Spring Will Come

Often times when I walk across the street to get the mail in the cold air with deep snow covering the ground I tote back seed and garden catalogs addressed to my wife. I don’t have a green thumb, but she does, is included on several mailing lists, and now shows signs of itching to get out and start digging. Just the other day our thermometer registered 20 below, and she was rummaging around to find her little starter flats. She had seen to it a couple of weeks ago that I buy potting soil at Menard’s, and her seeds were already on hand. With a planter rack placed by the sunny patio door, we now watch the tiny seeds sprout into skinny little tendrils. I’m reminded of an Indian snake charmer who blows melodies on his flute to entice a cobra to slowly uncoil and rise from its basket. There are probably two dozen little compartments in that starter flat and each is properly identified with a little name tag, namely geranium - hot pink, geranium - red, spinach, and lettuce. Now, mind you, this is only the beginning of her seed germination efforts. Before she is done that rack will groan with the weight of as many flats as can be reasonably squeezed onto its crowded shelves.

Long ago when I was the little boy I remember watching with fascination Dad’s placing of grain seeds into a damp, rolled cloth and setting the bundle in the southern window of our house. I learned an early lesson at that time about percentages; he counted the number of seeds he placed in the roll and after a few days could see how many of them had sprouted compared to the duds and came up the the percentage of germination, a figure that is still important for a farmer to know. It’s been a long time since I’ve inspected the tag on a bag of seed grain, but the last I saw that number is listed.

I know Mary’s dreaming about making the yard come alive with her plants and flowers which in turn draw lots of bees, birds, butterflies, etc. We watched a great program on public tv last night that focused on the migration of the Monarch butterfly. They are a remarkable creature. In the fall they migrate 2,000 miles from Canada to a small spot in Mexico, and nobody knows how they do it. Their targeted spot has been set aside as a reserve by the Mexican government, but, of course, thieves come and go with their illegal cutting down of the trees the butterflies depend on. It so happened the night before my old college friend Jens called from Nebraska. We hadn’t visited for a few years so we reminisced about quite a little. One event came back regarding a summer school session we attended: he was enrolled in an entomology course and needed to collect bugs to identify and display. We had the perfect solution. He drove along a country road and I held a net out the passenger window over the tall grass on the shoulder. Occasionally we would stop and inspect our catch and usually caught up quite a collection, butterflies included. To lubricate this scenario we several times took an empty gallon jug into a little hide-away bar where the bartender filled it with tap beer for a dollar and away we’d go. Those were the days we talk about.

With all past things aside, this summer we again look forward to our little property coming alive with growing things and beating wings.

A New President

What else could be more interesting to write about than yesterday’s presidential inauguration, an event of historic proportions that really gripped the country as evidenced by that huge mass of people who gathered standing in the cold to witness it first hand. I watched on television much of the day from the comfort of an easy chair with a computer on my lap so I could write and record these thoughts. The throngs of people expressed high spirits of hopefulness and expectations of a better future. To me it is obvious that common folks feel an empowerment that they had not felt for some time and that they will be well represented in the Office of the President by an honest, intellectual executive.

From my read of history I couldn’t help but be reminded of the stories surrounding the inauguration of Andrew Jackson. A well-known name, Daniel Webster, made this observation: “Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger!” Jackson didn’t want much commotion since his wife had died not long before this, but he couldn’t stem the enthusiasm of the people. Right after he was sworn in the crowd pressed upon him so tightly that he had a difficult time escaping. A near riot developed and they headed to the White House, entered without being invited and proceeded to wreck the place looking for food and drink. After a time White House servants baited the revelers to withdraw from the building by serving wine and ice cream on the lawn.

When Teddy Roosevelt assumed the presidency after the assassination of McKinley he created a fury shortly thereafter. He invited Booker T. Washington to dine with him in the White House. Some southerners thought this was a terrible affront. What would they think now that Obama sits in the Oval Office?

