Nrrw Vol. 4-1 09

NEWS FROM THE RUM RIVER WATERSHED Volume 4 Issue 1

Winter? Spring? Or is it Sugar Bush Time 2009!

Annual Watershed ofCreativity!!! Ice breaking up on lakes and rivers… sap flowing, pumping up from the roots of the trees as nights freeze and days thaw… maple sugar time! Pull out those seed catalogues, sharpen those trowels, lay out designs for raised beds or compost heaps.

“Waves” Oil painting by MaryAnn Cleary

But we all get excited as Spring starts getting creative. We want to do the same, whatever that means. I’ve been writing songs: ―I broke my grandmother’s chair‖ (which I did) and now ―I’ve got a small bright spark of cheerfulness‖ (which of course drives anyone crazy who doesn’t – 98.9% of us in this economy!) So, how to deal with Life? Fiddle while it all burns? Well, maybe that’s not exactly a bad idea. Building and maintaining a healthy community, whether it be in the woods or the city depends on creatures keeping focused and in decent spirits. We can help each other do it. So come on, get going, turn the page – we have some awesome contributors in this issue of NRRW! May they inspire you… “Eagle by the Rum” Photo by MaryAnn Cleary

If you’re like me that’s about as far as it gets! Get that garden tilled and planted, then leave it up to Nature. When people ask me (a botanist) for horticultural advice, I always tell them that I take care of the wild things. Leave me alone.

News from the Rum River Watershed

Sugar Bush Time 2009

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The Rum River and Me I’d like to be— Among the flowers in the river so that I could share my beauty because giving enriches the soul. A fish in the river so that I could jump and play all I wanted and I wouldn’t have to come home when my mom called me. A frog in the river so that I could sit on a lily pad and croak away on a nice sunny day. A rock in the river – steady and cool amid the chaos. A tree along the shore watching the full spectrum of life pushed by the current from long ago. A bridge of hope over the river, carrying people safely in their pursuit of going to and fro. I’d like the joy of sitting by the river which becomes a living stream in my dreams.

Residents of Grace Pointe Crossing, Gables West – January, 2009

“Loon on Long Lake” acrylic and dye on goose egg by Dan VanGorden, Grandy, MN

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Sugar Bush Time 2009

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Rum River Impressions When I look at the Rum River, I see— Ripples of silver and shimmers of gold that go on forever from times untold. Northerns jumping in the sunshine and dragonflies darting about to find a place to light. Children playing, picnicking with friends and forgetting what might lie around the ―bend.‖ A quiet lovely place and an untamed longing to see beyond.

When I look at the Rum River, I remember— Going to the old swimming hole on a hot summer day Discovering its power; in spite of the fun its dangerous current could sweep us away. Gathering stones and skipping them across the water. Skating in the winter with clamp-on skates. Rowing a boat across the river and walking the rest of the way to school. Flying down a snowy bank on a toboggan with my brother. We sailed in the air before landing on the frozen river (I didn’t think I would ever walk again).

When I look at the Rum River, I wonder where it’s going and I want to go with it. I feel privileged to be able to enjoy its beauty. I’m concerned about the fish and hope they will always be healthy. I hope people will respect it so it can be enjoyed for a long, long time.

Residents of Grace Pointe Crossing, Gables West, Cambridge, MN – January, 2009

News from the Rum River Watershed

Sugar Bush Time 2009

Here on the Border of Heaven The sun burns, melting my black leggings, And searing the muscle beneath. The breeze whispers warnings in my ear, And freezes my face. The trees are usually shimmering, Like a swarm of living emeralds. Today, the trees are still, And everything seems painted over with a dull film. Some of the leaves are yellow, and red, and brown. A lone birch stands out, stripped of its leaves, Its branches are reminiscent of spilled ink, Flowing up towards the sky. They are the forbearers of the frozen death that will engulf the land, Chilling us to our bones, And draining the happiness from the air. An icy jailer is old man Winter. Across the perfectly green field, The trees and tall grass create a hidden wonderland, Beckoning me to come, And hide in its shady depths. My heart aches to go, And explore this fantasy world, And discover its hidden treasures, But I am bound by an invisible chain. And burn under the eyes of sun and teacher and peers, Instead of slipping away, And letting sweet solitude close in around me. My best friends are the ones that only I can see, And they can hardly ever be truly free. There is our world, a place made just for us, But we are closed in by a stuffy cage of scheduled free time.

