Come walk with me in the peak Autumn beauty of the Northwoods. To say that I love this time of year is an understatement. Most everyone can appreciate the colorful falling leaves---it reveals the 'true self' of a tree when its leaves are no longer producing chlorophyll. Their true colors are revealed, and there is something simple … [Read More...]
Trumpeter Swan Symphony
This beautiful, graceful creature is the largest North American waterfowl–the Trumpeter Swan. It stands at a height of four feet with a wingspan of more than seven feet. Downstream from a power plant on the Mississippi River in Central Minnesota, hundreds of Trumpeter swans gather in the open water to spend the winter.
Swans first arrived in this area for wintering in 1986 as the nesting areas of shallow marshes and ponds froze up. Other Minnesota swans migrate to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas for the winter. Most leave their wintering grounds in early March to return to their nesting areas.
Adult Trumpeter swans have pure white plumage that is often stained a rusty color on the head and neck from feeding in iron-rich water. They mate for life and can live longer than twenty-four years.
They make a hollow trumpeting sound.
Young swans or cygnets are gray until they are a year old and stay in family groups through early spring.
Swans were hunted extensively in the 1600s-1800s for their meat, skins, and feathers, leading to their near extinction. Their large flight feathers made the highest quality quill pens. It is estimated that 2900 swans live in the state of Minnesota at this time, after more than fifty years of restoration.
The swans share their space with Canadian geese and Mallard ducks who look small in the presence of the large Trumpeter swans.
And when they are all vocalizing, it creates a sweet Waterfowl Symphony!
The mated pairs live most of the year on their own, guarding the territory where they raise their young. In the winter, they become social birds and can be seen gathering in a circle of four to six, honking, puffing out their chests, and flapping their wings–like a dance! According to Madeleine Linck, Wildlife Technician for Three Rivers Park District, this behavior is for family bonding and showing off. (http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/240621061.html)
The swans, geese, and ducks fly to surrounding fields to feed, and they take advantage of the kindness of a local resident who feeds them buckets and buckets of corn every day. After feeding, the swans and geese can be seen preening their feathers and taking a morning nap.
Wintering is also a time for courtship. When swans are three to four years old, they choose a mate. Courtship displays include head bobbing, trumpeting together, and spreading and raising their wings.
The Trumpeter swans are an impressive sight with their regal carriage, sleek alabaster plumage, and incredible size. The large overwintering population seemed to get along fairly well–we saw a few ‘fights’ between some individuals, but for the most part, they coexist peacefully with one another and with the ducks and geese. This social resting time prepares them for the next breeding season and for the work of raising their next nest of offspring.
We humans spend much of our year taking care of the ‘nest,’ finding food, and keeping our young safe. And like the swans, we get together with our families in the cold months of winter to bond with them, show off a little, make some noise, and rest and restore ourselves for the months ahead.
Gleanings from December
December is a special month for us. All three of our children were born in December–in two weeks time, we celebrate three birthdays and Christmas! So, many previous Decembers have been busy flurries of activity–cake-baking, special meal-making, decorating, gift-making and wrapping, school concerts, finals, homecomings, parties, and more. But this Christmas was quiet. Our last college student finished finals and flew to Austin to spend Christmas with one of his sisters. We sent our love and best wishes to them–it just wasn’t the same.
December weather wasn’t the same as usual either. It began cold and clear with a thick blanket of snow covering the ground. Day after day of that first week we were dazzled by incredible sunsets and magnificent moonrises.
Contrails, from jet airplane exhaust condensing and freezing into ice crystals, crisscrossed the blue sky.
The afternoon sunlight streamed through the leaves still holding onto the honeysuckle, creating a glowing shrub of gold.
That brilliant week faded into cloudy days where temperature and moisture created an inversion, entombing us in fog. At first the fog froze and built a halo of frost on the red, clustered sumac seedheads and the winged seeds of the amur maples.
Then the temperatures warmed and began melting the snow. Water droplets adorned the trees.
Autumn was uncovered as the snow melted.
Then as soon as we saw green grass, it snowed again. Critters arrived at the birdfeeder to fuel up on black oil sunflower seeds–a female Hairy woodpecker and a jittery red squirrel.
Clouds persisted into the fourth week as we headed toward Christmas. Temperatures once again rose above freezing, melting the white from Christmas….until the evening of Christmas Day when the snow started falling again. The flower heads of lilac and Joe Pye weed caught the snow–a year’s worth of seasons contained in the image.
The seedhead of the sumac–the flower of this year and the seeds for the future–was faded and covered in white, holding up its arms to catch the new snow.
We end this month and this year with the turning of seasons and time. The constancy of the sunsets and moonrises keeps us grounded as so many other things change around us. The unexpected may leave us in a fog for longer than we care to be there, but it happens for good reason. Sometimes we need to go back in order to move forward. We need the quiet in order to glean the gold from our past and let the chaff fall away in forgiveness. Take the gold and the haloed moments of your life and let them fill you and sustain you for the journey ahead. Let the trail you leave behind be one of love and goodness. As a year’s worth of seasons shine from your face, lift up your arms to embrace the New Year.
Welcome the Light
It’s Christmas Eve in Minnesota. As the temperature flirted with the freezing point the last few days, precipitation fell as rain instead of snow. As a snow lover, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed–well, actually more than a bit. But this is Christmas!
We don’t have a real Christmas tree this year like we always have in the past. We have had balled and burlapped trees, cut your own from the fir forest, cedar trees from the fence line, free ones from the grocery store on Christmas Eve, and even one delivered to our house by the tree trimmers who gave us the beautiful top of a fir they had to cut away from the power lines. We have had trees that were perfectly shaped and others that were Charlie Brown trees. It didn’t matter–they were all enchanting when decorated with lights, our homemade sweet-gum ball garland, and our mish-mash of ornaments accumulated over all the years of marriage and the raising of three children.
This year, for various reasons, we have a two-foot artificial tree that used to be in one of the kids’ bedroom for Christmas joy. As a real tree lover, I’m a bit disappointed. But this is Christmas!
We aren’t going to be with our kids or families this year for the first time ever. Two of our kids are together in Austin for a warm Texas Christmas, and the other will be with Brake family uncles, aunts, and cousins in Kansas City. Our tentative plans to gather with the Andersens in South Dakota were foiled with the vacillating forecast of rain or snow and Chris’ snow removal responsibilities. As one who loves and adores our kids and our families, I am very disappointed. But this is Christmas!
One of the plants in our woods that is seldom seen in the winter because of the snow is Wintergreen or Gaultheria. Wintergreens continue photosynthesis in the winter. Like the pines, spruces, and firs, it is ‘evergreen.’ Gaultheria has a sweet, woodsy odor when bruised and contains an oil that is commonly used as the minty flavoring in chewing gum, mints, tobacco products, and toothpaste. It has been used as a folk remedy for muscle and joint pain, inflammation, poor circulation, and a whole host of other problems, as it contains methyl salicylate. As a nature lover, I am thrilled to see the wintergreen. And this is Christmas!
I have no nostalgic, Kinkade-like photos to share with you this Christmas–no beautiful snow scenes, no twinkling, decorated evergreens. These pictures taken this morning are rather gray and drab, but this is Christmas! We will get more snow to satisfy all the Minnesota snow lovers. And we are surrounded by trees–pines, firs, spruces–of all sizes and shapes–outdoor Christmas trees. We have a few presents under our pint-sized artificial tree. One of those presents has been under our tree every year since 2005. It was a gift given to Chris by his Mom and Dad–a leather wallet wrapped in ‘hohoho’ wrapping paper. For some reason, he unwrapped it very carefully, lifting the tape, not tearing the paper. Since he didn’t need a new wallet at the time, he wrapped it back up. It was the last gift Chris got from his Mom and Dad before they died. He puts it under the tree each Christmas so he always has a present from them.
Our kids should have a happy Christmas in Texas and Missouri with family and friends who are dear to them. They have the memories of all our Christmas pasts–times that hopefully sustain them with the love that was freely given, no matter what was under the tree. We miss the kids but carry them with us in our hearts. Chris and I will experience a ‘Christmas Eve in the Barn’ service this evening and a meal together tomorrow with dear friends of our own. And through it all, we are reminded that the remedy for all the problems of the Earth is born again tonight. We welcome the Light! After all, this is Christmas!
What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.
–Agnes M. Pharo
Celebrate the Light
Winter is said to be bleak–and in many ways it is–but it gives us a gift that comes only when the sun is low in the southwestern sky and when the leaves are gone from the trees. The gift of beautiful sunsets!
In the months of shortening days until the Winter Solstice and those afterwards that are frigid, yet lengthening, we can look out our picture window any uncloudy evening to see a work of art on the canvas sky.
“Look at that sunset!” has been exclaimed so many times in our household (mostly by me) that my son has rebutted with his own proclamation that “Sunsets are overrated!”
The light and colors of the sunset are reflected in the patch of river water or ice we can see from our house in the leafless months.
The first week of December was brilliant and cold, producing the sunsets above. Then we became engulfed in clouds as the inversion took over our skies. One or two days of fleeting sunlight late this week then gave way to the bank of clouds that rolled in from the west.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, tomorrow is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. We are acutely aware of the darkness–even in our modern, lighted world. As our part of the earth is tilted away from the sun, we experience that darkness as winter. Winter may be bleak relative to the growth, color, and abundance of the other seasons, but it also offers us gifts that are unique to this time of year–if we are ready to receive them.
Sunsets of color against the backdrop of snow and ice make us stop for a moment, take a breath, and appreciate that moment of beauty. Anything that touches and feeds our soul cannot be overrated. The darkness of Winter gives us time to turn our thoughts inward. The work of Winter, unlike the physical work of the other seasons, is the work of our emotions and soul. We can accept the darkness inside ourselves, live with it, and learn from it. Then comes that moment, that day in time, when the darkness slowly starts to recede as we reach out and celebrate the Light. Happy Winter Solstice!
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