A 2015 Prairie Retrospective

May you never forget what is worth remembering; May you never remember what is best forgotten. — old Irish blessing

Every prairie year has its own personality. Every season in the tallgrass is full of surprises.

Thank you for hiking the prairie with me on Tuesdays in 2015. I hope you’ll enjoy this retrospective of the Illinois prairie, month by month.  Who knows what wonderful things are in store for us in 2016?

January

Winter is a good time for naps, as these shaggy bison know. Bringing buffalo to Nachusa Grasslands in Franklin Grove, IL,  was a culmination of a dream for many prairie restorationists. In 2015, we watched the herd grow and a new bison unit open.

February

Windy winter skies bring their own motion to the prairie, rattling the brittle grasses and seedheads.

March

Fire is to prairie as water is to life. Because we suppress wildfires, prairie restorationists must used prescribed burns to ensure the prairie regularly goes up in flames. Only a few weeks after all is soot and ashes, the prairie turns emerald with new growth. It’s a resurrection of sorts. A chance for new beginnings that inspires even the most jaded and cynical observer.

April

A great egret keeps watch over a wet prairie, scanning for small frogs and fish.

May

As spring breezes ripple prairie ponds and streams, the sounds of insects, frogs, and birds add their notes to the tallgrass soundtrack. Dragonflies emerge.

June

Pale purple coneflowers  open, heralding the beginning of summer on the prairie. Once revered for their medicinal value, today we appreciate them for their verve and color.

Like badminton birdies, aren’t they?

Moist conditions helped queen of the prairie have a banner year in 2015.

July

Dragonflies are all around us in the warmer months. In July, they clamor for our attention with their numbers and bejeweled colors.  Here, a blue dasher looks out at the prairie with its complex eyes. Below, an American rubyspot hangs over a stream rushing through the tallgrass.

August

Bee balm rampaged across the prairie in 2015; monarchs sipping beebalm nectar approved. There was good news for monarch butterflies this year — from the tollroads in Illinois which will fund milkweed plantings; to increased numbers of monarchs this season.

September

Without volunteers, the prairie restoration efforts in the Midwest would be a moot point. Here, a volunteer from an Illinois church group collects seeds on one prairie that will be used to plant a different site.

October

Asters are the floral bon voyage to the prairie blooming season. It’s bittersweet to see their purples, whites, and golds across the prairie. We know winter is just around the corner.

The goldenrods join the chorus of goodbyes each autumn.

November

Milkweed, including this common milkweed, got a lot of attention in 2015 for its value to monarchs. Did you plant some? If not, there’s always next year.

December

Who says December has to be colorless? In some years, the prairie palette seems to catch fire as winter begins its slow drain of colors from the tallgrass. The oranges, yellows, and reds are a reminder of the prescribed fires that will burn in the spring; waking the prairie up to a new season of life.

I began my first blog entry this year with the image above; it seems fitting to close out this prairie season with it.

Looking forward to hiking the tallgrass on Tuesdays with you in 2016.

Happy New Year!

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): bison in the snow, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; winter sky, NG; prescribed burn, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; after the fire, SP; great egret, NG; pond life, NG; Echinacea pallida, SP; Echinacea pallida, SP; queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra); blue dasher dragonfly, SP; American rubyspot, NG; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) and monarch butterfly; volunteer, SP; smooth blue asters (Symphyotrichum laeve), SP; New England asters (Symphyotrichumnovae-angliae) and goldenrod (Solidago spp. — there were several species represented in this particular patch where I photographed, and the IDs are uncertain) SP; common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) DuPage County Forest Preserve; late December grasses, NG.

Old Irish Blessing: original source unknown

A Prairie Solstice

If you love light, today is not your day.

It is the winter solstice.

The shortest day of the year. Following the longest night.

No other day will have less light.

It’s the first tick of astronomical winter’s clock. But in the Chicago area, the only thing that says “winter” is the date on the calendar.

It’s been a month full of talk about El Niño, a warming trend. Spring shrubs, deluded by cold nights and daytime temperatures fluctuating into the upper 60s, push out flowers. Lilacs hint purple. Forsythia opens its blooms.

