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The Golden Threads of Spider Town

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July is taking a long time. It’s only been three weeks since the 4th holiday, but it seems like so long ago—and we still have another week until we turn the calendar to August. I’ve always been curious about why time seems to move at different speeds. I do know that pain—physical or emotional—s-l-o-w-s d-o-w-n t-i-m-e. There is usually no endpoint in sight—if we knew the pain would end at such and such a time, our minds would be able to skim over the suffering with determination—‘Yep, I can do this.’ With no endpoint to hitch our hope to, our confidence takes a hit, our determination wanes, and time drags on. I’m pretty sure this is where addiction steps in to ‘manage’ the pain…and time. But time can also move slowly when we are waiting—waiting for baby to come, waiting to hear back from the doctor, or waiting for a long anticipated celebration or event. Good or bad, waiting slows time. How about when time goes fast? When one has too much to do within a certain amount of time—deadline crunches crunch time. Time goes fast when ‘spending time’ doing something we love to do or being in the presence of someone we love to be with—especially when that time is short. We want that feeling to continue, but time is fleeting. I do recall days, though they are few and far between, when time was perfect—neither too fast or too slow. Usually those days are busy, but not hurried, fun, but not manic, productive, but not intense, and usually those days are shared with someone I love.

So back to slow July. For me, heat and humidity are days to suffer through, and thankfully air conditioning (such a funny name, really) minimizes my suffering even as it contains me inside when I’d rather be outside. (As I stare longingly out the window…) Add to that a drought, and I just about can’t take it. The suffering of trees, crops, flowers, and garden plants is painful to see. Then, why is there so much drought…and fire…and water shortages…and on the other side, extreme rains…flooding…and excessive storms? We know the reason why. What are we waiting for in a-l-l t-h-i-s s-u-f-f-e-r-i-n-g?

We have a little oasis back in the trees where we have chairs, a fire ring, small table, and this summer, a tent for camping out in cool nights or reading in during breezy afternoons. In July, our oasis has been a desert of sorts. No fires. Match-like mats of bone-dry pine needles. Suffering trees, dying trees. But I go back there still. I found a random Lily growing under a Jack Pine. It provided food for hungry ants. Daisy Fleabane—little yellow-bottomed cups of frilly white petals—and Spotted Knapweed—lavender and purple spikes that curl into a knot when spent—still grew and flowered and provided food and beauty. (Though Knapweed is listed as an invasive, noxious weed.)

One evening when the sun was shining sideways into the trees, I noticed a whole spider-web town on the pine needle floor. Without the sun, I probably wouldn’t have noticed them. Each web-house was unique in size and construct of using sticks, pinecones, and needles to weave their webs around. There were dozens of them shining in the sunlight.

Each web contained a funnel where the Grass Spider could wait for any prey that happened to get too close. I had seen these webs before in the dewy grass of the lawn, but what struck me about these were the glistening colors of the gossamer webs. They were like mini-rainbows but random in their color sequencing. Strands of gold, copper, green, and orange. Hints of red, pink, and blue—like threads of gemstones. Beautiful houses of color!

One hot, dry, July evening, as darkness was falling over the trees, a doe and her mate grazed at the edge of the yard. His velvet-covered antlers were still growing—the ends were tender bulbs, not pointed tips. He had old scars on his shoulder and hip, wounds more likely from an encounter with a car than one with a fence. Survivor.

Just the other day, a walk through the trees showed the drooping, dismal dehydration of even the hardy Sumacs. Their vibrant red flowers had crumbled and dried into brown clumps—the viability of the seeds were desiccated away. The lower leaves had turned red and were withering into dry stalks. Aspen trees were in protection mode also, with leaves turning bright yellow and falling to the ground. Autumn in July.

When pain and suffering strike, we all go into protection mode, whether tree, shrub, spider, deer, or human. We conserve our resources. We hunker down in our self-made funnels. We lose our reserves. We react in erratic-seeming ways. Time slows to a c-r-a-w-l. But hope is an exquisite flower in a drought. It is the sun-dazzled home of a ‘lowly’ spider. Hope is the instinct and desire for a mate. And hope is a nighttime thunder storm that drops an inch of rain. Hope is also awareness. We have a lot to do in a certain amount of time to save our Earth from our own destructive ways. I will not be blind to the damage already done and what will be done before we turn this ship around. We are losing people who should not have died. We are losing bees, butterflies, birds, and trees to harmful practices. There is too much suffering among all species. We cannot survive if Nature doesn’t survive. So every day I find some hope in a flower, a tree, or a spider. Perfect time flows from love.

Walking With Wolves at Sunrise

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After our Summer Solstice bear sighting, we returned to our campsite and went to bed in the evening light. We had plans to do an early morning hike on the Sunrise Trail that followed the St. Croix River. We slept fairly well, considering our questions of whether we could sleep on the ground at our age, and with thanks to 21st century sleeping pads. I woke at about 4:30, rested and ready to go, so we got up in the mostly dark, got ready, and hit the trail. The forest was dark, though we walked without headlamps. There was just enough light to see the trail—we placed our feet by feel. It was quiet and calm, a rather magical time of day, and it felt like we were participating in the waking of a morning. We came to a small meadow, and the morning light opened up to us, and a haze of mist lifted from the grasses.

After we left the loamier soil of the woodland trail, we walked on sand, and with the light and with the sand, we noticed that we were not walking the trail alone. The wolf tracks were as fresh as those we were laying down. We wondered if he had followed the trail by night or if he had just beat us to the Sunrise Trail this morning.

