Our National Tallgrass Treasure

“Tallgrass prairie is a national treasure. Prairie reconstructions and restorations require a commitment of time, resources, and ongoing management. Progress may be slow, but the processes and product are exciting, fulfilling, and perhaps, life changing. –Dr. Daryl Smith

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It’s sunset. The small patch of prairie remnant glows.

The Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve is a wedge of about 10 acres of tallgrass tucked into an unlikely spot between a golf course, freeways, and subdivisions, deep in the Chicago suburbs. Look west across the prairie, and you can’t help but think of a more subdued Albert Bierstadt painting in the Hudson River School style, or perhaps the shadowy drama of an Andrew Wyeth rural landscape.

Turn in another direction, and the view is more “Chicago Suburban School of Realism.”

As I walk these and other pockets of remnant prairie in the Chicago suburbs, I wonder how these tiny prairie acres hung on by a thread when others were destroyed. Each has a story. Most revolve around a person who recognized the value of a plant or bird or butterfly and called it to someone’s attention before the land was bulldozed.

Oh, the stories these plants that remain could tell us! Tales of a time when Illinois was covered with 22 million acres of tallgrass prairie. Survival despite the odds. And yet, so much of what was once here is lost. Gone forever, never to be replaced.

Although only a few thousand of those original acres remain, the ink has not completely faded from the original prairie pages. We read what we see there.

Inspired—we continue to plant and reconstruct new prairies for the future.

Yet, no matter how many new acres of tallgrass we plant, we can’t seem to replicate the original remnants. To come close will require genius, research, and ingenuity— know-how that we don’t have yet. And even so, our efforts  may not be enough. The planted prairies are similar, yet not the same. They are missing some of the insects. Some of the “words” from the original prairie pages. And also…

If you walk a remnant prairie at sunset, do you feel a different sense of place there than you feel when you walk a planted prairie, or a reconstructed prairie? And you wonder… can we ever replicate that?

Perhaps this is not a question any scientist would care to tackle.

We do know this: The remnants we cherish may be the last of their kind. Irreplaceable.

And so, they are almost dreamlike in their tenuous grasp on the land…and in their hold on our imagination.

That’s why I hike the trails of the prairies this month. To see the remnants. To think about what was lost. To feel that irreplaceable sense of place. To treasure what is left. And to remember.

At the end of November.

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Dr. Daryl Smith is one of four authors (with Dave Williams, Greg Houseal, and Kirk Henderson) of the iconic book, The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Prairie Restoration in the Upper Midwest (University of Iowa Press). Anyone who is interested in prairie would benefit from having this comprehensive manual on their bookshelf.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom) pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) seedheads, Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association, Downer’s Grove, IL; trail at sunset, Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association, Downer’s Grove, IL; homes and buildings at the prairie’s edge, Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association, Downer’s Grove, IL; unknown seedhead with spiderweb thread, Danada Forest Preserve, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Wheaton, IL;  cream gentian seedheads (Gentiana alba) Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association, Downer’s Grove, IL;, sunset on the Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild quinine seedheads (Parthenium integrifolium), Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association, Downer’s Grove, IL; thimbleweed seedhead (Anemone virginiana), Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association, Downer’s Grove, IL; leaf at sunset, Danada Forest Preserve, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Wheaton, IL; Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downers Grove Park District, The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, Belmont Prairie Preservation Association.

A Prairie Patchwork Quilt

“You have to keep taking the next necessary stitch, and the next one, and the next…you realize that the secret of life is patch patch patch. Thread your needle, make a knot, find one place on the other piece of torn cloth where you can make one stitch that will hold. And do it again. And again. And again. ” — Anne Lamott

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It’s a ritual of autumn. The changing of our summer comforter to a heavy quilt, made for us by a friend. A few nights ago, as sleet tapped against the window, I slipped into bed and pulled the quilt close under my chin. Admired the patchwork. Taupe, rust, emerald, peach. Grass-green and olive. Pearl. Oyster.