Listen! Look up! The sandhill cranes migrate over us by the thousands, belatedly waking up to the realization they’ve been lulled into lollygagging up north. They dallied a little too long in Wisconsin.

The bison wonder why they bothered with their shaggy overcoats.

 

The warm temperatures this month belie the lack of light that drains inexorably away; minute by minute, hour by hour.  In the morning, we drive to work in darkness; arrive home for dinner under cover of night. But we dimly remember the sunrises…

…and the sunsets….

… the light we took for granted, that turned the savanna edges and prairie misty and luminescent.

We long for the light.

As I’ve felt the darkness brush against me, surround me, and submerge me this month, I’ve thought about what’s coming. Christmas. A day dedicated to light.

This year, Christmas morning will dawn with a “Full Cold Moon” or “Long Nights Moon” as Native Americans once called it. It’s the first full moon on Christmas since 1977 — more than 35 years ago.  We’ll wake up to it when it rises at about 6 a.m.

On this darkest day, after a string of dark weeks, in a world that so desperately needs it…

Send the light.

We’re ready.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): storm over author’s prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL;  full moon with Venus rising over author’s prairie, GE; partial moon over author’s prairie, GE; forsythia flowering December 18, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sandhill cranes over Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL;  bison herd at Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; sunrise, Hidden Lake Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Glen Ellyn, IL; sunset, HL, GE; prairie edge, NG; December morning sundog, Chicago, IL; full moon, GE, IL.

Ghosts of the Tallgrass

“Where there is no vision, there is no hope.” George Washington Carver.

It’s an unseasonably warm day in December. Fog shrouds the prairie. Everything softens. Fades. Blurs.

Bison haunt the tallgrass, elusive and half-hidden.

Illinois once had more than 22 million acres of prairie.

Today, only 3,000 original acres of  tallgrass remain.

A ghost of what once was.

When we went looking for what was left of the prairie, we found only scraps. Prairie was found  in pockets and corners of land where the farmer’s plow and development could not reach.

Around rocky outcrops.

Along old railroad right of ways.

Tucked into neglected graveyards.

Isn’t it ironic that these neglected, overlooked places were virtual time capsules? That the  cemeteries of the dead became a repository for the living? For hope?

A springboard for rebirth. Resurrection.

It takes vision to imagine a better future. To remember — and believe —  that hope for the future may be found in the most unexpected places. Where will you look?

All photos by Cindy Crosby except where noted (top to bottom) : prairie in the fog, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; bison in the fog, NG;  misty December evening, NG; stand of trees in the tallgrass, NG; rocky knob, NG;  railroad tracks, Bosque del Apache, San Antonio, New Mexico — photo by Jeff Crosby;  tombstone, Chapel Hill Cemetery, just outside Rochelle, IL; CHC:; road through the bison unit, NG.

 

Prairie Essentials

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ The Little Prince

Take a prairie hike on a December day, and it’s easy to forget some of the essentials. No, not gloves and a hat.

The prairie essentials. Those now-invisible, dimly-remembered elements of the prairie; those moments in the tallgrass that first caught your heart.

 

Have you forgotten? How lush the prairie is in the spring! A thousand different possible greens.

Do you remember? The moment when you first saw the lupine blooms in the spring. You stood on the path, stunned.

In December, when the prairie lies still and silent, immobile in the freezing temperatures, it’s easy to forget…

…the sound of the frogs in the wet prairie, vocalizing so loudly you couldn’t hear yourself think. The deep “moo” of the bullfrog, reminding  you of where its name comes from. The strummed comb of chorus frogs. The sleigh bells of spring peepers.

So, that spring day,  you let go of trying to think. You just listened by the side of the pond. Remember?

Those essential moments. Those essential images. Out of season. Waiting to be taken out and enjoyed.

In December, when the snow suffocates the grasses, then melts everything into a cauldron of mud… and the stark seed heads of false sunflowers stand naked in the frigid air…

…you begin to recall… How, one spring,  the lone bison stood silhouetted against the aluminum sky like a buffalo nickel.