We had been hoping to be close enough to the River to see the sun rising over it, but we were up on a ridge with trees between us and it. Every once in a while I could catch a glimpse of water. When the sun did rise, the undeterred shine of light made its way through the trees in spectacular fashion!

We walked for a little over an hour until we began to lag in energy and in hopes of getting close to the river. Could we make it to Sunrise Landing? I had thought so with the trail marks we had passed. We heard an awful squawking call and saw a pair of vultures fussing with one another. Then in the sight of the vultures, we stopped to look at a map and realized we weren’t even close to Sunrise Landing! So we ate our breakfast bars and drank some water with the realization that we really weren’t as great at this as we thought! Lol! We decided from then on, it wasn’t how many miles we were able to do but how many hours we were out there trying.

We turned around to go back to our campsite. The ever-optimistic, ever-reliable sun shone its encouragement on us and the forest dwellers.

When nearly back to the woods behind the campground, we saw a sign that said ‘Sunrise Landing—8 miles’ that we had missed in the dark. Well, no wonder we weren’t close! Perhaps the wolf was already there.

We cooked our breakfast over the campfire, packed up our things, found out from a neighboring camper they had just seen a bear behind their campsite, and determined that we would hike around the prairie and horse camp area before leaving the park.

The whole trail was sandy, making walking a bit harder, but at the same time, the warmth and feel of it felt therapeutic.

Blue vervain
Stiff goldenrod

We saw two people walking and two people on horseback and lots more wolf tracks…

and wolf scat covered with butterflies.

Summer flowers bloomed and attracted scores of butterflies. The dry heat released scents of pine needles and sweet milkweed.

Wild phlox
Rabbit-foot clover
Common milkweed
Mullein

Wild turkeys and deer, along with the wolves, accompanied us on our trail, whether previously or in person.

Butterfly weed

Name some things people are afraid of and the list will probably contain ‘snakes,’ ‘wolves,’ ‘bears,’ ‘spiders,’ and ‘the dark.’ It’s much easier to put our fears upon an animal, a person, or entity. We can hold that fear away from us–-if we can hold them away from us. But rarely is the fear of a certain animal or set of persons the real fear—they are place-holders for the deeper, scarier fears that reside in our hearts. Fear of loss of control, fear of ‘what if,’ fear of aloneness, fear of irrelevance, and fear of unworthiness. So what if we just walk with it? Walk with the wolves and the bears, the spiders and snakes who were there and didn’t show up this trip. Walk with the dark, the doubts, the limitations, and the vultures. It can be hard and therapeutic at the same time. It’s easy—and fearful—to think the light is only shining on certain trees or persons or entities, but the fact remains that we all walk in the dark and we all walk in the light. Thanks be to the Sun.

The Day the Sun Stands Still

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The first thing to greet us as we pulled into Wild River State Park was a most unusual sign! “Please, BRAKE FOR SNAKES.” Nobody would need to tell us to do so—we Brakes are a snake-loving family, especially our son Aaron. You could say, “Brakes for snakes” and be perfectly correct!

Chris and I were going camping on the Summer Solstice for the first time, just the two of us, in over three decades. It was an experiment. Did we remember how to do this? Could we do it? Would we want to do this again? And most importantly, could we sleep?! Since it was a Monday, the campground had plenty of available spots; we checked in, parked in our campsite, and headed out to hike after a brief rain shower.

We hiked along the Old Logging Trail, a paved bike/walking trail, to the Visitor Center where we had our picnic lunch, looked out over the trees to catch a glimpse of the wild St. Croix River, and learned how Vice President Walter Mondale had worked tirelessly to protect the natural resources of Minnesota and the United States, including the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968 that helped preserve this river. We left the paved trail and walked toward the River after discovering a colorful and unique Chicken of the Woods mushroom.

The trail dropped from the ridge through fern-covered hillsides and milkweed patches teeming with butterflies. There is something exquisitely beautiful about the fair pink and green ball of about-to-bloom buds of the Common Milkweed flower.

The trail turned and followed the River for over a mile and a half and would bring us back to the campground. The St. Croix River is a large river originating in northwest Wisconsin and creating the boundary for Minnesota and Wisconsin for 130 miles of the River.

King of this part of the River is an Eastern Kingbird. The genus-species name is Tyrannus tyrannus, an indication of his territorial behavior. He will harass crows, hawks, even Great Blue Herons who ‘intrude’ on his territory.

The ‘backwaters’ of the St. Croix were interesting little ecosystems of sometimes stagnant water, beaver activity, damsel and dragonflies, and pretty patches of Forget-me-nots.

Black-Winged Damselfly
White Tail Dragonfly

We heard the distinct ‘talking’ of an eagle to its young ones. Looking up, I could barely see the nest, but then discovered who was doing the ‘talking.’ It was an old-looking eagle—pale eyes and rather disheveled feathers—who has seen many more humans than humans who have seen him.

St. Croix River was used as a means of moving logs from the northern forests to the mills during the logging era in the late 1800’s. A pile-driven dam was constructed at this site in 1890, so logs could be let through at an even pace, after they had experienced numerous, humungous log jams that halted production at the mills. The last ‘log drive’ was in 1912, and the dam was removed in 1955.

When we returned to the campground, a deer was wandering through the trees between the campsites with no cares about the people wandering through. I practically had to shoo it from the door of the outhouse when I went there…where I was greeted with a sign and warning about other visitors.

Okay—fair warning. We set up our humble campsite and settled in for the longest day of the year. As the sun disappeared behind the trees around our campsite, I decided that I wanted to get a picture of the sunset on the Summer Solstice. We drove to an observation deck that overlooked the Amador Prairie—after stopping for the deer that were crossing the road.

