An Evening Walk on July 11, 2019

I haven't taken many walks on the land this year, although my wife would argue with that statement. It probably seems to her that I'm forever leaving for a walk, going west across the corral, heading out across the tree rows out there, putting up with pesky flies and mosquitoes, doing who knows what.

If I walk out with my camera and a beer in my pocket, then it's just one of these sentimental strolls through the places I've put so much of my energies into over the past 48-some years. Sometimes, I just stand in one spot for several minutes, listening to the sounds around me, just looking at the landscape, the clouds and their play above the contours of the varying heights of trees, or how stages of light affect the scene.

Tree rows in July are still distinct although grown up in grass. I will mow the rows out in late August or September according to my CRP requirements.

I might pull weeds from around a struggling small tree, pull spring debris away so the sunlight can reach it, and talk encouragingly to it, "Whoa! Looky here! Don't you look great!" Stuff like that ... weird stuff like that. Well, these trees are in a sense my children, my legacy for after I'm gone--if climate change and future landowners are discriminate and allow them to fully mature. So in the meantime--my time--I take pride and promise in a place I can walk anytime I want. And, I might even bring that beer back with me, unopened.

Comments

Winter Returns Along Mikinaak Creek February 8-9th, 2024

This is the first channel wide moving water I've seen since the spring of 2023 --and it's in February! On maps, the creek (or ‘crick' depending on your dialect) is spelled ‘Mickinock’ for the Anishinaabe man who lived at the Indian camp at Ross, but had seasonal camps around Wannaska and other places. The Euro-American immigrants who homesteaded here in Roseau County called him ‘Chief,’ but he may have been just a spokesperson who knew enough English to get things done peacefully and simultaneously meet the needs of his people; the word, ‘chief' was often used in derision of any Indigenous male adult. I spell Mikinaak the Ojibwe way, in a gesture of respect; what the Dakota, who were here before the Anishinaabeg/Chippewa, called this place, this body of moving water I don’t know; just as I don’t know who came before them exactly. I was told that one of Mikinaak's camps were here on our place in Palmville Township. Its locat...

Friends to the End: Delmer Roseen and Curtis Johnson

Delmer and Curtis: Friends to the End From where he was buried on Saturday April 11th, 1992, the tin roofs of his buildings could be seen through the trees. Across the fence, at the foot of his grave, were the fields he farmed. Between them, Mikinaak Creek--so much a part of Delmer Roseen’s life and sadly, his death--still winds through willow slough, over beaver dams below the Palmville Cemetery, and past his door to the South Fork of the Roseau River, only a few yards to the southeast. Delmer lived northeast of us in Palmville Township. If I looked just right, I could see his yard light through the woods between his place and mine. Either of us could hear the soft ‘clung’ of the rope and pulley against the flag pole in the cemetery at the corner of our two farms. Red willows, popple islands, and slough grass; green mossy fence posts; the often submerged patchwork of woven wire, and the depth of water i...

1972 An August Adventure: Stormy Lake, Snake Bay, Ontario

My 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser A life changing event. I've had asthma all my life and it limited me somewhat until 1972, when after an event on a remote Canadian lake I was rushed to Dryden Area Hospital for emergency treatment of a pneumothorax /lung collapse. Early one morning, my dad and I left Des Moines, Iowa on 1530 mile round trip fishing expedition to Stormy Lake, Ontario; stopping in Roseau, Minnesota to join six family members: My uncle Martin and aunt Irene Davidson of Roseau, their son Jack Davidson and his 8-yr old son, Jeffrey, of Thief River Falls, Minnesota, and Jack's older brother Dean Davidson, and his 11-yr old son, Larry, of Clive, Iowa in addition to their two two vehicles, one with a boat atop it. We were pulling a one-wheeled trailer behind my brand new 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser to handle extra gear. Leaving Roseau as the last vehicle in the three car caravan, we headed off toward the...

WannaskaWriter

Search This Blog