Or how you sat for hours by the bluebird house, watching for small chips of feathered sky to fly by in the warmth of late summer.

In December, when your eyelashes are rimmed with snowflakes, and your hands are numb with cold…

…you suddenly remember the day you stumbled across the fringed gentians, nestled deep in the fall grasses.

Have you forgotten? The butterfly you glimpsed, gently tasting the prairie cinquefoil with its slender feet?

The sounds of the woodpecker drumming in December… does it conjure up the memory of the dickcissel calling its own name in July?

The prairie essentials. Dimly remembered in December; triggered by sights, smells, sounds. You believe  — although you can’t see them  — that you will encounter them again.

You know the deep roots of grasses and forbs continue to plunge more than 15 feet into the earth, even if you can’t see them. They are there, keeping the prairie grounded.

While on the surface, small tracks speak of  invisible things, temporarily hidden.

You believe that the scrim of ice along the stream that runs through the prairie, holding it in its inexorable, prison-like grip…

…will give way — soon enough — to the freely-flowing current in July.

I love the prairie in all its rhythms; marvel at its winter wonders. But when I see the prairie in December, I see more than what my eyes tell me.

My heart remembers the prairie essentials; no matter what the season.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): Prairie Visitor Station, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  bridge over Willoway Brook, SP; lupine (Lupinus perennis), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; bison in the snow, NG; bullfrog, NG;  false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides), SP; bison, NG; bluebird house, NG;    fringed gentian (Gentianopsis crinita), NG; red admiral on prairie cinquefoil (Potentilla arguta), NG; dickcissel, NG; sun and snow, SP; animal tracks, SP; Willoway Brook SP; Clear Creek, NG; bridge in the snow, SP.

The opening quote: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye”  is from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Thanks to Jeff Crosby for first introducing me to the book, many years ago.

 

‘Round the December Prairie

A heavy November snow steamrolled the prairie into submission. A 50 degree day or two then melted the snow into invisibility. What’s left behind around Willoway Brook looks as if a giant paperweight has pressed the tallgrass flat.

December on the prairie opens with a brand new look. Before the deep snow, the prairie grasses brushed my shoulders, towered over my head; a thick, vertical wall. Now, in many places, a springy carpet of grasses lies under my feet.

For most of the autumn, the prairie has been drawn by an artist who loved vertical lines.

But now, with the verticals knocked to the ground, a new shape takes prominence.

Circles. One of the simplest shapes in geometry. I see them everywhere.

The prairie dock leaves, drained of their chlorophyll, remind me of a dress I once owned made of dotted swiss material.

The globes of bee balm repeat the circular pattern; clusters of tiny yawning tubular tunnels.

Sunken balls of carrion flower catch the afternoon light.

Tall coreopsis seeds dot the sky like beads suspended on wires.

Overhead, thousands of cranes are migrating south, punctuating the quiet with their cries. They circle and loop; circle and loop.

 

The gray-headed coneflower seeds have half-circle pieces missing.

Crinkled round ball galls look like they’ve dropped from another planet. Anybody home?  No sign of life inside.

Even the downy leaves of ashy sunflowers echo the pattern; try to loop  into circles.

The compass plant leaves curl into ringlets, stippled with tiny full moons.

Freckled and fanciful.

I miss November’s bold, vibrant tallgrass, upright and waving in the wind from horizon line to horizon line. A flattened prairie seems defeated, somehow. Beaten down by the elements.

But I’m glad for the unexpected gift of seeing a prairie pattern I might have otherwise missed. Losing a familiar way of viewing the world opens up a different perspective. Today, I’m seeing the prairie in the round.

Who knows what else I’ll learn to see in a new way before the year is done?

 

All photos by Cindy Crosby taken at the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL except where noted  (top to bottom): Willoway Brook; prairie grasses, prairie clover (Dalea purpurea, Dalea candida) , prairie dock leaf (Silphium terebinthinaceum), bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) ,carrion flower, tall coreopsis; sandhill cranes; Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL; gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata; ball gall; ashy sunflower (Helianthus mollis); compass plant  (Silphium laciniatum);  compass plant(Silphium laciniatum).