May Daze on the Prairie

“The world’s favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.” — Edwin Way Teale

On a sunny day in May, find a high place to survey the tallgrass prairie.

 

Look for the lovely lupine, which paints patches of the prairie purple.

 

Hike a trail, and hunt for May-apples. Gently lift an umbrella-like leaf and observe how the flower transitions to fruit.

 

Prairie phlox blooms pinwheel through the grasses. Makes you want to do a cartwheel, doesn’t it?

 

The smooth, milky-white meadow anemones lift their petals to the sunshine.

 

Cream wild indigo is in full bloom; white wild indigo, looking like spears of asparagus, promises to follow. Soon. Soon.

 

Shooting stars flare, reflex their petals, fade; then move toward their grand seed finale.

 

Wild geraniums finish their explosions of blooms and form seeds, with a tiny insect applauding the performance.

 

Wild coffee shows tiny reddish-brown flowers, ready to open.

 

A few blooms of American vetch splash the grasses with magenta…

 

…while the new buds of pale beardtongue dip and sway, ghost-like in the breeze.

Have you been to the prairie yet this month? No? Go!

You won’t want to miss the flower-filled, dazzling days of May.

Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980) , whose quote opens this essay, was born in Joliet, IL. He is best known for “The American Seasons;” four books chronicling his trips across the U.S. His book, Near Horizons (1943),  won the John Burroughs medal for natural history writing.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby: (top to bottom) Clear Creek Knolls, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; lupine (Lupinus perennis), Nachusa Grassslands, Franklin Grove, IL; May-apple (Podophyllum peltatum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie phlox (Phlox pilosa) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; meadow anemones(Anemone canadensis), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; cream wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata) and wild white indigo (Baptisia alba macrophylla), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) and a pollinator, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; two views of wild coffee (late horse gentian) (Triosteum perfoliatum) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; American vetch (Vicia americana), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pale beardtongue (penstemon) (Penstemon pallidus), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

April Showers

April showers on the prairie bring… mud.

But for the discerning eye, life stirs.

Grasses loop out of the ground.

 

The first marsh marigolds are a bit of welcome sunshine in the rain.

 

Grassy reflections shine and swirl  on prairie ponds, streams, and waterways.

 

Wait–are those hedgehogs?  Pincushions? No, just spiky blades of prairie dropseed, needling out of their hummocks.

 

Listen!

You’ll hear a killdeer calling its name: kill-deer! kill-deer! The nest is a simple scraped-out depression where the bird will sit, camouflaged against the rocks and twigs.

 

The first rattlesnake master shoots push through the mud and ashes, looking a lot like yucca. Some were nipped by the late spring prescribed burn.

They’re tough. They’ll survive.

 

Bloodroot blooms in the prairie savanna. A fleeting pleasure, as the petals drop off a day or two after the flowers are pollinated.

April showers bring more than mud. There’s a lot happening on the prairie this week.

Take time to see.

 

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby: (top to bottom): mud season on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie grasses, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris), author’s backyard prairie pond, Glen Ellyn, IL: tallgrass reflections, Meadow Lake prairie plantings, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tallgrass reflections, Meadow Lake prairie plantings, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis), Meadow Lake prairie plantings, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; killdeer, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

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. 

 

Seeding the Snow

Early January can’t make up its mind between rain or snow. Water droplets cling to plants…

…then begin to freeze.

A squirrel, oblivious to the precipitation, snuggles into the crook of a walnut branch. Its scritch, scritch, scritch, of teeth against hull breaks the silence.

I find her cast-off walnut hulls in the tallgrass.

The prairie, once plump with seeds of every sort in October, is in the throes of letting go. Partially-nibbled or mostly gone is the rule  for seeds now. Birds, insects, and wind have done their work.

Carrion flower fruits wrinkle in the cold.

Its deep purple berries are a welcome bit of color. The January prairie is more about structure than bright hues.

The colors of the tallgrass are muted.

…in a veil of drizzle turning to snow.

Tree limbs, battered by winter weather, fall into the tallgrass. Their soft wood will become a nursery for fungi, moss, lichens, and insects.

White wild indigo seed stalks snap off at the base. The wind tumbles them across the prairie into the  brook. They pile up like a dam. Their seeds are now scattered through the tallgrass, waiting to sprout in the spring.

All across the prairie, seeds loosen their grip on stalks; drop onto the waiting frozen ground. The cold and snow begin to work their magic, readying the seeds for the moment in the spring when everything shouts……

GROW!

