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The Old and New Seasons of Our Lives

January 1, 2018 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

“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!

Mystery and Gratitude

November 19, 2017 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” –Max Planck, physicist

Mystery: anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown. I’m not sure which is more mysterious—Nature or human nature. I guess it’s because they are one in the same. I drive Chris nuts sometimes with my wonderings: I wonder why they decided to put that there? Why did you cut the vegetables that way? Why in the world would people throw their trash out the window? I wonder what happened to that tree? Why do people have to be so mean? I’m not making a judgment on his vegetable cutting—I just want to know the reasoning behind it, if there is one. I’m curious, and I would like to understand the things I see and try to make sense of them.

My mystery thinking began this week after Chris put burlap around the Arborvitae. It is no mystery that deer love Arborvitae and will devour a good-looking tree into a malformed eyesore in one short winter. And thus, our very own mysterious Stonehenge, or Burlaphenge, rather.

I was also wondering why the leaves haven’t fallen off the Ninebarks, Lilacs, and Apple trees yet. They are the later ones to drop their leaves, but after snows and hard freezes, they should be down. But maybe that’s the exact reason they aren’t down—that it all came too early.

It is no mystery that November is grey and brown and kind of bleak looking. The summer vibrancy of Hosta leaves fold and dissolve into nothing, like the water-doused wicked witch of the west (now that’s a mystery!).

But all is not bleak on the November front with the interesting seedheads of Goldenrod, Hydrangea, and Purple Coneflowers.

I was wondering, of all the logs we have used as ‘steps’ in our hilly woods, why the pileated woodpeckers have suddenly attacked this one.

There is one mystery that I never question—I just take it in with gratitude—the amazing sunsets!

How do we problem solve and make our world a better place? First we have to be aware—we need to notice things, see things that are not working or are working beautifully, and get curious about it. We also have to step outside ourselves, put our biases and prejudices aside, and look at the situation with new eyes. We have to be our own third party. (What a difficult thing to do, I know.) Then we need to gather information and communicate—who are the experts and what do they say about this, what’s the data about this subject over time and many sources, where does this truly have an effect, when does a certain thing happen or in what situation, and then, the question of the mysterious why. Does that sound too scientific or experimental? Or like too much work? My hypothesis is that we all do it all the time but leave out some of the important steps. We make the results and conclusions fit the way we already think, slap our hands together, and exclaim, “Done. Well done.” But what is the impact to ourselves and others if our conclusion is a lie or has only a thin line of convenient truth in it? Are we willing to engage in dialogue about our conclusions? A mystery is anything that is kept a secret or remains unexplained or unknown. There are many things in life that should not remain a mystery—secrets that serve one and hurt others should be brought forth into the light of inquiry, examination, and illumination; unexplained conclusions that tout magnanimity but in essence do much harm should withstand a thorough and vigorous cross examination and accountability; and unknown things that we do not want to know should courageously be brought forth through the fences of resistance so we can stare them in the face, feel the full force and cost of their hidden, yet flawed power, and find relief and peace in finally knowing our truth. So get curious, gather information, communicate, examine, be courageous, and for those things that are truly a mystery—like sunsets and the pure wonder of Nature (and probably even cutting vegetables)—have gratitude!

Shifting Gears

September 24, 2017 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

We were still newlyweds when Chris taught me to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission. We had just bought a used 1981 Chevy C-10 1/2 ton pick-up truck. It was a bold red color—the only choice for a truck, according to Chris. The single cab and long bed (the standard back then) looked sleek and utilitarian and housed a ‘three on the tree’—a manual three-speed shifter on the steering wheel column! He drove us to a way-out-yonder gravel road north of Bates City where no extraneous traffic would interfere with my concentration, and then we switched places. He was a patient, methodical teacher, and I tried to be the good student that had carried me through all my years of schooling. But studying books and operating clutches are two different things! I don’t care to remember how many times I killed the engine before I even got going. There was gear grinding, bucking action, nervous laughter, and many “I’m sorrys” when I thought I was wrecking it. Trying to get the hand-foot timing down—letting off the gas, pushing in the clutch, moving the gear shift to the right position, then letting out the clutch slowly and giving it gas—was hard and frustrating. And how do you even get braking in there, too?

