Category Archives: Seasons

Nuthin’s for Free

Some learn that energy is conserved, and that energy can neither be created or destroyed. Put another way, what you put into something you get out, you get what you pay for, or nuthin’s for free.

Since the late 1990’s, Google’s search engine has refined its ability to produce references to answers as we chase about the things we might or do need.

In the older days, librarians and their libraries played the role of producing answers to questions, and assisting in our research. Then we would have been climbing narrow dusty steel stairs in poor lighting to a fifth or sixth floor stack, where books organized by Dewey could be pulled from the shelves, and their pages explored.

Hopefully portions of solutions could be derived from the readings, often by tenacity and chance, when we would carry the books back down to the main floor and pay a fee to stand in front of a Xerox machine, shifting facedown open books and grabbing facsimiles of the relevant pages.

The time and effort normally allocated to investigation and research, now deferred to Google, whose distributed computing model is extensive, and mostly delivered with equity, at least for those who have access to the Internet.

But nuthin’s for free, even Google. In exchange, we stomach the search algorithm’s perceptions of what might prompt our attention through admittedly what seems to be mostly benign and unobtrusive advertisements.

Scary is that only days earlier when looking for vintage Campagnolo derailleurs, like a big brother, Google somewhat with bias, dishes up an alluring series of available and related bike components to consider among a seemingly non related query.

But mostly, when subtle and smart, I nod thankfully for the time saved. After all, better advertisement than paying a subscription to search for solutions from any of the search engines available these days.

Enter artificial intelligence, computing algorithms that have been trained by the masses to produce even more relevant searches to solutions of our problems, identifying vendors for derailleurs in fewer clicks, better quality, more reliability, even creating accurate prose that might argue why newer technology would make for a happier ride in comparison to the rebuilt relics that are preferred.

Now inspired to drop some money on the new technology, deserving to the selected bike shop is that shop’s agreement to pay a fee to the search engine, a sort of finders fee. After all, nuthin’s for free.

Enjoy A.I.’s seemingly accurate and timesaving production of information that benefits your lifestyle of choice. Eventually you will have to make a choice if paying for the information is worth your effort, because inevitably the precision and accuracy will be offered at a cost.

Otherwise, you will have to go old-school and figure out the solution yourself through experimentation and possibly serendipity.

Harold’s

Early fullness of a moon Venus’ elongation maximum garage doors pushed open hot humidity infiltrates big hair abounds a mellow couple pleasant British punk influenced resounds ringside two pull up chairs heavenward eyes twenty miles logged Erica mixes another salty margarita for a night ride home.

Snowbirds

Clunky thuds sound under the hopeful hammer of a woodpecker, frozen box elder bugs in beak’s reach. The birds are masters at winter living, masticated ice crystals keep them hydrated, downy air pillows under pine needles layer warmth; always busy these birds.

Mild days by his standard follow a surprisingly sustained bitter cold and snowfall that threatened early, penetrating the deep south, challenging many who are unaccustomed to the technology of layering, neck wrapping, stacking toboggan caps and fingerless woolen gloves under suede choppers.

Is it rectitude that initiates an ability to manage the grueling cold days of winter? Are the associated blue skies, as day’s length in slow ascent a helpful exchange? Does an opportunity for sleep warrant a healthier soul?

It is the depth of one’s breath, practiced patience, and focus that provides the meditative state necessary for winter’s survival. Like antifreeze, it runs within the entrails, circulating warmth, sustaining hibernation, until, inevitably, the longer days warm the air making habitable life again.

Five

Five fingers tall, curious or rejecting, as a circular gold salute, or as a siren blaring red, a gesture shaped by a contoured conversation which rendered music and people quiescent; an unanticipated rendezvous, again, possibly the fifth. 

Yet another colocation, this with a swift response, ten fingers tussle, words hidden, interplay sequestered, a story hinted; with respectful pause, then latency, four turned to two, then, you left, nothing said.

Entranced from what was once your perch, silhouettes crossing the darkened lot peer back with curious cadence, an anchored Hepburn skip, then spilling westward aside wooden blinds, stardust lost.

A scenic river tour now urbanized, music sought, rolling pedals over and over, winds calm, eyes open, singing, we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Imagined Empathy

Sun’s earlier rise welcomed, winter’s hold loosening, turkeys perched in the surrounding oaks rustle; arm cocked, elbow high to trigger the dark rich flow of caffeine; the wooden deck pops loudly under steady weight, expansion natural when warming; across a deep frozen but narrow river, a crackle is noticed westerly, assumed to be morning foraging deer, meditations of early settlers bank-side easy, until a muted metallic snap pierces the cold dry air; 

leafless and sagging tree branches span much of the snowy intersection, some 100 meters of undulation after a steep descent from where I now squat; two red laser dots reflect shakedly on the half open glass door behind;  as aims are refined, gasses stir in my stomach, heart rhythms shaken, enemy is no longer an illusion;

surrender pointless, I contort and slither across the doors threshold into protection and collect my weapons of defense which include inconspicuousness; fortunately partner and three of four pets heeded wise calls for a southern exodus;  for this hinterland homeland, a sustained unimagined attack is as real as the blue steel greed that caustically erodes long friendships, divides a fearful faltering nation, scraping away more than a half century of enlightenment.

Solstice Song

western solstice sun set
Looking west

Fluttering wings, sounding chippers and ticks, pecks on old boards, paint peeling, black seed baskets hung on aluminum wire from high branches invite the variety of winter birds, and squirrel.
Riverside, deer in herds stand unshaken as I pedal by murmuring melody with casual rhythm.
Pattering feet on oak floors, nails long and clicking, signaling intent.
Engaging animal spirit is therapy.

Oak Grows

Sensing the young oak tree grow the day after a soaking rain, its leaves erect and capturing the blue-skied sunshine, he reckons his curation as essential, and inevitably, lost in time.

Freezing Four

It’s pushing late autumn, early winter, the sun in the northern hemisphere has shifted its rise and set to more southern latitudes, days have given way to night, darkness is in the majority. The sun packs an energy punch, especially when farm fields are freshly harvested, and the dark soils shown, energy transferred as heat to the ground. Then those warm soils dissipate into the nearby air via convection, keeping the air temperatures moderate. At some point, however, it snows, the lands are whitened, and sun power is reflected away without air warming. Alberta clippers blow in from the northwest, cooling via evaporation both the snowpack, or any soils peeking through, as well as the tops of any bodies of water, such as a docile lake. That lake top water cools, considers freezing, and at some point its temperature drops to four degree celsius, a temperature where liquid water has some god given characteristic of being as heavy as it can ever be. Each bit of that four degree water, being heavier than any of its non four degree neighbors sinks, and in unison stirring up the water top. The convective winds continue to blow away heat from the lake top, more four degree waters fall deeper, until eventually, in an annual dance, the bottom depths are coated with heavy four degree water, the catfish thankful for a “warm” space to hunker down to bottom feed. In that dance, the top layers of water ice over, thinly at first, sometimes uncertain on whether to thicken, but as we all know in the northern hinterland, the lake freezes thick as winter’s convections, conductions, and reduced radiations throttle spring’s eventual return.

Nature Prevails

As our river house sees nearly annual snow-melt floods, the lowland becoming long soaked in murky waters, and when retreated, a muddy mess. With warmed air, deep-rooted grasses and indigenous ferns sprout first, claiming the land and shunting the growth of non-native weeds that had previously encroached the area. Later, with mild winds, top-heavy box elders crash to the ground, roots rotted by the repeated floods, nature prevails.

Listening to a Flood

A wet wet autumn, tossed flags, the listeners initiate awareness.

Running mildly, the river bifurcating metropolis spanning two northern states, grows heavy with lowered temperatures, its freeze atypical, the listeners remain aware.

Living in the Hinterland has its challenges, remote, fewer who articulate, more clustering, when its not in my backyard should I care, are you listening?

Days length grows, sunshine less oblique, air warms, in turn a frozen river thaws slowly, some become clarions for what will come, their motivations suggested as biased, struggling listeners await personal decisions to act, residing on longstanding easements and manufactured hopes.

It’s here, the river rises to a point of action, daily increase of volume suggest peril, most are hopeful, yet the river dwellers activate vigilance, knowing that a major flood extends over many weeks. From past events, these listeners prepare for a long haul battle.

Probabilistic forecasts based on history and current conditions are adjusted with silent frequency, arm chair quarterbacks challenge from a comfortable distance, no real skin in the game, relying on the suffering of others in advance, their warning.

This canary watches and waits, prepares for the worst knowing that few others will be bothered with his fight, but this, his preference. A cresting river and its highest flow rates approach, will it rain heavily at its peak, please, if you must, snow instead and stay cold; she does.

The ride to the peak is long coming, not surprising like a tornado, the prepared listeners resilient, how long can this crest remain?

The ride down, even longer, the days merge into nights, he walks the bag line inspecting for leaks. A stressed basement runs hard, newly installed sumps keeping up with the pressures of a high water table.

In a retrospective, the graphed peak is behind and offers a deep breath, he choosing vigilance, continues the careful monitoring, not relaxing until the river returns to her constraining banks, controlled, or at least an ample ways from the next crest.

Lady

The beautiful, so committed to beauty, you no exception.

Eyes unmatched, amber pockets bursting sparkles from within a green glow,
illuminated by the sun steeply setting over my shoulders.

A smile relentless, pearls set among a broad crimson suppleness.
Your face, geometric.

This is what all see first, many mesmerized, some eternally grateful.

Meandering Outdoors

A recreational plan is being developed by the Fargo Parks District for the quarter mile wide trench which will become a direct pressure relief valve for tens of thousands of welcoming homeowners in a proximity to the Red River of the North.

Reach 1 Artist Rendering of the Diversion Project at Fargo

By Tammyjoanderson.taft

Cyclists, runners, and horseback riders will navigate unencumbered, a meandering and contoured multi-use trail spanning the bulk of the thirty mile channel, enjoying spectacular summertime sunsets and far reaching thunderstorms that only the horizons in the Dakota’s offer.

Skiing groomed cross country trails under the brilliantly sunny January skies will prove again the robust resilience of the upper-midwesterner. Labrador accompanied snowshoers will be trolloping in heaven. Snowmobiles whirring by in the main channel demonstrate the friendlier features of the new electric machines.

Spanning the Red are two young smart cities, Fargo and Moorhead, both software-enabled, recursive innovation a key theme. Young minds, young bodies require the outdoors and music. Bring on the F/M Area Diversion Project, please.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo-Moorhead_Area_Diversion_Project

Meditating Squirrel

“Seems the ones that grow best are those the squirrels plant,” said the forestry guy offering proximal oak, dead standing and soon to be hewn.

The many oaks on the point are big and strong, spraying acorn biyearly, a sprouting white oak many years from participating, volunteers growing often at a disappointing rate, leaves diminutive and crowded.

What is their technique, depth, softened soil? Might the buried seed be cracked, enzyme triggered? Location genius?

Coded biological instruction: bury some fraction of the haul for tomorrow, that is for sometime beyond dozens of years, at a time when the individual squirrel is no more, only tribal progeny.

Meditate on that.

Poppy Plays Fiddle

Thermally crystalized water, snow layering ground, blizzard drifts exacerbate projections, melt, flooded river, flashed water, repeat.

The banks of the Red swelling, almost predictable, chance drives vigilance, sustained sobriety, then abating waters?

Sedimented ground, cracked polygons lingering until quenching rains moan and when under a warming sun, fiddleheads unfold into happiness.

