5 Reasons to Hike the February Prairie

“If you stand still long enough to observe carefully the things around you, you will find beauty, and you will know wonder.” — N. Scott Momaday

******

Zero degrees. My backyard birdfeeders are mobbed.

White-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis), Cindy’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL.

The squirrels take their share. I don’t begrudge them a single sunflower seed this week.

Fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), Cindy’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL.

It’s tempting to stay inside. Watch the snow globe world from behind the window. It’s warmer that way. But February won’t be here for long.

Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Let’s pull on our coats. Wrap our scarves a little tighter. Snuggle into those Bernie Sanders-type mittens.

Ice and snow on unknown shrubs, West Side, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Need a extra push, during these polar vortex days? Consider these five reasons to get outside for a prairie hike this week.

******

1. Bundle up in February and marvel at the way snow highlights each tree, shrub and wildflower.

East Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Enjoy how the snow drifts into blue shadows on the prairie, punctured by blackberry canes. A contrast of soft and sharp; staccato and legato; light and dark.

Snow drifts into wild blackberry canes (Rubus allegheniensis) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Notice: Rather than being muzzled and smothered by snow, the prairie embraces it, then shapes it to its February tallgrass specifications.

Hidden Lake Forest Preserve prairie plantings, Forest Preserve of DuPage County, Downers Grove, IL. (2018)

Snow in February creates something wonder-worthy.

2. The restrained palette of February demands our attention. Ash and violet. Black and blue. A little red-gold. A bit of dark evergreen.

Prairie plants along the shore of Crabapple Lake, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

You’d think it would be monotonous. And yet. Each scene has its own particular loveliness.

Wetland with prairie plants, East Side, Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

We begin to question our previous need for bright colors…

Bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL. (2018)

…as we embrace the simplicity of the season.

Road to Thelma Carpenter Prairie, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL. (2016)

As we hike, there’s a yearning for something we can’t define. More daylight? Warmth? Or maybe, normalcy? Our personal routines and rhythms of the past 12 months have been completely reset. There’s a sense of resignation. It’s been a long winter. February reminds us we still have a ways to go. Keeping faith with our prairie hikes is one practice that grounds us and doesn’t have to change. It’s reassuring.

Possibly burdock (Artium minus), Lyman Woods, Downers Grove, IL.

3. In February, we admire the elusiveness of water. It’s a changeling. One minute, liquid. The next—who knows?

Ice on Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL (2017)

Winter plays with water like a jigsaw puzzle.

Ice forms in Belmont Prairie’s stream, Downers Grove, IL (2020)

February’s streams look glacial.

Bridge over the DuPage River prairie plantings in February, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Snuggle into your parka and be glad you’re hiking, not swimming.

4. If you are a minimalist, February is your season.

East Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Everything is pared to essentials.

Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardi) leaves, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Many of the seeds are gone; stripped by mice, extracted by birds.

Gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL. (2018)

Everywhere around you are the remains of a prairie year that will soon end in flames.

Prescribed burn sign, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

What you see before you is the last whisper of what is, and was, and what will be remembered.

Hidden Lake in February. (2018)

Look closely. Don’t forget.

5. In February, turn your eyes to the skies. What will you see? The marvel of a single red-tailed hawk, cruising over the tallgrass in the distance?

Prairie planting with red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis0, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

A sundog—that crazy play of sunlight with cirrus that happens best in the winter? Or a sun halo, blinding, dazzling?

Sun halo, Cindy’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL. (2020)

Maybe it will be a full Snow Moon at the end of this month, setting sail across the sub-zero sky. Or a daylight crescent moon, scything the chill.

Crescent moon, Belmont Prairie, Downers Grove, IL. (2020)

What will you see? You won’t know unless you go. Sure, it’s bitter cold. But soon, February will only be a memory. What memories are you making now?

Coyote (Canis latrans) on the trail through the Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

The prairie is waiting.

*****

N. Scott Momaday (1934-) is the author of Earth Keeper (2020), House Made of Dawn (1968, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Literature in 1969) and my favorite, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), a blend of folklore and memoir. Momaday is a member of the Kiowa tribe, a group of indigenous people of the Great Plains. Writer Terry Tempest Williams calls Earth Keeper “a prayer for continuity in these days of uncertainty.”

*****

Join Cindy in 2021 for an online class! See http://www.cindycrosby.com for a complete list of virtual offerings. Need a speaker? Email me through my website. All classes and programs with Cindy this winter and spring are offered online only. Join me from your computer anywhere in the world.