As he quilted, our friend incorporated the transient autumn colors of prairie grasses into the coverlet. I was nestled into the prairie itself. Deep under. I might go dormant. Sleep for several months. Awaken to a cleansing fire in February, and leaf out. Be fresher. Vibrant. Renewed.

It’s a heavy quilt, made from denims and corduroys; a quilt that—like the Midwestern prairies—looks tough and ready to handle anything the future might throw at it. A quilt for the ages.

As I slipped off to sleep, I thought of the thousands of tiny stitches in this quilt and the prairie it reflects.  The time and the care that one person put into one quilt. And the time and the care — all the “stitches” that have been put into the care and repair of the grasslands which have been lost to us in the Midwest.

How will the grasslands “quilt” be patched back together?

We need the conservationist in the field, who is bringing back the bison. One stitch.

We need the research student, who is trying to understand why the bison make a difference to the upland sandpipers and prairie vole and the dung beetle. Stitch. Stitch. Stitch.

We need the steward who cares for the remnant where the new bison are browsing, and reconstructs new prairie plantings close by. She knows these new plantings won’t exactly replicate the old, but she hopes, she hopes… .

The activist at the state capital, who has ridden the bus and marched with a sign, and spent the day pleading the case of the natural world to the legislators. Stitch.

We need the poet who sees  little bluestem, red and wet under November rains, rippling in the wind, and wrestles with just the right words to share what she sees on paper. More stitches.

Or the textile artist, the photographer, or the painter…

…creating images that share prairie in ways that open doors of understanding to those who may not have experienced prairie before. Stitch.

The gardeners, who make their backyards their painter’s palettes. They plant prairie patches that swirl and glimmer with color and motion. A neighbor pauses. Asks a question. A spark is kindled. Another stitch.

Or people like my friend the quilter, who took up his needle and created something beautiful.

Each person who places each stitch—one carefully thought-out restoration, one painstakingly done research study on hands and knees in the cold and rain—each photograph, wall hanging, poem, book, song, painting, quilt—

—adds another stitch to the patches of the prairie patchwork quilt. Brings us closer to the beautiful whole of the Midwestern tallgrass that once was complete, and now is lost.

Keep hoping.

Keep stitching.

Sweet dreams.

***

The opening quote is from Anne Lamott’s (1954-) Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair. Read some highlights of her book here.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby: prairie patchwork quilt by Lynn Johnson; prescribed burn on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, Wilmington, IL;  volunteer collecting seed, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bison (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL, compass plant  (Silphium laciniatum) with water droplets, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL , purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; clouds over the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; grasses in the rain at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL;  photographer at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Flint Hills prairie, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, U. S. National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, Strong City, KS; fences at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, Wilmington, IL; savanna at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, Wilmington, IL;  Willoway Brook, The Schulenberg Prairie Savanna at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; harvesting big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, Wilmington, IL; fall at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; mouse tracks in the snow at the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Franklin Grove, IL.

And with ongoing thanks to my friend Lynn Johnson, whose beautiful prairie patchwork quilt warms me and my husband Jeff each winter.  Kudos, my friend.

Evening of a Prairie Year

“Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie.

Lately I’ve been reading the poetry of Jane Kenyon, which somehow seems to match these gloomy November days. “Let evening come,” she wrote in a poem by the same name, and it does come, doesn’t it? Whether you welcome it or not, we’re hurtling toward the winter solstice on December 21. Now, in November, it feels like the evening of the year is here.

In this seasonal twilight, November on the prairie can seem a desolate month. Perhaps the vivid color and bright birdsong of late summer and autumn are still freshly imprinted on our minds.

There is plenty of beauty in the November prairie. But it has a different sort of allure than previously found. It’s more of the way you feel drawn toward a much-loved person, all wrinkled and worn, and call her beautiful, even though others may call her plain.

It’s in the spirit of the place…

…the familiarity of that place; its grace—perhaps more evident now in this season, without the fripperies of wildflowers or pageantry of butterflies; with less of a backdrop of birdsong.