Fall is a time for shifting gears—luckily Mother Nature has done it more times than we know and does it smoothly and seamlessly. The growing, producing season is in decline; the fruits of that season are gathered or hanging heavily on the vine, ready for harvest. Internal systems in trees take their cues from the external world—length of daylight and temperature—to stop production of chlorophyll, which unmasks the carotenoids and anthocyanins that give leaves their fall colors and eventually causes the leaves to drop off.

Fall flowers provide needed nectar to insects that may be migrating, hibernating, or laying eggs for the last cycle before winter. One last hurrah of the repeat bloomer Stella D’Oro Lily entices a Monarch butterfly to linger and feed.

The beautiful ‘Fireworks’ Goldenrod attracts bees and wasps of all kinds.

Showy purple Asters bloom vibrantly as one of the late season stars of the perennial world.

A shift happens with the bird population. The summer birds have mostly migrated away—we no longer see the graceful swoops of the bluebirds or hear the incessant chatter of the house wrens. It is rather quiet on the bird front, though we heard a flock of geese just this morning. A quiet little guy visited the bird bath recently and seemed to be wondering where everybody else was also!

Spring fawns are losing their spots to a winter coat and are almost as big as their mothers. They are the reason we must be so diligent in guarding young trees and shrubs.

The male spotted fawn shifts to a ‘button buck’ as the pedicels form into small hair-covered bumps at 4-5 months of age that will grow into antlers next April or May.

With the patient tutelage of Chris and lots of practice, shifting gears with a manual transmission was soon second nature to me. The old ’81 Chevy was a stalwart worker for us for many years.

Fall not only shifts gears for plants and animals, but for us also. Some of us harvest and preserve food for winter. We start craving hot soups, pumpkin anything, and apple pie. We slowly and effortlessly morph from outside evening activities to reading or tv watching. Daylight and temperature influence our internal systems and our external choices, showing that we are an integral part of Nature that is often overlooked. Yet we also have a huge cortical brain that can override the more animal aspects of our existence. We can choose to shift gears! We can choose to migrate to a new place, choose to live in the way-out-yonder quietness or the busy bee metropolis. We can choose to be bold, choose our schooling, linger in darkness or seamlessly let our Light shine.

The Wall That I Built

March 19, 2017 by Denise Brake 6 Comments

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so disgusted with Trump’s billions-dollar wall—it is an act of self (country) preservation, albeit in a grandiose, extremely expensive way. And we all do it. We all build walls of one sort or another—literally and figuratively—in order to keep something out or in and to protect ourselves. It’s not that boundaries aren’t important—they are imperative to the working order and preservation of a person, family, company, or country.

We live across the road from an inactive quarry whose perimeter is lined with a six-foot chain-link fence with three strands of barbed wire above that—a daunting barrier to anyone who is looking to lift a piece of granite. (Actually ‘lifting’ a piece of granite is the hard part.) As daunting a barrier as it is, there are many breeches of that secure fencing in just the short area I walk by each day. Last Sunday’s snow made under-the-fence trails evident. This trail is used by a fox, as I have seen her cross the road from quarry to woods on the other side. It must be a daily route, because the snow and grass have a path worn into them. Rabbits also use this path which is probably just fine with the fox!

Other frequent visitors to our yard and to the places along our road are deer. I have seen deer jump over three strands of barbed wire that surround cow pastures, but the tall chain-link and barbed wire fence is another story—especially when the doe has fawns. So they made another way.

They go under the fence, too!

I have never actually seen them do it—it must be a limbo sort of maneuver since the fence is pushed up only mid-thigh high on a short woman, but the tracks tell the story. Wild turkeys also use this trail when making their feeding rounds.

The inactive quarry is like a refuge for the deer and other creatures. Occasionally trucks and humans rumble through, but for the most part, it is quiet and unoccupied.

It is a safe nursery for fawns—I saw a young spotted one curled in a ball under the brush one spring.

A fence surrounds our garden, mainly to keep out the rabbits. It helps to keep the deer out, but they have been known to jump the fence and taste the maturing vegetables.

Pallet wood compost bins keep most of the leaves, food scraps, and lawn clippings in while letting rain, air, and chipmunks in, too, but it keeps the dog out.

Even decorative fencing makes a person walk around, if legs aren’t long enough to go over.

Burlap and landscape fencing protects young evergreens from munching deer and drying winter winds.

Sometimes walls just mark a border and are low enough to slow us down, lift our feet, or cause us to stumble if we aren’t paying attention.

Walls, fences, borders, boundaries, and barriers are necessary for the smooth operation of gardens, lives, quarries, companies and countries. But can we go too far? And what is the price we may have to pay for that fortified fortress?