Begins Monday, February 8 (SOLD OUT) OR just added —February 15 (Two options): Tallgrass Prairie Ecology Online (Section A or B)--Digitally explore the intricacies of the tallgrass prairie landscape and learn how to restore these signature American ecosystems as you work through online curriculum. Look at the history of this unique type of grassland from the descent of glaciers over the Midwest millions of years ago, to the introduction of John Deere’s famous plow, to where we are today. We will examine different types of prairie, explore the plant and animal communities of the prairie and discuss strategies specific to restoring prairies in this engaging online course. Come away with a better understanding of the tallgrass prairies, and key insights into how to restore their beauty. All curriculum is online, with an hour-long in-person group Zoom during the course. You have 60 days to complete the curriculum! Join me–Registration information here.

February 24, 7-8:30 p.m. CST: The Prairie in Art and Literature Online. The tallgrass prairie is usually thought of for its diverse community of plants, animals, and insects. Yet, it is also an inspiration for a creative community! In this interactive online talk, natural history author and prairie steward Cindy Crosby will explore historical and contemporary writers and artists, musicians, and other creatives working in the prairie genre: from Neil Young to Willa Cather to graphic comic artists, quilters, and jewelers expressing the prairie through their work. See the prairie in a new light! Come away inspired to appreciate and express your love of the tallgrass as you enjoy learning about this prairie “community.” Offered by The Morton Arboretum: Register here.

The Prairie at Twilight

“Observation is a great joy.” –Elizabeth Bishop

*******

Riiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg! It’s time for recess at the elementary school down the street from our house. The bell echoes in an empty playground, roped off with yellow hazard tape. No one sits at the desks inside. No games of hopscotch and tetherball. No lines of cars with parents, waiting to pick up little ones.

Jeff and I are walking the neighborhood, something we’ve done more of in 2020 than in the 22 years previous. As the pandemic has gradually closed off everyone’s normal routines of work, school, play, shopping and eating out over the past two months, we’ve become a bit hardened to some of our losses. But the school bell, ringing endlessly over an empty playground, caught us off guard.

Unexpectedly, my eyes fill with tears.

Time to go for a prairie hike.

*******

Evening has come to Belmont Prairie Preserve.

This 10-acre remnant in Downer’s Grove, IL, is one of my favorite local prairies to hike, yet we’ve avoided it since early April because of the crowds of people on its narrow trails. I’ve found myself thinking about Belmont since our last hike there. A lot. I miss it. Why not go see if it’s less congested?  We can always turn around and go home. I argue with myself. It’s getting late. Why not, indeed?

We get in the car and go.

A crescent moon glimmers high over the prairie.

The parking lot is empty. Cheers and fist bumps! We still have an hour before sunset, although the grasses are backlit with the lowering light.

And….we’re off.

Belmont Prairie Preserve at the end of April 2020 is a different prairie to the eye than when I’ve seen it in previous years. Without prescribed fire, to the casual observer the it  looks similar to the tallgrass in fall or winter. Until you walk the trails and look closely.

There! Wild strawberries are in bloom.

There’s the old husks of rattlesnake master…

…juxtaposed with its new spring growth. I’m not sure I’ve seen this in such profusion before. Most of the prairies I hike in the spring have been fire-washed of their past year’s finery.

It’s a new perspective.

Overhead, the crescent moon scythes its path through the darkening sky.  I notice Venus—a chipped crystal—barely visible in the deepening twilight, seemingly falling in synchronization with the moon toward the horizon.

In the gathering dark, the prairie seems dreamlike.

Along the path, shoots of tall coreopsis leaf out…

…otherworldly in the dusk.

It almost looks like it’s underwater; its graceful leaves lightly swaying in the wind currents. Or maybe it’s the illusion of this half-light.

Golden Alexanders is up; its leaves, even in the dimness, standing out against the ruined grasses.

Everywhere, sprouts of new life mingle in random groups; to sort them out would be the delightful work of several hours…

Some identifiable in the dusk, like the bastard toadflax…

…or the meadow rue…

…and, that prairie denizen, the familiar bee balm.

Here and there are a few undesirables, like yellow rocket…

..and the ubiquitous garlic mustard. I crush a leaf and sniff it.  I have known neighbors to carefully mow around patches of this in suburban yards, mistaking it for a wildflower.

