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Meet Me at the Bend in the River

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There are times in our lives when we are floating along—smoothly going in the direction we want to go, enjoying the scenery, life is good—when we come to a bend in the river.  If we follow the flow of Life, we are swept along in a changing direction; if we resist, we flail about trying to stop or turn around and go back to where Life was easy.  But it is no longer easy—we are going against the current.

Our oldest child left the 100-degree August heat of Austin, Texas to spend time with us in Minnesota.  On one of those beautiful days, my Mom came over from South Dakota.  We spent the afternoon at Bend in the River Regional Park north of Saint Cloud.  The Park is located at an old farmstead high up on the bluffs of the Mississippi River—at the bend in the River.  The old Red River Ox-cart Trail passed by a log cabin built on this site and later became the Point Douglas–Fort Ripley Military Road in 1851.  In 1912, Edgar Graves bought the farm and built a barn, then a house, and subsequent other out-buildings.  The house is formidable in structure, but closed to the public.  I kept saying that I would live in that house!

Around the house towered Bur Oak trees that were over 120 years old.  While the floodplain below the bluff always had fire-protected forests, the bluff was more prairie with sparse numbers of Bur Oak that could survive drought and wildfires.

We walked the trail from the farmstead along the high bluff overlooking the River.

The native Ojibways called this expanse of water “Misi-ziibi” or “great river.”  The French fur trappers in the 1600’s translated that to “Messipi,” which was later Anglo-cized to “Mississippi.”  That great river flows on.

Acorns crunched under our feet—it was an abundant year for Oak seeds.  A pair of Mourning Doves ignored us as they foraged the gravel trail for seeds.  A Garter Snake lay sunning itself on the soft moss between acorns.

At one of the overlooks, we saw two young men fishing on the Great River.  Meet me at the bend in the River—let’s catch some fish.  Let’s spend some time together.  Let’s slow the pace of our lives for a few hours.

We walked down a side trail that descended the bluff to the floodplain area beside the water.  The power of the water rushing around the bend in the River had pushed logs and debris up onto shore.  There were rusty wheels and tires and hardened, lost shoes.

And right at the bank of the River, a fine mossy grass grew and on that lush greenness lay a turkey feather, like a dropped handkerchief—personal and universal all at the same time.

The water reflected the sky, assuredly giving the weather report for the ones gathered at the bend in the River.

 

Three generations of our family met at the Bend in the River, slowing time as we walked and observed trees, animals, and the Mississippi.  We learned about the history of this place, how it progressed with time from ox-cart trail to military road to potato farm.  Why was I drawn to the old prairie farmhouse and the outbuildings for all the animals?  Why was I thrilled that Carlton Graves ran a veterinary practice out of the basement of the house?  Why was I so pleased that this place high above the bend in the River was turned into a Park for all to see and use?  The flow of Life moves us forward, even as we ache for things to be as they were when we perceived that life was smooth and good.  Life changes our direction for us—we need to be able to navigate the rough waters and the bends in the river.  We don’t want to end up like logs and hardened souls all piled up under the trees as Life moves on.  Let’s meet at the bend in the river.  Let’s meet where things change direction.  Let’s honor our history and slow down the pace of our lives for a few hours.  Right there, on the soft, transitional terrain, let’s pick up the lost feather, the lost handkerchief.  It is personal and universal, all at the same time.

Zero to Sixty

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In two weeks’ time, we have accelerated from Spring to Summer.  The normal progression of leafing out and blooming has been disrupted this year—things seem rather confused.  The very warm temperatures of these last days have pushed some things to bloom, while at the same time the early bloomers are just catching up from the delay a late snowstorm produced.  So now the daffodils, honeysuckle, lilacs, crabapples, viburnums, flag irises, and anemones are all blooming at the same time!  Instead of Spring slowly unfolding in its progressive, orderly way, it’s been like a tire-spinning Ferrari going from zero to sixty in 2.9 seconds!

On Mother’s Day two weeks ago, we took a short hike around Rockville County Park.  The leaves were just emerging from the trees, which made bird watching easier.  We saw a Baltimore Oriole and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and heard their beautiful songs.

