OCTOBER SUNRISE

OCTOBER SUNRISE, Church O’ The Pines. The morning gossiping of chickadees. The laugh of a pileated woodpecker. The reflecting Father of Waters…. All the congregation, surrounded by beauty. We wish you beauty. We wish you Good Sabbath.

AFTER DAYS OF North Country scorchers

AFTER DAYS OF North Country scorchers it is a fine and pleasant thing to watch thunderheads building over Fawn Isalnd on Rainy Lake. An island is no safe wall against the craziness and troubles of the world. But it is a reminder that there is only so much we can control or influence. And thunderstorms billowing above are similar reminders.

Cloudy Sunday morning

EVEN ON A COOL, gray and cloudy Sunday morning, a slow stroll around the Church O’ The Island is rewarding. The view from high atop Moonlight Ledge is outstanding, while down the cliff-face pale pink corydalis flaunts its pink and yellow blossoms. White-throated sparrows and yellow warblers sing their hymns. Near Jackpine Point the blueflag iris shows its colors, and

THE MORNING cuppacoffee view

THE MORNING cuppacoffee view from the cottage screen porch down the historic ‘voyageurs’ highway’ is worth the trip up to Rainy Lake all by itself. Rained all day yesterday, supposed to rain the next few days. But this morning, with song sparrows and yellow warblers singing, with the ghostly echoes of old voyageurs’ chansons and with sunlight glinting off the

MORNING after returning from guiding Road Scholars

THIS MORNING, after returning from guiding Road Scholars, it feels good to sit on the deck in my grandad’s old Adirondack chair from 60 years ago. To be under the big pines and beside my little bonsai friends. And to listen to the nearly full chorus of the Church O The Pines choir, flitting from limb to limb in the

Bluff Country-Driftless Area

IN THE GORGEOUS Bluff Country-Driftless Area, gazing across the Mississippi Valley at the cloud and sun mosaic of the Minnesota hills, we find ourselves in Wisconsin. Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge is spectacular, for scenery, wildlife, and particularly birds—from double crested cormorants to great egrets, bald eagles to red-tailed hawks to barred owls to gray catbirds to red-headed woodpeckers, all of

ON TODAY’S Road Scholar adventure

ON TODAY’S Road Scholar adventure we took in Whitewater State Park and its surrounding wetland marshes. What a grand day! Including a highly unusual bird-sighting. In the park, on the Trout Run Creek trail, we found the palm warbler and eastern towhee, our first rose-breasted grosbeaks, and others, while enjoying a woodland carpet of violets, spring beauty, trout lily (yellow

IT IS A FINE DAY in the Pine Point woods

IT IS A FINE DAY in the Pine Point woods, as two of our favorite migrants among the passeriformes—perching birds—have returned. The little yellow-rumped (Myrtle) warblers have traveled from the southern US and Mexico, on their way to the North Woods of northeastern Minnesota and Canada. They are usually the first of the warbler tribe to push the boundaries of

ALL THE MEMBERS of the Church O’ The Pines

ALL THE MEMBERS of the Church O’ The Pines were excited this week, as temperatures soared and spring breezes blew. The eagles chirped loudly from their nest tree, and chickadees sang their two-note, ‘Spring’s here’ mating song. Down at the river bank, male hooded mergansers practiced their sweet little growling sounds to attract the attention of impressionable females. Sparky the

Gibbous moon at the Church O’ The Pines

SOMETIMES, here at the Church O’ The Pines, when a gibbous moon dangles among the limbs of the tall timber, I can almost imagine I am camped on some old, favorite campsite, deep in the North Country wilderness. Of course, this is a favorite campsite, too; and in the times of Zebulon Pike and Schoolcraft, this, too, was wilderness. And