The black and white heart

Closing down–it’s easy.

It comes from years of practice.

I won’t let myself get hurt.

Walls are built–stone is best:

Cold and hard–impenetrable.

But just as hurt cannot invade,

No warmth penetrates the fortress.

Love is deflected; it lay

useless on the cold earth at my feet.

If only it would follow the rules

then maybe I would let it in.

But it doesn’t–I can’t predict the road ahead.

But the road and years teach–have I learned….

to see where sight loses its power,

to hear the heart instead of words,

to smell the freshness of old life,

to touch the touch of God and love?

I wrote this poem years ago when I realized that I had lost love and joy and laughter and goodness and power in my life in order to protect myself and try to keep myself safe. The problem was compounded in that I built that wall when I was a child, and it was a reaction and not a well-thought-out plan with pros, cons, strategies, ramifications, and budget considerations—love and/or money. The ‘mortar’ that kept the wall tight and upright was the lies I told myself about why I needed the wall—and when you repeat a lie over and over again, it becomes your truth….until I realized that the wall didn’t really protect me at all. I still got hurt, rejected, ignored, and abandoned. My benefit to cost ratio was abysmal. The fear and hurt that built my wall didn’t go away—in fact, it reverberated back to me a thousand fold. It didn’t protect me from the wounds of life—it probably made me more vulnerable. And the costs in love, joy, peace, fun, and happiness were more than I care to compute. Looking back, there were times when the wall was ascended, the fence was pushed up, the burlap ripped down—by the animals in my life. There are reasons why a horse is a girl’s best friend, why a dog is man’s best friend. Which gets us back to Love. Fear builds walls, and Love finds a way to scale them and tear them down. Wounded hearts and childish ways do whatever they can for self-preservation, but as we put our childish ways behind us, what are we if we have not Love? *

*1 Corinthians 13

Camouflage and Curiosity

November 6, 2016 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

One of our childhood games, as with most people I would guess, was hide and seek. Living in the country with four children in the family, it was the perfect get-outside-and-run activity with just enough ‘players’ to make it fun and last for a while, at least. I remember that giddy excitement after the designated person started counting—‘Where should I hide?!’ Or being the counter at the large pear tree, which I did slowly and deliberately, and finally yelling, ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ The seeking and the hiding both had an element of anticipation and surprise and would most often end in laughter, with only occasional arguments and crying. Yet I remember one morning when hide and seek wasn’t a fun game. When I woke up, I noticed my younger sister wasn’t in her bed, which was unusual. I went downstairs, but she was not eating breakfast or watching tv. I went back upstairs to look in her room, check under the bed, and look into my other sleeping siblings’ rooms. I felt the panic rising in my body. I couldn’t find her. I don’t even remember if it was summer, a weekend, or if my mom and dad were home or at work. After much frantic searching, I found her sleeping on the floor behind the couch. I was so incredibly relieved that I had found her, and she was safe. I know I asked her why she was there, and I know she had a reason that had made perfect sense to her at the time—but I can’t remember what it was.

Hiding is a survival mechanism for many animals in the wild. Camouflage by color—a rattlesnake or tree frog, and by shape—a walking stick or katydid, are common ways for animals to blend in with their environment in order to hide from predators. While driving along the gravel road at St. Croix State Park last month, we saw little creatures dart across the road and disappear into the foliage. ‘What was that?!’ I asked Chris. We slowed down and once again caught sight of one by the road but lost track of it when it moved into the woods. Finally a couple of them stopped, and we stopped, and I could get a picture of the Ruffed Grouse! They were so camouflaged with the surrounding environment that the camera had a difficult time focusing on anything!

These chicken-like birds with short legs and a crest of feathers are non-migratory, live in heavily forested areas, and forage for seeds and insects on the forest floor.

In spring, the males’ mating display includes a black ruff of neck feathers and fan-shaped tail feathers. Most notably, they stand on a log or rock and make a booming ‘drumming’ sound with the movement of their wings.

In winter, Ruffed Grouse eat buds of deciduous trees, roost in soft snowbanks for protection, and grow projections on their toes that act as snowshoes! The bird in the back of the photo has the crest of feathers up on his head.

Another woodland animal that uses camouflage is the white-tailed deer. The adult coat color blends in with the surrounding environment, and very young fawns with their white spots, hide in the brush while their mothers forage for food. Another characteristic of deer is their curiosity. As we hiked along a grassy road in the forest at St. Croix State Park, I looked up to see these three looking at us!