An adult Eagle floated in the sky above us looking for food to feed the two hungry ‘babies’ in the nest.  They have a few years until they grow into the elegance of their parents.

A tall, showy Serviceberry was blooming in the woods, looking almost out of place with the other bare, brown-with-green-tinged trees.

Later, back at home, a lone turkey wandered through the front yard.  She circled around the garage, then was scared by a tractor going down the road.  She ran to the backyard and flew up into the oak trees, defying her size!  She stayed there for quite a while, cautiously looking around to determine her safety.  Finally she opened her wings and glided to the ground.

We had a few rain showers in the last two weeks, though it still seems very dry, especially as the temperatures have gone so unseasonably high this past week.  The rainy days helped the Purple Leaf Plum leaf out and bloom, helped the Purple Flag Irises open their tissue-paper-thin flowers, and gave the Baltimore Oriole a shower.

On another trek to Eagle Park, we saw Purple Martins sitting on the porches of their house.  Just as we got out of the car, they all flew away, and I saw a Hawk capture one in the air, going zero to sixty!  He flew to a branch of a tree with the Purple Martin in his claws.

Then he dropped it!  He looked down at his fallen prey but did not fly down to get it as we watched!

 

It seems like we waited so long for Spring to come this year, and then when it did finally show up, it zoomed into summer—what crazy weather!  I remember when the kids were younger how we waited for milestones—when they walked, talked, tied their own shoes, started school, and dozens of others.  While the waiting seemed long, when they finally passed a milestone, things started to move faster, and we looked back thinking how time had zoomed by so quickly!  How could ten years, twenty years, now thirty years have passed since we held these dear babies in our arms?  Crazy time.  These children of ours—we try to keep them safe, provide food, shelter, learning and love, help them to bloom, and teach them to fly.  Sometimes desires and dreams fall from their grasps—from our grasps—and we look down and decide whether or not we will pick them up again or let them go.  We all take a couple of years or a lifetime to grow into our elegance.

To All Those Who Came From Mothers

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Our very being, essence, health and happiness depend on Mother Earth.                    –David Suzuki

Where and how do we begin?  What is our essence?  To whom do we owe our health and happiness?  Yikes!  These are deep questions!  On this Mother’s Day, there is no need to overwhelm ourselves with an endless pool of existential inquiry, but maybe we should at least dip our toes in.  Only some of us are mothers, but all of us came from mothers.  We all know at least half of the equation.  We were all mothered in one way or another—the judgement of how that turned out is only for each one of us to determine in the journey of our lives.  Of course, that journey changes if and when we become mothers (and fathers) ourselves and when we lose those that brought forth our life.  And so it goes…

The essence of life is Springing forth.  The change that happens in one week’s time is mind-boggling and mind-humbling—we are dealing with a force so much bigger than ourselves.  The greening of the grass seems simple compared to perennials pushing up and unfolding from the earth and dormant trees exploding with flowers and new leaves.  We really are fortunate to witness such miracles, do you know?  Look at the fresh flowers and tender leaves of these two types of Maple trees:

Blue Jay mates were foraging for food this week, vocalizing their pleasure of Spring mating and nest-building.

Linden leaves began the filling-out process of changing the trees’ skeletal silhouettes to geometrical shapes.

The Rabbits were in a frenzy one early morning, darting here and there, perhaps for no other reason than Spring is finally here!

Tiny new Wild Strawberry flowers opened up as the only-days-old Magnolia flowers wilted, browned, and fell—a miniature birth and death cycle that leads to the next step in the biological process—the formation of fruits and seeds.

Two surprises showed up this week that had me rushing for the camera—it’s exciting to see something that one has never seen before!  We have had many types of woodpeckers frequent the feeders, but I had never seen a flashy Red-headed Woodpecker until this week.

Another morning flash of color attracted my attention—a Red-breasted Grosbeak.

Mayapples, Epimedium, and Lily-of-the-Valley arose, appeared, and unrolled from the earth, from where there was nothing visible before.

Standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window, I see the ‘Prairie Fire’ Crabapple has a white cloud of Wild Plum blossoms surrounding its dark burgundy leaves and flower buds.

 

Spring marks the beginning of a full cycle of emergence, growth, development, seed formation, offspring, transformation, decline, and death.  It’s the new time, an exciting time, a time that makes one frenetic with energy for no good reason other than Winter is over and Spring is here!  Mother Earth’s pregnant potential showcases beginnings and alludes to the essence of Life.  She provides sunshine and vitamin D for our health and brings us smiling happiness and wonder.  In the midst of all of this, there is each one of us and our half of the equation.  Our being, where once there was nothing, was brought forth by an egg and a sperm, was developed in the nourishing cloud of a womb, emerged into this mind-boggling, mind-humbling world, and then developed and filled out into the shape of our essence.  We are mothered by mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmas, grandpas, friends, teachers, mentors, and others—we deserve to be cared for, respected, listened to, and loved and to give those things in return.  If we determine that we have fallen short of that, we must remember that we are dealing with a force that is so much bigger than us—the God-force of Life itself, where all things are possible.  As we live into our half of the equation, let us give thanks for all the caring Mothers in our lives.  We really are fortunate to be such miracles.  

No Holding Back

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“No matter how long the Winter, Spring is sure to follow.”

Three weeks ago we had a foot of snow.  But Spring will no longer be held back!  On Monday, two turkeys foraged along the road pecking at emerging leaves of green grass and tender new buds.

It was so wonderful to see the grass finally turning green and the chives pushing their way up!

Two visitors passed through on their way North—a White-crowned Sparrow and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

April’s end-of-month full moon illuminated buds on a tree, and a colorful sunset shone through the silhouette of trees where soon leaves will occlude the splendor.

The Bluebirds returned this week!  Their swift, swooping dives and chattering songs fill the front yard as they check out the nesting boxes.

On Thursday, I finally got to my annual Earth Day ditch clean-up.  Once again, with most of the trash being plastic, I urge everyone to ‘ditch’ plastic shopping bags and use paper or reusable bags.  It will make a difference!  I also found this unfortunate creature who didn’t make it through the winter—one of our resident opossums who waddle back and forth from the quarry to the woods.

By Friday, the Forsythia and Bergenia were blooming!  The lemony yellow Forsythia flowers shone in the morning sun along with one orange fall leaf that had held on through the winter.

The Bergenias send up a study flower stalk between green leaves that have weathered the winter and those that dried and died.  No holding back.

Ferns with their rolled fiddleheads emerged by warm rocks, casting shadows just as intriguing as the fiddleheads themselves.

The most amazing bud to me is the terminal bud of a Buckeye tree.  I’m always incredulous that such a huge amount of leaves can be coiled into one bud—and they are beautiful as they unfurl!

One sign of Spring that I always look for is the ‘green blush’ of new leaves on the Aspen trees down by the river.  Thursday, no green blush, but Friday morning, it was there!

The floppy, fragrant petals of the Star Magnolia opened on Saturday.  So beautiful!

For the first time, I saw a Baltimore Oriole come to our feeder!  No holding back the Goodness of Spring! 

 

I think most of us up North would agree it’s been a long winter, but Spring sure has been sweet this week.  It’s as if all the power and potential can no longer be held back, even as the last piles of blackened snow melt and the frost recedes from the ground—Spring has come bursting forth!  There are many times in life when we feel the holding back and comfort of what is known along with the pull of a new adventure.  A baby is happy to sit or crawl until the urge to walk implants itself in mind and body—there is no holding back.  Children are eager to learn and ‘do it themselves’ after years of parents doing it for them and teaching them motor and mind skills.  Adolescents oscillate between being a dependent child and pushing their way to adult independence.  At some point, there is no holding back the desire to live one’s own life.  A similar thing happens in mid-life after decades of striving, achieving, raising children, putting plans on hold, paying bills and doing the necessary matters.  We wonder if we have lost ourselves, if there is something more to life, if we have fulfilled our potential—we forage for new ways or remember something from the past that we have carried with us like a lone, orange leaf.  Some parts of our lives die—by our own hand or by the hand of a higher power.  We explore intriguing shadows that lead us back to our own intriguing selves.  No matter our age or circumstance, we are beautiful as we unfurl. 

