John Kline's attack on Obermueller over "bird breeding book" is misleading

Minnesota Representative John Kline (R) recently ran an ad attacking his opponent, Mike Obermueller (D), accusing him of wasteful "pork" votes, including "a book about bird breeding." That caught my attention in the political maelstrom of attack ads, because I live in rural Minnesota and I care about birds.   So I decided to find out exactly what this "bird breeding" book was about.

I found the allocation vote in the Journal of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Tuesday, February 16, 2010.  It's in section (c) of bill H.F. 2624 and  reads:

"$372,000 is from the trust fund to continue development of a statewide survey of Minnesota breeding bird distribution and create related publications, including a book and online atlas with distribution maps and breeding status.  Of this appropriation, $211,000 is to the commissioner of natural resources for an agreement with Audubon Minnesota and $161,000 is to the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota for the Natural Resources Research Institute.  The atlas must be available for downloading on the Internet free of charge."

So this wasn't some little book about how to breed your parakeets.  This is a major ecological study to produce a state-wide resource guide that will be available to the public free of charge.   The project site describes it this way:

"The Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas (MNBBA) is a critical bird conservation project designed to document every species that currently breeds in Minnesota and where in the state each species breeds. Surprisingly, Minnesota is one of only seven states, and the only state along the Mississippi Flyway, that has not developed a breeding bird atlas."

Get that?  We were the only state along the Mississippi Flyway that had not done this kind of survey. And one of only seven states in the whole country lacking such an atlas.  So this was not -- excuse the pun -- a fly by night project.  (For more on the Minnesota Bird Breeding Atlas project, now completed, click here.)

My next question was, how was this project funded?  The "trust fund" referred to in the appropriation cited above is The Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund, established in 1988 by constitutional amendment (with 77% approval) "for the public purpose of protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state's air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources."  So this project is coming from money that is already earmarked for environmental projects.

John Kline's ad ends with saying, "Mike Obermueller:  Wherever you look, it costs you money," followed by the usual "I'm John Kline and I approve this message."  So we know it isn't some PAC claiming this, it's the man himself.  But is it really costing you money?  Where does the money for the Trust Fund come from?  Is it really a waste of taxpayer dollars like the Kline ad claims?


Hardly.   It's funded by the Minnesota State Lottery, not your taxes.  Playing the lottery is completely voluntary.  So if you don't want your money going to help the environment by producing things like the Bird Breeding Atlas, then don't play the lottery.  It's that simple.  Nobody is forcing anybody to pay for this project!  (More on where the Minnesota lottery funds go...)

But beyond the question of the accuracy of the ad is the greater concern: John Kline apparently doesn't care about Minnesota birds or the environment.  He doesn't even care enough to do the simple online research it took for me to write this article before "approving" his ad to air.  Not even after it aired and many others besides me have pointed out the error.  On Minnesota's At Issue program this week, during a discussion between Kline and Obermueller, moderator Tom Hauser asked Kline if he still stands by the ad and he said "yes." (Although I do note that a more recent attack ad about "pork" left out the reference to birds.  Apparently his campaign managers are more savvy than he is.)

The very fact that he would choose this project to ridicule Obermueller is in itself telling. Apparently Kline has no idea how we Minnesotans really feel about the natural resources of our state.  After all, 77% of Minnesotans voted for the Amendment that created the Trust Fund that paid for this and other environmental projects. And he is certainly not aware of the economic impact of birds on our economy. Tourism, travel, and purchases related to birds account for an estimated $400 million to our state economy. Not to mention other outdoor activities not directly related to birds, but where the presence of birds certainly enhances the experience, such as camping, hiking, skiing, boating, etc.  Maybe he has been in Washington so long he has forgotten what most of Minnesota looks like.

Oh, and by the way, John Kline voted for the infamous Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" and also voted to continue funding NASCAR sponsorships -- wasteful things that really did come from taxpayer money. That's a whole lot more pork than a survey of wild birds funded by the lottery.

Father Goose adopts flock of Guinea Fowl

Junior and Prince

This is the story of an inter-species friendship between Prince the Goose (white bird in photo on the right) and a flock of guineas.  Prince and his son, Junior (grey bird in photo), are the last of a small flock of geese we have had on our hobby farm.  Geese live a long time -- Prince is now 14, Junior 13 -- and I'm not getting any younger, so I have let the flock slowly dwindle from old age. (We are vegetarians.  We eat the eggs but do not slaughter.)

With geese, the ganders help care for the young.  Since Prince no longer has a mate and there are no goslings around, he has turned his affections toward my guineas.  From the moment I brought home four half-grown guineas last fall, he has taken a most paternal instinct toward them.

When they first arrived, I had to keep them in a cage inside the coop for a couple weeks before letting them free range -- otherwise they would try to "home" back to where they came from -- and Prince stood guard by the cage every night.  When I finally did let them loose, he followed them around the yard.  Junior went along, but it was primarily Prince who set the pace.  And he made sure they went back in the coop, too.  If they tried roosting in a tree, he stood at the bottom and raised a ruckus!  By the time the first snow came, they were well trained to go inside.

The guineas turned out to be three males and a female.  I really had no intention of breeding her, but she had other ideas.  Her first nest she built too close to the road for comfort.  Prince was having a fit because the road is his boundary and the males were going across it to my neighbor's yard.  That's how I found the nest.  I took the eggs before she started setting, hoping that would be the end of it.

Can't find Molly?  Click photo to
enlarge and try again!