As I walk, I yank whatever garlic mustard I can see. It’s a ritual of spring on the prairies where I’m a steward—now closed for that activity.  Such deep satisfaction to make a small difference here in the health of a prairie that’s given me so much!

Not far from the garlic mustard is another plant. Look! Is it the prairie violet? Or the birdfoot violet? Difficult to tell in the fading light. Violets are so variable.

Jeff holds the half-closed bloom open so I can examine the throat.

Prairie violet, it appears as I puzzle over it, then pore over my field guides. The flower looks correct, but the leaves look…wrong. Finally, I take the photos and my question to the Illinois Botany Facebook page. Yes. It is.

Or what about this one, in the wetter areas?   A buttercup….”small-flowered buttercup”? The buttercups, like the violets, are difficult. I can barely make out the bloom.

Small-flowered buttercup, I decide, with iNaturalist offering support for the ID. I double-check it with Illinois Wildflowers on my return home later. Looks good. Every spring, I’m aware of how much I need to re-learn and remember. Makes me grateful for good ID tools both in the field and at home.

I pause in my ID conundrums to look around me. A red-winged blackbird calls. Oka-leee! The stream is bright in last light.

I walk alongside it for a bit, watching my step.

…then turn back to the path. The dusk pixels everything; the air itself seems grainy. Then, the grasses light up…

…the last glints of sundown sparking the dry, brittle leaves and stalks.

Gradually, the prairie grasses lose the light and become silhouettes…

…as the sun free-falls through the cloudless sky.

Jeff has made his way to the car. I can’t help but linger. This opportunity to be here—so longed for—is difficult to bring to a close. This hour—this concentration on prairie, instead of the news—has been a consolation.

I notice a kite, stuck in the treetops.

I imagine how that person must have felt to see it aloft, then, their dismay as they watched it plummet into the tree. The end of something free and wild.

My absence from Belmont Prairie these past weeks makes this visit so much the sweeter. With the dusk, however, comes melancholy. When will I find this prairie so uncrowded again? I think of the prairie where I am a steward, closed. Did the painted skimmer dragonfly return this spring? Are the killdeers nesting in their usual spots? In Illinois, our shelter-in-pace has extended to the end of May.  The weeks stretch ahead, uncertain.

I think of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “One Art:”

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

I’m becoming more intimate with losses, big and small, as the weeks go on. In some ways, the pandemic has seemed like a dream. Surely, we’ll wake up and turn to our partner and say–wow–you won’t believe the nightmare I just had…

… but we wake, and we remember. For now, there is no end in sight.

Darkness is falling fast. A great-horned owl calls in last light.

The sunset tats the tree branches into lace.

Good night, Belmont Prairie Preserve.

 

Later that night, right before bed, I step onto my front porch. The darkness is absolute, except for a few lights in the windows along our street. And—that sky! Deep in the west, falling to the horizon, the crescent moon holds steady with bright Venus in alignment. Tuesday, Venus will be at its brightest for the year.

I watch for a while, until the cold drives me back inside.

I made it through the past 24 hours. Tomorrow, I’ll get up and pay attention to whatever the day brings. There will be prairie walks, and work in my backyard prairie patch and garden, and plant ID’s to reacquaint myself with since last year and new ones to learn. I’ll pore over my field guides. Then, I’ll call my loved ones to see if they are well.

The peace and promise of the spring prairie has calmed and centered me today. Now, sleep beckons.

Sweet dreams.

******

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was an award-winning poet who overcame a tragic childhood of losses to give us beautiful poems. Her father died when she was in infancy; her mother was committed to a mental institution when she was five and never recovered. Virtually orphaned, she was then shuttled between relatives, some abusive. She lost several loved ones—including her partner of many years—to suicide. Bishop’s poetry collection Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring (1955) won the Pulitzer Prize. Haven’t read her? Start with “The Fish” , or  “One Art.”

*****

All photos and video copyright Cindy Crosby and taken at Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve in Downer’s Grove, IL, unless marked otherwise (top to bottom): school, Glen Ellyn, IL; empty playground, Glen Ellyn, IL; path through Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve; crescent moon over the prairie;  path through the prairie; wild strawberry  (Fragaria virginiana); rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium); rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium); crescent moon and Venus;  the prairie at sundown; tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris); tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris); possibly heart-leaved golden Alexanders (Zizia aptera); mixed prairie plants; bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata);  one of the meadow rues (uncertain which species); bee balm (Monarda fistulosa); non-native yellow rocket (Barbarea vulgaris arcuata); garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata); prairie violet (Viola pedatifida); prairie violet (Viola pedatifida); small-flowered buttercup (Ranunculus abortivus); Belmont Prairie creek; Belmont Prairie creek; sunset and grasses; sunset and grasses; sunset and grasses; bench at Belmont Prairie; kite in a tree at sunset; grasses at Belmont Prairie; trees and sunset; trees and sunset;  trees and sunset; Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve sign; Venus and a young moon in alignment, Glen Ellyn, IL.