A book in my personal library contains all the presidents’ inaugural addresses. I have looked at them and thought as I listened to Mr. Obama’s speech that it was of average quality. More ear-catchy statements have probably been made by others, i.e. Kennedy’s “... ask not what your country can do for you— ask what you can do for your country,” FDR’s “...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,”or Lincoln’s “With malice toward none, with charity for all... .” However, Obama uttered solid words which he will now need to back with deeds and action. He has told us repeatedly that there is much to do and it will take a long time before improvement can be seen, but I remember one of his statements where he implored America to get up, dust themselves off, and begin again.

I couldn’t help interjecting myself into Washington after I saw a news item this weekend. Cameras caught Bush landing for the last time onto the White House lawn in his helicopter. In the background stood the Washington Monument, tall and white in the distance. I made sure to look to the top of the spire and note the tiny window just under the roof line. Only a few years ago I, the tourist, peered through that window towards the White House and saw the same helicopter land where Bush and his wife stepped onto the grass. Now I can say I’ve seen the event from two different directions.

My hope for the future is that at the end of eight years there will be as great a feeling of good will towards President Obama as there is presently.

Remember the Memories

With some mild respite from the weather, I can think about other things this morning, even though after I’m done writing I will go out to move some snow around, such as that which has piled up on our deck, our roof line, and other piles that don’t belong where they lay. I experienced a bit of synchronicity last night as I sat reading with one eye and watching a public tv program with the other. The chapter in the book I was reading from bore the title “Writing from Memory;” the tv program’s title was “Colorblind.” It was about an elementary school class from Detroit, MI that experienced the tutelage of a great teacher who happened to be African-American. One of the class members, prompted by her curiosity, started contacting members of the class to reminisce about their experiences in school and how their teacher guided them through their mixed feelings of racial problems during the time of Martin Luther King’s murder.

It might be a bit of a stretch to compare the theme of the program to the material I was reading, but the relationship stood out for me. One quote from the book states, “If you are open to a short safari into the Country of Memory just fifteen minutes will give you enough things to write about to last all morning.” Like those students mentioned above who revived strong memories, I know I can conjure up images and feelings from the past without much trouble. For example, I saw myself as maybe a six or seven year old on a Saturday night when a fellow youngster told me there was a bum sleeping in the old stockyards on the west edge of town. We wanted to go see in the worst way, but parental influence dissuaded us from that. Another time someone told of laying a nickel on the railroad tracks, then after the smoke-belching steam engine and its train had passed, picking it up all squashed and flattened. They, trying to talk me into doing it, met resistance; a nickel bought a single-dip ice cream cone. I wasn’t going to waste it on a train. One other time, the school superintendent came to tell us to stay out of the grain elevator over the noon hour. It seems one of the older students went into the alleyway and fooled around with the manlift. It’s counter-balance was set for the weight of the employee, and when the student got on he shot to the top of the elevator in very fast time.

Now, I’ve gone and opened a gate and the memories are running through like hungry calves to their mothers. I’ll take the space and tell of one more. A grain elevator that used to sit in Sheldon was purchased and moved to a farm site south of Casselton. I can still see it being jacked up and hauled slowly away and think of it each time I pass the spot where it presently sets.

Since I want to spend time researching and writing other things I need to cut back on time thinking and writing blog-things. Instead of posting this several times each week I am going to cut it back to once a week, most probably on a Wednesday. Abe Lincoln once said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” I need to free up those first four hours.

The Sky Continues to Fall

The headline on the front page of the Bismarck Tribune says it all this morning: Sky Continues to Fall. We’re at the five foot depth and it’s only January 14. Emerson’s poem “The Snow Storm” says it well with these first few lines:

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
...
I start to dream of better times and better places. Some show on the Travel Channel, Anthony Bourdain’s I think, pictured a fellow in a foreign location carrying a quarter of meat from some critter on his shoulder on the way to the barbecue pit. That image took me back to Wyoming and the elk hunting season, 1969, in the Wind River Mountains. I hooked up with a local hunting party to grunt and climb in that rough terrain and admit to having had a good time experiencing it. My friend had purchased a pack burro from somebody who bested him on the deal. The beast had a set of broken down pasterns and fetlocks that creaked and dragged on the ground with every step, so much so that it was decided the animal could carry but little weight. This was decided after one of the party did bag a large bull. Beasts of burden were not in plentiful supply, so yours truly got to shoulder one of the quarters and hike out a couple of miles to the nearest pickup.

One of the men decided he was hungry and started slicing raw meat off the animal and doling it out to us to hold over a small fire to barbecue on the spot. Without salt, pepper, and tenderizing we could as well have been chewing on shoe leather. As I write I remember one other amusing thing. When I went to slide my rifle into its case I realized I never would have been able to hit an animal if I tried. It was missing the front sight. I could just as well have shot with my eyes closed.

Those memories came back and to add to the reverie our next door neighbor called last night all excited telling us to look out a back window. Two deer were eating on dried flower vines right next to our house. If a window had been open I could have reached out with a fly swatter and touched one of them.

More Snow and Thoughts

I joined the Rooster Tail Society again this morning. A one-day blizzard came through yesterday afternoon and evening and left deep snow in places that necessitated cranking up my John Deere blower again. I was thinking today that we are really getting set up for a catastrophic winter storm. If we’d get one of the infamous three day blizzards that can hit this area it would really do a lot of harm to livestock, wildlife, and people. It is only January and a lot of bad weather can strike for the next three months. I hope it doesn’t happen.

I’m not in too bad a physical condition, but I still get tired messing around with the snow. It saps mental energy, too, and leaves many things pile up on my desk that I want to get done. I’ve got lots of books to read and poems to write. I’m writing a “cycle” of poems that deal with the earliest white settlements and activity in my home area. I just finished one that deals with an interesting, though tragic, event. When Fort Ransom was still a viable installation being served by the ox cart freighters that interest me it so happened that a huge prairie fire swept down on an encampment of Indians near the fort and at least twenty were burned to death. Two little girls tried to flee the fire with a cart trying to get to the safety of a spring. Their cart struck a rock and overturned:

A glowing-orange ribbon
colored the far horizon
long after the setting sun
ceased to paint the sky. The men
worried where it burned and if
it may block their trail and wrap
them and their slow train in flames.
***
Strong winds drove that blaze for days.
It closed on the Indian
camp near Fort Ransom to taste
its sweet, screaming flesh, then chased
two girls fleeing in a cart,
catching them when a wheel broke.
They and eighteen others died.

Back at My Keyboard

Yesterday I joined the chorus of members of the Rooster Tail Society, that is, the many of us who went about arching plumes of snow through our snowblowers. Two more snowstorms have been predicted to pass through next week, followed by low-dipping temperatures.
...
I read a thought-provoking article recently that stated the gene pool in wildlife is being weakened. No longer can the strongest of the species survive to pass on their characteristics --- they are the quarry of hunters out to bag a trophy to hang on their wall.
...
I agree with our president-elect's seeming strategy of lowering expectations by telling us it will take awhile before things get better economy-wise. If he goes into office painted as a superman out to swiftly right wrongs, we will all get disappointed in him real fast.

January 7, 2009

A man with a duck on his head walks into a doctor’s office. The nurse asks what the doctor can do for him. The duck answers, “I want him to get this guy off my ass.”
...
A headline on an article in today’s local paper caught my eye, “More cows in the sales ring.” The sub headline stated, “Rising market value, inclement weather prompt sales increases.” Kist Livestock Market in Mandan serves as the major market for area farmers and ranchers and always bustles with a high amount of activity, but today they are expecting more than 6,000 head to run through their auction ring. A normal sale would see fewer animals than that. Mary called my attention to the article this morning and noted that yesterday afternoon when she drove by the entrance to the sale barn many pickups hooked to cattle trailers were parked on Memorial Highway waiting to turn into the long driveway and get to the unloading docks. Problems surround the cattle producers in a hard winter - water supplies icing over, cattle consuming larger quantities of feed, slower weight gain, hay costs for those in short supply approach $110 per ton delivered, etc.
...
Newsweek says, “Give Us a Sonnet, Doggonit.” The writer here speaks in reference to the upcoming presidential inauguration where sometimes a poet has been asked to present an original piece. She mentioned JFK’s ceremony where Robert Frost could not read the poem he composed because the winds kept fluttering the pages. I remember that time, and I believe he was also having trouble seeing the print because of the harsh glare of the sun. At any rate, he scrapped that effort and recited another one of his poems from memory.
...
In the same magazine a full two page picture caused me to stare in dumb solemnity. A four year old girl is being laid into a crypt by two men after she was killed in the most recent Israeli-Palestinian fight. Her body is wrapped in a green shroud, but her face is unadorned, and except for the trickle of dried blood coming from an unwashed nostril, she appears to be asleep.