April Fooled

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When I was younger, in those early thirties days when one begins to come out of the rather clueless, self-involved but necessary decade of fun and invincibility, I began to learn about myself.  I remember reading a book that described the actions and reasons for what the experts now call co-dependency.  I remember being excited to learn this information that made sense of my feelings and interactions with other people!  I immediately shared the good news with my best friend, ready to re-make our relationship into a better functioning, more equitable friendship.  I was fooled into thinking that information easily translates to action, that this change would be easy, that we both would want this to happen.  Instead, it was the beginning of the end of our long and lovely friendship—the very thing co-dependents dread the most.  And I was slammed with loss and devastation.

Since Spring officially arrived on the calendar, we have been fooled into thinking Winter was easily going to pass the baton to Spring.  Instead we have had single digit temperatures more like January and more snow than we have seen the whole rest of Winter.  After our post-Easter snow and the one after that, we warmed up this week and made progress towards Spring—at least in the first step of getting rid of the snow.  The deliberate, clipped tracks of a fox melted into a ground-baring trail that disappeared into brown grass.  Progress.

By Friday morning, the yard was more grass than snow.  Progress!

A flock of Juncos descended on the remains of sunflower seeds.  Were they fooled into heading North for their Spring mating and Summer living?

The weekend forecast was already warning us of another big snowstorm, bringing dreadful resignation that Mother Nature is in charge, no matter how badly we want Spring.  The early morning sky dawned red with warning.  The barometric pressure fell, inducing discomfort in joints and heads.  There was uneasiness in the air.

By afternoon, snow and sleet slammed into the house from the north northeast.  “Ha!  Fooled you!  Don’t even think about Spring,” roared Mother Nature.  Spring took two steps back towards Winter.

Wind howled through the night and through the next day, crescendoing in gusts to 64 mph.  What we believed about Spring was being challenged with might and resistance from the old, clingy, egoistic ways of Old Man Winter.

Sunday morning the wind was still blowing and the snow was still snowing.  The sidewalk I had shoveled yesterday was completely covered with a drift even bigger than the one before.  Snowflakes flung by the wind stung my face as I walked the dog in my full winter gear.

What to do?  Shovel the walk again.  Wait until the snow stops.  Shovel again.  Repeat if necessary. 

 

We have been April fooled.  We are starting our fourth week of Spring.  Snow should be gone.  Daffodils are usually blooming by this time.  Ice is usually off the lakes.  None of those things.  Instead we’ve had a three-day blizzard as we sit indoors eating humble pie.  I wish I could profess I was never fooled again after those painful early thirties, but the truth is I continued to be fooled by people, situations, and myself.  Most of us tend to take situations and people on good faith, with good intention, with hope and the benefit of the doubt, and that can lay the groundwork for the capacity for things to go wrong.  The good news is we keep learning about ourselves, and we make progress.  We take two steps forward, then one step back.  Sometimes we are flung back many steps by challenges from our old, clingy, egoistic selves and way of life.  Change is hard, and change is not linear.  Sometimes we drop the baton—again and again.  At times we wait for the snow to stop snowing and the wind to stop blowing, and then we try again.  So let’s lift our shovels to Progress!  Spring actually is on its way!  

Denial in the Cold Night

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“Denying the truth doesn’t change the facts.”