So what did she do?  She hid her second nest closer to the coop in the tall grass.  I didn't find this one until she was incubating, so I let her be.  If you look really, really closely in the photo, you can see her in there.  That brave bird sat through two very strong rainstorms and held fast to her eggs -- I thought for sure I'd find her drowned the second time, when high winds brought four inches of rain within hours.  But she built well, on top of a little rise, earning her the name "Molly Brown"  (of Titanic fame, since both survived dangerous waters.)  Why didn't I move her inside?  Because moving a guinea nest is very risky.  They are wild, flighty birds who often abandon the eggs if disturbed.  Better to leave nature alone.

Molly's well-hidden nest

There were 15 eggs.  12 hatched but one baby died, leaving 11.  I wasn't sure exactly when she started sitting, so I checked every day.  Luckily I found them right after hatching, because the grass is cold and wet in the morning this late in the year.  That can mean death to new keets. So I caught them all with mother Molly and put them in a large cage inside.

Prince stood by them outside the cage, often not even wanting to come outside the coop.  When they were feathered out and big enough, I turned them loose -- and here you can see both ganders herding the flock around the yard!

Prince herds the flock home toward evening, fall 2014.

Prince and Junior guarding the flock
in the chicken yard, fall 2014. 

My yard is full of birds -- and the Phoebes are safely back!

When I went outside this morning, the sun was out and the yard was full of birdsong.  I heard blue jays, robins, juncos, starlings, finches, pheasants, a drumming grouse and some geese overhead.  I also spotted a thrush in the bushes.  And best of all, the phoebe who nests in the open garage each year is back!  So glad they all survived the storm.

Of course, I'm not 100% sure the phoebe is the same bird -- maybe a descendant? -- but we have had phoebes nesting in the rafters of that building for years.  We've also had them nesting under the eaves of the chicken coop -- a good choice of location, since there are always lots of flies around there.  In 2009 I was lucky enough to get this picture of the coop family, which I made into a postcard:

I called it "Phoebe Fledglings Ready to Fly" -- and they certainly were.  The next day they were gone.  (You can buy a copy of this postcard online in my eBay store, The Happy Rooster.)

Now it's warming up into the 70s this weekend (it's 61 as I wrote this) and the snow is melting off fast.  A walk around the yard showed me bulbs starting to pop up and buds swelling.  I better get out the hummingbird feeders, because those little jewels will be arriving soon, too.  Since the flowers are very late this year, they  will be hungry!

Robins are back - I hope they survive this late winter storm

Three days ago I was listening to robins singing in my yard, watching a flock of juncos passing through on their way to Canada, and hearing flocks of geese overhead, honking their way back north.  Today we are getting buried in snow again -- at the same time Washington D.C. is having record breaking 90s -- in April!  Talk about global weirding.

Jet Stream, April 11, 2013
(Map courtesy of acuweather.com) 

The instability of the Jet Stream is a big contributor to all this strange weather.  I can remember when it pretty much stayed put up in there Canada, circling the arctic and dipping occasionally into Minnesota but no further south.  Now, as you can see from this map, it has gone crazy.  And with it comes all this weird  weather.  That huge dip is pulling cold air south, where it meets warm air from the Gulf and produces severe storms, including early tornadoes along the front.   It also traps warm air on the East Coast, resulting in those record-breaking 90s yesterday. (For more on how the Jet Stream is causing more severe weather lately, read this article on Climate Central.)

Last year's crab apples provide
food for spring birds

Meanwhile, birds on migration are getting caught in the storms.  The winds have been very strong today, so I suspect we will have a major bird drop around here (which is different from a bird dropping!)  A bird drop is when migrating birds come down to wait out the bad weather.  Sometimes you get to see some unusual species when the weather clears -- if the birds survive.

I find myself wondering what those robins on my land are eating today.  The Juncos can find seeds on tall grass stalks and the harrier hawk who returned a few days ago will no doubt find a rodent or two around the chicken coop.  But the ground is still too frozen for those robins to find any worms.  In the past I have seen them picking on frozen crab apples still on the trees.  So maybe that will help.

Minnesota drought map 4/11/2013
(Click pic to enlarge)

In spite of this snowstorm, we are still in the midst of a serious drought here.  Today's drought map shows my county, Pine, in the "severe" category.   (For more on the drought, click here.)

Last year it was so dry in late summer-fall that we headed into winter about 7 inches below normal in precipitation.  With the ground still frozen, all that this snow will do is run off -- which helps the wetlands downhill from my place, but won't do much for the garden.  In fact, it is so dry that, for the second year in a row, I decided not to tap my trees for maple syrup.  They grow along the edge of seasonal woodland wetlands that normally provides them with plenty of spring moisture during the melt-off, but this year it is bone dry.  I saw on the news that some syrup producers are getting a decent run -- guess it depends on where you are.  But for everybody it is very late, because of the abnormally cold spring.  In the past, syrup production would begin in mid-March and be over by now.

All of which goes to show that the climate is indeed changing.  Better get used to the new normal -- whatever that turns out to be...

Are eagles nesting too early this year?

This is a still shot from the Minnesota DNR EagleCam, which is focused on a nest in Minneapolis.  As you can see, there is already an eagle incubating eggs -- according to the website, there are 3 of them, laid around January 1st.  You can also see that the nest was full of snow, which the eagles have covered with straw.