The prairie was full of deer looking this way and that way, running, leaping, and grazing.

The sun was still shining so brightly on the horizon that I could barely look at it, so I found other things to look at while we waited for the sun to set. The almost full moon was already high in the sky; a couple of bucks with velveted antlers roamed the edge of the woods.

The purple flowers of a tendrilled Vetchling(?) picked up the purple color in the sundrenched spears of Bluestem grass. It takes a long time for the sun to set on the longest day of the year. I was over taking pictures of deer. I lounged against the boards while looking to the west into the bright orb of sun. I joked to Chris, “Where’s that bear when you need him?!” Not two minutes later, as he looked over my shoulder, he very matter-of-factly said, “There’s a bear over there.” What?@! I turned and looked at a very dark, moving object way over by the trees.

Sure enough, there was my bear!

But it wasn’t a ‘he’ and it wasn’t just one. It was a mama bear with two little cubs bounding along with her, mostly hidden in the tall grass.

Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol meaning ‘sun’ and sistere meaning ‘to stand still.’ On this day, the North Pole is tipped directly towards the sun, making it seem like the sun is standing still.

We didn’t see any snakes that day, but we experienced the exquisitely beautiful about-to-bloom season of summer. Or are we more like the Swedes who celebrate the Solstice as midsummer, the height of the warm, sunshiny season? However it falls, the longest day does hold some magic worth noting. The magic of empty-nest experimenting with pre-children pastimes. The magic of flowers and butterflies, birds and dragonflies, wild rivers and sweeping prairies. But most of all, for me that day, the magic of seeing my first bears in the wild—just when I needed them.

Nature’s Art Museum and the Art of Aging

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It’s a mystery to me how I can be as old as I am. I never think about my face having lines and sun spots; it’s just the opposite. From the inside, I’m pretty sure my face is only forty—a young forty, I’m thinking—so that’s a great set-up for some dismay and disappointment when I look in the mirror! Aging is a humorous mystery that we all endure when we are lucky enough to do so.

In celebration of my turning another year older (almost four weeks ago now), Chris and I hiked at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park. It was a beautiful, blue-sky day, warm but not too hot, with a breeze that made shade-dwelling just about perfect. We went to the bog boardwalk first—the Touch the Earth Trail. (I love that name.) I get a thrill seeing the blooming plants that inhabit the bog, and the mystical, long-stemmed Cottongrass was as spectacular as when I first saw it! What an unusual, awesome plant!

I was expecting to see a bed of white-blooming Labrador Tea in the bog (or bog azaleas, as I call them), but only a few were blooming. We had had a freeze those two nights before Memorial Day, so I thought that must be the reason. There were other signs that frost had damaged the mosses and leaves of other plants.

There is nary an insect as mystical as a dragonfly—their gossamer wings, their large, compound eyes, their quick, multi-directional flight, and how they light upon some object in peaceful repose.

Another insect crawling up a dead tree that his relatives likely caused the demise of—a Western Sculptured Pine Borer—had his own air of mystery and flair. With large copper-speckled eyes, artfully segmented legs, and textured, metallic and black body, the Pine Borer shimmered in the sunlight.

Large, vase-shaped Cinnamon Ferns were abundant in the bog. The fertile fronds are the namesake, like cinnamon sticks among the green.

Wild Blueberries were setting fruit, though I imagine the fruit buds were also nipped by the freeze, as fruit was scarce.

We drove to a parking area for a trail we hadn’t been on before that was described as hilly and rough terrain. I was surprised by how damp the trail was in areas, considering how drought-like our Spring had been. Soon we were in thick woods on a little-used trail, the undergrowth brushing our legs and arms as we walked through. I resigned myself to the fact that we were picking up ticks and vowed to enjoy the trail and deal with them later. It’s always a bit of a challenge to ‘watch’ my feet on a rocky or rooty trail and to watch for beautiful things around me, but I have gotten fairly good at it. So I was lucky enough to see this beautiful creature looking at us from behind a tree! His velvet-covered antlers were in the growth stage, when the fuzzy-looking skin supplies blood, oxygen, and nutrients to quickly grow the antlers for another season. When fully grown, depending on genetics, health, and age of the buck, the antlers harden, and the velvet is shed with the help of rubbing action on trees. We stood and looked at one another, both of us curious about the other.

The trail brought us to a wetland area that opened up in the middle of the forest. Crows cawed from the top of a dead tree, the self-appointed sentries for the woodland creatures. A board walk elevated our feet above the Wild Calla water plants and was a table for a crayfish-eating animal who didn’t clean up his leftovers.

Another dragonfly posed in the sunlight amidst the art of logs, sedge grass, duckweed, Wild Callas, and moss. We were in a museum of Nature’s Art.

We circled around the wetland on the trail that kept us guessing whether we were on the trail! Soon our elevated vantage point allowed us to see open water reflecting green vegetation and blue sky. An open waterway through the wetland plants and chewed trees indicated that we were visiting the home of a beaver family.

We passed a stately Pine that had a large, old wound scratched head-high into the bark. Dried amber droplets of sap had oozed from the wound, like healing tears to a wounded soul. They glistened in the sunlight.

Another board ferried us across a black, icky-looking swamp. A closer look revealed decaying leaves, Maple seeds, and a thick mat of green slime algae.

At the farthest point on the loop trail was a backpacking campsite overlooking the White Water Lily-covered pond. A breeze evaporated the heat and sweat we had generated to get there as we took a water and rest break. A pair of rusty-headed Trumpeter Swans flew in and settled into their peaceful, secluded home.

Back on the trail, we walked through Oak, Maple, and Birch trees until we came to a Tamarack bog. The wispy soft needles and craggy branches create an other-worldly effect in the bumpy bog, along with the bunches of four-foot-high ferns.