We stopped when we saw them, and I started taking pictures. The fawns were so cute and curious–it makes me smile every time I see these pictures!

They stood looking at us with bright eyes and attentive ears as long as we stayed still.

But when we began to walk slowly toward them, their ears flicked one way then another, and they looked around with wariness…

and soon scampered off into the woods.

Hide and seek. Camouflage and curiosity. Our mammalian brains are wired to ensure our safety. We take in cues from the external environment, just like the deer, and decide what is important, threatening, or dangerous. Most of this is accomplished without our conscious brain ‘knowing.’ This part of our brain is also where our emotions reside, which explains why I remember certain emotionally charged things about trying to find my sister but completely can’t recall other details surrounding it. I’m sure most of us can remember times in our lives when we just wanted to blend into the environment and not be seen or times when we wanted to run and hide—that is our brains working to keep us safe. Luckily, we also have a highly developed cerebral cortex that gives us the ability to learn, attach meaning, do abstract thinking, plan, predict, imagine, and choose, all within a sense of time, context, and empathy. Our brains are amazing! Within the confines of a safe place, our innate curiosity is unleashed, and we seek to learn about ourselves and the world around us. Childhood games and play are the training grounds for our minds and bodies for learning how to cope with our daily challenges. From our safe place, with curiosity, courage, and caring, we can yell, ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ and be prepared for whatever comes around the corner.

Gleanings from September—One Way then Another

October 2, 2016 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

I’m not very good at making decisions. I try to avoid the shampoo aisle at Target. I will think about all the possibilities and outcomes of choosing a particular thing, then look at the alternative in the same analytical way. One way, then another. Pros and cons lists. No wonder nobody likes to shop with me; heck, no wonder I don’t like to shop! It’s exhausting! Ask me to go somewhere? Let me think…. I also tend to make decisions based on how it affects other people in my life, which of course, is usually pure speculation on my part. I suppose that beast Perfectionism is involved–I don’t want to make the ‘wrong’ choice, but the beast’s offspring Procrastination often ends up the winner.

Ah, September! It is a month of one way, then another. The days are warm and sunny, then chilly and rainy. It is State Fair fun, then back-to-school schedules. It is green leaves, then daily changes to red, orange, and yellow. But there are some constants in September, like the does and fawns who make a path from the woods to the apple tree to eat up the sweet, fallen treats. Mmm, apples! And the fawns ‘losing’ their spots as their winter coats grow in long and thick.

September most often houses the Harvest Moon–the full moon that falls closest to the Autumnal Equinox.

Obedient Plant blooms in September. Each individual flower on the square stem can be moved one way, then another and remains in the new position.

Monarch Butterflies get late season nectar from the pretty Sedum flowers.

Tall, wispy-stemmed Cosmos flowers outside our picture window sway one way, then another in the breeze.

September brings the combined family groups of Wild Turkeys to our yard and woods. We can hear them scratching through the leaves on the wooded hillside searching for acorns before they emerge and stroll through the yard. The young ones are almost as big as their mothers, and they all make an impressive troupe.

They walk in a trailing group, heads down, pecking at things as they go. The mothers stand sentry to the group with raised heads, looking for potential danger.

Then they see something! A couple of the young ones see it, too.

The sentries stop and watch as some of the unsuspecting young ones head down the driveway. A black dog runs down the road, not seeing or minding the young turkeys.

Quickly the whole troupe turns around and walks in the other direction with purpose. No time for grazing with the threat of a dog around! They take a different path through the woods on their daily grazing journey.

September ushers in the harvest season–a time to reap that which has been sown. All the plants and animals, including ourselves, follow the instinctive, unconscious ways of Nature to prepare us for the winter season. We pick apples and pumpkins, corn and squash–whether from the orchards and gardens or from the markets and stores. We make sure we have our winter coats and boots. We check to see if the furnace works–and if it doesn’t, the freezing forecast moves that to the top of the ‘important and urgent’ list, beating Procrastination. Maybe this season for me is the season of ‘pretty darn good’ instead of perfect. Perhaps my internal sentry needs a vacation. The Autumn season ‘lets go’ of one way of doing things and shows us another way, a different path. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1.

