Saturday, May 10, 2014

Squirrel's Ear Day


Like Second Breakfast gives a hobbit's morning a boost,
Squirrel's Ear Day is a boost to the Shaffner spring.
Squirrel's Ear Day is a moveable holiday,
falling on a slightly different day each spring,
somewhat similar to Easter
which is the first Sunday
after the first full moon
after the equinox.
Usually Squirrel's Ear Day,
the day when the oak leaves are as big as a squirrel's ear,
falls in single digit May,
but not this year.
Botanical spring is late on the mountain.

Spring comes sooner in the valleys.
DuBois was built around a beaver meadow wetland
and the streams that feed the wetland have lowland wildflowers.
I made my traditional spring drive to Van Tassel Road on Thursday
to see bloodroot,
dogtooth violets,
spring beauties,
and red and white trilliums.
In our college years,
white trilliums bloomed the week that Houghton's semester was over.
As we drove 219 south through the Allegany Forest,
the hemlocks would have a blanket of white at their feet.
"Trillions of trilliums," Den used to say.

My grandpa Bernie
used to make a yearly spring tonic from sassafras root scrapings
and serve it in chilled aluminum glasses.
One major boost to Den's standing in the Rensel family
was using his dad's tractor to pull sassafras roots out of the ground.
Bernie did not have to use a shovel.
We had his vote from that day on.
A friend gave Den a jar of sassafras tea this week
and the scent alone made me feel like an eight year old again.
I had mine without aluminum this time.

Dandelions and violets began blooming this week in the valley.
I sat my first graders down
on the edge of the playground
for an informal science lesson.
"Dente means tooth in French.
So dente de lion,
dandelion,
means tooth of the lion,"
and we picked dandelion leaves
and held them up to our jaws
and growled ferociously.
I then showed them a violet
and pointed out the pouch-like nectary
where the sweet nectar is stored.
We nibbled the nectaries,
then ate the violets.
They taste a bit like cucumbers.
Two girls spent much of the remainder of recess
prowling around
snacking on violets.
(The next day,
A informed me that he wasn't allowed to eat purple flowers.
Do his parents know what is in school lunches?)

Spring here on the mountain is a bit sparser--
no forsythia blooms this year due to frigid temperatures.
I've walked to the arbutus patch twice so far,
but no blooms.
What we lack in flowers this year, though,
has been made up in birds.
Besides the traditional chickadees,
doves,
finches,
blue jays,
cardinals,
and the misguided redwing
that lurks recent years in the silky dogwood,
this year we have a catbird that yells everything he knows,
a pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks,
and three northern orioles.
Orioles!
Yay!
The boys were babies the last time we had orioles.

And Squirrel's Ear Day?
Today was the first day I noticed a swelling in the oak buds.
Squirrel's Ear Day is coming,
probably some day this week.
We suggest celebrating Squirrel's Ear Day with a second breakfast.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Broken


New birdfeeder
Slowly, spring is coming to the mountain.
When I returned home from school a few days ago,
Den was quite animated.
"You just missed it!
A three hundred pound black bear
just climbed the huge oak tree by the back porch!
He didn't stay there long--
must be hard to keep that much weight up a tree."
When we walked around the house,
the just-purchased-last-week birdfeeder was broken
and the flowering crab that had held the birdfeeder
had another broken branch.
Bears can be a mixed blessing.


Flowering crabapple with newest broken branch
I've been thinking about the word "broken."
When we visited Tanzania,
we heard the story
of how in the 1960s,
the Australian government
wanted to help the people of Tanzania
by giving them horses.
When the horses arrived,
they were hard to control
and many escaped
and disappeared into the bush
where they soon died from tsetse fly bites.
Both governments were disappointed.
The Australians had sent the horses,
unbroken as requested.
The Tanzanians replied,
"Why would we have wanted broken horses?"

Broken.
Our government is broken.
Last week, I was reminded
that I have no right to complain
unless I have been praying for the people who govern me.
Guilty.
Now I find myself praying
"Father God, give the people in government wisdom
and help them to do what is right...
but I am cynical.
Lord, I believe.
Help my unbelief."

I am also broken.
Probably you are, too.
We agree with Paul's letter to the Romans,
"I want to do what is right, but I don't do it.
Instead, I do what I hate."


Who would want a broken horse?
Ah! Who would want a tamed horse?
I think of Saint-Exupery's masterpiece
The Little Prince,
the story of a small boy
who visits Earth to understand it better. 
The Fox wants to be tamed by the Little Prince
because "one only understands the things that one tames,"
and so the fox allows himself to be tamed,
to be broken. 

In this delayed spring, post-Easter world,
my brokenness can be understood
by the Visitor who created me
and gives me grace.
I am broken,
forgiven,
loved.