Poppy-Plays-Fiddle

Apparent Brightness

It was not Neptune, but Saturn when her moons were glimpsed in alignment. Ten years ago, flashed instance not revisited, poetry shelved until reached for, dusted then opened. Quiet observation, retrospection without comment, keen, the universe her audience. After a musical rendezvous, the  tattered cashmere scarf blows from his neck spinning pedals home.

The pileated are more interactive when the river swells, their echoed reverberations chasing across the misty morning air.

Ice On

An early snow, brisk winds force only short outings for the two chihuahuas living under this roof, their thin tooties just not able to insulate, although Stray prefers nights out, his orange coat fully down and adapted from his feral days, now “domesticated” for what seems to be three years when we were adopted.

The bitter air comes early this year, overhead are heard the squawkings of southern bound geese, even in dark of night, the city light amplified by the low heavy clouds. Standing on the porch admiring the contrast of a running river against the semi-white embankments, imaginations of heavy snow has me donning skis for a riverside trek; then a fox slurries from Ruth’s blue spruces after hearing my boots crackle the icy wood below.

This morning Poppy heard silent howlings “Letmewin,” our six legs triggered to walk a maze to the sunny riverside door and calls greeted by a Stray after his trackings through five inches of teen degreed snow. Waggling hard pacing alongside the cat, smelling and kissing on what he imagines are remnants of meesies ingested overnight, Stray bold, gentle and without concern aims for the bowls of dry food that “those indoor kitties choose to eat,” and freshly milk poured.

Winter’s entry this year in the Hinterland has flavors of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, sort of racy and settling chords of inevitability, of the need to sustain a pace in order to exit the other side to springtime. Hunkering down was seen in this years festival of the oaks where spawned acorns suppled armies of squirrels and deer, and with the numerous birds who enjoy the black oil seed only to cache them away in remote locations that somehow they revisit in time.

Critters frequent the landscape between the house and river where comforts are numerous: Woodpeckers peckering on the downed trees whose demise the result of contiguous spring-time snow melts of overwhelming proportion, tree bases soaked and stifled, aforementioned fox, squirrel, days ago a deer languishing, snow on its back and sauntering between seed baskets and locating the cups of seed thrown in her direction, activity that generally is reserved for the nesting turkeys that have now retreated to the wind-protected refuges upstream.

This early winter deprived change in the leaves, instead stinging their green with seventeen degree air, curling and sizzling their hue away, many ash leaves left clinging, while the heavier oak leaves fully defoliated, the sun’s rising shadows, long, illuminate a river now frozen, with another night and subsequent morning, I have to ask “Where is Stray?”

Without Beer

Without beer, what is music –
Live, outdoors, wind swept sunsets, thousands
Forever seeking, redirecting, the music pours as a thin veil
Memories triggered, driving to Colorado,
a CD becomes a friend, its pulsed beats, revisited lyrics,
Evaluated players impressing, smiles, cheers
Waves of opulence stir emotions,
Without beer, what is music?

Abundance

With more, fear of loss, conservatism, not the relax of shared abundance.
With more, anxious pride, superiority, not humility nor secured comfort.
With more, righteousness is assembled to preserve their perfect world from dilution.
With more, new wealth segregate and climb into deserve, church fails.
With more, we seek greed, hate overwhelms, brotherhood transforms to selfish populism.

Serendipity

Staring up and dodging water droplets which fall as condensate, outside temperatures very cold
Guarding, resourceful, a desire to meaningfully contribute to a curious solution
Scratching ponder, a picture captures a moment with celebrity backdrop
Aside in a paused stand, politeness is manifested, then into the brown warmth a deep dive
Both iris glisten with a twinkle, a discovered past anticipated
Intentionally, interaction follows into a regular pattern of discovery, fingered words distant
Method new and mellow, into life’s return the slow goal.