Deep in the bog, I caught sight of something red-colored. I left the trail and walked closer to get a better look. At one point I stepped from the firm forest floor into the squishy bog. I pulled my foot back from the wetness. The bog maintains its boundaries to protect the highly specialized plants and delicate ecosystem of sphagnum peat moss. From my dry footing, I zoomed in to see dark reddish-purple flowers with long stems and nodding heads. They were all pointed away from me, though I was able to get a slight sideways shot of one that showed a bright yellow center. What were these amazing flowers?! I had never seen anything like them before! I circled around the bog, hoping to see ‘the other side’ of the flower…but I never could. They were so deep into the center of the bog that I could not see more than their dark red backs.

It wasn’t until I was home with access to the computer that I discovered the amazing flower was that of a Purple Pitcher Plant, a carnivorous plant that grows in the acidic bog. The rain-catching ‘pitcher’ of the plant attracts flies, ants, spiders, and moths that drown in the water and are ‘digested’ by a certain species of mosquito and midge along with bacteria. The plant is able to use the digested nutrients to grow.

The edge of the bog was scattered with ferns, club mosses, and an occasional Pink Lady’s Slipper, a hardy orchid pollinated by bumblebees.

Another wetland flower that graced the early June trails was the Northern Blueflag Iris with their long, spear-like leaves and paper-thin lavender flower petals. They begin as dark purple conical buds, open to exquisite light-purple variegated blossoms, then curl and wither in the progression of age—the lifeline of us and all of Nature.

It was a happy birthday for me—I had discovered a ‘new’ flower and an amazing bog. I watched an elegant pair of swans and exchanged curious glances with a deer. I saw a black swamp and pristine white water lilies. I witnessed the progression and mystery of life and admired Nature’s art museum. My June birth flower is the Rose, and I appreciate and embrace the wild version for my flower. After our hike, we had a picnic by the roses alongside the Rum River. And even though I removed dozens of crawling ticks while we sat there, another mystical, magical dragonfly lighted on a stick nearby.

The mystery of aging—how we feel on the inside, how we look on the outside—spares no one lucky enough to struggle with their young-old identity. We grow with expectations—sky-high dreams and naïve aspirations. We are fresh, innocent, deep-colored buds of humans. We open to reality—our whole-hearted beautiful selves, shiny objects that can destroy, wounds that heal with amber tears forever embedded in our hearts, discoveries of muck and beauty. And then we fade, we wrinkle, and we attain a level of understanding that is only possible after staring into the wild eyes of Life. And through it all, we are the curators of Nature’s art museum. We choose how to look at, how to ‘see’ the world around us. If we’re lucky, we discover new things, we respect portraits of pain, we appreciate images of awesome beauty, and we imitate the mystery and magic of dragonflies.

Badlands

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It’s a fine line we walk. At least that’s what I thought growing up. On one side was the bad-lands; on the other, the good-lands. I always tried to stay in the goodlands—the consequences of the badlands, which were mostly made up in my head at a very young age, were catastrophic. I mean like banishment and death. That’s enough to make anyone fly right. That fine line is variable—set by our parents, our cultures, our experiences, and our own personalities and story-making minds. I was so invested in staying away from the consequences of the badlands that I tried to make sure that all my siblings and friends were never close to the badland banishment and you know, that other thing that could possibly happen. I didn’t want that to happen to me, and I didn’t want it to happen to anybody I loved.

It’s hard enough to keep oneself out of trouble, let alone all these other people…was that the beginning of my neurosis? Of course it was anxiety-producing—other people do their own thing, whether they are conscious of it or not. Which leads me to the badlands…and trauma. Traumatic events are always in the realm of the badlands. They threaten and often damage our feelings of safety and connection. Then we spend a lifetime trying to get those two things back. Ironically, the pursuit often lands us back in the badlands, because the anxiety and fear that trauma perpetuates can temporarily be calmed or concealed by addictive substances and activities—food, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex, gambling, and gaming. But the ‘high’ calm ends, and we want to, feel compelled to, do it again and again in order to soothe our activated nervous systems. None of those things are long-term solutions to what we need and want—in fact, they ‘give’ us all sorts of other problems.

The goodlands are not immune to problems when we are there in response to trauma. My trying to live in the goodlands was so fear-based that I rarely really enjoyed being there—it was more of a relief. Unprocessed trauma builds walls within our psyches and hearts as a protection mechanism—a necessary strategy for survival, except that walls also keep out love, joy, and goodness. Being in the goodlands with trauma also brings about a feeling of self-righteousness that is often cloaked with religion. I can blame/ discard/ disregard ‘those other’ people because I’m standing over here and ‘they’ are over there, in the badlands. I think I was in high school when I became aware of my dual feelings of self-righteousness and utter, shame-based self-consciousness. But I had no idea why I felt that way or what to do about it.