November is more about the beauty that comes from the love you have for a place that you’ve invested in. A place that has given back to you in a thousand intangible ways. This is, perhaps, what makes the prairie enchanting in your eyes, even in November.

I remind myself of this as I walk the tallgrass trails in that classic November weather which makes it so difficult to be outside this month. The paths are by turn limned with ice or sloppy with mud depending on the vagaries of the temperature. Big snow flurries slapped us in the face with winter last week. Quickly melted.  Winds—cold winds that slice through your warmest jacket—made a howling appearance. Sunshine warms up the day for a few hours then disappears.

Oh, November. At times, the gray days bring with them an unshakeable gloom. As the daylight hours become shorter, so does my temper. I have less margin. Motivation dwindles. Hibernation begins to sound attractive. 

November will never be July, or May, or even September, no matter how much I wish it to be sometimes. I love the sun! These gray days try the spirit.

But experiencing November will take me a long ways into understanding December and January… and these experiences will make me a different person — one that is tougher, more appreciative, more open to change. More resilient.

November has its own rhythms.

Its own astonishments.

Its particular slants of light and patterns.

Rather than sigh and tuck myself indoors with a book, I’m going to meet November halfway.

Off I go. Unafraid of the gloom and even darker days ahead. Trying to embrace November.

How about you?

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Scientist Marie Curie (1867-1934), whose quote opens this post, was Polish in a time when being Polish was to be persecuted, and a scientist in a time when women were not welcomed as scientists. Unable to pursue higher education as a woman in her home country, she completed a PhD in France, and became the first person to win two Nobel prizes.

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995), whose poem “Let Evening Come” is mentioned in this post, writes unsparingly about the joys and terrors of the world. To read more about her and her work, look here.

All photographs copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa; Nachusa Grasslands in late summer, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa; big bluestem (Andropogon geraradii) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa; prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa; gray-headed coneflower seedhead (Ratibida pinnata), Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa; leaves and acorns on the trail, Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) pod, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa;  bluebird house with tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris), Herbert Hoover Historic Site Tallgrass Prairie, West Branch, Iowa; Schulenberg Prairie Savanna , The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.SaveSaveSaveSave

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Space and Place on the Prairie

 

“How long does it take to know a place?…Abstract knowledge about a place can be acquired in short order if one is diligent. The visual quality of an environment is quickly tallied if one has the artist’s eye. But the ‘feel’ of a place takes longer to acquire. It is made up of experiences, mostly fleeting and undramatic, repeated day after day and over the span of years. It is a unique blend of sights, sounds, and smells, a unique harmony of natural and artificial rhythms such as times of sunrise and sunset, of work and play. The feel of a place is registered in one’s muscles and bones… . Knowing a place, in the above senses, clearly takes time. It is a subconscious kind of knowing.”– Yi-Fu Tuan

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I have the good fortune to live next to a respected taxonomist, whose suburban yard overflows with hundreds of native plants. Once, I asked him the best way to go about increasing my own knowledge of the natural world. He thought for a moment, then said, “Look at your backyard, Cindy. Each day, learn a different plant you find there.”

Such simple advice. So difficult to take. Because of course, it requires…time.

Dr. Yi-Fu Tuan, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of geography emeritus,  writes, “How long does it take to know a place? Modern man, he says, is so mobile “that he has not the time to establish roots; his experience and appreciation of place is superficial.”

Time. We race around, doing things, going other places. Knowing where we live is one of the the casualties.  How often I have heard people say, “I wish I had more time… ” “I just don’t have enough time… ” “If only I had time to… ” “There aren’t enough hours in a day… ” “If only I didn’t have to sleep… .”  I’ve said most of the same things myself. With hours in such short supply, should we despair of ever finding time to really “know” where we live? Much less, even something as seemingly simple as the names of the plants in our backyards?

Yes, it takes time to know a place. But, as Tuan also writes, even “an intense experience of short duration…can alter our lives.”

All of us may attest to the power of short but memorable outdoor experiences that helped us know a place. My list of those experiences might include memories as simple as a childhood playspace under a forsythia bush.

A particular sunset.

