Wilderness & Politics

When compared, few things appear to be as incongruent to one another as the quiet of the north woods of New Hampshire and the strident sound of politics. 

A required stop for politicians at the nation's first primary.

When one is away from the major population centers of the northeast, it is refreshing to see how quickly one can become inoculated from the barrage of misinformation and the mindless chatter that passes for analysis as it streams from the mouths of TV’s talking heads.

Yet here in New Hampshire, politics is big business, especially every four years, when presidential hopefuls who otherwise would never entertain a second thought about visiting this beautiful part of the country converge upon its first-in-the-nation primaries, with all of the enthusiasm of suitors vying for the same mate. 

Therein lies the paradox. 

Nature Goes its Own Way; Takes Little Heed of Us Humans

This little marvel feeds while not alighting on the bloom.

One of the refreshing things about nature is that it moves along each day taking its time as it has for eons, tolerating our presence, but largely ignoring it.  It’s not that we humans are a wholly insignificant presence on earth – far from it.

But we certainly can do our best at times to mess things up.  One has merely to look at the worldwide contemporary economic, political and cultural scene to come to that conclusion – one, I should add, which is not easily challenged even by the most optimistic among us.

Nevertheless, there are some very pleasant observations that can be made, if one will only – albeit temporarily – turn away from some of man’s self-inflicted problems and turn to an observation of nature and some of her creatures for an example of how to live.

Summer Visitors Finally Return

Nature’s visitors to my garden work just as hard to benefit from its presence as I do to maintain it.

I derive a lot of pleasure in anticipating the wide variety of winged creatures that feed among the butterfly bushes, the Russian sage, and the flowering spirea which are spread out among some of the other deer-resistant plantings – resistant, that is, at least up to this point!

Couldn’t Help It!

Dear faithful readers, I hope that I’m not pushing my luck with you by providing another photo of a flower in quick succession from the other that appeared just a few days ago in the previous blog post. 

But I’m a sucker for the marvels of nature:  I spied a bee at work this afternoon, just after I had made several trips from the basement to get out my gardening tools. 

I was ready to begin trimming some of the perennial flowering shrubs which need to be cut down to allow fresh growth to take over in about six weeks:  That’s when I spotted the season’s first bee getting a jump on spring.

One of my mom’s favorite aphorisms was, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  I hope you like this one, so I’ll let it speak for itself.

Have a good weekend and take care of yourselves.  Thanks for reading.

(Click on the image for an enhanced view.)

A Beautiful Herald of Spring in Bridgewater.

Crocuses by the pin oak in the front yard.  (Image/Dick Bergeron)

Even if it’s just for a few moments, there are times when a person has to get away from the noise and conflict that we all tend to create for ourselves. The beauty of nature can help, because it has a way of quieting the soul from the dissonance of daily life.

Shortly after noon on Tuesday, after returning from a brisk walk and a long-overdue haircut, I secured the car in the driveway and decided to check on the status of the front-yard garden.

It is still quite somnolescent and weary from the effects of winter.  Nevertheless, at least one butterfly plant seemed to have shown early signs of greening in its bottom branches.  I think that it’s just teasing me with remnants from last fall.

About half of the plantings out front need to be cut close to the ground to make room for the new flowering growth that I am hoping for, come May and June.  I’ll start on those welcome outdoor chores soon, perhaps by the weekend, if favorable temperatures and clear skies prevail. 

A Touch of Global Cooling

(The following post was made ready for publication early Saturday morning, seconds before the power went out for a second time, preventing me from getting it on the Internet!!)

I don’t know if Mother Nature is making a political statement, or if the data reported by the United Nations’ committee on global warming used the wrong noun in its report, but this sure isn’t feeling like global warming.

Nor do I yet know what the official snow depth is in Potomac, MD, where we are temporarily snowbound at the home of our hosts; but a yardstick placed in the snowpack this morning on the deck just outside the window walls to the back yard registered a smidge under 29 inches. And that wasn’t in the deepest spot.

Weekend activities here are either cancelled or postponed to another day. All of the Protestant churches are scrolling cancellations of Sunday services across the TV screen, and the Roman Catholic Archdioceses of Washington and Baltimore have exempted their flocks from Sunday Mass, while encouraging them to tune into Masses on their TV sets.

It will be a great day for the Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, providing the power doesn’t fail again, prompting all of us to bundle up once more, as we might do for a ski expedition.

It is not supposed to happen this way! I called family members in New Hampshire this afternoon, and not a single snowflake fell up there, the usual destination for all this fluffy stuff.