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News from the Rum River Watershed

Sugar Bush Time 2009

I breathe deeply. The air tastes so clean, It’s like drinking a fresh glass of water but still I thirst. This sweet taste is poisoned by the acrid smell of smog and oil. Clinging desperately to the bars of my cage, I strain my ears to hear the sweet chiming of the crickets, But they are drowned out, By the harsh dissonance of an engine whirring. I wish they’d be quiet. I wish the school would shut itself off, So I can at least pretend, I’m free to enjoy the beauty that I can almost touch. The clouds barrel past in a sky so blue, Eager to be anywhere but here. I wish I could join them, But here I must remain.

Alicia Kase Cambridge-Isanti High School Creative Writing- Grade 12

Tern india ink & wax pencil K. Ericsson

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News from the Rum River Watershed

Sugar Bush Time 2009

It's Spring when all Furred Mothers drop their young And those with scales and feathers hatch theirs And those with both they take their choice.

But, once again the Old World Youthens and watches the feathered foal suckle The unicorn nuzzle her girl-child The griffin chicks fluff their fur and snap their beaks as Father coughs and chokes up young rabbits

Spring comes on the curved feet of manticore moms and babes The cloven feet of young fauns and fawns and lambs and kids

Typically Spring.

And a small flame singes its concave leathery cell.

―Mythical Spring‖ K. Ericsson 1984

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Ukrainian Easter eggs Traditional and original designs by Dan VanGorden of Grandy, MN

It was a warm July day and Axel Anderson was sitting on the bank of the Rum River, with his fishing pole in his hands. He was nearly nodding off when he heard a loud voice calling, ―Help! Help! I can’t swim. I can’t swim. Help! Axel looked and saw a man floundering in the water. He said, ―I can’t swim either, but I don’t holler about it.‖

John Sandeen 2-21-09 Harris, MN

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Dostoevsky on the Rum By Linda Buterian A commune, a planned neighborhood, an intentional cul-de-sac, the compound. What are we? For eight years now, four families have lived next to each other on a piece of land in rural Minnesota. Others have offered up these terms, which feel like logs tossed at the woodpile of meaning. ―Hippie Hollow,‖ the latest one, was dubbed by a friend and nearby farmer. I like the hippies I met in the Oregon mountains, but I am not one of them. We are middle-aged friends who bought land together and are living and raising our kids alongside each other. It continues to make good sense. The men are from Minnesota, and the women either went to school in or visited Minnesota long enough to know we could live here. We wanted to live by water – a lake or a river – and forest, and be close enough to the Twin Cities, but not too close. Seven of us had to agree, and the farm, with its farmhouse, barn and garage, meadows and woods along the Rum River was the first place that felt right to all of us. Now we are four couples and seven children and a few horses, cats and dogs on a few hundred acres… Our place is a few miles beyond Princeton whose sign reads ―On the Growing Edge,‖ and just shy of Milaca, a town of 2,500, where most residents have known each other’s families for generations… When I first moved here, I thought people were unfriendly. It took me awhile to realize they just don’t think that a smile or conversation is an essential part of money changing hands. Our property is surrounded by corn and soybean fields dotted by silos, old farmhouses, black and white Holsteins, and faded red barns. We ski and hike our trails and fish and canoe in the wild and scenic Rum River. Over an hour away from Minneapolis, we are squarely in the country. Or so we felt. Now, like water brimming over, markers of change surround us: For Sale signs, modular homes, subdevelopments along the river, old buildings moved onto land, and posters for farm auctions at the grocery store… We are witnessing, and to a certain extent a part of, a portion of the million or so acres of farmland and green space America’s losing to development each year. (In the seven counties surrounding the Twin Cities, it is at a rate of sixty acres a day.) As people move from there to here, and the light rail gets closer, and a Caribou Coffee opens up a half hour away, the city feels like a big sweaty guy jogging too close with his wheezy breath and shiny warm-up. Who’s to blame for the sprawl? Real estate people sub-dividing and selling to well-meaning folks who want a little peace and some nature to look out on? Burnt out farmers selling off the land for what they feel is rightfully theirs? The cities’ lack of affordable housing that nudges people to move out here because land is cheaper? Over-worked planning commissioners in rural counties – underpaid locals who either don’t have time to fashion a vision or aren’t given the budget or legislative teeth to follow through with their good intentions? Agribusinesses that effectively devalue the price of meat, grain and milk and force farmers to get big or get out? The false price of gas that allows people to move out here under the illusion that they can afford the miles one must cover to find work? Capitalist values that harvest the vital organs of a community? Religions that continue to endorse the maxim to be fruitful and multiply? The colonial impulses seeded in our loins that propel us to move and acquire, move and acquire?

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Sugar Bush Time 2009

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As I attempt to untangle the Gordian knot of what historian William Cronon calls the ―self destruction of the pastoral,‖ the winds of change are howling in my ear, making a shirring sound in the skeletal remains of the corn rows… I went to a Planning Commission meeting addressing a proposed subdivision on the Rum River just south of us. A few weeks earlier Jeff and I canoed the stretch of the river from Milaca to Princeton, and tried to identify the area the subdivision would be built. Turtles plopped off of logs, and an otter slipped in and out of the water. We paddled past forests of oak and ash and white pines, with an occasional farm peeking through. South of Milaca we rounded a bend to a house looming before us. From our canoe I could bounce a tennis ball off the side of it. We stared in silence as we floated by this conspicuous dwelling, the kind you’d find in a wealthy suburb. Soon the trees reclaimed the land, sun sparkled off of eddies, and we were caught up again in the fall splendor. Back at the planning commission meeting, the property owners were a good looking couple, tanned and clean-cut, the kind you would see on a commercial for Grand Cherokee Jeeps. Their surveyor passed out maps displaying the five acre lots, the houses one hundred feet from the river, the cul-de-sac road through wetlands. When a committee member pointed out that the lots were in the floodplain the property owner shot back, ―No they’re not.‖ When another member said the DNR has concerns about developing in the wetlands and floodplains the landowner replied ―'So and so' did it, I know we can.‖ He was referring to the house we canoed by – the precedent setter. If this subdivision is approved, the next property owner will come before the Commission and say, ―This couple did it, so can we.‖ The domino effect along the Rum. I left the meeting hoping that the DNR could stop them, but the DNR is only as strong as the acts it upholds. From what I can tell, the Wild & Scenic act doesn’t keep landowners from developing away the wildness and scenery. And what good is a Wetlands act if people can find loopholes to build roads right through them? Money has patience and tenacity and power. Herons are silent, pull no weight in the world of property taxes and bottom line profits. Otters don’t compute. Fish disappear without a sound. How do you measure the value or convey the teeming life inside the ark of a tree, or a bog, or that mysterious bridge between water and land we call floodplain? Take the floodplain along the Rum River – full of smaller trees, messy branchy undergrowth – this indeterminate transition between water and land. Imprecise, changeable, and essential, it resembles our democratic process. Not much to look at in a glance, it can only be understood by staying put, year in and year out, and in the spring listening for the ice to break like the boom of a freight train, the river tossing chunks far beyond what one would think was floodplain. Then as the weather continues to warm up, waiting for the river to crest to see how far it will flood. It is much easier to fill it in, put a structure on it, and make it useful for pete’s sake. Writer Jim Harrison said, ―Nature answers her own questions and none of our own. The misery is created by asking the wrong ones.‖ Excerpts from World Gone Beautiful: Life Along the Rum River by Linda Buturian. Cathedral Hill Press, St. Paul MN. © 2008, pp. 120-127. Used with permission of the author.

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The authors, the artists… MaryAnn Cleary: Chemist, artist, lover of the Rum – MaryAnn Cleary can often be found at local art festivals with her wonderful oil paintings and photos produced at the Spirit River Studio. Contact her at 763-552-8650 or [email protected] for more information. She also hosts a website at www.maryanncleary.com. Residents of Grace Pointe Crossing: This writing club started up in 2008 at what was until recently known as Grandview Christian Homes in Cambridge. The two poems in this issue are a group effort of talented writers whose current home is a prominent landmark on the Rum River. Dan VanGorden was featured in the first Creativity issue of NRRW in 2006. Not only does he create landscapes and still-lifes of acrylic, water color and gouache worthy of a Dutch master, but when he has a bit of time he loves to decorate eggs – hen’s eggs, goose eggs, even the occasional ostrich egg! His own designs rival the Ukrainian artists – is he a blood relative? Alicia Kase is a senior at Cambridge-Isanti High School. She wrote ―Here on the Border of Heaven‖ while taking a Creative Writing class last fall under teacher Roxanne Charlson. Talk about talent! Best of luck as you move on out into the world, Alicia. May you remain as inspired as you have been an inspiration. John Sandeen of Harris, MN, is a long time friend, and also a past contributor to NRRW. I first met him at the ―Pine and Prairie Writing Club,‖ which is another local writing club now meeting monthly in the conference room at Grace Pointe Crossing. Musician, sculptor, writer, and awesome storyteller, last I saw he was building a life-size dinosaur in his pole barn, which is also a roller skating rink for his grandkids! Linda Buturian wrote a beautiful piece on the Rum for our 2006 Creativity issue. Her newly published book, ―World Gone Beautiful: Life Along the Rum‖ is one of the best reads I’ve had in a long time, and is available at all local bookstores. In her spare time she teaches writing and literature ―full time‖ at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. Kriste Ericsson: When MPR’s ―Morning Show‖ was still the ―Prairie Home Morning Show‖ with Garrison Keillor and Jim Ed Poole, one fine spring morning Garrison opened up the phone lines to let people call in their favorite poems. Well, I guess most people only had their radios on ten minutes at a time, because it seemed like every other call-in wanted to read e.e. cumming’s ―the little balloon man‖: that goes, ―spring…when all the world’s mudlucious…‖ My variation, ―Mythical Spring,‖ is dedicated to my sister Julie -- forever my wonderful Unicorn.