Given that the incubation period for a Bald Eagle is about 35 days, these eggs are long overdue to hatch -- if they ever do.  January is awfully early for nesting here in Minnesota -- even now the lakes are still frozen, so it would be hard for eagles to catch fish (one of their favorite foods).  They do eat carrion -- I have seen them on deer carcasses -- but would the chicks do OK on that?  And what about getting chilled?  Since those eggs were laid, it has gone below zero several times.  I'll be watching this nest to see what happens.

Eagles are not the only birds who might be mixed up by the crazy weather this year.  There was a pair of mourning doves that apparently never migrated from here because of the long, snowless, unusually warm fall.  Then it went to 20 below zero (F) one night and stayed below zero for several days.   I have not seen the doves since.  Did they freeze to death?  And today I could swear I heard a robin -- no worms for it to eat yet.  Maybe it will survive on frozen crab apples still on the trees.

If climate change deniers would pay more attention to nature, it would become obvious that something is happening.   A friend of mine in Pennsylvania said she has had pigeons breeding all winter, when normally they stop until spring.   I read recently that birds in Europe are arriving 2-3 weeks early, long before the insects that they normally feed on have emerged.  This certainly messes up the breeding season, since those birds evolved to feed their young on insects.

Back here in Minnesota, we are getting a wildly fluctuating freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw, while most of our snow is going south.  In spite of the fact that there's about a foot of the stuff in my yard, we are still technically in a drought, because there was so little rain last fall that the ground under that snow is very dry.  And frozen, so when the snow does melt, it is just going to run off.  According to the weatherman, this leaves us with the strange possibility of having drought and flooding at the same time.

Living with Predators on the Circle of Life

Last Saturday there was a big ruckus down at the chicken coop.  When I went to investigate, I soon saw why:  A Red-Tailed Hawk had killed one of my banty roosters and was feeding on the carcass in the middle of the chicken yard.  No wonder everybody was so upset!

Red Tailed Hawk
(Photo courtesy of
"Wayward" on Wikipedia)

Now, I had very mixed feelings about this sight.  On the one hand, I was sad to lose a good rooster.  But on the other hand, it was a rather exciting nature moment.  How often do you see a hawk feeding on a kill like that?  And of course I didn't have a camera  -- it was Shabbos (the Sabbath) so I wasn't taking pictures that day.  When the hawk saw me, it flew up into a tree, and just sat there, waiting for me to leave.

Over the years, I've lost a number of roosters to various predators.  Although I'm rarely there to see a wild animal go after the chickens (I did glimpse a fox once), I have seen the roosters stand up to cats and people.  In a free-range flock of chickens, the roosters are always on the alert for danger.  They are the sentries of the flock.  There is a distinctive "predator alert" call they give, which the other chickens recognize immediately and run for cover.  The rooster himself will often attack whatever is threatening them, and this is probably why so many lose their lives.  The banty that the hawk was eating must have put up a terrific fight; there were feathers all over the place.  But every other chicken made it safely into the shelter of the coop, where I found them all cackling and raising a huge racket.

Of course, if I kept the chickens penned up in cages all the time, this would not happen.  But part of the reason I have my own chickens is because I do not want my eggs to come from factory farms.  Giving the chickens freedom to scratch, peck, flock together and do all the things chickens do means a certain amount of risk.  But I believe the chickens, like most people, prefer some risk rather than be locked up.   Every living thing craves freedom.

There was a time when a farmer would shoot a chicken-stealing hawk as a matter of course.  Nowadays, these birds are protected, which I consider a good thing.  Although a hawk might take a chicken now and then, he is more likely to grab a mouse or a rat.  The number of rodents eaten by raptors is huge.  (I remember seeing a story about a family of Red-Tails that nested on a building near Central Park, New York.  I'll bet they found plenty of rats around there!)  So really, these beautiful birds are more beneficial than destructive.  Death is a part of the circle of life.  Although it is indeed sad to lose one of my roosters, I still prefer to try and live in peace with the hawks and other wildlife around here.

Harvesting Wild Plums (Prunus americana)

One good thing about the unusually warm spring we had this year: we got a great crop of wild plums.  This far north, the plum crop is rather iffy, because a late frost often kills the blossoms.  But not in 2012.  I just finished making jam, fruit leather, and wine from the fruit of our plum thicket.

Wild plums gathered on our land.

The window of opportunity for harvesting these delicious little plums is very narrow.  No sooner do they ripen, than the wind knocks them to the ground, where they are relished by various forms of wildlife.  In fact, it was my chickens who alerted me to the fact that the plums were ripe.  When the roosters find something especially good to eat, they call the hens with a very specific cackle and they all come running.  (This, by the way, is why the Talmud, Eruvin 100b, says we should learn "courtesy from the rooster" -- he lets his hens eat first.)   When I heard my chickens calling and scratching back there in the plum thicket, I knew something was up!  Chipmunks and wild birds were also enjoying the feast.

Wild plums don't keep very well, which is why you will never see them for sale in the store.  If you want to preserve them, you have to process them right away.  We usually make jam, and this year I decided to make fruit leather as well.  The normal way to extract the pulp and juice is to boil the plums and strain out the pits and skins, but this kills the seeds.  I wanted viable seeds to sell in my eBay store, The Happy Rooster, so I pitted them by hand.  A messy job! 

For fruit leather, I loaded the pitted plums, skins and all, into the food processor, set it on puree, then dried the resulting mess in my food dehydrator (which has special inserts for making leathers.  I suppose you could also do it on waxed paper in a low oven.  I'm told the Indians used to dry the pitted plums in the sun, and I've heard of people making solar food dryers.)  These plums are pretty tart, so we tried both a sweetened and non-sweetened version.  Both are delicious!

