Tallgrass Thank You Notes

“…I hear a sound, sometimes a little more than a whisper, of something falling, arriving, fallen, a seed …there is no trace of regret in the sound or in the stillness after the falling, no sound of hesitation on the way, no question and no doubt.” M.S. Merwin

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I’ve been catching up on my thank-you notes this week, nudged by the upcoming holiday that reminds me to be grateful. Ironic, isn’t it? A week in the Midwest in which we dedicate ourselves to be thankful falls in one of the gloomiest seasons of the year.

What if Thanksgiving fell in July? Easy to get in a thankful mood.

Or May, when shooting star blooms carpet the prairie after a long, cold winter; everything seems bathed in joy and delight. Do I feel thankful then? You bet!

But November! Well, she makes no apologies for who she is.  November’s given me a lot to be grateful for. So, as I write my thank-you notes to people in my life this week, I figure I should write a few to November as well.

Here goes…

Thanks, November–your gray days are a foil for aspects of the prairie I’d otherwise overlook.  Would I notice the dangling seedpods of white wild indigo if they appeared this way in sunny July? Perhaps not. They seem to take on added charisma on gray, snow-spitting days.  “Prairie bling” of a certain kind.

I appreciate how some of the less exciting plants get their moment in the spotlight this month, November. Late figwort isn’t a particularly glamorous plant, but this month, it gets a makeover. Without the pops of bright July wildflower color or distractions of butterflies and bees, the eye is drawn to figwort’s kitschy structure. Looks a bit like some management diagrams I’ve seen,  or maybe an organizational flow chart.

Other flora and fauna of the prairie are worth a second look in November. Carrion flower, which twines its way through the prairie grasses without a lot of fanfare during the warm weather, is a show-stopper this month. (Nope, it’s not edible—unless you’re a bird or a mammal).

November even gives the humble bison track some seasonal flair. Glitzy!

Thanks for the unexpected, November. The rhythm of sandhill crane migration through prairie skies is an expected pleasure this month. But November bird life holds some surprises.

Like this little guy, above. Our friends, John and Trisha, had a varied thrush show up this week in their backyard, not far from their prairie patch. The varied thrush is an erratic migrant from the West Coast not normally seen in the Midwest. Its arrival here in the Chicago region is a November serendipity. People drove from around the Midwest to see and add this colorful thrush to their life lists. Who knows what other avian surprises might appear this month?

Hey, November, thanks for teaching me about adapting and surviving.

The hairs of the compass plant above speak of hard times. Each hair catches moisture and helps retain water, which keeps the compass plant alive through brutal Midwestern droughts. November peels away all the color and glam of a compass plant, and reminds me of how tough some of our prairie plants are. It’s a memo to myself, as well; a reminder that I have cultivated ways to navigate the difficult times of my life.  Survival skills. Adaptations.

November reminds me, “You’ve got this.” 

Thanks, November for the transition. Change is good, right? Well, maybe. But change is usually difficult. As much as I enjoy the change of seasons, I also have trouble letting go of whatever season I’m in. As I get older, it seems time moves more quickly, with less time to adjust. November, with its segue from autumn into meteorological winter, helps make the transition to the end of the year a little easier.

The photo above of Willoway Brook on the Schulenberg Prairie is a study in transitions. Snow has settled around the stream, which is just a breath away from freezing but still runs free and clear. High quality prairie on the left is juxtaposed with invasive reed canary grass along the shoreline, which prairie volunteers battled to a hard-fought draw this season. The partly-dead reed canary grass hangs over the brook, admiring its reflection, perhaps, and—in my mind—thumbing its proverbial nose at us. We’ve decided to let a certain amount of reed canary grass colonize the streambanks as we focus on other restoration activities on the prairie, a decision made simply from a time-management standpoint. The above photo tells many stories about persistence and patience; resistance and acceptance.

Which reminds me…

Thanks, November, for the people who care for prairie. People like the site managers and volunteers and stewards. People like the prairie donors and environmental activists who make a difference. Those who take a child out to see the prairie. The person who shares a photo of the tallgrass with a friend. People like you—who care about the natural world.

The curtain is coming down on another year in the tallgrass. As it does…

…I want to say thank you for reading. Thank you for being a part of the work that keeps the tallgrass prairie alive and thriving. Thank you for sharing your love of prairie with others. And, thank you for your part in keeping the tallgrass prairie visible, both in our communities and in people’s hearts and minds.