It began with some serious banging of the pipes—enough to wake me up in the middle of the night.  So I run downstairs to the boiler furnace and see that the water pressure is low.  I open the valve to let more water into the system, hoping that will displace the air that is causing the commotion.  The next morning I check the boiler again—it needs more water.  Not a good sign, but I add more water and scour the floor and ceiling for any evidence of leaking.  It’s probably just evaporation with all the usage in this cold weather, I reason.  It is Thursday before the long Christmas weekend, Emily is home, more company is coming, and temperatures are cold and headed to below zero readings for the weekend.  So…the furnace can’t be broken, right?  My denial lasts through most of the day, but the hourly checks of decreasing water pressure and noisy pipes finally force my hand to call the repairman.  The evidence is right before my eyes—a water pressure gauge—and ears—clanging, air-filled pipes.  Not the way I expected to head into Christmas and not what I wanted to deal with when family was here for the holidays.

Our temperatures have been on a roller-coaster ride—a very unusual winter so far.  After a frigid Christmas and New Year’s, our daytime temperatures soared above freezing for four days this past week.  The little snow we had started to melt—an early January thaw in the normally coldest time of year.

This is our third winter of a snow drought—we’ve only had inches of snow when usually the grass, plants, and garden rocks are completely covered.

New Year’s Day the high and low temperature was 1°|-18°; on January 9th, it was 41°|28°.

The next day the temperature dropped from a high of 40° to a low of -10°—fifty degrees from high to low in a little over 24 hours!  The temperature pendulum is swinging wide and erratic.  The melting snow water on the birch branches flash froze into ice droplets.

A half an inch of snow floated down, when days earlier the forecast had been for 8-12 inches.

Record low and high temperatures have been set in every decade of the last 120 years of record keeping, so there’s really nothing to be concerned about, right?

 

The furnace repairman assessed the situation and did not deliver good news.  We may have a leak somewhere in the basement in-floor tubing.  We could change out parts for hundreds of dollars that could “force” the leak to show up—maybe.  Not something one would want to do in the middle of the holidays, it seems, or in the middle of winter.  So we changed the game plan a bit and tried to mitigate the basement heating.  Not a big problem in the whole scheme of things.  We didn’t lose our home in a wildfire or mudslide like thousands of people did in California and other western states.  Our home was not extensively damaged or destroyed in a hurricane or flood like what happened to tens of thousands of people in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean islands.  We didn’t start our new year having to deal with a Bomb Cyclone like the northeast did.  The evidence of extreme and erratic weather due to climate change is right before our eyes, in the news every day, and in the extensive, credible research of career climate scientists.

Denial is a very human response, even as we are presented with evidence that is hard to refute.  I did not expect furnace problems, and even more telling, it was not what I wanted to deal with at that time.  William Shakespeare wrote, “The eye sees all, but the mind shows us what we want to see.”  Our creative, sometimes desperate minds easily explain away the evidence that our eyes are seeing.  Sometimes, as in life-altering situations like accidents or death, denial can be a blessing.  Grief expert Elisabeth Kübler-Ross explains that denial “is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.”  It “helps us to pace our feelings of grief.”  But often denial is a mechanism of willful doubt because we do not want our beliefs challenged in any way.  What if we would allow ourselves to become data collectors?  Most of us do allow this when trying to figure out what washing machine to buy or what’s the best computer for our needs—we rarely buy appliances according to party line.  The same due diligence should be used on all issues—research, evidence, data, personal experiences and reviews from thousands of people who intimately know the issue.  We need to ask the tough questions and be willing to see and hear the answers.  Sometimes it takes some serious banging of the pipes to wake us up and take action.

The Old and New Seasons of Our Lives

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“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”   –Henry David Thoreau

When I was a child, I had a piggy bank shaped like a friendly, sitting dog.  It was made out of styrofoam and flocked with a reddish-brown ‘fur.’  A metal dog tag hung at his collar, emblazoned with his name—Rusty.  I put so many coins and folded dollar bills into the slot at the back of his head that the styrofoam broke away to a bigger hole.  A metal circle could be pried off the bottom to retrieve the money—money I earned cleaning out stalls at our neighbor’s barn; money I was saving to buy a horse.  I kept Rusty for a long time after I stopped using it, after I bought my horse, after a number of long distance moves, even after I had kids.  I felt like I just couldn’t part with him.  But then, one year of another move, he didn’t make the cut.  I was able to let him go.