Getting a clear jelly from these plums is next to impossible, but they make a pretty good jam if you strain out the skins and most of the yellowish pulp.  I use a colander for this, since it is too thick to go through cheesecloth.  This leaves me with a pink slurry.  Following an old traditional recipe, I add one cup of sugar per cup of juice, then boil until it "seals the tines of a fork," or jells when you cool a spoonful.  (I suppose there is a proper temperature if you use a candy thermometer, but I've always done it seat-of-the-pants.)   I find there is enough pectin in the plums to jell on their own, but if you have some apple juice to add, it makes a nice combination.  If for some reason your jelly doesn't jell, you can still use it as a delicious syrup on pancakes or ice cream.

The last product I made is (or soon will be) a gallon of plum wine.  I started making my own wines when we moved to rural Minnesota, because the only kosher wine we could find here was Manischewitz grape, which is cheap and sweet for the local winos but not a vintage that I enjoy.  Over the years I've experimented with making all kinds of wines, some better than others.  Just be sure to use wine yeast, which you can order online, not baking yeast.  My last batch of plum wine was pretty good.  I'll let you know in a few months how this vintage turns out.  L'chaim!

(To add wild plums to your wildlife landscaping, either buy trees from garden catalogues or, if you have the patience to grow trees from seed, you can get seeds from my eBay store, The Happy Rooster  while supplies last.  This is a native species that grows in zones 3-7.)

Wild plum blossoms in spring.  In addition to fruit,
these trees form a thorny thicket that birds like to nest in

Wild Turkeys -- hard freeze tonight -- picking green tomatoes

This has to be the most cruelty-free wild turkey feather ever -- it was dropped on our dirt road by a passing flock of turkeys about a week ago.   I frequently see turkeys around here, sometimes as many as 20 or more.   I wish I knew where they are roosting -- then I could find lots of feathers!

This morning our dogs were raising a ruckus from inside the house, and when I looked outside, there was a crow walking down the road.  I thought it was odd to see a crow taking a stroll there, but thought maybe he was looking for gravel or grains.  Then I saw the turkeys following behind.  At least, that's how it looked.  I grabbed my camera but of course, as soon as I went outside, the crow let out a warning call and the turkeys all ran into the bush.   I did get a good enough look to see that there were 5 adults and 2 older juveniles. 

Was the crow actually serving as a lookout for the turkeys?  It sure looked like it.  And he did fly off in the same direction that they went.

On another topic, we are due for a hard frost tonight -- going down to 26F, which is probably going to break some records around here. This is really early for a killing frost. Way too cold for tomatoes to survive, even if they are covered.  So I'm taking a break right now from picking and storing them all in the shed.   Some will ripen, and for the rest, I've got lots of recipes using green tomatoes -- fried, pickled, in sauces and relishes.   (BTW, naturally-ripening tomatoes do so from the inside out.  Any tomato showing some whitish or reddish on the skin is already ripening inside and will eventually turn red.) 

I've already pickled all my cukes, picked all my beans, onions, leeks and hot peppers, made sauerkraut and kimchi from the cabbages, jelly from the grapes.   All in all, it was a pretty good year for the garden.  Tonight we are making apple butter and applesauce, using fruit from our trees.  All of this certainly helps with the winter food budget.



Scarlet Sumac leaves against the sky
Pine County, Minnesota



Birds flocking, crickets chirping -- Rosh Hashanah is coming soon!

 I woke up very early this morning and went outside for a dawn walk, to be met with the squawking of a huge flock of birds waking up in a distant tree. (Probably starlings, they were too far away to positively ID.)  I don't have a telephoto lens, just a digital point-and-shoot, but was able to snap this pic just as the flock took off with the sunrise.   Even though it's not the best photo I ever took, I'm pretty proud of it -- migrating birds have gathered in that same tree for years, and this is the first time I was able to capture them taking flight.

Flocks of chattering birds mean autumn is coming.  So does another sound:  the chirping of crickets.  I have always heard this as a sweet-sad sound: sweet, because I love the song of crickets, and sad, because it marks the beginning of the end of summer.  Crickets are around earlier, of course, but they do not get their song until they shed their skins for the final time and the males get wings with the "instrument" to make the sound.  It is the wings -- not the legs as is commonly thought -- that crickets rub together for this sound. 

A third sound that I associate with fall is not made by nature, although it does require a natural  object to produce it.  This is the sound of the shofar or ram's horn, that Jews blow on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, as well as during the Hebrew month of Elul that preceeds the holy day.   The Jewish calendar is lunar, so the exact date of Rosh Hashanah varies form year to year, but it is usually in September.  (This year it is quite late, beginning after sundown on the 28th.)

Typical ram's horn Shofar

Some Christian Bibles mistakenly translate shofar as "trumpet" and refer to Rosh Hashanah as "the Feast of Trumpets."  The first time somebody asked me about the Feast of Trumpets, I had no idea what they were talking about, because no Jew would ever mistake a shofar for a trumpet.  Trumpets were also blown in the ancient Jerusalem Temple, but a shofar is definitely not a trumpet!  The shofar is an ancient, primitive horn that is literally made from an animal's  horn, usually from a male sheep but it can also be from a goat or gazelle.  (Never a cow, though, because of the sin of the Golden Calf.)   The shofar produces an archetypal, visceral sound that shakes the very soul and is meant to wake us up spiritually.  "Wake up, wake up!" the shofar says, "Return to the path of God, your Creator!"