Bright colors are in there — invisible. Tucked into the dull, lifeless looking seeds.

We believe in what’s coming. The miracle of hard, dry seeds dropped onto ice and mud that will transform the prairie and seed the snow.

Until then, we watch. Wait for miracles…that will come out of the snow.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom)  figwort (Scrophularia marilandica) with water drops, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; squirrel with walnut, SP: black walnut hull, SP; grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) seedhead and Illinois bundleweed (Desmanthus Illinoensis) seedhead, SP; carrion flower (Smilax herbacea) seedhead,  SP;  gray skies, SP;  prairie in the drizzle, SP; grasses, SP:;  bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) seedheads; white wild  indigo (Baptisia alba) plants, SP ; tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris)  Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; Michigan lily (Lilium michiganense), NG; black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) with katydid, SP; bottle gentians (Gentian andrewsii), NG.

Abbreviations SP, NG: Schulenberg Prairie, Nachusa Grasslands.

 

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.

Remembering A Prairie Poet

From: The Prairies by William Cullen Bryant

The prairies. 

Lo! they stretch, in airy undulations, far away…

As if the ocean in his gentlest swell, stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, and motionless forever.  

Motionless? No — they are all unchained again…

The clouds sweep over with their shadows…

 And, beneath, the surface rolls…

And fluctuates to the eye.

Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase the sunny ridges.

In these plains, the bison feeds no more.

Still this great solitude is quick with life;

Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers…

And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of man are here.

The graceful deer bounds to the wood at my approach.

The bee, a more adventurous colonist than man, with whom he came across the eastern deep…

Fills the savannas with his murmurings.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was a keen observer of the natural world. He was editor of the New York Evening Post, and one of the first American writers and romantic poets to be recognized internationally at that time. Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted this immortal phrase from Bryant, “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.” The above excerpts are all taken from his poem, The Prairies.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): Autumn on the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; October, SP; little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) seedheads, SP; compass plant (Silphium laciniatum), SP; clouds, SP: prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum); grasses, SP; grasses, SP; bison, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; grasshopper, SP; milkweed bugs, SP; red-tailed hawk, SP; fawn, SP; bumblebee in cream gentian (Gentiana flavida), SP;  savanna, SP.

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 Wing and a Prayer

Do you know that Illinois has a state insect? No, not the mosquito. The monarch butterfly.

Monarchs are familiar to those of us who spend time on tallgrass prairies, and probably the most familiar butterfly to people in general. Yet, at a recent class I taught, only about half of a group of 40 adults could name the monarch butterfly when I showed them a photo.

Hmmm.

I was surprised. As a kid with a butterfly net, these frequent fliers were the first butterfly name I learned. They were fairly unmistakable, although the viceroy butterfly is very similar.

But the size (monarchs are bigger) and wing pattern (viceroy’s have black lines toward the bottom of the wing that are different) help distinguish them both. Look at the two photos. See the difference in the wing markings?

Monarchs, unlike viceroys, are known for their wanderlust. Every fall, they leave the snow and frigid temps of Chicago and head to Mexico, where they overwinter. Their offspring wing their way back to Illinois in the spring. How do they find their way home? No one knows. It’s a mystery of the best sort, a reminder that we haven’t figured out everything.

It’s no secret to prairie lovers that the monarch butterfly is losing numbers. Big numbers. So much, in fact, that butterfly aficionados recently requested that it be given endangered species protection. It appears that the monarch hasn’t got a prayer when up against pesticides, used in agriculture. Why?

Monarchs lay eggs. And not just anywhere. They look for plants in the milkweed family. When the caterpillar, or larvae emerges, it munches on milkweed leaves until it’s time for it to form a chrysalis. It eventually appears as a black and orange butterfly. But the milkweeds —which are treated by us as, well, weeds — are vanishing. And with the milkweeds go the monarchs. Imagine how we’d feel if our grocery stores vanished overnight! Monarchs are in trouble.

With this in mind, the big news in Illinois is that state authorities will plant milkweed along tollways. This should establish more habitat for the monarch butterflies. Although I wonder about the juxtaposition of butterflies with semis racing along at 80 mph, I like the good intention. Hundreds of miles of asphalt tollway could be flanked by milkweed blooms.