When we were west-river in South Dakota at our friends’ ranch, we hiked at a place they call their badlands—a mini version of Badlands National Park. It is as if the badlands fall from the grace of the prairie into a giant, barren hole of gumbo and tumbling boulders. It is other-worldly—intriguing, harsh, and compelling with its unique beauty. Come walk with me in the badlands…

Missouri Foxtail Cactus
Mule deer bucks
Yucca
Scarlet Globemallow (another common name–Cowboy’s Delight)
Gumbo Lily
Gumbo Lily flower with Goldenrod Spider
Blue-eyed Grass
Spiderwort
Milkvetch
Shrub skeleton
Brown-headed Cowbird
Prickly Pear Cactus
Gumbo Lily
Millions years old seashells

I walked the fine line for many decades of my life, embracing the goodlands and eschewing the badlands. I finally feel like I have ‘grown up.’ It’s not that I don’t think there is evil and bad things in the world, but the path we walk in life is wide. Most of us travel in and out of both lands at various times in our lives. If we look through a trauma lens, we understand that something happened to us or to another person that changed who we/they were as a person and affected our/their thinking and behaviors. We are them. We are all broken in some way. Our hearts have been split open at one time or another. Our feelings are many layered—some barren and raw, others tender and beautiful. We all wonder if the rocks are going to fall on our heads (again.) Our lives are a gumbo mosaic and a singing prairie. I have released my white-knuckled grip on the goodlands. I see the pearlescent shells and the delicate lilies of the badlands. We cannot outrun our traumas; we need to process and integrate them, all in due time. It takes a walk through the badlands to find our way back to safety and connection within ourselves.

Music of the Cows

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We left the ‘Great Mississippi River’ on an abnormally frosty morning Memorial Day weekend to head west to the ‘Mighty Mo.’ I navigated our route to skirt construction in Minnesota and South Dakota and was happy when the prairie greeted my eyes. South Dakota is divided down the middle by the Missouri River, delineating our common reference to ‘east river’ and ‘west river.’ The River itself is something to behold. We crossed on one of two bridges that spans Oahe, a 231-mile stretch of the River that is widened by Oahe dam just north of Pierre. The River bluffs and the Mighty Mo heralded us into ‘west river.’

The reason for our prairie trek was to see our friends and help them with their annual branding. I had long wanted to be a part of the crew, and this year, serendipitous timing and texts (and Covid shots) made it a reality. I was super excited! West river was where I spent three of the best summers of my life working with my rancher friend as wranglers at a Lutherans Outdoors’ camp. So as we headed west from the River, it felt like a homecoming of sorts.

It was good to be at the ranch with our friends, their kids and grandkids, and other family and friends who gathered to help with the sizable task of branding, vaccinating, and castrating the spring calves. When we awoke Saturday morning, it was raining. Luckily the shower was expected to move out quickly, so after a slight delay, people and equipment were gathered up, and we headed out to the branding pen pasture. The yearlings kept their eyes on those of us who stayed at the corral, while the cows and calves were rounded up by those who know the land and the cows. They used modern-day horses—Ranger side-by-sides—to bring the cattle to the holding pens from the far reaches of the big prairie pasture.

This man lives and breathes cattle. He has raised and cared for cows, calves, and bulls his entire life, planning his days around the needs of the animals and the ranch that sustains them. He has a moving, living strategic plan in his head—as detail-oriented as to a sick calf or dry cow and as big-picture as putting up hay for winter, along with a million other things in between and beyond.

After penning everybody, the calves were separated from the cows. I will mention here that as soon as we arrived at the branding pen, the bellowing began. The yearlings maybe thought they were going to be fed, and when the cows and calves arrived, everybody was talking—the yearlings to the cows, the cows to their calves (and maybe to their last year’s calves), and the calves to their mamas. It was noisy!

The chilly, cloudy morning was a good thing for the cows and the workers. Far to the west, we could see the sky beginning to clear where the sunlight was reaching the ground. It took many hours before it reached us.

Cows are curious, intelligent creatures with strong mothering abilities. Aren’t they beautiful?

Once the calves were separated and the cows returned to the original pen to wait patiently for their babies to return to them (loudly patient, that is), the calf table was oiled, the branding irons were set up, the vaccine guns were loaded, and the castrating tools and disinfectant were placed at the back of the chute. Two people vaccinated (I was one of them—yay!), one branded, one castrated with help from two others for holding and spraying antiseptic, two or three ‘pushed’ calves through the round pen into the chute, and Chris helped run the tilt table. The branding irons are heated up by electric that’s powered by a generator. Brands are used to mark cattle in order to identify the owner in case one is lost or stolen. Each brand is unique and registered, so ownership can be proved. One of the calves that ran through the chute was already branded and belonged to a neighbor. Barbed wire fences are not impenetrable for a small calf in these large pastures. So the work began in earnest. A calf is let into the chute. The tilt table holds the calf and is pulled parallel to the ground. One, two vaccinations, branding, castrating if a bull calf, disinfecting the wound, and tilting back upright and releasing to his mama. When we got into the rhythm of our work, I counted about 15 seconds for the whole process—that’s teamwork! We couldn’t see into the tub pen, but the calves kept coming, and we kept doing our work to the droning sound of the generator, the smell of singed hair, and the bellowing of the cows and calves.

After hours of those sounds saturating our ears, a funny thing happened. I thought I heard music. I looked over my shoulder to see if someone had opened the truck door and turned on the radio. Nope. I worked on. It sounded like there was a PA system playing music—I couldn’t make out any words, but the music was there! Music beyond, above, and intertwined with the white noise of the generator and the constant bawling of the cows and calves. It was surreal and ongoing. The sun began to shine, and the rhythm of our work and the music of the cows flowed through me.

It was a long, wonderful day. We ‘worked’ over 250 calves. The calves found their mamas and returned to the pastures. We went back to the ranch house for a delicious meal. My other west river friend who worked with us at the camp way back when, brought a bottle of wine to share as we caught up with each other’s lives. I fell asleep that night with great satisfaction and happiness.

The next day was an incredibly beautiful day—blue skies, hardly any wind, and comfortable temperatures. We did some hiking (next week’s post), ate, rested, then went out to the stock dam to fish. Three of them fished while I wandered around the pasture, smelling the sweet, earthy smell of sagebrush and finding beautiful prairie flowers.

