Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Finding Our Way

The original Jurassic Park movie contains the line “Life finds a way.”  I utter those words to myself repeatedly when I’m working or hunting in the woods and fields that I call home, though I tend to tweak it a bit by muttering, “Nature finds a way.”

Have you ever observed how desperately nature wants to survive?  Consider plants; I never stop being impressed by the will, patience, and ingenuity plants use to maintain their life cycle.  A large area of aspen forest on the northern border of our property was clear-cut by loggers last summer.  Lush, shaded land became scalded and barren…until this spring.  The area that used to be popple trees, hazelbrush, and ferns now grows wild roses, raspberries, timothy grass, and clover, to name the few plants I recognize.  None of those plants used to grow there - so where did they come from?  My best guess is the seeds were there, patiently waiting for an opportunity to grab some sunlight and space.  But for how long, and how did the seeds arrive in the first place?  The mysteries of nature.

What isn’t a mystery is the new-growth aspen that already dominates the flattened landscape.  Aspen trees are one of the largest organisms on Earth because of their massive interconnected root systems.  It’s nearly impossible to kill a popple tree; cut one down, dozens of new trees sprout up from the original’s roots.  Fascinating, but also irritating, as our cleared trails through that forest immediately became choked with young trees this spring, popping up from the hidden roots we’d been driving over for years.

Aspen are not the only survivors in the tree family.  We planted hundreds of oak trees on our property about ten years ago.  For several years they all looked dead...until suddenly they began leafing out…at which point the deer found out how delicious they are.  Year after year the oaks push up new growth only to have the deer chew it off.  The other day I noticed a small oak leaf peeking up through masses of birds-foot trefoil; an oak that had been eaten off to the ground was pushing up a whole new sprout.  I put a tree cage around it and tipped my cap to it’s stick-to-it-iveness.

Our pine plantations contain trees that have been pushed over by wind; rather than die the tree simply pours its energy into lower “branches”, sending them straight up to become the new tree.  Land that was cow pasture for decades has now, in a few short years, sprouted nearly a dozen different species of trees and an untold number of wildflowers and grasses.  And on a favorite lake a deadhead, a broken tree sticking out of the water hundreds of feet from shore, grows a single sprout with three leaves, refusing to let it’s desolate situation stop it from reaching new heights.  Nature finds a way.

Animals, too, display a powerful will to survive.  When I hunt I am extremely careful to take only high-quality shots out of respect for the animals I shoot at.  Unfortunately a few of those shots still miss their mark.  While I am always regretful of a less-than-clean kill (and for the record, there haven’t been many), I marvel at how a wounded animal refuses to give up on any chance at survival.  A deer with two broken shoulders will push itself through the woods away from danger, a grouse with a broken wing will do the same.  Neither species takes a hit and throws up a white flag.  A wounded animal becomes a much harder animal to kill because of its complete focus on survival.

What about our species, homo sapiens?  Specifically the Americanus variety – do we have the strength to “find a way” to survive?  I’m not sure we do, demonstrated perfectly this past week.  A wounded American appears to become a much weaker American; we take a hit and react with blame, protest, and riots.  Emotion replaces stoicism, the former much weaker than the latter.  We want change given to us and we want it RIGHT NOW – refusing to patiently seek the right path to new growth.  Rather than gain strength through interconnectedness we fracture ourselves into groups that “matter”, pitting one group against another.  Our leaders, and our potential leaders, seem to prefer moving crookedly through the shadows rather than standing straight and reaching for the sun.  We are a mess…but nature doesn’t care.  Nature continues it’s simple determination to survive while the most “intelligent” organisms on the planet stumble all over themselves.


My dad said it best last week as we drove home from a peaceful evening on the lake – “It’s no wonder we’re going nuts in this country when so many of us are piled up in cities and towns without a chance to experience what true peace really is.”  Slowly, calmly, peacefully, nature finds a way.  I am completely convinced that nature is the way…the way to peace, the way to survival, the way to live.  We all need to find a way to experience and observe nature as much as we possibly can – its lessons might be our only chance for a better future.