The plight of the monarch is a reminder of the importance of tallgrass prairies, which in Illinois, may contain up to 19 species of native milkweed. Prairies and monarchs are like peanut butter and jelly. They belong together. This spring, I’ll plant more milkweed in my garden. It adds beauty and interest, and I’ll lend a helping hand to a species in trouble at the same time. I’ll also volunteer more restoration hours on my local prairies; maintaining small life rafts of milkweed for the monarchs.

I had to update my I-Pass at the Tollway Authority offices this month. I confess, as I waited in line to straighten out my account, I grumbled a bit less. I felt a little warmer toward this state governmental agency, thinking about the monarch butterflies.

( All photos by Cindy Crosby. From top to bottom: monarch, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; viceroy on mountain mint, Big Woods Forest Preserve, Batavia, IL; butterfly milkweed, SP/MA; milkweed pod, author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn,IL: monarch on aster, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; West Chicago Prairie in March, West Chicago, IL)

A Taste of Prairie

Give me some sugar.

That’s my line this month to the squirrels racing around the prairie savanna. Why? They have the keys to the tallgrass candy shop.

Not all my favorite prairie flavors are sweet like candy. Common mountain mint leaves in the late spring are an instant breathe refresher. I can’t pass a patch of these without pulling a leaf, and popping into my mouth. In July, compass plant sap crystalizes in soft beads along the stem; hot and sticky. Native American children chewed it like gum. When I try it, the sap sticks to my teeth like glue. Still, I can’t resist it.  Eat your heart out, Wrigley’s Spearmint.

In the late summer and early fall, I chew wild bergamot — bee balm leaves — whenever I’m out on a tallgrass hike. The menthol is numbing in large quantities, so I tear off a small portion of the leaf instead of the whole thing. I have to share the plants with the bees, who buzz around the flower heads for nectar. Easy to see where this prairie plant gets its common name.

But in mid-March, the candy shop is open. Tree sap is running. In the prairie savanna, by the Prairie Visitor Station welcome area, sugar maples drip maple sapsicles, a sweet treat that’s hard to beat. On warm afternoons, squirrels gnaw the tender branches. Slowly, the delicious sap seeps out of the chewed off bark. The cold March nights do the rest.

Each spring, if the weather is just right, I can break off maple sapsicles  and suck them like candy.  I’ve unintentionally fed enough squirrels in my backyard to find this reciprocation of treats very satisfying. For once, they provide the snack.

I utter two words I never thought I’d say:

Thanks, squirrels.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby.  Top to bottom: Schulenberg Prairie entrance banners, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; compass plants leaves, SP; wild bergamot/bee balm, SP; maple sapsicle, SP; squirrel at author’s backyard bird feeder, Glen Ellyn, IL.)

Fire and Ice

 

Some say the world will end in fire, 

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

–Robert Frost

Frost wrote these lines in a poem noted for its ambiguity. But I find these lines resonate with me as I hike the prairie in early March. Fire and ice – or perhaps, the order should be reversed for the tallgrass: ice and then, fire. But unlike Frost’s poem, without the tempering of fire and ice, the prairie would cease to exist.

It’s all ice now; beginning to melt into slush as the temperatures start their teasing climb into the 30s and 40s. A little flirting with the low 50s. Where the sun shines brightest, the snowmelt pocks the prairie with mudholes.  Old coyote tracks fill with water. They freeze, thaw again, freeze.

The life of the prairie is on hold. It depends on ice  — or at least a cold winter — for certain seeds to grow and for other plants to have a dormancy period. But, as the Beatles sang, “It’s been a long, cold lonely winter.”

Send us the fire.

The prescribed burn just around the corner will wipe the prairie slate clean, ready for the sums of a new year to be chalked upon it. The tallgrass needs fire to keep the trees and brush from infilterating —- then dominating —- the landscape. But lightning strikes are suppressed, and Native Americans no longer set intentional fires for hunting. It’s up to restorationists to keep the prairie as an open grassland. We burn it ourselves, mimicking the past.

The ying and the yang of fire and ice remind me that the prairie has evolved to survive the extremes of Midwestern weather. Sometimes, when I’m going through a rough patch,  this cycle reminds me that the difficulties I’m wrestling with are part of a season that will eventually pass.  Rather than destructive, the seasons of fire and ice are lifegiving.  They set the stage for something new.

We’ve got the ice. Enough already.

Now, bring on the fire.

(All photos by Cindy Crosby. Top: Tenting at sunset at Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; ice, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prescribed burn, SP, 2013; fire on the SP, 2013; ice designs with grass, SP)