Church on the Lake Wobegon Trail

August 28, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Last Sunday was a beautiful, blue sky day. The early morning temperatures were cool enough for me to don a fleece pullover and a Buff over my ears and under my bike helmet. It was a great day for riding the Lake Wobegon Trail! My bike riding would try the patience of any get-from-point-A-to-point-B-as-quickly-as-possible rider, for I will stop on a dime if I see something interesting along the trail. Luckily Chris is patient and good with the brakes.

Our destination/turn-around point was the little town of Avon. They have a nice picnic area, look-out tower, and restroom right beside the trail. As we neared the stop, we noticed groups of people carrying lawn chairs and blankets towards a newly built pavilion. This was the same spot we had seen Garrison Keillor perform his show a number of years ago for the people of Lake Wobegon. Today, in the new pavilion, a large wooden cross stood behind the microphone and music stands–it was church on the Lake Wobegon Trail! We stood with our bikes as the pastor greeted the outdoor crowd and gave a prayer of thanksgiving, and the small band of musicians and singers led the congregation in an uplifting song of praise. We didn’t stay for the whole service, as we had nine miles to ride back and a stop at St. Ben’s before the noon hour, but church on the trail stayed on my mind.

One of my sudden stops along the trail was when I saw an exquisite blue flower shining amidst the green grass ten feet or so from the bike path. What was this glorious wildflower?

It looked like it was in the bud stage, ready to open, like a Balloon Flower. But my after-ride searching found that it was Bottle Gentian, a native perennial that blooms in August and September–and this was full-bloom. The fused petals never open and are pollinated by bumblebees, one of the few insects strong enough to pry open the closed flowers.

Luke 12:27 Consider how the wildflowers grow; they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these!

Another wildflower in its full glory was Joe Pye Weed, along with its companion Goldenrod. We have a small patch of Joe Pye Weed in our woods, but it was wonderful to see it in its native state–in the boggy areas along the trail.

The flowers shone like amethyst and gold in the morning sun.

Psalms 103:15 A person’s life is like grass; it blossoms like wild flowers.

As I was looking side to side at the flowers, Chris had his eyes on the trail ahead and halted us both with a quiet exclamation of “Deer!” I have been so used to seeing does and fawns that it was surprising to see the velvety antlers of the young buck.

Psalms 18:33 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and sets me securely on the heights.

Another unusual sight stopped me in my tracks. Hanging low from a Linden branch not far from the trail was a papery nest….

…with a whole congregation of Bald-faced Hornets!

Spotted Jewelweed loves boggy areas and shade. This wild impatiens is an annual and often grows in large clumps. It blooms July through October and is said to be an antidote to poison ivy and a treatment for other skin disorders.

Proverbs 3:13-15 How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver, And her gain better than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; And nothing you desire compares with her.

“God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.” This quote is commonly attributed to Martin Luther and acknowledges that intimate connection between God and Nature. Frank Lloyd Wright said, “I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” The Bible uses Nature to speak to us about God, and it is in Nature–with the flowers, wildlife, and insects–that God speaks to us. Church on the Lake Wobegon Trail happens all the time–are we willing to see the splendor, to hear the prayer of thanksgiving, and to sing an uplifting song of praise?

May the God of peace grant us understanding and wisdom so we may be blessed with the fullness of Life more precious than gold or jewels. Amen.

Gleanings from July–Animal Behavior

July 31, 2016 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

Animals have always been such an important part of my life. When I was very young, we had a menagerie of farm animals–Holstein dairy cows, a black Mustang horse, chickens, cats, dogs, pigs, and sheep. Later in my growing up years we had a rabbit, ducks, cats, dogs, and horses. (I tend to leave out the hamster who I did not like–he was too squishy and mouse-like.) Horses were the best; I loved everything about them–brushing their dusty coats and tangley tails, feeding them sweet feed and fragrant hay, saddling and riding them through fields and woods, and even cleaning out and shaking fresh straw into their stalls.

July has not only been a month of flowers, but one of animals, too. The young Bluebirds who fledged the nest have been swooping to the ground to pick up insects, then quickly flying back up to tree branches, just like their parents.

The chattering House Wrens are on their second brood of young ones and spend most of the day hunting for insects for the hungry houseful. (See my post of wren babies fledging from the nest.)

When I was weeding the garden one day, a Leopard frog leaped out from under the kale and hid in the grass.

Have you ever seen your reflection in the eye of a frog?

Mother turkeys and their young broods have been wandering through the yard and woods, scratching and pecking for food.