My World Spins

My world spins
    sun illuminating fractionally
heated surface alternating obscuring clouds
    weather pulsing change, predictable(?)
dormant days, followed by extreme
    life folds into the available
inertia barely controlled
    patterns ephemeral
jet stream, eddied dissolve, stochastic
    elbows bleed in abrasion
death managed said the fool
    yet skies whisper inevitable
soon rises sun, daylight
    shattered, a tree branch splashes river running
floated drift,
    hosting the occasional reptile sunning
utility until tumble falls
    soaked, buoying deeper, soggy deteriorent
electricity gravity agents apparent
    particularly as lightnings strike.

Oak Leaves Fall

Shimmering rain, consistent melody, waning Gibbous split by the branches of a red pine tall, as a highway the river ushers fallen leaves downhill, their proximity consensus established eventually layering the river bottom below, coldest mid morning air yet, frost thin on adjacent roof top, a harmony of sun, moon, wind, water, trees, leaves, my two feet in slow riverside, accompanied by a sweet young chihuahua intent on living.

Riverside

Shared space, trees before I quietly fall, pushed over by winds wet, the dry rot recorded in its spring floods of old, box elder mostly while ash or willow provide crutch, western sun steepened by age, summers memories settle until shadows no more.

Neptune

Outer limit, first predicted, blue orb, methane, earth-like core, cold winds stir discourse, rings invisible 30 AU, on Moons shoulder.

First Flight

Sliding from the top of a large white balled light post, a robin’s perch precarious,
Squawk, squawwk, squawwwk, another two birds work distraction from nearby branches.

Stray-kitty ponders the toy morsel, plump from its Ma’s attentive feeding, worms abundant in this riverside haven, fresh rains have top soil moistened for the savvy winged workers.

Realizing an apparent ground fodder, I whisk the tired but wide-eyed cat from its playful perch looking down atop the hill and the young robin, he seemingly content to let the frightened youngster alone.

Wondering if bruised or maimed, I make periodic health checks between coffee sips, chihuahuas wrestle, and some email, the morning sun shining obliquely on this hallowed solstice day.

Mom now continues mild mannered chirping on a branch above, a blunted worm hanging from its mandible, but the babe now not obvious, however her tenor convinces me that all is fine.

img_0025.jpg

The grass cut, winters sugars exhausted, the shallow plane making for either small two legged or four legged critters a chance to bounce uninhibited across the cool damp morning grass, mom dropping down to the base of a favorite box elder, bushed heavily by spring growth, that worm an offering to the youngster who emerges unscathed.

Popping up and down with relative joy, baby bird wanders in and out of the sun and into tall green grasses, mom demonstrating flight to a vertical branch in a nearby tender pile which awaits a blazing, her cajoling bit by bit, by day’s end, nubile junior has become a master flyer.

Eventually

Eventually, all fossil fuels on Earth will be consumed, their gaseous byproducts absorbed in the atmosphere, some sequestered to the seas.

Eventually, all fissile elements on Earth will be depleted, technology designs slowing that depletion,  reliance on local energy innovated with necessity.

Eventually, the Earth will not support the requirements of the human species, as procuring water, air, and food become challenging, persons of higher class will manage self importance as rights that dominate.

Eventually, the meek will become blessed and the Earth will be their’s to inherit.

Eventually, the Sun will cycle in death to engulf the Earth, all memory lost to those generations whose progeny escape to other habitation.

Eventually.

Trumpeters

Flying high, wing span impressive, organized as a vee, their path intercepting, the work to get to this stage of the journey, the last hundred miles, not by chance.

Instinct and intuition alone is not enough to manage any of the abrupt delays in a trek north, gravity, fluid dynamics, and magnetism in control.

Gone now from overhead, their trumpeting persisting in a blue chilled sky, a river thaws below, Poppy circling as a toy bone is thrown repeatedly, his energy perpetual.

Blue blue eyes bright, watching watching the sky above, curiously resolving, knowing knowing that time stands still when darkness appears, wide eyed he let’s go into the pause of time.

R.I.P. Pappa