Blue-eyed grass

The two-year old heifer cows and their calves that were branded the day before, were grazing and roaming this pasture. It had been a chaotic, stressful day for both the cows and the calves, but all were settled down and back to normal.

After Chris threw in ‘one last cast’ and then another ‘one last cast,’ he caught a nice-sized bass, the only fish of the evening! We headed back to the ranch, and stopped to take in the view of the breaks and a butte in the distance. A colorful sunset closed the day, aptly with a cow on the horizon.

On our way back home on Monday, I prefaced my experience to Chris with “I know this sounds strange…” and set up how the cows were bawling and the generator was humming and the work was rhythmic and it sounded like…and he stopped me. He said, “It sounded like music.” YES! Oh my gosh, you heard it, too?! So I wasn’t crazy! Willie Nelson tells a story about his grandmother telling him, “Music is anything that’s pleasing to the ear.” The bawling of the cows and calves must have been pleasing to our ears! It’s funny what our brains do, but I’m a believer in the music of the cows. I’m a believer of raising cattle on the vast prairie pastures, of the hard-working ranchers who tend their herds with diligence and tenacity, and of the love that my rancher friends have for their cattle and their incredible ‘west river’ land.

The Ripples of our Lives

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There is something very valuable about celebrating another birthday…. Actually, there are many valuable ‘somethings.’ The first of which is I’m glad to be alive. There are way too many people younger than I am who have lost their life for one reason or another. I am grateful to be here on this Earth, especially after (and yet, during) a global pandemic. Hallelujah! Secondly, six plus decades gives a person something to work with, as in life experience. Things happen in the span of sixty-some years! It gives a person ‘perspective’—a gift you don’t know you have until you have it. Also, and this was brought to my attention from the Happy Birthday greetings on the instant media we now have, over the years, we interact with and move through so many people’s lives. It is mind-boggling, humbling, and sacred all at the same time.

We enter this physical world with no choice in the matter (though that is debatable by many) and travel the path well influenced by our cultures and our families. As we progress through childhood and adolescence, we make more and more choices for ourselves and about our responses and onto which path we would like to go.

There is curiosity, risk-taking, fear, rules, rule-breaking, consequences, action, inaction, and finally, some sort of perspective from the experiences.

During that journey, we come face-to-face with beauty and with hard things, some of which are ugly, distasteful, and contrary to who we are as a person.

Thank goodness there are bridges to get us from one side to another! We can choose to be on either side, we can move away from the ugly things in our lives, and we can stand in the middle of the bridge and discern where we need to/ want to go. I’m not saying it’s easy. There are siren calls emanating from the unseen places on both sides. This dualistic reality of our lives is our lives. No one escapes it. It is a struggle and a gift.

The ugliness we see is heart-wrenching, but the beauty of life transcends and overcomes, no matter how fleeting it is. Beauty is hope.

Milestones allow us to take a moment to rest in our victories, to be grounded in our convictions, and to wonder what comes next.

But getting back to those people in our lives….

I had birthday greetings from relatives who have known me all my life, one from my high school years, many from my undergraduate college years, from my married-into family members, others from neighbors, co-workers, and church friends in three different states, and some from my graduate school years. Each one of these people is valuable to me. I can recall stories of our time together, the connections we made, the work we did, the laughs we shared, and the difficult things we may have encountered. Each is a unique beauty in my life.

It’s easy to take people for granted…or to dismiss them—when we’re in our own shell of survival, when we are too busy for our own good, or when we find ourselves on the other side of the bridge from them. A birthday reflection of our past reminds us of the sweet people who have impacted our lives.

I have grown from every relationship. It is an honor to be a part of this amazing life with each one of you.

And so I move on from this ordinary birthday milestone of life-and-friend celebration. But know this: I carry you with me—the ones who greeted me and those who did not. The ripples of our lives are entwined.

There is so much more to life than what we see on the surface—and even that is complex, multifaceted, and almost beyond our senses and comprehension! Life is good. It is a miracle. Thanks for being a ripple with me!

Fishing in the Clouds

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We had a wonderful western weekend over Memorial Day, and I’m anxious to share that…, but my mind wouldn’t let me skip over a couple other places we visited in May. Nature changes in leaps and bounds during May, so three weeks ago already seems and looks like months have passed. On our anniversary, we hiked with fishing pole in hand and picnic lunch in backpack to spend a whole day in the forest. Fishing is a pastime I don’t share with Chris—it seems to be one of those things that takes a measure of skill, a modicum of knowledge, and a whole lot of luck. I’m glad he fishes—he was coming back from a northern fishing trip with his Dad when we met in a one-in-a-million moment all those years ago. Fishing seems to be an enterprise in hope, and for that reason, I like the idea of it. What I captured with my camera when he was fishing that day illustrates ‘hope’ even more—he was fishing in the clouds!

What kind of pie-in-the-sky idea is that?! Exactly—it doesn’t make sense.

He throws a line into a place he cannot see. He ‘tries’ a lure or bait that might attract a certain fish. He waits. Cast, wait, repeat. The desire is there, but the outcome is unknown.

Meanwhile, I’m finding other things to look at on the mounded peninsula—flowers and new leaves on trees, fallen branches and logs that eventually disappear into soil, a tree bowing to kiss the water-clouds.

The outcome was no bites, no fish, and some weedy line—a perfectly ‘normal’ outcome from the bank of a never-before-fished-lake. But for a fisherman who likes to fish and who usually practices catch-and-release, the endeavor was not a bust. The point was to fish, not to catch. So we munched our snack of cheese and crackers as we gazed at the water-clouds, knowing full well that a cast into the unknown would happen again. We hiked on through the greening forest, amazed how the sunlight was already having trouble reaching the ground through the new green canopy.