This winter season so far has been a hard hitting one—not for snow, but for cold.  Christmas Day the high was 1 degree F.  As I am writing this, approaching the noon hour, it is 13 below with a wind chill of -32.  The actual temperature tonight is supposed to be 20 degrees below zero.  “Stay warm” is not just a Minnesota pleasantry, it is a directive of concern and safety.  But looking out the window, it is beautiful!  The sky is bright blue, the sun is shining, and we have a couple inches of fresh snow.  The birds and squirrels have been frequent visitors at the bird feeders this week to fuel up for the cold weather.  The deer even make their way to the feeder at dusk to browse on the fallen black oil sunflower seeds.

 

New Year’s Eve and Day are traditionally a time to let go of the old and ring in the new.  It is a time for a fresh start.  But often, the resolutions to make changes are broken before a week or two has passed.  The very things we were so enthusiastic about on day one become a source of failure and disappointment.  What if, like the seasons of the year, we resigned ourselves to the seasons of our lives instead of forcing a change that isn’t meant to be just because it’s day one of a new year?  What if the new year was about discerning where we really are ready for a change?  What if it was about accepting ourselves with loving kindness in this season as we are at this moment?  What if the things we think matter don’t really matter at all?  Every old thing eventually passes away—I held on to Rusty, tucked away in a box, for years, and I don’t even know why I did.  But for whatever reason, it was important for that season of my life as it passed.  And then, I was able to let him go.  So many things in our lives work that way!  Relationships, jobs, weight, addictions, hobbies, grief, physical ailments—all serve a purpose in the journey of our lives, and none of them are controlled by resolution and the calendar year.  So breathe the refreshing Arctic air, drink the drink with a toast to yourself and your seasons, make your way to the table and taste the fruitcake and other bounty, and let the Earth and its Master be your influence.  Stay warm!

What Does Home Look Like to You?

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What does home look like to you?  How does it feel?  How many generations of your family have lived in the place you call home or in the place where your soul feels at home?  What is the history of your family?  Is your home tied to the land?  Or is home about the people you are with at any given place or time?

We visited Mille Lacs Kathio State Park last weekend—over 10,000 acres near the mammoth Mille Lacs Lake.  The park is a National Historic Landmark District.  The early French explorer known as Duluth was the first European to accurately record a visit to this area in 1679.  He found permanent established villages of the greater Dakota nation band known as the Mdewakanon who lived near Mdewakan, the Spiritual or Sacred Lake, now known as Mille Lacs.  This area known as Kathio has been home to the Dakota and later to the Ojibwe people for over 9,000 years.  (Stone tools and spear points were found at a site that was radiocarbon tested.)  9,000 years—how many generations of Dakota and Ojibwe people have lived here?!  It has been the site for archaeological digs for over a century with 30 separate sites identified thus far.  It was the perfect place to call home with forests, lakes, rivers, plentiful food sources and other natural resources.

We began our day by climbing the observation tower to get a bird’s eye view of the park and surrounding lakes.

Loggers removed most of the red and white pine forest in the mid 1800’s, and now most of the trees are oaks, maples, aspen, and birch.

Three large lakes connected by the Rum River could be seen from the tower, the largest being Mille Lacs Lake.

It was a beautiful day for hiking—not too hot or buggy.  We saw interesting fungi, five-foot-tall ferns, and delicate wildflowers.

While driving through the park in all its wildness, I commented to Chris that it looks like a good home for bears, thinking we weren’t in bear territory.  But when we walked through the interpretive center, one of the displays explained that indeed black bears live in the park!  Then we came across this tree on one of the hiking trails—looks like bear activity to me!

The swimming beach at the picnic area was a man-made pool not far from the banks of the Rum River.  The only one wading in it was a Great Blue Heron!