A call from Chris one morning alerted me to come check out a field close to his work. I pulled into a field driveway, walked across the road, and saw a large community of Sand Hill Cranes! There were about forty in all, gleaning the kernels from the grain field.

Sandhill cranes mate for life, choosing their partners based on spring mating dancing displays. They live for twenty years or longer.

The young ones stay with their parents through the winter and separate the following spring, but can take up to seven years to choose a mate.

A pair of sentries closest to me, but still on the far side of the field, started making alarm calls as they watched me.

The others slowly began gathering and walking along the edge of the field.

This photograph of beautiful bird behavior, after the sentries sounded the ‘beware’ call, illustrates a variety of responses. The one in the middle is ‘shaking it off,’ the two adults in the back right seem to be discussing the problem–“what do you think–is that figure holding the black box really a threat?” and the young ones in the front are following directions–“walk to your left.”

I was fortunate to witness another display of articulate animal behavior in our front yard the other day. I saw a doe with her fawn grazing along the edge of our yard. (Look at the line of spots on either side of the spine.)

The doe stayed in much the same spot, and I hoped she wasn’t munching on the hazelnuts Chris recently planted. She was as sleek and healthy-looking as I’ve ever seen a deer, so she must have been eating nutritious food. (Hmm, some of our hostas had been eaten down to the stems…)

The fawn wandered out in front of the doe.

Soon he ventured out into the mowed part of the lawn, bucked, and kicked up his heels.

With cautious curiosity, he walked to the crabapple tree and nibbled on a few leaves.

Suddenly, something scared him, and he ran as fast as he could back to his mom! Immediately she started licking him. He stood close to her and continued to graze as she licked his back, reassuring him that he was okay. After a few minutes of that, he slowly pulled away to wander on his own again.

Then they slipped back into the woods.

I have learned many things about myself and life from all the animals over the years. Anyone who has ever been astride a horse that is spooked by something, knows in his/her body what the fight or flight response feels like. Consequently, one learns how to soothe the horse and let him know that he’s okay. If you have seen a mother cat caring for her kittens–nursing them, hunting for them, cleaning them, keeping them safely hidden when small, and teaching them to be on their own–then you know what parenting entails. We often forget that we are one of the many animal species and that we have much in common with them. So watch closely in the presence of animals–we can see the reflection of ourselves in their eyes.

Gleanings from August 2015

September 1, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

August has almost always been a month of transition for me–a transition from summer back to glorious school! Don’t get me wrong–I love summer–but I have always loved the excitement and anticipation of a new school year. Maybe that’s why I have twelve years of post-secondary education under my belt. Perhaps that is why for twenty-three years we have had back-to-school parties for the kids. But this August is different–nobody’s going to school. No school supplies, no parents’ night, no new classes, no move-in days….

I have been privileged this August to be in contact with two educators of a different sort. Neither is employed at a school, but both educate children and adults alike. Both are writers and speakers who embody the message they bring.

At the beginning of the month we were lucky enough to spend time in the far north at the Steger Wilderness Center.

Will Steger was one of the first people in the world to experience the effects of climate change in his Arctic expeditions, but recently he wrote, “We are all eyewitnesses now.” While we see and experience extreme weather events like the drying and burning of our western lands, flooding rains in eastern and midwestern regions, and erratic and unusual temperatures, do we know what climate change means to the moose or the tree frogs in northern Minnesota?

photo by LAn

Do we realize what impact it has on the aquatic life of our rivers….

or the wildlife and plant life in the old-growth forests?

How does climate change and human destruction of habitat affect the intricate ecosystems of the world? And how does all of that, in turn, affect our survival?

This is where the second educator comes in–we have to teach our children to love the natural world–even the people who are not directly exposed to it. At the end of August we attended a concert by local author and musician Douglas Wood. His books are well-known–Old Turtle, Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth and dozens of others for children. He has written inspiring little handbooks for adults, too. As a musician and song writer, Doug Wood also expresses his love for Nature and our Earth to the people who hear him sing and play beautiful acoustic instruments.

August brings flowers that are striking for their beauty like these Black-eyed Susans…

and for their beauty plus function, such as Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea) that have been used as an herbal remedy for flu and colds for hundreds of years.

August supplies us with food from our cultivated gardens and food from the wild Plum trees.

Mother Nature somehow uses temperature and humidity to synchronize August ‘nuptial flights’ when winged princess and drone ants leave their colonies and take to the sky to mate. The patch of grass in our yard seemed to be shifting and moving as the ants crawled to the tip of the grass blades to fly away from their nest to ensure outbreeding. The females store the sperm in a ‘sperm pocket’ that will eventually fertilize tens of millions of eggs over her lifetime, the male drones die after mating, and the survival of the colony goes on.

August is the month of new school years and new beginnings. Education is the foundation for our lives–the more we learn, the better able we are to understand the balance that Nature brings to our lives and to the lives of all the plants and creatures on the Earth. Doug Wood educates with his books and music–he teaches us to know and love the natural world. Will Steger educates with his explorations, writings, and living example–he reminds us that it is our moral responsibility to be good stewards of our Earth and to build a sustainable future for our children. We take care of the things we love. Learn to know and love Nature, for it is when we love something that we can move beyond ourselves in caring, in responsibility, and in action. And then, as Douglas Wood wrote in Old Turtle, Old Turtle and God will smile.

Gleanings from May 2015

June 3, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Our back door is almost like a door to Nowhere. To be fair, it does have a sturdy cement stoop and a granite-covered sidewalk that leads twelve feet to the left to the screened-in porch door. But you can’t get to the garage or driveway or shed without walking through grass and around corners. It is a thick wooden door with ten panels, two of which are carved on the outside. One carving is a vine design, and the other is a dogwood-looking flower and leaves. I’m sure it is the original door of this sixty-year-old house, and it shows the weathering of time and sun. It faces WSW, and when I open the door, light floods into the rather dark corner of our living room through a full-glass storm door. The door that leads to Nowhere is really a doorway to Nature’s incredible, changeable Beauty. In Winter, I can see the River, silhouettes of old oak trees, and glorious sunsets. In Spring, I can see my square of prairie garden, my raised herb garden outside the porch door, the shallow clay birdbath on a stump, hostas, ferns, oaks, cedars, viburnums, and other extraordinary plants that make up the woods and yard outside our door.

The month of May is the doorway to Summer. School is coming to a close, changing the landscape of family life for the next three months–or in our case, for the rest of our lives, as our youngest graduated from college. The external landscape changes drastically in the weeks of May, from tiny buds and leftovers of winter to the deep, rich lushness of Summer. By the end of May, we are looking at the possibilities, plans, and potentials of Summer!

One of the delights right outside our back door has been the bright anemones or wind flowers. This perennial herb and popular wedding flower symbolizes anticipation and unfaded love.

Close to the anemones is the pretty Nannyberry Viburnum with its clusters of white flowers.

Honeysuckle shrubs of every size and shape are scattered throughout the woods. White, pink, and dark pink blossoms cover the shrubs in a coat of color.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits are hidden treasures in the woods–hard to find, but ever so lovely and unique. Umbrella shaped Mayapples shade insects scuttling through leaf litter underneath them.

Fragrant Lily of the Valley flowers peek out from among the crowd of green leaves. Their stems of pure white bells make the most beautiful tiny bouquet to bring inside.

Leopard’s Bane and Dandelion roar into bloom with sunshine yellow in this month of May.

Along with May flowers that have adorned our yard, we have also had creature visitors. The first heavy rain of the month chased Leopard frogs into our deep egress window well.

A Pileated Woodpecker checked out each one of the mature spruce trees in our front yard. Their food of preference is carpenter ants.

These two young bucks, probably last year’s fawns who were very familiar with our yard, walked up the driveway one evening. They watched our Black Lab dog wander around the outside of the house oblivious to the visitors we sent her out to chase away! (Interesting fact: Their antlers grow up to 1/2 inch each day from April to September!)

A Cooper’s Hawk is back in the neighborhood, darting through the tree branches, perching, watching, and flying again. He was likely the hunter of the pigeon carcass I found.

May holds promise for a new season, a new chapter in Life, and renewed hope and adventure.

The month of May prepares us for Summer. It is a time to celebrate the end of school–for the year or for life–with parties and graduations. It is a time to celebrate anniversaries of unfaded love. It’s a time of anticipation for the warmth and fun of the Summer months that always go by too quickly. May is the doorway to a productive growing season of garden goodies and farm-raised crops and animals. As we open our doors to Somewhere–a place where the light illuminates the dark, where we find our niche among the crowd, where we carve our initials in our Tree of Life, and where we find our hidden treasures–let us step out in Beauty, Courage, and Love.

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