Wildlife

The deep snow affects the wildlife around here. Yesterday morning I looked through the glass of the patio door and saw a yearling deer casually rummaging through the compost pile on the back corner of our lot. I believe she found good grazing in there since she stayed for several minutes. Then a half hour later I looked out the picture window to the street in front of our house and there walked a pheasant rooster as if he were the grand marshal of his parade.

In the research project I’m now undertaking I found an item of high interest regarding wildlife in my home area. In a publication I had ferreted out someplace with the publication date of 1909 I found this tidbit as seen from a hilltop then known as Okiedan Butte five miles south of Lisbon: “Colonel Creel, ..., then in the United States regular army, in the early sixties [my note - that would be the 1860's] had his command surrounded by an immense herd of buffalo and had to wait several hours for them to pass. He stood on Okiedan Butte for over four hours with his field glass, watching the herd pass. It was a solid moving phalanx extending in every direction beyond the vision of the glass. He estimated the herd at several hundred thousand. They were on their annual migration south to spend the winter.”

It’s hard to imagine that mass of buffalo moving in that area which is now all farmland, shelterbelts, and homesteads. Here’s another story of interest: “Large game used to be plentiful in the sand hills of Owego. In 1883 Clark Brooks and George Severson went into the hills for a hunt. George stepped on the log of a fallen tree and was peering through the prickly ash to shoot a ‘cotton-tail’ rabbit, when a monstrous cinnamon bear rose up erect within six feet of him. George says he could not run because the briers on the ash were so thick. It will never be known which was the more frightened, George or the bear.”

There are so many interesting stories of life in those settlement pioneer days, and I enjoy finding them.

Happy New Year

I haven’t spent a lot of time formulating new year’s resolutions except to keep on having fun. I’m still remembering how it seems like yesterday when we were worried about what the new millennium would bring, and now that’s been eight years ago already. About the only thing we know for sure is what has happened in the past.

One hundred years ago - 1909 - Robert E. Perry reached the North Pole, Federal spending totaled .69 billion dollars, a first class stamp cost .02 cents, Pittsburgh defeated Detroit in the World Series, and Marconi won the Nobel Prize for developing the wireless.

Seventy-five years ago - 1934 - Hitler became fuhrer in Germany, Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger were eliminated, the Dust Bowl calamity occurred, Federal spending totaled 6.54 billion dollars, unemployment stood at 22%, a stamp cost .03, the St. Louis Cardinals defeated Detroit in the World Series, and Enrico Fermi bombarded uranium with neutons.

Fifty years ago - 1959 - Castro assumed power in Cuba, Alaska and Hawaii became states, Federal spending was 92 billion, unemployment was 6.8%, a stamp cost .04, Dodgers defeated the White Sox in the World Series, Texas Instruments developed the first integrated circuit, and the dark side of the moon was photographed for the first time.

Twenty-five years ago - 1984 - A gas leak in India killed 2000, the Bell System was broken up, Reagan was re-elected in a landslide with 59% of the vote, unemployment was 7.5%, a stamp cost .20, Detroit defeated San Diego in the World Series, and Apple introduced the Mac computer.

So it goes. Who knows what 2009 will bring, but at the least I can wish everyone a Happy New Year!