulpits under the huge, River-fed trees. The air was humid and warm, like a storm was brewing. Once down to the River, we saw Canadian Geese on one of the islands and a pair of granite boulders stuck in the sandbar of another.
And another log stuck on a rock, perfectly balanced, in the middle of the mighty Mississippi.
I walked on a huge tree that had fallen into the water and caused a log jam of debris. Scum folded into accordion pleats against the logs, stuck between the current and the unmoving dam of logs.
The River was wild and interesting in this Beaver Archipelago, and I had a strong desire to explore some of the islands, even as I wondered if I would have the courage to take on the current in a canoe.
We headed back to the bike path, back to the car, back to the City and saw that there was indeed a storm brewing.
In our short Friday afternoon walk, Nature provided plenty of examples of the art of being stuck. The ever-flowing, ever-changing Mississippi River was the reason logs ended up in sculpture-like poses on rocks protruding from the water. It would also be the reason, with a torrential storm and rising waters, that the logs would become un-stuck. The boulders illustrate a different story. Perhaps it was a glacier that deposited them there—it is more of a mystery. Would the most powerful flooding waters move them? I’m not sure. The huge, fallen tree will hold back the current, the logs, the debris, for years, but will eventually rot away and succumb to the movement and power of the River. Life is our River, ever-flowing, ever-changing. It is the reason for our stuckness and the reason we move on. Sometimes the dead ghosts of our past stop us in our tracks, and we are afraid to step into the muck of our feelings. We stay stuck as Life flows past us. But the current of Life or an ominous, brewing storm can propel us from our rock, from our muck, from our hidden place behind an old log. Once again we enter the River and feel the exhilaration of that life-giving force that quietly supports us in our static pose of stuckness and steadies us in the joyous, tumbling current of Life.