A Prairie Kaleidoscope

“Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.” –-Gavin Pretor-Pinney
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If April showers bring May flowers, my little corner of Illinois is going to be a blaze of blooms next month. So much rain! The skies have been gray more than blue.

The western chorus frogs at Nachusa Grasslands are one of my favorite soundtracks to gray, drizzly days like these. Can you see the bison in the distance in the video  above? They don’t mind the rain much. And look! Scattered among the bison dung are…

…pasque flowers! Wildflowers are beginning to pop up on the prairie, creating pastel spots of color.

When you think of a prairie, you may imagine colorful flowers like these, tallgrass, and perhaps a herd of bison grazing.

Bison and wildflowers are two prairie showstoppers. But what you may not think about is this. Look at the photo above again. One of the joys of a prairie is the seemingly unlimited view overhead. The prairie sky! It’s a kaleidoscope; a constant amazement of color, motion, sound, and of course—clouds.

Sometimes the sky seems dabbed with cotton batting.

Contrails made by jets are teased out into thumbprinted fuzzy ribbons.

Other afternoons, the sky is scoured clean of clouds and contrails and burnished to an achingly bright blue.

You can’t help but think of the color of old pots and pans when the clouds boil over in a summer storm.

Look up! The prairie sky is full of wonders. Scrawls of sandhill cranes by day…

… the moon by turns a silver scimitar or golden globe at night.

You may catch amazing light shows like sun haloes…

Or sun dogs…

The changeable prairie sky offers something new to view each moment.

Will you be there to see what happens next?

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Gavin Pretor-Pinney, whose quote opens this blog post, is the  author of The Cloudspotter’s Guide and The Cloud Collector’s Handbook. He writes with wry British humor and a love for all things cloud-like.  In 2004, Pretor-Pinney founded “The Cloud Appreciation Society” (https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/) to “fight the banality of blue sky thinking.”

All photos and video copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): western chorus frogs singing (Pseudacris triseriata) with bison (Bison bison) in the distance, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; pasque flowers (Pulsatilla patens) and bison (Bison bison) dung, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; pasque flowers (Pulsatilla patens), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; cloudy with a chance of bison (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Fame Flower Knob, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Fermilab prairie, Batavia, IL; summer storm, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) over author’s backyard prairie; full moon over author’s backyard prairie; sun halo and sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) over author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL;  sundog over Lake Michigan, Benton Harbor, MI; Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.  

Of Bison and Butterflies

Today’s prairie post is brought to you by the letter “B.”       

“B” is for bison, big, bored, and brown.

“B” is for barns; the prairie’s “downtown.”

 

“B” is for butterflies that brighten the blooms.

 

 

“B” is for bugs; they “zips” and they “zooms.”

 

 

“B’ is for bluestem, both big…

…and so small.

 

“B” is for beaten path, the trail through it all.

 

“B” is for brave, brawny, and bold…

 

And “B” is for beautiful; 

My tale is now told.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby(top to bottom): bison (Bison bison) Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; old barn, Dixon, IL; black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) on gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) with flowering spurge (Euphorbia corollata) in the background, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; monarch (Danaus plexippus), author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; band-winged meadowhawk (Sympetrum semicinctum) with a stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downer’s Grove, IL; little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) with flowering spurge in the background (Euphorbia corollata), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL;  trail through the tallgrass, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; bison (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum), author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL.

Resurrecting Prairie Ghosts

“O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. “–Thomas Wolfe

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Pulling sweet clover and giant ragweed from the prairie on hot June mornings can seem endless. On one workday, sweating and tired, a volunteer turned to me and sighed. “Tell me again–why are we doing this?”

I can’t remember exactly what I said. But this is what I wish I’d said.

Just a few hundred years ago, more than half of Illinois was prairie.

Settlers moved in,  looking for adventure and a better life. Agriculture and the John Deere plow soon turned prairies into acres of corn and soybeans. There was good in this–we need places to live, and food to eat. But we didn’t remember to pay attention to what we were losing.