What about you? Is there a thank-you note you’d like to write to November? Leave it in the comments section below as a reminder of what we have to be thankful for this month.

Thank you.

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The opening quote is from the poem, Garden Notes, from William Stanley “W.S.” Merwin’s collection, The Moon Before Morning (Copper Canyon Press). Twice a Pulitzer Prize winner, Merwin (1927-) was our 2010-11 United States Poet Laureate, and is known for writing his grief over our destruction of the natural world. Discover more about him at the Poetry Foundation. Click here to listen to him read his powerful and moving poem, Rain Light.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom) except for varied thrush as noted: monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), Nomia Meadow Farms prairie, Franklin Grove, IL; shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia), Schulenberg Prairie in May, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; white wild indigo (Baptisia alba macrophylla) with snowcap, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; late figwort (Scrophularia marilandica) in November, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL, carrion flower (probably Smilax lasioneura) in November, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  icy bison (Bison bison) track, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius), photo courtesy John Heneghan, Kane County, IL; compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) seedhead, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pale Indian plantain seeds (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; snowmelt on Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) in November, author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; bench on the Schulenberg Prairie in November, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

With grateful thanks to John Heneghen, who shared his varied thrush photo and story with me for this post, and reminded me of another reason to be thankful for the unexpected serendipities of November.

Beginnings

Morning dawns on the prairie.

A lone red-winged blackbird calls. No breeze rustles the brittle, bleached out stands of little bluestem; the dry stalks of prairie switchgrass. The seedpods of of St. John’s wort and other bloomers have long since cracked open and dropped their seeds. There’s the promise of something new ready to germinate.

 

Few flames from prescribed burns have touched the tallgrass here in Illinois … yet. But there is the rumor of fire.

 

The temperatures have warmed. The wind whispers “it’s time.”

 

Time for everything to begin again.

 

To burn off the old; to spark something new.

 

With the flames will go our memories of a season now past. What waits for us  …

…will build on what went before, but is still unknown.

There is a sadness in letting go of what we have.

 

Yet to not move forward– to shy away from that which that will seemingly destroy the tallgrass– is to set the prairie back. To keep it from reaching its full potential.

So we embrace the fire.

 

We accept that things will change.  

 

We realize there will be surprises. Things we don’t expect.

 

We strike the match. Say goodbye to ice and snow.

 

Watch the prairie go up in flames.

 

We wait to see what will appear.

On the other side of the fire.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby: (top to bottom) sunrise, Meadow Lake prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie grasses and Great St. John’s Wort (Hypericum pyramidatum), Meadow Lake prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; Willoway Brook, The Schulenberg Prairie, Lisle, IL; eastern cottontail, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;   prescribed burn, The Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn sign, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Meadow Lake prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn, The Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; July on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  twin fawns, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Meadow Lake prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; two-track through Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL. 

 

‘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).

Chasing the Light

The earth is tilting. Can you feel the shift?

On September 23, the autumn equinox brought together day and night of equal lengths. The slow slide down the dark tunnel began. Each day, a few minutes shorter. Each night, a bit longer. Do you sense the battle between the light and the dark?

The dark seems to be winning. Hello, season of slow decline.

As the light slips away, I soak up as much as I can. The first snowfall is a bonus.

The world brightens under the snow and seems to glow.

The blanket of white catches sparks of light; ignites the prairie.

Unexpected sunshine hangs crystal earrings from unlikely grasses and dry forbs; dresses them with diamonds.

The cold ices the pond, which glitters in the brief light of late afternoon by my backyard prairie.

The light pools in Willoway Brook, reflecting the savanna by the Schulenberg Prairie.

Such a season of contrast, of opposites.

Close by the tallgrass, I find a vole hole and tracks, evidence that I’m not the only one who wants to escape the dark.

Even the empty milkweed pods, bereft of their silky floss, seem luminous in the low-slung sunlight.

I’m thankful for whatever glimpses of light I can get. Whatever holds the light and reflects it. 

 

Small solaces as the world seemingly plunges into darkness. But I’m grateful for these moments. Each reflected glow. Each spark of light. Every small bright spot.

I know what’s coming. The darkest day, the winter solstice. December 21, the shortest day of the year.  Soon. Very soon.