The design marvel of emerging plants is enough to make anyone believe in ‘fishing in the clouds.’ From a packed spike of green pushing up through the Spring soil unfurls a Jack-in-the-Pulpit! What a simple, intricate, inconspicuous miracle.

There was a beautiful Tamarack bog where brilliant yellow Marsh Marigolds bloomed in profusion, and the Tamarack (or Larch trees) pushed out bundles of soft, new needles.

Along the marsh-gully, we saw an old car with tires and engine sunk into the mud. It had been there a very long time. Nature was working to re-claim it—in the mud, by the fallen trees, and by the new trees growing around and through it. We wondered how it got there, what its story was in relation to the pristine forest around it.

What was bare trunks and dried leaf litter just weeks ago was now green, growing, and dappled by sunlight.

Fishing begins with a cast, a toss into the unknown. The outcome is beyond our control. How many eggs don’t make a bird? How many baby birds don’t make it to adulthood?

Why does one tree die and slough off its bark while another is ‘stitched up’ with a wound-healing, zig-zag scar?

With Nature, the ‘tries’ are abundant. Millions of acorns fall to the ground and sprout by a miraculous, shell-splitting force. Maple seedlings cover an embankment. Dormant perennials emerge after every harsh winter and push away the old in order to grow, develop, and reproduce.

Mother Nature casts, waits, repeats. Thank goodness she does. We believe in the cycle of seasons; we depend on it. She reaches for the sky with all her abundance—she is full of hope. Yet Nature is also full of destruction and decay—many launches end in death: few seedlings will grow into a mature tree. Only a number of fish eggs will grow into an adult fish. Nature teaches us that we can’t just skip over the not-so-good parts to only embrace the beauty. We can’t skip over the waiting, the boredom, the loneliness, or the pain to get to the good stuff, to what we want. But we can keep on casting into the cloudy unknown—again and again and again. Our desires become a fling of fate; the outcome is unknown. Perhaps we will reel in a fish or a job or a mate. Nature’s odds have produced an amazing, abundant, beautiful world. Keep fishing in the clouds!

Land, Water, and Sky

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If you were to distill your life down to three main elements, what would they be? My mind is searching for how I would answer that! Our lives and our world are so complex and full of so many things vying for our attention, time, and energy. During our trip to South Dakota to see my Mom, I was reminded how simple things can be—it was so evident! Looking out the window or going for a walk, the three main elements of our Earth presented themselves over and over again—land, water, and sky!

The prairie keeps things simple—on the surface anyway. A Spring prairie pasture meets a puffed-cloud blue sky! It makes me take a deep, soul-enlivening breath of gratitude. We look up to the sky at clouds, turn our faces towards the sun, marvel at the Milky Way, are mesmerized by threatening thunderheads, and contemplate how the moon belongs to all of us the world over. What does the sky offer us? Hope, awe, possibilities, rhythm, aspirations, and life-sustaining energy.

Water has taken up a larger space in this place than it did four decades ago. We used to be able to drive between the two ‘ponds’ of the slough; now the slough is a lake.

Along with the water comes more inhabitants of the water. Actually these amazing birds are inhabitants of all three elements—nesting and feeding on the land, feeding and swimming in the water, and flying through the sky. A Great Egret stands regally in the water, overshadowing the two ducks swimming nearby.

Last year’s cattails provide cover for the Egrets and Canadian Geese for nesting and hiding, though my Mom saw a sneaky Coyote disappear into the rushes, probably for a nest raid.

Look at the wingspan of the Egret! Makes the Red-winged Blackbird seem small in comparison. What an elegant bird!

Songs of the Red-winged Blackbirds fill the air as they perch precariously on the dried stems of cattails. The distinctive ‘chit’ and trill are an iconic sound of wetlands, where land meets water.

Pelicans, despite their large, bulky size, are at home in the sky or water. When flying, they soar through the air in groups, often spiraling with slow, methodical wingbeats.

A group of pelicans can corral fish together for easy food gathering, then either dip their big, pouched bills into the water or go bottoms-up like a dabbling duck.

Breeding adults grow a vertical ‘plate’ on the upper mandible, giving them a prehistoric look.

Where land meets water meets land. We are drawn to bodies of water. Native peoples made their homes by rivers, lakes, and oceans, settlers chose land that offered life-sustaining water, and today, people aspire to ‘live on the water.’ What does water offer us? Basic nourishment of life, cleansing, fluidity, a mirroring of sky and self, fun, and even escape.

A small group of male Mallards with their shiny green heads and white-banded necks swam and ate, while a pair of Blue-winged Teals glided effortlessly together.

Rocks are part of the land—the bane of a tilled field, a pedestal, a stumbling block, or a sacred marker.

One of the ‘land’ birds I have missed hearing and seeing since moving to Minnesota is the Western Meadowlark. It’s not that Minnesota doesn’t have them; they just aren’t as readily seen, as they prefer open prairie and fields. I heard the flute-like warble before seeing him, and I was happy to catch a glimpse of the yellow-breasted songster.

The slough-turned-lake has carved out the land to a steep bank where lives an apartment full of Bank Swallows. The morning was chilly and windy when we walked the pasture, but the sun was warming for the little Swallows perched on a tree branch.

The land is where we return to, no matter to what species we belong. We’re not sure of the story behind this cow’s demise, but the circle of life goes on. Critters of various kinds were nourished by the carcass in its decay.