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Well, where have the Friends of the Rum River been all this last year? In case you haven’t noticed (and I hoped you hadn’t!), we’ve not put out an issue of ―News from the Rum River Watershed‖ since the Fall of 2007! Figuring that everyone already had plenty to read and wouldn’t miss a quarterly newsletter too soon, I bought a banjo on January 4th of ’08, named her ―Rosita,‖ and promptly forgot about the newsletter. Now, I guess I wouldn’t recommend that approach to life maybe, but Rosita just celebrated her 1 year – 3 month birthday, she is my baby, and it has been fun to have a new creative facet of life open up. Speaking of creativity, the members of “Friends of the Rum River” certainly haven’t been standing on their noggins. We joined the Isanti County Environmental Coalition on Earth Day in April 2008 at the Anoka Ramsey Community College, Cambridge branch, with a booth and two awesome activities – looking at pond water under dissecting scopes (you can see the kids really enjoyed that one), and a new invention, making benthic organisms (aquatic insects) out of pipe cleaners, beads and feathers! You can see Dana Rima, above, an expert at tying flies in his own right – directing. He definitely found a new calling – doing those bugs twice, the second time at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park on State Park Day, June 1st. Found out he really did like kids after all! We hosted another booth at the Wild Game Feed in Cambridge in March, and again at the 150th birthday celebration of Spencer Brook on Midsummer’s Day – the oldest European settlement in Isanti County. We had great fun ―Cleaning up the Rum‖ on September 22 – putting in at the Oxbow Bridge off of Co. Rd 14., traversing 8.3 miles down to Cambridge. In September the Oxbow Bridge was really two bridges. Many of you will be sad to learn that a month later the 40 year old original structure was removed, gone forever, past history – just a bit too unsafe, even for foot traffic. Next year we’re considering doing the stretch downstream from Milaca. Come and join us! Brett Larson put his creativity to work in September and set up a BLOG SITE for Friends of the Rum River! Announcements, links to articles, and past NRRW issues are all there. Let us know if you have anything you would like to post. Check out the link on the back of this issue, and make it a ―favorite.‖ By the way, if you would like to have Friends of the Rum River host a booth or activities at one of your own functions, just let us know. Our aim is to reach out to communities in all the 1552 square miles of the Rum River Watershed, along all 145 miles of the River, including Lake Mille Lacs down to the great Mississippi. We’re thinking this year to split into three chapters (upper, lower, and middle FRR.) More fun for all of us – more local events and more often! Let us know if you’d like to help out.

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Upcoming Events Wednesday, April 15, 6:30 – 8:30 pm: Join the Friends of the Rum River Focus Group to plan strategy and events for 2009. RSVP would be great, but come anyway – meeting at Frontier Steak House, 905 Rum River Dr S, Princeton. Feel free to order dinner. Sunday, June 7, 10 am – 4 pm, Outdoor Recreation Day: Join FRR and many other like-minded groups along Lake Ogechie at the start of the Rum at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park Nature Center! Since this is State Parks Recreation Day, vehicles may enter without a state park sticker. Call the Park for details, at 320- 532-3523 (main gate) or 320-532-3269 (Nature Center.) Directions to the park can be found on the MN Dept. of Natural Resources website.

Mission Statement: To provide a base of knowledge that we can use to make wise decisions concerning the Rum River Watershed, and to preserve, enhance, and enjoy its resources. Vision Statement To improve our ability to care for the Rum River Watershed and all of the associated watersheds that make up the Mississippi River system. Contact Information: Kriste Ericsson, Editor PO Box 82, Grandy, MN 55029 [email protected] To sign up for this free email newsletter, send an email to: [email protected] NEW!! Online link to the Friends of the Rum River blog: http://friendsoftherumriver.blogspot.com/

“A Walk Along the Rum” Photo by MaryAnn Cleary