Until then, I’ll keep looking for the light. Wherever it may be found.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; author’s window to the prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; SP at TMA; TMA; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), author’s prairie, GE; asters, author’s prairie,  GE; author’s prairie pond, GE; SP savanna, SP at TMA; New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus) SP at TMA; vole hole and tracks, author’s prairie, GE; milkweed pod (Asclepias syriaca), author’s prairie, GE;  author’s prairie, GE;  SP at TMA; author’s prairie, GE: SP at TMA; SP at TMA.

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.

After the Rain

Rain, rain go away. Come again some other day.

Relentless rain. It seems like it will never stop.  Until dusk, when the clouds clear for a bit. Despite the hour, I pull on my boots and go for a hike on the prairie.

.

I wade through puddles on the path. Breath in. The prairie smells like it’s been rinsed in mint. Willoway Brook runs full and fast; the sound of water threads the evening air.

Grasses string necklaces of water droplets.

The rain pools in beads on the waxy surface of pale prairie plantain leaves.

Clouds of mosquitoes whine, whine, whine around my face. I pull on my headnet.

Much better.

A deer, drinking from the overflowing stream, startles at my approach. She crashes off through the oak savanna.

A red-winged blackbird bounces on a white wild indigo stem, heavy with seedpods. He shrieks a warning: Keep your distance! No doubt a nest is hidden along the stream.

Water swirls, trapped in the base of cup plant leaves. Goldfinches sip the rainwater before they retire for the night.

Culver’s root lifts its candles out of the tallgrass; wet and dripping.

The moon rises, just a sliver shy of full in the East, as the saturated tallgrass turns its flower faces to the last light.

The prairie sky hangs its clouds out to dry for the night.

And I remember why I made time to come here…

…after the rain.

All photos by Cindy Crosby of the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL (top to bottom): Prairie trail; water droplets on grasses; water beading on pale Indian plantain (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium); white-tailed deer; red-winged blackbird; cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum); Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum); prairie coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata); prairie at dusk.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

It’s a fleeting pleasure: white flowers on the prairie in early June.

Saucy, fringed daisy fleabane. A little weedy? Yes. But cheerful all the same.

Lacy, delicate meadow rue.

Humble bedstraw.

Graceful anemone.

But the real show-stopper on the Illinois prairie this week is white wild indigo.

Although its new growth looks like asparagus; ironically, white wild indigo is in the legume family, Fabaceae, sometimes called the pea or bean family.

Asparagus and bean allusions not withstanding, early settlers were wary of the indigo, as its foliage is toxic enough to kill grazing horses and cattle.

White wild indigo’s scientific name is Baptisia leucantha or Baptisia alba. Baptisia’s name comes from the Greek, bapto, “to dye.”   But the source of the dye that colors your blue jeans once came mainly from tropical plants in the genus Indigofera, although other species of Baptisia were also once used to dye textiles. Today, indigo dye is almost always made synthetically. White wild indigo is also known as false white indigo. The word “false” indicates that it is not the “true” indigo of the tropics.

False it may be. But it is truly this week’s extravagant offering of the Illinois tallgrass prairie. Next week, the spikes of white may be gone, their blooms finished for another season.

Why not see them while you can?

All photos by Cindy Crosby from the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: (from top to bottom) Daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosus); purple meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum) ; northern bedstraw, Galium boreale; meadow anemone, Anemone canadensis; white wild indigo (Baptisia leucantha or Baptisia alba macrophyllaor even Baptisia lacteal);white wild indigo; edge of Schulenberg Prairie and savanna; white wild indigo.

Information about indigo as a blue dye comes from http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/plants/landscape/flowers/hgic1184.html and http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_baau.pdf

The Buzz About Shooting Stars

Seeing shooting stars in the suburban Chicago area’s light-polluted night sky is challenging at best. But on the prairie in May, there’s a universe of shooting stars available 24/7, for anyone who takes time to look.

The May prairie is a panoramic, ever-changing Persian carpet of leaf shapes, textures, blooms, and insects. To really pay attention to it, drop to your knees. Quiet your mind. Most blooms and grasses are still low, from a few inches to about a  foot tall. Some of the blooms are hidden under the growing grasses, so you have to pay attention to really see what you’re looking at.

The first thing I find hidden in the grasses is bastard toadflax, whose tiny white flowering stars are in their full glory right now. The seeds were once enjoyed as tasty trail snacks.