In 1965, Leland Cooper of Hamline Universary was sent to survey areas of Mille Lacs Kathio State Park.  The site that was later named after him was excavated a year later by Elden Johnson of the University of Minnesota.  The Cooper site showed that the ancient Native people lived there from about 500 to the 1700’s.  Summer and winter homes, a log pallisade wall, and ricing pits were discovered along with arrow points, stone tools, pottery, and trade goods, including glass beads and Jesuit rings–metal finger rings that French missionaries of the late 1600’s gave to the villagers.  This is what the Cooper site looks like today:

Ogechie Lake is a long, narrow, shallow lake that for thousands of years has produced wild rice for waterfowl and the people who made their home along its shores.  In the mid 1950’s a dam was built at the south end of the lake to keep the water levels high in Mille Lacs Lake for fishermen.  This basically flooded the Ogechie rice crop for decades with little to no production.  Two years ago, a new, lower dam was built, and the wild rice or manoomin is coming back so the present day Ojibwe can once again harvest the ancient food.

 

The land my grandparents called home in South Dakota has been in the family for three and four generations now—it seems like such a long time.  But consider the 360 or more generations of Dakota and Ojibwe who have called the Mille Lacs Kathio region home!  Home to me is the prairie, rolling hills of pasture, sloughs full of geese, memories of my family.  But there is also a connection to Scandinavia where all my ‘native’ ancestors lived.  Home to the Ojibwe of Mille Lacs is ‘thousands of lakes’ with fish and wild rice, forests of hard woods and conifers, wild animals and birds, traditions and stories of their ancestors.  When we look from a bird’s eye view at our own lives in the long history of our ancestors, what do we see?  Were there huge changes to where or what home was?  If we are the descendants of immigrants, refugees, or slaves, that would be true.  What is the ‘river’ that runs through all those generations, connecting them and us?  How do we wade through new waters to make our home?  We each have our own definition of what home looks like to us, but this I know: The land matters.  History matters.  People matter.

Frozen

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Those things that make our lives easier and better and yeah, we end up taking them for granted—electricity, hot running water, grocery store food, heat, ac, internet, working computers.  This last month has been a little bumpy on the computer front with failing hard-drives, changing hard-drives, failing to get that to work, a seriously messed-up old laptop, and then a frozen NorthStarNature Facebook page—as in the cover photo would load, but I couldn’t scroll down or do anything.  It was stuck, frozen, unable to move or do what it was supposed to do.

Chris and I were sitting at the table in late May when we heard a characteristic thump on the living room window, although this time it was a double thump.  We knew what that meant—another bird, or in this case, two, had hit the window.  We went to see if they had survived the reflecting encounter.

Stunned.  Shocked.  Dead?

When I went outside a few minutes later to see if they could be revived, the upright one flew away.  Good.  I turned the other one over to get his feet under him and gently stroked his exquisite blue feathers.  His eyes were still closed, his little bird body was quiet except for an occasional quiver, and I could see that it was taking all his energy, his internal wherewithal, to regain his senses.  These things take time.  He eventually flew a little ways and needed more time for re-orienting.  I knew he would be okay.

Indigo Buntings are amazing little birds; not only are the males beautiful in their brilliant blue coats, they also migrate at night using the stars for guidance!  What!?  (They researched that using captive Buntings in a planetarium and under a natural sky.)  Breeding males often get into fights locking feet with one another and falling to the ground.  They also defend their territory by approaching the other with slow butterfly-like display flight.  Perhaps one of these behaviors contributed to their tandem window slam.

 