And when we forget to pay attention, our losses can be irreplaceable.

For a while, it looked as if the prairie would become nothing more than a ghost. A distant memory.

But, just as the tallgrass had all but vanished, a few people woke up to what we had. They panicked when they saw how little of the Illinois prairie was left…

Then, they sounded an alarm to save those few thousand acres of original tallgrass that remained.

They persuaded others to reconstruct prairies where they had disappeared, and to restore degraded prairies back to vibrant health. Soon, prairie wildflowers and their associated insects returned. Purple milkweed and bees…

Wild quinine and tiny bugs…

…the prairie’s roses and crab spiders…

The drain tiles that piped the wet prairies dry were broken up.  The land remembered what it once was.

Dragonflies returned and patrolled the tallgrass.

The rare glade mallow raised her blooms again in the marshy areas, with a critter or two hidden in her petals.

These reconstructed and restored prairies are different, of course. Bison roam…

…but within fenced units. Power lines and jet contrails scar the skies that were once marked only with birds and clouds. Today, you may see houses along the edges, where once the tallgrass stretched from horizon to horizon.

It’s not perfect. But when we made a promise to future generations to bring back the prairies for them, we crossed a bridge of sorts.

 

We put aside our own instant gratification.

Every weed we pull; every seed we collect and plant, is in hopes that the Illinois prairie won’t be a ghost to the children who grow up in Illinois in the future.

Rather, it will be the landscape they love and call home.

Photos (top to bottom): bison (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; old barns, Flagg Township, Ogle County, IL; moon rising over Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Scribner’s panic grass (Dicanthelium oligosanthes), The Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; white wild indigo or false indigo (Baptisia alba macrophylla) and pale purple coneflowers (Echinacea pallida), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; purple milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild quinine (Parthenium integrifolium), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pasture rose (Rosa carolina) with a crab spider, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; female calico pennant (Celithemis elisa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; glade mallow (Napaea dioica), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  bison (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; child crossing the bridge, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie ragwort (Packera plattensis) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, I; sunset over Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.

The introductory quote is from Look Homeward Angel, by Thomas Wolfe, an American novelist in the early 20th Century. This quote is used to describe the lost prairie by John Madson in his seminal book on tallgrass, Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie.

Invincible Summer

“In the midst of winter  …

 

I found there was within me …

 

 

an invincible summer.

 

 

And that makes me happy.

 

For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me …

 

within me, there is something stronger …

 

 something better …

 

pushing right back. “

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom):  prairie grasses, Meadow Lake, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  prairie grasses, Meadow Lake, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie ice, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida), Meadow Lake, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bison, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL;  Schulenberg Prairie savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sky with tall prairie coreopsis seedheads (Coreopsis tripteris), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Quote is from Albert Camus’ Return to Tipasa, 1952 or Lyrical and Critical Essays (1968) (several variations appear in translation) The first portion of the quote is well-documented; the second is more difficult to verify.  Camus and I don’t always agree, but I love this particular reflection.

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.

 

Finding Peace in Wild Things

So much fear in the world right now.

It’s catching. I find myself jumpy, anxious. Feeling like nothing will change. Up against a wall of doubt.

When the world seems like an impossible place, I go to the prairie. This time, instead of going alone, I go with friends. I need the reminder of how much we need each other.  A reminder that we’re not alone in the world.

The late summer and early autumn greens and reds of the grasses are draining away, creating a new palette of rusts, tans, and browns.

It’s quiet here.

Until, suddenly, pheasants fly up – two, three – six! One lands in a tree.

I admire their vibrant colors — that scarlet head — even while acknowledging that pheasants aren’t native to this place. But there’s room here for them.

We have so much.

A Cooper’s hawk settles in near the black plastic mulched plant nursery, where plants are going to seed, which will be used for future restoration efforts. I love the plant nursery, with its sturdy rows of prairie plants. It’s a visual reminder of how we deliberately cultivate hope for change in the future.

The hawk stares me down. Even when we think we’ve got the way forward all figured out and organized, there’s always a wild card.

Look! Just around the corner,  a herd of bison spill over the grassy two track.

One blocks our way.

We keep a respectful distance. The bison stay together, tolerating our presence.

I admire their shaggy chocolate coats; their heft and muscle. Their coats gleam and shine in the late afternoon light.

They know where the juiciest grasses are, even now.

We watch them for a long time before we move away.

The slant of the November sun backlights the prairie like a false frost.

The milk-washed sky brightens; the smell of old grass and decaying chlorophyll  lifts in the autumn chill. I inhale. Exhale. The autumn prairie is changing, seemingly dying.

It’s not the end. Just a transition to the next season.

Fur and feathers…and a sea of grass. My fears are not gone, but they begin to dissolve in the late afternoon light. There is so much to be grateful for.

So much in this world that gives us reason to hope.

All photos by Cindy Crosby from Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL (The Nature Conservancy) 

There is a beautiful (copyrighted!) poem by Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things, that I find a good antidote to difficult times. Find it at The Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171140.

A Jingle for Gentians

Blue ones

cream ones

some are sort of pink.

Deep in the tallgrass

they’re gone in just a blink.

Unlike some other blooms

They may be a tight squeeze

That’s why gentian pollinators

tend toward bumblebees.

Amazing diversity

bison, butterflies, and flowers,

One of the reasons why the

prairie’s where I spend my hours.

If you haven’t been out yet

in the tallgrass  this season

I hope you’ll find that gentians

give you a reason.

***(Cream ones blooming now….. blue and pink ones in bloom soon…)

All photos by Cindy Crosby: Top to bottom: prairie gentian, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum (Gentiana puberulenta); cream or yellowish gentian (Gentiana flavida), SP; stiff gentian (pink) (Gentiana quinquefolia), SP;  bottle gentian, Nachusa Grasslands (Gentiana andrewsii); cream gentian fading, SP;, tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris), SP; bumblebee in cream gentian, SP; bumblebee outside of cream gentian, SP; bison, NG; monarch on rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium), SP; woman working on prairie, SP; common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and tallgrass, NG.

A Prairie Crayon Box

If you’re going to color a prairie landscape, reach for your box of crayons.

Chocolate brown for the bison.

Butter yellow for the prairie coreopsis.

Or a slightly smudged, battered yellow crayon for the prescribed burn crew’s jackets, as they set fires that keep the prairies and savannas healthy. (You’ll need the orange crayon for the flames).

Keep that bright orange crayon out– you’ll need it for the butterfly weed.

Black for the ebony jewelwing damselfly’s wings. Iridescent green, for the rest of his body, if you can find it. (You might need the big box).

The scarlet and lime green crayons for sumac in September.

Contrasted with the pure white of the New Jersey tea flowers in summer. Press hard, or the white won’t show up.

The softer white of a great egret.

The pale pink of a thousand shooting stars in spring.

Shade the pink with the lightest lavender crayon in the box for the pale purple coneflowers of summer. Add more intense purple for the vervain.

Take out the sky blue crayon. Use it generously.

Add some violet to the sky blue, reflected in the rich color of gentians, nestled deep in the grasses.

Then, scribble magenta for the ironweed of autumn.

Followed by the dark navy globes of the carrion flower, gone to seed, winding through the tallgrass. Shade the globes with purple and black.

So many colors!

And still.

You’ve only pulled a few of the many crayons you’ll need to color the prairie landscape from your prairie crayon box.

(All photographs by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): bison, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; prairie coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata), Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn crew, NG; butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), SP; ebony jewelwing damselfly, NG;  sumac, NG; New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus), SP; great egret, NG; shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia), SP; pale purple coneflowers (Echinacea pallida), NG; road to the sky, NG; gentians (Gentiana puberulenta), SP; ironweed (Vernonia altissima), NG, carrion flowers gone to seed, NG (Smilax herbacea).