Lift your eyes a bit, and little mounds of cream indigo plant with its silvery leaves come into focus, dotted around the prairie. This was a favorite plant of Native Americans, who used the seedpods for baby-pleasing rattles and the mashed up root rubbed into tiny tummies for colic. Early settlers didn’t like it so much. Livestock often died if they ate too much of its toxic foliage.

Eye- popping orange hoary puccoon is also in bloom, as are wild geraniums and the last swirls of wood betony.

But the real show-stoppers are the shooting stars.

Pink. Shading from white-pinks to lavender-pinks. Plus the rosette of leaves, from a birds-eye view, have pleasing streaks of maroon.

In order for shooting stars to reproduce, they must be buzz pollinated. Tomatoes, nightshade, blueberries, potatoes and cranberries require this process for efficient pollination as well. Bumblebees are the main heroes of this performance for which there is no nectar reward. The pollen, deep in the shooting stars’ anthers, is shaken loose when the bumblebee grasps the flower and rapidly moves its thoracic wing muscles. This sets up the vibration.

As the flower vibrates, the pollen is shaken loose. Writer Peter Bernhardt says watching the pollen grains fall from the anthers looks a lot like salt grains falling from a salt shaker. You may also hear this process called sonication.

When you see the big bumblebees, buzzing across the prairie in the mornings,  send them a message of gratitude. Without them, our prairies would be missing one of their most welcome May wildflowers.

Thanks.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby. From top to bottom: Shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia) Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellate), NG; cream wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata) The Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis) NG; shooting stars, SP; shooting star foilage, NG; shooting stars, NG; shooting stars, NG.)

For more information about sonication or buzz pollination and shooting stars, check out The Rose’s Kiss: A Natural History of Flowers by Peter Bernhardt.

The Silence of Emptiness

There’s a quietness in the tallgrass; the silence of emptiness.

Hike in the tallgrass in the spring, and you’re overwhelmed by the green shoots of new growth and pretty wildflowers. Summer is a riot of colorful blooms; the air full of dragonflies and unusual birds. Fall is all about waves of grasses and fat seedheads.

Then comes winter, and January.

At first glance, it appears that all life has fled the prairie. The once-lavender blooms of wild bergamot, or bee balm as gardeners like to call it, are now globes of hollow papery tubes. Each tunnel was once filled with tiny black seed grains that I could shake like pepper into my hands. Now, I try to rattle them and come up empty. Someone has beat me to it. Birds and small prairie creatures, likely, looking for breakfast.

Not much here that seems worthwhile on the surface. The tallgrass colors have gradually bleached out with age and cold. No blossoms and nectar remain for bees and butterflies to linger over.

Queen Anne’s lace is stripped of everything but the basics.

The blown-out stars of the asters take on a different personality in winter. Without the blooms, I’m free to admire the infrastructure.

The gift of January is this: the comparative emptiness of the winter season allows us to see the scaffolding upon which the prairie is built. It reminds us that rest is as important as activity; that looking at things over time gives us a different perspective on what we thought we knew well. New ways of seeing open up. If we pay attention.

The prairie is pared away to the bare essentials. It rests, quietly, waiting for the emptiness to pass and a new season to come.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby at the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL)

Looking for Butterflies in Winter

Walking across the prairie in the sub-zero temperatures and snow, you notice surprising things.

Butterflies, for instance.

I know, I know. All the monarchs have long fled — packed their bags and migrated to Mexico.

Monarch butterfly, Schulenberg Prairie

The mourning cloak butterflies are in hibernation, cozied into cracks of tree bark or nestled under fallen limbs. Most of the summer butterflies simply died off when cold weather hit Illinois.

Except the ones I see today.

When squirrels spring through the snow, the tracks they leave look like a string of butterflies. The sunshine fills their prints with deep indigo shadows.

Blue butterflies.

I love hiking the tallgrass, mittens stuffed deep into my pockets, looking for winter butterflies. Most of the squirrels hang out on the edges of the prairie in the savanna, where they nest in leafy oak high-rises.

The squirrel print butterflies remind me of summer, and the colorful butterflies to come.

Kaleidoscope of sulphur butterflies, Nachusa Grasslands

But the winter butterflies have their own unexpected beauty as well.

All it takes to see them is a little imagination.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby)