October on the Prairie

“The sea, the woods, the mountains, all suffer in comparison with the prairie…The prairie has a stronger hold upon the senses.”– – Albert Pike

When you think of October, what comes to mind?

Pumpkins?

Spectacular changing leaves?

The prairie, which has lost most of its blooms, isn’t on most people’s radar.

Perhaps it should be.

A few blossoms persist in the tallgrass, magnets for insects.

The flowers gone to seed may be as beautiful as the blooms.

Colorful grasses are easily overlooked, but no less worth our attention.

Plant structure has its own beauty.

As do plant silhouettes.

Although the prairie is outwardly in senescence, its sensory pleasures continue. The play of light on prairie dock.

The smell of damp earth. Decaying leaves. The unexpected flight of a buckeye butterfly as you hike a trail.

Soft puffs of seed clusters, which foreshadow the snowflakes, only weeks away.

Unlike the flashy reds and oranges of the autumn woodlands, the prairie is nuanced.

As the year wanes…

…much of this prairie season will be forgotten, fleeting. A blur of colors, textures, fragrances, and sounds.

So let’s walk the prairie trails.

Experience what each day in October has to offer. Soak up every detail. And be grateful that we are here, present in this moment.

***

The opening quote is from Albert Pike’s Journeys in the Prairie ((1831-32). Pike (1809 –91) was a soldier, poet, newspaper journalist, and early explorer.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby and are from the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL, unless noted otherwise: pumpkin patch, Jonamac Orchard, Malta, IL; maple in October (Acer spp.), Sterling Pond, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sumac (Rhus glabra), grasses and forbes at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; pasture thistle (Cirsium discolor) with unknown bee and insect; non-native chicory (Cichorium intybus) with unknown pollinator;  compass plant (Silphium laciniatum); tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris); big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii); bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), late figwort (Scrophularia marilandica); pasture thistle (Cirsium discolor); prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum); buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima); pale Indian plantain (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium), little bluestem, Canada wild rye (Elymus canadensis); waning October moon; sumac out of focus (Rhus glabra); trail through the prairie in October. 

The Joy of January Mud

“How long the winter has lasted–like a Mahler symphony or an hour in the dentist’s chair. In the fields, the grasses are matted and gray… .” — Jane Kenyon

***

The fiery mornings of winter dawn, cold and clear.

The temperature begins rising.  40. 50. 55 degrees. Ahhhh. We throw open the windows. Could this be January? Without bothering to grab our coats, we go outside to hike the prairie trails.

The ice that laces the river’s edges has vanished.

High in the trees, the chickadees sing their spring song for the first time, trying out a few tentative notes. Their music mingles with the mallards’ quack quack quacks and the honk honk honks of Canada geese.

Along the path, sun backlights the last remaining weedy burdock seeds lurking in the prairie grasses.

A few leaves still hang on shrubs and trees, not ready to let go of what is past.

Canada wild rye throws her stiff seedtail comets across the tallgrass.

Sunshine ignites sparks of light as the ice melts.

Look up, and Canada geese seem to tangle in the bare trees.

A paper wasp nest hangs like a marbled empty lantern.

Nobody’s home.

Look down. Embossed into the thaw are prints. The heart-shaped tracks of deer.

The pawprints of a dog, out for a walk, with sneaker tracks close beside.

The small handprints of raccoons, on their way home from the river.

It’s an anomaly, this brief blast of spring. There is joy in January mud. But, rationally, we know that winter will follow this warm, muddy morning with a truckload of snow and more gray, gray, gray. You thought the sunshine would last? Sucker! 

Yet, as much as I enjoy the change of seasons, I try to prolong the feeling of spring; arrange bright tulips in a vase…

…and daydream about the first prairie blooms which, this morning, seem as if they could be right around the corner.

On this unusual day in January, the warmth and sunshine feel like a little Post-It-Note from spring. The note reads: Don’t give up.  These gray days won’t last forever.

I’ll fling myself with joy into the morning or two of warmth and light that shows up unexpectedly this winter. Savor that temporary lift of spirits; that bracing shot of courage for whatever is ahead.

Because, on a sunshine-filled, 55 degree January day, anything seems possible.

***

The poet Jane Kenyon (1947-1995), whose line from the poem, “Walking Alone in Late Winter” opens this essay, graduated from University of Michigan, where she met and married professor Donald Hall, later poet laureate of the United States (2006).  They moved to his family’s ancestral farm in New Hampshire, where many of her poems are set. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992) and was the poet laureate of New Hampshire when she died of leukemia at age 48. Kenyon wrote movingly of her struggles with depression (“Having it out with Melancholy”), and found joy in the particulars of the natural world. Two poems of hers to sample: “Let Evening Come,” and “Otherwise.” 

***

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): January sunrise, author’s prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL; Canada geese (Branta canadensis) and mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), West Branch of the DuPage River, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL;  burdock (Arctium minus) seeds, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL;  last leaf, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; Canada rye (Elymus canadensis), McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; wild blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis) cane with melting ice, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; Canada geese (Branta canadensis), McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus) nest, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; ; white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) track, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; dog ( Canis lupis) and people  (Homo sapiens) tracks, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL; raccoon (Procyon lotor) print, McDowell Grove Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Naperville, IL;  bridge over Willoway Brook in the snow, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: bouquet of tulips (Tulipa, unknown species)  author’s window overlooking her prairie spot, Glen Ellyn, IL; pasque flowers (Pulsatilla patens), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.

To Know a Prairie

“A walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells.” –Robert Macfarlane

How do you begin to know a prairie?

You walk it alone, in the late summer sun.

 

Wait for the mist to rise, after the rain.

 

You sit quietly, doing nothing at all. Suddenly, the  focus becomes what is small.

 

And the big things as well, a foil for the small. You notice the bison, formed and shaped by the land;  their bodies echoed in the knobs and the trees.

And you stop for a while, and marvel.

How do you begin to know a place?

Your skin is scraped raw by the roughness of grass. Then soothed by the silk of the Canada rye.

 

You watch the sun light the grass as it sinks out of view.

And the darkness throws all into impossible relief.

Grasses and shrubs…

 

…and wildflowers pink; catching the last light before going to sleep.

You reflect on what you know, and what you realize  you don’t.

 

There will always be mystery, here in the grass.

You absorb what you can; you listen and learn.

And let the rest wash over you. Too much to take in.

The story continues with each step that you take. And like a good book, you don’t want it to end.  You pull on your boots the next morning, and hike it again.

That’s how you begin.

To know a place.

*******

The opening quote is from The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by British writer Robert Macfarlane (1976-), about the shaping of people and places.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby: (top to bottom): road through Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; mist on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; common pondhawk dragonfly female (Erythemis simplicicollis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bison (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Canada wild rye, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  sunset with big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  sunset with shrubs, Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL; gaura (Gaura biennis), Nachusa Grasslands, the Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; cattails (Typha latifolia) on Silver Lake, Blackwell Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Warrenville, IL; mist, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; clouds, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.