My frozen Facebook page was resolved in the last couple of days by the brilliant computer skills of some unknown FB technician after numerous communications with me and them—words to let them know there was a problem, questions from them about the details of what was happening on my end,  answers to those questions to the best of my no-computer-skills ability, problem-solving work on their end, patience on mine.  The frozen Indigo Buntings, the heart-beating, food-finding, mate-seeking animals that suffered a collision, were in shock.  Their bodies shut down from the trauma.  The one who flew away could have been younger or stronger, more able to withstand and bounce back from the impact.  The other may have been flying faster, may have suffered previous traumas or head injuries, or in some way been more sensitive to the traumatic impact on his body—more time, more compassionate help, more tries were needed to regain his orientation and his place in the world.  And then, there is us.  Humans, like other animals, are physiologically programmed to respond to threats, danger, and trauma with flight, fight, and/or freeze, depending on the situation.  It happens without us thinking about it or making a cognitive decision.  Our bodies automatically respond by shutting down digestion, increasing heart rate, increasing blood flow to the muscles, sending out adrenaline and other hormones in order to get us ready for running away or fighting.  But if neither of those choices are possible, or if extreme physical or emotional trauma occurs, we freeze.  Other physiological signals are sent out, and our bodies and parts of our brain shut down, and we are unable to move or do what we’re supposed to do.  We are stunned, shocked, feeling like we are going to die.  Some of you may know what I’m talking about.  This is when it is imperative to have brilliant, compassionate helpers, when time takes on a different dimension and purpose, when everything we take for granted is tossed up in the air and we have no idea what will land in our possession again.  Our interior world becomes the most important thing, as the external world turns dark and fades away….  We look to the stars for guidance, we follow our own North Star, we breathe, we quiver, we heal.  It takes time, it takes internal wherewithal, courage, and Love, and it takes a community of help-ers, pray-ers, and love-ers in order for us to fly again.

Location, Location, Location

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I love this time of year!  After a bare, white and gray winter, the greenness seems amazing to my eyes.  From one year to the next I forget how many of our flowers bloom in May.  The colors, shapes, and fragrances are delightful to the senses.  This location we call home suits us well right now amidst the trees, among the flowers, and along with the wild creatures.

In a bird’s world, our yard and woods are a pretty good location to set up house, also.  There are eight pre-made houses to choose from, trees of all sorts in which to build a nest, a river nearby and various bird baths for water and bathing, and an endless supply of insects, seeds, and nesting material.  Unfortunately, in the bird real estate business, we have a tenacious bully.  The House Wren is an aggressive competitor for nests and will destroy eggs and young of other birds in order to take over that nesting spot.  Wrens are tiny birds, about five inches from head to tail, weighing only as much as two quarters.  Their exuberant, gurgling song is loud and persistent.  The Wrens show up a couple of weeks after the Bluebirds, who have already staked out the location that suits them best.  Wrens are the main source of nest failure in some areas for Bluebirds, Tree Swallows and Chickadees, but we witnessed some bold resistance to the real estate bully.  One of the wren houses hangs from the maple tree outside our dining room, and we happened to see a flurry of bird activity around the little house.  A male Bluebird chased the Wren into the house, then perched on the roof, seemingly daring him to come out again.

Then he even peered into the house.

Eventually the Bluebird left to attend to his own nest, and the Wren cautiously popped out of the house onto the ‘porch.’

A minute later, another flurry of wings–this time from a Tree Swallow defending its nest from the scalawag.

The male Wren will find a number of nesting spots and add twigs to them when he first stakes out his territory; later the courted female will inspect the nesting spots.  With all the negative reinforcement to stealing the others’ nests, the Wrens decided to build their nest in their hide-away place.  Both busy Wrens gathered twigs to add to the nest.

The ground below the house is scattered with small sticks that didn’t quite make it to the inside.

One of the most interesting nest-building practices of the House Wren is adding a spider egg sac to the final nesting materials.  It is speculated that after hatching, the young spiders eat any mites or parasites that tend to invade the nest when the young birds inhabit it.  Once the Wrens lay their eggs, the real estate battle abruptly ends; meanwhile, the Bluebird stands watch.

 

I’ve lived in a number of locations in four different states during my life so far.  Two of those states are birthplaces—mine and Chris’ and the kids’, which make them inherently special.  Each place also has a unique culture—Scandinavian, Pennsylvania Dutch, crossroads of America diversity, and German Catholic.  Each location has a beautiful ecosystem—prairie, foothills, rolling farm country, and lakes and woods.  Truthfully, I have loved them all.  Sometimes it’s not so much living in a place that suits us well but rather to become who we are supposed to be.  And places, cultures, ecosystems, and the people we meet there help us to do that.  We learn to attend to our own nests, to defend the things we hold dear, to stand up to bullies, and to watch over this beautiful, green Earth.