We feel a kinship to the land, especially those whose livelihoods are dependent upon it. Land is the fertile mother where everything grows in mind-blowing abundance. We feel a sense of place with the land, of grounding, and of habitat. What does the land offer us? Steadiness, protection, constancy, food, beauty, and bounty.

I think we tend to make life more complicated than it really is, even though simple things, as with the prairie and sky, are intrinsically very complex. So there may be value in distilling one’s life down to three essential elements. My mind has been contemplating that since I posed the question in the opening paragraph—before sleep and upon waking are good times to examine your own conscious for answers. The first to come to my mind was ‘home.’ It is my grounding place, the place where I have generally felt safe and at ease. Home is my ‘land,’ and land is my home. It is impossible for me to ‘feel at home’ without some land to walk on, to care for, and to grow things on. It is also the place where most of my nourishment comes from, as eating at home has always been my norm. My second essential element is ‘learning.’ Curiosity and learning have been an integral part of my life since before I can remember. It is the realm of a child’s mind when developmentally, every encounter is an opportunity to learn. Why do some people lose that, I wonder? Learning is my ‘sky.’ It is what makes me a scientist and a seeker of spirit. It is a place of endless questions, of potential and possibilities, of awe and hope. My third element is ‘love.’ It is what we are drawn to, where we want to settle, and is life-sustaining. Love is my ‘water.’ It is a mirroring of self, a place where we can cleanse away past trauma and hurt, a place where we can have fun. Home, learning, and love are all intertwined for me, just as Earth’s three essential elements are a part of and fundamental for the birds, and in essence, for all of life. What are your life’s three essential elements?

To Have and To Hold

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I’m breathing a sigh of relief. Fourteen months into this pandemic and Chris and I are vaccinated. I saw my Mom for Mother’s Day. The CDC is saying vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks. Venues and organizations are outlining plans to ‘return to normal!’ We survived a pandemic! Chris and I have also survived thirty-nine years of marriage as of this weekend. It doesn’t really sound very good to say the word ‘survive’ when speaking of your marriage, but it is the truth. When we said our vows, we had no idea what our future would hold—for better, for worse. The year of the pandemic was not the worst year of our marriage—in fact, there were lots of ‘betters’ sprinkled in among the oddities, losses, and unknowns of the ‘unprecedented’ pandemic. But we have navigated other unprecedented events in our years together that have fallen into the ‘worse’ category—things we couldn’t plan for, things that broke our hearts, things we could never imagine would happen—and it is those things that we have survived.

As a naïve young bride, I thought marriage would be simple—as simple as the name Spring Beauty for these delicate ephemeral flowers. To love and to cherish sounded simple to me, for I fiercely loved this man, and I was pretty good at cherishing things.

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What I didn’t know how to handle was the first time I realized that in this moment I hated him, which, as we learn, says much more about me than him. By that time, we had had over twenty-seven years together, so like the Leatherwood shrub, I learned to be more flexible, more forgiving, of him and of myself.

We discovered over time what side of the creek we were on—the Democrat married a Republican, the sports-lover married a sports-dare-I-say-hater, the horse-loving country girl hitched up with a city boy. But we also waded across the clear, cold creek to see and feel what it was like on the other side—he learned to ride horses, and I eventually learned to like football!

Sometimes things were a little murky. We kind of knew what was going on, but there were things we either didn’t know or we just didn’t have the mature skills to navigate with finesse. We bumbled through it. First-child parenting comes to mind. Okay, make that all-child parenting. All house buying and selling. All job changes. How many murky moments in thirty-nine years?!

We learned about perspectives. What’s real? What’s just a shadow? Which one is taking up the most space? The shadow of fear took up a ton of space in my life and darkened far too much of our relationship and my ‘being’ in the world. In sickness and in health. In shadow and in light.

There were mysteries unveiled of bodies and minds, of past and present, of life at large. God’s holy ordinance allows for mysteries, embraces them, and lifts them up for our participation and our wonder.

We learned to be rocks for one another. It always seemed like Chris was my rock, as I talked so much, cried so often, hurt so deeply, but over the years I realized how steady I was for him—in making a warm home, in explaining the science of things and the emotional aspects of relationships, and in always having topics to converse about. To have and to hold.

There have been so, so many bright spots in our life together, especially our three children. It is an honor to bring other human beings into the mysteries of life and relationships.

And yet, beauty and goodness can be caught in a tangle of rubble, unreachable and unpreachable. There are hard, messy things in life that are beyond our control. For richer, for poorer.

There are trees, and there are forests. There are details, and there are ‘big pictures.’ There is the here and now, and there is the future. We have learned who is the tree person—the detail person, and who is the forest person—the ‘big picture’ person. And we have learned the exceptions to the rule.

How long can one hide, and what is the reason for hiding? There’s almost always a reason, a very good reason. For a very long time the very good reason is often hidden from the person who is hiding. This riddle is the journey of our lives.

As young marrieds, we knew little of death. Then a puppy died, and another, and then a young dog, an old dog, many cats, my beloved horse. We chopped off heads of chickens to put in our freezer, butchered a pig we named and cared for. An infant nephew died, my dear friend, an uncle, an aunt, my Grandma, Chris’ parents, my Dad, Chris’ brother….We know about death now. It is a lesson that brings many lessons. Till death do us part.

There is spirit in marriage, there is science, and there is art. I think you need all three to make it thirty-nine years, to survive, to thrive, to become the person you are meant to be. Thereto I pledge thee my faith.

So, we have made it this far together. The fir-cone strewn path stretches on before us. We see the trees and the forest. We know precious new life and have walked with death. We respect the simplicities and complexities of life. We have experienced love and hate, fear and peace, sorrow and joy. We appreciate beauty and mystery. We go on. From this day forward.