Thank you to Kathleen Marie Garness and the Illinois Botany Facebook page for help with variable violet ID’s! Check out her work for the Field Museum on the awesome violet family and guides to other common families of the Chicago region here.

*****

Join me for “Enchanting Spring Prairie Wildflowers,” an online webinar, Friday, May 8 1-2:30 p.m. CST, through The Morton Arboretum. Click here to register.

The next “Tallgrass Prairie Ecology” class online begins May 4 through The Morton Arboretum.  Take 60 days to complete the course! See more information and registration  here.

Several of Cindy’s classes have moved online! For updates on classes and events, please go to http://www.cindycrosby.com.

Want more prairie while you are sheltering in place? Follow Cindy on Facebook, Twitter (@phrelanzer) and Instagram (@phrelanzer). Or enjoy some virtual trips to the prairie through reading Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit and The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction.

A Prairie Valentine

“How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out Yes!”– Mary Oliver

*****

Ask for their top 10 list of February destinations, and most of my friends would tell you “anywhere warm.” I agree. Toward the end of a Chicago region winter, I’m  ready to shed the shivery cold for a few days and escape to some far-flung beach down south.

But the beach in February is not my number one destination. I include walking trails through prairie remnants in winter a little higher on my list.

Tonight, Jeff and I are walking the Belmont Prairie in Downer’s Grove, Illinois. It’s small, as prairies go, but as a remnant—part of the original Illinois tallgrass prairie which escaped development and the plow—it’s special.  Writer John Madson wrote in Where the Sky Began that his “feeling for tallgrass prairie is like that of a modern man who has fallen in love with the face in a faded tintype. Only the frame is still real; the rest is illusion and dream.” Remnants remind me of those “faded tintypes.” Ghosts.

Very little of our original prairies have survived; about 2,300 high quality acres are left in Illinois. Another reason to be grateful for Belmont Prairie’s 10-acre remnant.

The grasses are weather-bleached and flattened now. You can imagine how references to the prairie as a sea came to be. Walking the trails here, amid the waves of winter tallgrass, can leave you unsteady on your feet, a little like wading through the surf and sand.

A creek glistens. Puddles of snowmelt glow.  I’ve been re-reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series this winter, and the creek puts me in mind of Galadriel’s silver elvish rope that helped Frodo and Sam continue their quest to darkest Mordor. Magical. A tiny sliver of creek is also iced in on the right—can you see it in the grasses? Barely visible, but the setting sun sets it alight.

As we hike, Canada geese begin to settle in, pulling their V-string necklaces across the twilight overhead.

Geese have a bad rap here in the Chicago suburbs, but I admire their sense of direction, their seamless ability to work as an aerial team, their perfectly spaced flight pattern. Their confidence in knowing the way home.

Honk-honk! The soundtrack of dusk.

A crescent moon scythes its way across the burgeoning gloom.

Still enough light to see. The reflections of ice spark the last light.

Poke around. In the mud and snow pockets, trapped in north-facing crevices, there are signs of spring to come. A few spears of green. Water running under the ice.

Look closely, and you may find a few tracks. Mammals are out and about in the cold. Birds.  In my backyard, close to the prairie patch, we’ve been feeding the birds extra food during the bitter temperatures, and they, in turn, have graced us with color, motion, and beauty.  As I scrubbed potatoes before having some friends over for dinner this weekend, my mundane task was made enjoyable by watching the interplay at the feeders outside my kitchen window. Scrubbing potatoes became meditation of sorts. Outside were squabbling sparrows.  The occasional red-bellied woodpecker. Juncos–one of my favorites–nun-like in their black and white feathered habits. The occasional burst of cardinal color.  Darting chickadees. Nuthatches, hanging upside down, zipping in for a peanut or two. Downy woodpeckers, like this one.

The seeds on the ground attract  more than birds. There are gangs of squirrels, well-fed and prosperous. If I wake early, I might spot a large eastern cottontail scavenging seeds, or even a red fox, whose antics with her kits have delighted us in the neighborhood over the years (and kept the resident chipmunk herds in check). Once in a while, over the years, we’ll surprise her on our back porch.