I suppose that in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is now the beginning of spring, not fall, there are other nature sounds that Jews associate with Rosh Hashanah.  But for me, it is the sound of the crickets and the calls of migrating birds that remind me the High Holy Days are coming.

Pileated Woodpecker action on dead trees -- wow!

Pileated Woodpecker
(Photo by Noel Lee, courtesy
of Wikimedia Commons)

 Now that the snow has melted, I can finally get back into our woods to see what is going on there (I keep telling myself to get snowshoes so I could hike there in deep winter.  Oh well, maybe next year...)  The Pileated Woodpeckers sure have been busy chopping away at dead trees!  I haven't found a nest yet, my guess is they are either looking for insects, or trying out different trees to see if they are suitable for a nest. 

This illustrates the importance of leaving large dead trees for these big woodpeckers to use. The back five acres of our land are pretty much left as-is, except that I collect firewood there for campfires and maple syrup, and I maintain a trail (which will need some serious work this year. Lots of dead trees and branches came down in the heavy winds we had a while back. And the heavy snow totally flattened the wild raspberries across the trail in places -- that should make picking the fruit interesting this year! On the other hand, it will be easier for the grouse to eat the berries so close to the ground.)

Anyway, back to woodpecker holes.  (To see enlarged versions of any of these pix, just click on the picture.  I use thumbnails on my blog so it will load faster.)

TREE #1

This tree (on the right) was the first I spotted, and absolutely amazing! Just look at the huge holes the birds have chopped out.  There was also one at the top that was a literal trench about 5 feet long!  Unfortunately, it did not photograph well, because the sun was behind that side of the tree at the time.  But you can guess from these pix that it was HUGE!  The top of the tree had also  broken  and fallen off where the bird had chopped so far through, the tree broke.

 This next picture is a closeup of two of the lower holes. Notice that the entire trunk was covered with a small species of shelf fungus. I imagine that had helped to soften up the wood.  This is my favorite in this series of photos.    There is just so much interesting texture and contrast between the delicate fungi and those big holes!

TREE #2

These next two shots are of another tree I found in the same general area, clearly in the territory of the same birds.   There were more dead trees with evidence of woodpecker action, but these were the most dramatic.   A big pile of wood chips like this was at the bottom of the other tree, too. 

 This is a closeup of the base of the same tree.  I almost expected an elf to be sitting in there, the hole was so storybook perfect.  More likely the base is now so weakened that this tree will soon fall, where it will become shelter for the insects, salamanders, and other creatures that like to live under fallen logs.

Spring is here, cleaning for Passover, birds are back!

I haven't had much time to write on my blog lately -- between making maple syrup, cleaning out the chicken coop, and cleaning the house for Passover, I haven't been online much in the past couple weeks.   So this is just a quick note to let all my readers know I'm fine, and very much enjoying the return of the birds.  The bird migration north is in full swing.  The phoebes that nest on my land (one in the open garage and the other under the eaves of the chicken coop) are back.  Of course, I have no way to know if they are the exact same birds that nested here last year, but we have had phoebe nests in the same areas for about 5 years now, so it is either them or their descendants. 

This is a photo I took of the young birds in a phoebe nest in 2009 -- they fledged the next day.   I liked it so much, I made it up as a souvenir postcard (you can still buy a copy in my ebay store, The Happy Rooster):

The Canada geese are back in droves, and I've seen Sandhill Cranes flying over several times now.  Monday on the way to Hinckley, my wife and I saw two pair of Snow Geese standing in two different flooded fields -- an unusual sight, we usually see them flying over on their way to Canada but rarely on the ground.  But Sunday night it was very windy so I supsect we had a  bird drop (which is different from a bird dropping) because overnight there were suddenly lots of migrating birds in the trees and bushes.  On the same day, the pond across the street was full of ducks, and I also heard them back in our seasonal woodland wetlands area, where it floods every spring.  All waiting out the high winds, I guess.

Plus there are robins, flocks of Juncos, and song sparrows, pheasants calling, grouse drumming.  I also saw a red-tailed hawk and a pair of Bald Eagles.   And the pair of starlings that nests in a hole in the eaves every year is back.  I keep meaning to get up there and plug it up, but I'm a bit old for climbing second-story ladders now.  Starlings are not really a big problem here, this is the only pair we ever see and I enjoy  enjoy seeing them sitting on the power lines and flying back and forth to feed their young.  When I do get the eaves fixed, I plan to put a birdhouse for them up there.   Otherwise, they might go compete with the Bluebirds or Tree Swallows.

Starlings, you have probably heard, were purposely released in the USA by a guy who wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.   There's a chapter about this in a new book, "How Shakespeare Changed Everything," due out on May 10.  (I got an advance review copy.  Since I'm not a Shakespeare expert, I found it very informative -- basically a good book with odd facts to get teenagers or newbies interested in the classics.)  The starling release has over-succeeded.  In many place they are serious pests.  But up here in the North Woods, they are just another species returning for spring.

Crocuses are blooming, the daffodils are coming up, and the frogs are out, too -- across the road is a marsh where the Spring Peepers are almost deafening, along with a species I call "clacking frogs" because that's the sound they make, likeone of those kids' clacker toys.  I've never actually seen them do it, so I'm not sure what the species is.  No singing toads yet, but I expect to hear them soon.  Last year a big toad took up residence in the flower garden outside the front window and we heard him all summer.

Yesterday I dug up my horseradish for the "bitter herbs" at our Seder (on Monday and Tuesday nights) and today I get to vacuum the rugs.   Sunday we kosher the kitchen to get rid of all leavening, bring down the Passover dishes from the attic, etc. (We order matzoh online -- it has already arrived.)   Monday we go buy fresh veggies and begin cooking for the first Seder Monday night.   So I might not get around to blogging again for a while -- until then, wishing you all a Happy Spring (or fall if you are reading this Down Under.)

On bird migration, modern science, and Jewish theology

The Canada geese are coming back now -- I've seen several flocks heading north.  With all the flooding going on here in Minnesota, there's plenty of open water for them to swim in.  (Luckily we are not in a flood zone, but my domestic geese are having a good time wading in puddles and honking at their migrating brothers.)

Speaking of migration, did you know that until the late 1700s, it was commonly thought that birds hibernated in the mud in rivers and lakes during the winter?  The British doctor Edward Jenner, who is best known for discovering the smallpox vaccine, was also interested in hibernation, and conducted extensive studies on hedgehogs and other hibernating mammals.  He was among the first to remark that birds were not dirty or muddy when they reappeared in the spring.  Nor were they thin and hungry like other hibernating animals when they emerge in spring.  So where did the birds go? 

Jenner dissected spring-returning birds and examined the contents of their stomachs, to see what, if anything they had been eating.  He found seeds of plants not native to Britain. He also noted that these species of birds had been seen flying far out across the oceans. So he hypothesized that the birds were leaving Britain to go someplace else in winter. Unfortunately, Jenner died before he was able to write up his studies on bird migration, but his family published them after his death. Modern research has confirmed his theory:  birds do not hibernate in mud, they migrate.

That such a basic scientific fact was not discovered until the late 18th century raises the question of various "scientific" statements made by the early Jewish sages.  When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, it was taken for granted among Jews that when it came to science and medicine, the modern discoveries take precedence over any folklore that might be in the Talmud or other earlier writings.   We went by the opinion of Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish philosophers and a medical doctor, wrote in the 12th century: "Do not ask of me to reconcile everything that they (the Sages of old) stated from science with the actual reality, for the science of those days was deficient, and they did not speak out of traditions from the prophets regarding these matters... " (Guide for the Perplexed, 3:14)  In other words, when it comes to science, the Sages were not divinely-inspired prophets nor were they infallible.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a major 19th-century German Jewish theologian, later wrote: "...We find that the Sages themselves considered the wisdom of the gentile scholars equal to their own in the natural sciences. To determine who was right in areas where the gentile sages disagreed with their own knowledge, they did not rely on their tradition but on reason. Moreover they even respected the opinion of the gentile scholars, admitting when the opinion of the latter seemed more correct than their own." (From a letter written in 1876  to Rabbi Pinchas M.E. Wechsler.)

That was the attitude I grew up with: science was science, no matter who discovered it.  But more recently, with the rise of the Haredi (post-WWII fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish) movement, there are those among my Jewish brethren who expect us to take absolutely everything the Talmudic rabbis said as literal scientific fact, trumping anything the secular scientists might since have discovered.  I find this impossible to do without having to turn my brain off -- an option I doubt God would want.  After all, God gave us brains to learn with.  The rabbis of the Talmudic era were very wise, but when it came to science, they were limited to what was commonly known around them. 

Thus, you find  things like the curious statement that "lice come from sweat" and  it is therefore permissible to kill them on the Sabbath  (Shabbat 107b)  when we normally do not kill living things.  At the time of this ruling, "spontaneous generation" of insects and other creatures was taken for granted by the whole known world, not just the rabbis.  Aristotle wrote that certain lower animals “are not produced from animals at all, but arise spontaneously: some are produced out of the dew which falls on foliage... others are produced in putrefying mud and dung, others in wood, green or dry, others in residues, whether voided residues or residues still within the living animal.”   Eels and fishes were commonly believed to come from the foam of the sea and flies from rotten meat. 

But today we know that lice come from the eggs of other lice, and are indeed living things.  The same goes for the Talmudic mice that are "half dirt and half flesh" (Chullin 9:10, Sanhedrin 91a), another biological impossibility.   For that matter, DNA wasn't even discovered until 1962 -- when I was still in high school.   Yet look how much  -- in my own lifetime! --  that discovery has fundamentally changed our entire perspective on the natural world!  All the "ancient wisdom" about passing down characteristics through "blood" is now rendered obsolete.

These may seem like trivial issues to some people, but for many Orthodox Jews, they are serious challenges to our faith.  If the Sages were wrong about lice and mice, are they also wrong about other things, too?   Can we trust anything the Talmud says in the face of these absurdities?

If you see Judaism (or any other religion) as a house of cards that will tumble with even the slightest question or error, then science can seem very threatening.  But if you can make a distinction between science studying the "how" of the  natural world and theology dealing with the "why" of human existence, there is no conflict between science and religion.   Science tells us how things work, but it is neutral on questions about God, the soul, and religious laws.  Scientifically, there is no reason I should not eat pork or mix meat with milk, because these laws are not about science per se.   I don 't keep kosher because is is more healthy or more natural,  but because it is the will of God for me as a Jew.   And if I had lice (which I thankfully do not!) it would still be permissible to kill them on the Sabbath, even though we now know they do  not spontaneously generate from sweat.  This is also why, when I see birds migrating, it is no challenge to my faith.

(For an in-depth discussion of spontaneous generation and Jewish law, see  The Sweat-Louse, the Dirt-Mouse and the Dong Chong.)

Geese migrating over my land in Minnesota, 2011



Do animals have souls? (Part I)

Do Jews believe that animals have souls?  I get this question a lot lately.  People want a quick yes-or-no answer, but the problem is, the Hebrew language has five different words that get translated as "soul" (nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah and yechidah) and they mean different things in Jewish mysticism (kabbalah).  So before I can answer the question, I need to define the five levels of the soul.  Sorting this out is not always easy, because different commentators have interpreted these terms in different ways throughout the centuries, and they don't always agree.  Here are the basic definitions as I understand them:

1. Nefesh (NEH-fesh) the physical life force of the body. All animals certainly have this, or they would not be alive.  For that matter, so do plants have nefesh.   This is also the word used by King David in Psalm 25:20: "O guard my soul and rescue me." Some modern versions of the Bible translate this as "guard my life."  In Jewish thought, to "guard your soul" means to take care of your health and safety.  We are also commanded to take care of our animals in the same way, giving them proper food, water and shelter: "A good man takes care of his animals, but wicked men are cruel to theirs." (Proverbs 12:10)   So before we go any further, let's be very clear that whether or not animals have souls in the theological sense is irrelevant in terms of our responsibility to care for them.  One cannot argue that animals are "things" and then go abuse them, heaven forbid.  (In fact, even "things" have a netzotz -- a divine spark of holiness - within them, but that's a whole other blog.)

2. Ruach (ROO-akh) literally means "wind" or "spirit" and is the emotional level of the soul.   In Hebrew/Yiddish idiom, to do something "with ruach" means to do it with feeling -- such as singing a song or playing an instrument with "soul."  Biologically, I would associate ruach with the limbic system, the "mammalian" part of the brain that controls emotions. Maimonides, an important 12th-century Jewish philosopher, clearly states in his Guide for the Perplexed that when it comes to the love between a mother animal and a mother human, there is no difference, because love comes from the emotional level.  This is the reason the Torah forbids slaughtering a baby animal on the same day as its mother (Leviticus 22:28) because the mother might see this and feel emotional pain.  By extension, Jewish law forbids slaughtering any animal in front of another.  (Shulchan Arukh Yoreh Deah 34:14)

Maimonides also argues that the commandment to send away a mother bird before you take eggs or young from a nest (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) is meant to teach us compassion for the feelings of the mother bird.  I have chickens and believe me, they do indeed get upset if they see you taking their eggs.  So clearly, from a Jewish perspective, birds and mammals have ruach.  Whether or not insects, fish, reptiles, etc. have this level is up for debate.  Certainly they experience fear; otherwise, they would not run or swim away.  But does a snake feel love?

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liady (the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, 18th century) wrote in the Tanya that humans actually have two souls: an "animal" soul that they are naturally born with (which seems to correspond to the nefesh-ruach levels described above) and a "divine soul" which is "a part of God above" and must be developed and consciously focused on spiritual things.  These two souls have been compared to a rider and a horse; when they work together, all is well, but if the horse throws the rider, the lower body desires take over and a person acts only on animal instincts.   From Rabbi Schneur Zalman's perspective, only humans have the higher soul level, although his is NOT the last word in the subject.  This brings us to:

3. Neshamah (neh-SHAH-mah) is the word most commonly used in colloquial speech for "soul" in the usual sense, that is, an immortal soul that survives death.   But it is also the word used in Psalm 150 for "let everything that has a soul praise God."  Some translations render this as "everything that has breath," because neshamah is etymologically related to the word neshimah, meaning "breath."  Now, if everything that has breath is to praise God, wouldn't that suggest that animals, too, have a neshamah?  In Psalm 148, everything in the universe is praising God, even inanimate objects such as the sun, moon and stars.  So "praising God" can't really be used as a criteria for whether or not something has an immortal soul.

However, we should note that there are many anecdotal stories of people encountering "ghosts" or spirits of animals.  So it does appear quite possible that something in an animal survives death.

In kabbalah, neshamah is associated with the higher levels of the mind and, interestingly, some Jewish philosophers felt that we are not automatically born with a neshamah, that we must develop it.  This is supported by modern brain research. The more we use our brains, the more synapses we develop among the neurons, and the more intelligent we can become.   Conversely, a brain that is not stimulated will lose synapses and, in some cases, fail to learn even basic language and reasoning skills.  "Use it or lose it" apparently applies in both biology and theology.

Jewish philosophy has long regarded knowledge as the only thing we take with us to the Next World, which may be why developing the intellectual neshamah is associated with immortality.  But does this mean we are developing a "soul," or simply improving the physical brain?  Hard to say.  The fact is, we can't really prove there is an immortal human soul, anymore than we can prove -- or disprove -- the existence of an immortal soul in animals.  What we can say is that humans do possess a level of intelligence that is greater than even the higher primates, and that we humans can develop a conscious sense of right and wrong that animals lack.   (A lion may kill prey, but he does not murder.)   Most Jewish thinkers also maintain that humans are the only beings with free will, who can consciously choose to know their Creator.

Neshamah is generally connected not only with intellectual pursuits, but also with moral responsibility.  In Yiddish, to have a "Jewish soul" (yiddische neshamah) means to have a sense of proper humanity and compassion.   In other words, to be a mensch -- an upright person of true integrity and honor -- the highest compliment one can give in the Yiddish language.  

4. Chayah (KHAI-yah) literally means "living."  It is used in the Torah in Genesis 2:7 , where God breathed the breath of life into Adam and then Adam "became a living soul (nefesh chayah)."  Note that this term combines nefesh, the life force of the body, with chayah, "living."  But isn't a body with nefesh already living?   In the biological sense, yes.  So chayah must add another dimension to human existence.

In kabbalah, chayah refers to a higher spiritual level, something like a collective consciousness, where all members of humanity are connected together.  The word adam literally means "human being" -- homo sapiens -- in Hebrew, and only later in the story does it become the name of a specific man.   Adam Kadmon -- the Primal Adam -- is often pictured as a hermaphrodite cosmic being who contains all the souls of all the humans who ever were or will be born.  He/she is the chayah level of the human species.  (In Jungian terms, the species archetype.)

(This section was updated on 12/31/15, incorporating some feedback from readers.) Do other species also have a chayah level?  Not in the human sense.  But if we regard chayah as the species archetype, then each pair of animals in Eden would be the species' chayah.  Nefesh chayah is used in one other place, namely Genesis 1:20, which seems to support this.  The full phrase is  is "yishr'tzu hamayim sheretz nefesh chayah" which is translated variously as "let the waters swarm (teem) with swarms of living creatures," or with "moving creatures that have life," etc. So the focus is on them being alive, which is what I said the nefesh level was, i.e., the life force of the body.  They are all created by direct command, not by having the "breath of life" breathed in separately.

Thjis is a main difference between animals and humans.  Everything else in the Eden story is created by God simply speaking it into existence: "Let there be light -- and there was light."  Only in the case of humans does God "breath the breath of life" into them directly.  Again I stress:  This does not mean that other creatures don't have life.  And we have already demonstrated that many creatures have feelings.  But Judaism does take the direct  "breathing in" of Adam's nefesh chayah  to mean that there is something different about humans as compared to the rest of creation.  Rabbi Natan Slifkin, known as the "zoo rabbi" and author of Man and Beast, clearly states that humans are the only beings that have a "divine soul" in this sense.   But on the other hand, he also devotes many pages to our responsibility toward animals as stewards of the earth.  So do numerous other Jewish commentators.

4. Yechidah (yeh-KHEE-dah) means "unity" and comes from the same Hebrew root as echad, "one" as in "God is One." Yechidah does not appear in the Bible as such, but is a kabbalistic term developed in later Jewish mysticism. Yechidah is the level of the soul where we can "touch God."

 Judaism does not teach that we can become God or merge entirely with God as some mystical systems do (although some Hasidic thinkers came pretty close to that.)   We Jews are not pantheists.   But there is a level where we can experience oneness with God's Creation and, through this experience, get a "taste" of the oneness of God.  Humans all over the world have reported this type of experience. 

Do animals also experience oneness with God?  It is impossible to say, because they cannot tell us.  Some Jewish thinkers (as well as others) maintain that animals -- and, in fact, all created beings except humans -- automatically do the will of God because they were created that way, with no free will to do otherwise.   In that sense, they may be more in tune with God than we are.  At the same time, they do not seem to have the same level of creativity that comes with our free will.

In conclusion:  There is no clear yes-or-no answer to this question.  Whether or not you believe animals have souls depends on how you define "soul," and Judaism does not speak with one voice on the subject.  One thing Judaism does clearly say, however, is that animals are living beings with feelings, that they were created by God, and that we are commanded to care for them properly.   (That's three things, actually, but you know what I mean.)

This being the case, why is it that Western civilization  -- much of which is based on the Bible -- has become so callous toward animals and the environment?  The fault lies not with Judaism, but with a non-Jewish philosopher named Rene Descartes -- "the father of modern philosophy" -- who lived in the 1600s and believed that animals are nothing but automatons, unfeeling machines that cannot feel pain. This is not in accord with Jewish thought but, unfortunately, a lot of Jews, as well as many Christians and others, have adopted Cartesian attitudes over the centuries -- a topic we explore in Part 2 of this series.

Winter nature photos -- a creative challenge



"Snowy Tree at Dawn"

 As I was looking through my winter photos, it struck me how my "eye" for nature is different in winter than summer.  During the warm months, I tend to focus on things close up:  Flowers, insects, birds, etc.  During the winter, when everything is covered with snow, my attention goes more toward sunrises and landscapes.   After all, how much plain white snow can you watch without getting terminally bored?

Nevertheless, I do sometimes spot interesting natural objects and other "found art" that get "captured" and preserved by my camera. Occasionally the snow makes a rather ordinary thing look much more interesting than usual.  Here are a few of my favorites:  

These frozen crabapples were on a volunteer tree growing behind my chicken coop.  (Either it grew from the compost, or a seed was dropped there by a bird.)  The tree was already there when we moved here in 1997, and every year it produces a crop of 1-inch fruits that hang on the tree all winter.  When spring comes, lots of birds enjoy the mushy thawed-out apples, including robins and cedar waxwings.

Very few birds hang around here all winter, but the woodpeckers do, and it's obvious that they have been busy on this old rotting stump, as well as other snags in our little woodlot.  Somebody once referred to dead trees as "fast food restaurants" for birds.  A lot of insects winter over on or inside dead trees, and winter birds rely on them for high-energy food.  So, unless the dead trees are a hazard, I leave them for the birds.  There's a dead pine that I can see from my window that almost always has a Downy Woodpecker or a Nuthatch creeping up and down the peeling bark.

My last winter pic for this post is this bunch of snow-covered dead grass.  Not a particularly rare sight --we have fields of it here! -- but it is an example of how the snow can make ordinary objects more interesting and artistic.  I like the way the blades of grass form a sort of abstract pattern, providing a contrast that you would never see without the snow:

A Winter Field in Contrast"