Monday, July 4, 2016

A blog about nothing

I didn’t write a “blog about nothing” in June….actually, I didn’t really write a blog about anything in June…so on this Independence Day I’m declaring the freedom to post two blogs about nothing in July.  Deal with it.



**I've spent the holiday weekend at my parents' farm, the place I still call home.  I write this in the screen porch that sits on the east side of the house.  The picture above is my view.  The dappled morning sun filters through the silver poplar (below) that has had a love/hate relationship with my parents since we moved here almost 30 years ago (Mom loves it, Dad hates it).  The only sounds are bird song and breeze...and my parents arguing over the #$@# silver poplar.  Oh, and the sound of a sapsucker that constantly hammers on a fencepost at the edge of the yard.  Not sure about the mental capacity of that bird - he's been shot at several times (sapsuckers are tree killers, despite what naturalists and the MN DNR will try to tell you) and he's been getting no benefit from rapping on that post...but he pounds on it all day long.  Apparently insanity is not exclusively human.

**My trail cameras went up yesterday, finally.  Usually I put them up around Father's Day but just didn't get to it until now this year.  I started using a trail camera about eight years ago and have slowly added more; my fifth camera arrived on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago.  I put two out yesterday and will put up one more after I finish writing this - they won't all go out until October.  The cameras have become a great summer hobby for my dad and I, allowing us to get a good idea of the deer population on the property while also giving us the chance to see all the bucks we won't shoot in November.  "White Legs" was our favorite deer - we had hundreds of pictures of him over three different years as he matured from a six point to a big eight point, but we never saw him with our eyes.  On the other hand, we had two pictures of a really big ten point last year that I saw, my dad saw, and our hunting partner shot.  Some deer live smarter than others...and longer.

**Early July on the farm is wildflower time.  Oxeye daisies, birdsfoot trefoil, alsike clover, and black eyed Susans are all in full bloom right now (and many others, but those are the varieties I can name). Yes, much of what's blooming is considered a weed, but it's hard to look the beauty around here and think of a weed patch.  I've occasionally wondered how we (society) would be able to return to a calendar system after the world ends (I did say "occasionally"...I'm not as nutty as the sapsucker); how would we ever figure out dates and such if we went through a long stretch without watches and calendars.  Nature would have to be our guide - the spring and fall equinoxes, the blooming of flowers, the ripening of berries - these events would become our calendars.  I've tried to get my daughters to start noticing these events much sooner than I ever did; looking at our possible choices for the next president makes me wonder about the end of the world a lot more than I ever have.

**Speaking of berries, the strawberry patch in the garden is pumping out oodles of fat, juicy berries.  My girls and I picked six gallons of strawberries on Saturday, and we will raid the patch one more time today before we leave.  I've found a few wild strawberries, too, though I haven't put in a lot of effort to find those despite their fantastic flavor.  I picked a handful of wild blueberries yesterday, but the bulk of that crop won't be ready for a few weeks.  Deer season is my favorite, berry season isn't far behind.

That's enough nothingness for now - time to get the girls out of bed and get out into this glorious 4th of July day. I wish you all the freedom to enjoy this day in whatever way you find enjoyable...but I really wish everyone could be in my spot right now at this sanctuary of nature, this Fortress of Solitude.  Of course, if you all were here that would ruin the solitude, so never mind.  Enjoy your day, and thanks for reading my nothingness.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Getting Right From Wrong

A month ago I physically walked away from the worst school year of my 18-year career.  Several months earlier I began a mental journey that took me away from school, too, even though my body kept showing up every day.  When school finally ended and my body was able to join my mind I shut down.  My daughters, my gardens, and my TV got my attention – nothing else mattered.  I was tired of my job, tired of my colleagues, tired of leading, tired of caring….just tired.  Not sure what I’d have done if I worked a real job that didn’t have summer vacation.  Also not sure where I’d be on this day, July 1, if not for the hand of Lady Fate.

I spent the first three days of this week driving to St. Paul with a colleague (who also struggled through a tough year) to attend not the class we wanted.  Our original choice that we very much wanted to attend got cancelled, so we picked a class that seemed less lame than the other choices.  We gave each other pep talks and reminders that no matter how bad the class ended up being we would still get a lane change and pay increase out of it, and it was only three days, and we could eat at different food joints each day.  We had an extremely closed and fixed mindset towards this class, a class that became the best, most timely, most perfect professional and personal development either of us have ever had.

Top 20 Training – Discovering The Power Of Choice was like an elixir for our ill souls.  We thought we were taking a class to become better teachers; we were given three days of guidance towards becoming better humans.  To be sure, much of the course revolved around improving our schools and student learning.  I will return to school in September a better teacher than I was a month ago.  More importantly, though, I have been shown a path out of the darkness that has consumed me, the human, for months.  I constantly talk to students about the power they have to make choices in life – I needed someone to do the same for me.  Fate led me to the training; the training has led me back to my life, and will move that life forward in a much different direction than it was on for so long.

Obviously there’s no way to pack 18 hours of class into one blog, and there’s no way I could deliver the Top 20 message as effectively as our instructors.  But here are my top five takeaways from the training:

1.     Can’t get out of it, so get into it!  We have the power to choose our actions in every situation, including the situations we don’t want to be in.  This has been a huge problem for me - pouting my way through events I didn’t want attend, half-listening at meetings, putting down an event that I didn’t like but was important to others.  The end result?  Nothing good.  I will change my behavior by choosing to “get into it”, whatever “it” may be.  Stay tuned.

2.     Say “Not now!” to thought circles.  Our minds wander, sometimes slowly, other times immediately.  One thought leads to a similar thought to another to another and eventually the mind is completely off topic.  We can train ourselves to recognize the beginning of a thought circle and stop it by telling ourselves “Not now!”.  I’ve been doing this for the last couple of days and have been surprised at how effective it’s been….and how often I have to do it.

3.     Honor the absent.  Negativity is a HUGE problem in our society.  Much of it begins when we dishonor the absent – talk negatively about those who are not in our presence.  If we can, instead, honor the absent, a large amount of negativity gets replaced by positivity.  I’m not terrible about dishonoring the absent…but I’m going to get better.

4.     If someone drops the ball, JUMP ON THE BALL!!  If a quarterback fumbles the football you don’t see the running back stand there and wait for the quarterback to fix the problem; the running back dives on the ball.  But how often do we notice someone make a mistake and then we do nothing to help fix it?  Or worse, we dishonor the absent by talking about the mistake with someone else?  I’m guilty on both counts.  I’m going to change that.

5.     Live with a purpose.  This was the final piece of our training, and the most powerful.  We talked about and practiced writing purposeful mission statements regarding the teacher portion of ourselves.  I will use the next couple of months to ponder my purpose, my mission, first as a human and then as a teacher.  I am convinced that my struggles this past year have been the direct consequence of an undefined purpose.

Three days of rainbows and lollipops can’t cure multiple months of storm clouds and skunk cabbage.  If school started on Monday I’d be out right now looking for a hole to crawl into.  My month-long sabbatical from life wasn’t doing me much good either, though, so I shake my head as I type because of the way this all went down.  The wrong class seemed right, the right class looked wrong, the wrong class disappeared allowing the right class to emerge.  Even the timing was perfect; the wrong class would have been a week earlier and in hindsight would have been too soon.  The right class ends just in time to change a calendar page and an attitude right along with it. 


So it’s July, and I’m back.  I’m not better than ever…yet…but I’m in a far better place than I was a week ago.  Call it coincidence, fate, destiny, God, or Buddha – some way some how I ended up getting right because of the wrong class and its reminder that I have The Power of Choice.