The coyote on a prairie trail in the rain, going about her business, oblivious to me sitting a few feet away. Sandhill cranes unexpectedly landing all around me in a field. An unexpected cloud of ebony jewelwing damselflies arising from a stream bank. Finding a fawn.

You soak these moments into your bones; they permeate your subconscious mind, they echo through your dreams. These intense experiences inform the way you feel about a place. You don’t forget.

But, you have to be there to have the experiences.  You have to show up. Even if it is only to sit in your backyard to key out plants, a field guide in one hand, the unknown green leaf in the other. You set aside time to let those moments happen. Or, at the very least, you cultivate an awareness that allows you to be awake to those moments when they do happen. To stop and pay attention to the moment.

These moments are often unscripted. One evening, more than a dozen years ago, I sat in my car in the high school parking lot, waiting for my children’s band lessons to end.  I turned the ignition off and rolled down the window. The parking lot was unusually quiet. I watched geese lift off the football field and pull together the scarf of the sunset with their black, bowling pin shaped bodies, on their way to Hidden Lake nearby.  A few clouds scrolled across the sky. The hot asphalt, the tic-tic-tic of the car cooling down, and drift of music from the band room were unlikely elements of anything special. The high school parking lot is a bland spot to have any intense experiences about place. But I can still frame that sky, those geese, that place in my memory, more than a decade later. There was an intensity of that moment, and one that was unplanned. It helped wake me up to where I lived at a time when I was struggling to pay attention to my life.

Now, when I become cynical or jaded about the natural world, I’ll go looking for those moments intentionally. Usually, I head to my favorite prairie trail nearby, and take a walk.  If this fails to wake me up, I’ve found seeing the prairie with a child often often opens it to me in a new way again.

If you’ve walked with a child, you know they don’t feel the press of time as we do. In summer, they are perfectly content to stop and watch bees work flowers for a good long while, or in winter, explore the holes prairie voles make in snow—look for the entrance and exit spots, mark them with sticks. A child thinks nothing of taking a net outside to catch butterflies in November. And why not? To a child, nothing is yet impossible.

I need these reminders to slow down. To pay attention. To remember what it was like to be a child, to not use a calendar, to not have a to-do list. To feel time in the way a child does. Recapture that feeling that nothing is impossible, even in November.

I walk the prairie alone today—in November, yes, when much of what is going on in my life does seem impossible and completely unsolvable. This place, this prairie where I walk, is woven into my muscles and bones; it runs in my blood. I’ve walked it almost 20 years now. In my memory are the fires of prescribed burns I’ve helped set that have kept the tallgrass alive and vibrant.

Ahead months away, in my imagination, are the blooms and grasses of summer, those rather iconic stereotypical pale purple coneflowers and Culver’s root; bright orange butterfly weed and yellow coreopsis; all the colors and pageantry of a landscape gone wild and rich with buzz and bloom; diversity and joy.

Today, in real time, I hike a more subdued November prairie, its life ebbing; someone seemingly stepping on the brakes; the winds tinted with chill; the sun slanted toward the horizon; blackened stalks stark against the color-drained grasses. And yes. Seedheads shattering into the promise of something new. At least I tell myself this. I believe it because I’ve been on this trail at this time in this place before. And I’ve seen the cycle happen, again and again.

 I’m content knowing I’m storing this walk, this sunset, this experience away in my memory. Building my relationship with the land. Continuing to develop a “feel” for a place I’ve loved for a long time, and still want to know better.

Time well spent.

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The opening quote is taken from Dr. Yi-Fu Tuan’s (1930-) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, which offers fascinating glimpses into our relationship with both the natural and built environment. His book never fails to provoke me to thinking more deeply about the places where I spend my time and how and why I spend it as I do.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): white wild indigo (Baptisia alba), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; two-track in spring, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tall coreopsis (Coreposis tripteris), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sunset, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; white-tailed fawn (Odocoileus virginianus) Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; eastern amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; little wood duck (Aix sponsa), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; netting butterflies in the off season, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; summer on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sunset, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.