All Creatures Great and Small

At Nachusa Grasslands in Franklin Grove, IL, the main July attractions are big.

2,000 lbs big.

The charismatic bison continue to draw crowds of people eager to see ghosts of the prairie, now resurrected. Visitors hop into pickup trucks for tours; pull their cars off alongside the bison fencing and peer through binoculars.

Cameras click.

The 14 baby bison born this spring are icing on the proverbial prairie cake. Rock stars, with their own set of paparazzi.

And yet.

When the focus is on these shaggy denizens of the past, it’s  easy to overlook the less visible gems of the prairie. Like this federally threatened eastern prairie fringed orchid, half-hidden in the grasses.

Or the dragonflies, including this white-faced meadowhawk, which weighs barely as much as a whisper.

Bluebirds stand sentinel on their tiny wooden houses. They and the almost 200 species of birds here are a tribute to the work of restorationists, who didn’t forget the little things.

We need the bison and the bluebirds; orchids and dragonflies. Mammals and birds, plants and insects. The great and the small.

There is beauty in the aggregate.

Joy in the singular.

Alone, each plant, animal, bird and insect — with a thousand other big and small members of the tallgrass prairie–  create an irreplaceable landscape.

The landscape of home.

All photos by Cindy Crosby at Nachusa Grasslands in Franklin Grove, IL: (top to bottom) Bison; bison tour; bison with babies; eastern prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera leucophaea); white-faced meadowhawk; eastern bluebird; black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta); Michigan lily (Lilium michiganense).

More than Bison

The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring

In the days of long ago,

Ranged where the locomotives sing

And the prairie flowers lie low…

–Vachel Lindsay

I went for a hike a few days ago at Nachusa Grasslands, 90 miles west of Chicago, where I volunteer as a dragonfly monitor. Nachusa has been in the news in Illinois quite a bit over the past several months.

The spotlight on this amazing 3,200-acres-plus mosaic of prairie, wetlands and woodlands revolves around Nachusa’s successful bison introduction last fall.

The first baby bison birth announcements have hit the front pages of the newspapers. There’s a lot of excitement over these charismatic megafauna and their cute offspring, and deservedly so. But, it’s easy to forget some of the more humble inhabitants — more than 700 species — who live at this beautiful place.

One of these inhabitants – and one of the first prairie wildflowers to bloom at Nachusa — is one of the most fleeting and difficult to see.

The pasque flower.

Also known as the Easter flower, wild crocus, prairie crocus, or windflower, pasque flowers (Anemone patens) bloom for a week or two in early spring. The pale lavender blooms are almost invisible against last year’s prairie grasses. Then, before you can blink, they’re gone.

We’re at the southeasterly boundary of the hairy pasque flower’s range in upper Illinois. Looks furry, doesn’t it? Native Americans said the Great Spirit gave the pasque flowers those hairs to serve as a warm furry robe, in gratitude for helping a young man.

In “Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest” authors Sylvan Runkle and Dean Roosa tell us the pasque flower is highly toxic; none-the-less used by Native Americans and early settlers medicinally. Various concoctions were used to treat “nervous exhaustion.”

Runkle and Roosa also tell us when the Dakota Indians spotted the first pasque flower, they sang a special song.  Singing was believed to encourage the rest of the prairie to bloom.

Paying attention, noticing the wildflowers, composing songs in honor of their blooms and the blooms to come…

After a long cold winter, perhaps this pasque flower tradition — singing the prairie to life — is  the best medicine of all.

Thanks to Thomas Dean for introducing me to the poem, The Flower-Fed Buffaloes by Vachel Lindsay, excerpted above. The complete poem is available online at The Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/242582. The Native American story of the hairs of the pasque flower is found at http://galileo.org/kainai/pasque-flower/.

All photos above by Cindy Crosby, taken at Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL: Nachusa headquarters; two photos of bison; Prairie Pot Holes Unit;  and six different photos of pasque flowers in various stages of bloom and post-bloom.