Another backyard visitor through the year is the opossum, who finds the seeds under the bird feeders a nice change of diet.

The opossum’s face looks a bit like a heart, doesn’t it? It reminded me that Valentine’s Day is Thursday. Time to find or make a card, and perhaps shop for a book or two for my best hiking partner. Speaking of him….

As Jeff and I head for the parking lot at Belmont Prairie, the great-horned owl calls from the treeline that hems the tallgrass. I hear the soft murmur. Who-Who- Hoooo.

Jeff and I once found a great horned owl here—perhaps this very one— in daylight, high in a tree on the edge of the grasses. I owl-prowl sometimes through the woods, hunting for bone and fur-filled scat pellets under trees. Find a pellet under a tree, look up, and you’ll occasionally get lucky and see an owl.

I think about Mary Oliver’s poem, “Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard,” which begins….”His beak could open a bottle… .” As someone who teaches  nature writing in the Chicago region, I love to read this poem to my students. The sounds of Oliver’s word choices  (“black, smocked crickets”), her contrasts of terror and sweet, and her descriptions  (“when I see his wings open, like two black ferns”) remind me of the joy of words, images, and our experiences outdoors.

Oliver’s poem about the owl ends; “The hooked head stares from its house of dark, feathery lace. It could be a valentine.”

The owl calls again. I think of the people and prairie I love. And, the joy that sharing a love of wild things with others can bring.

It’s a happiness not quite like any other. Try it yourself. And see.

*****

Mary Oliver (1936-2019), whose words from Owls and Other Fantasies opens this blogpost, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet (1984, American Primitive) and winner of the National Book Award (1992, New and Selected Poems). Her admonition, “Pay attention. Be astonished! Tell about it.,” is some of the best advice I know. She died in January.

.***

All photographs copyright Cindy Crosby, from Belmont Prairie Nature Preserve, Downer’s Grove, IL, unless noted (top to bottom): beach umbrellas, Sanibel Island, Florida; sawtooth sunflowers (Helianthus grosseserratus); Canada rye (Elymus canadensis); parking lot at sunset;  grasses on the prairie;  creek through the prairie; Canada geese (Branta canadensis) heading home; compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) at sunset; crescent moon over the tallgrass; ice in the grasses; creek ice with new growth; downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; red fox (Vulpes vulpes), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; sunset over the prairie; Belmont Prairie treeline;  treeline at the edges of the prairie; Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) with common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) pappus.

Embracing October

“October is a hallelujah! reverberating in my body year-round.” ~John Nichols 

September sings her last blues riff on the prairie.

The calendar pages over to October. We rush to embrace everything the season has to offer, ready for a change. Ready for something new.

The tallgrass crackles with static electricity, throwing off seed sparks in every direction. Do you feel the tingle?

A cool front moves in. Skies cloud over; turn bumpy metal. The bright greens of summer begin to drain into autumn’s palette of russet, copper, and cream.

Leaves loosen their grip. Let go. Let go. A free-fall transition.

You can feel surrender in the air.  A beautiful loss, bittersweet. As Anatole France wrote, “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy….”

Everywhere in the tallgrass, seeds blow away, fall to the ground, or are collected by volunteers. The seeds are the future; glimpsed but uncertain.

At dawn-break, sun lights the mist rising over the tallgrass. We hold our breath.

What will autumn have in store for us?

I can’t wait to find out.

******

The opening quote is from The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn by John Nichols (1940-). Nichols also wrote the well-known novel, The Milagro Beanfield War, which explores history, ethnicity, and land and water rights.

Anatole France (1844-1924), who wrote the other quote used in this essay, was a French poet and novelist who won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby: (top to bottom) Mist rising in big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; you-pick pumpkin patch, Jonamac Orchard, Malta, IL; Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) , Conrad Station Savanna, The Nature Conservancy and DNR, Morocco, IN; road through the tallgrass, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; three leaves, Springbrook Nature Center, Itasca, IL; unknown milkweed (Asclepias spp.), Conrad Station Savanna, The Nature Conservancy and Indiana DNR, Morocco, IL; crescent moon over author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL; mist rising with prairie plants and non-natives at Hidden Lake Forest Preserve, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Downer’s Grove, IL.

The Best Prairie Restorations

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

–Annie Dillard

 I can’t get Dillard’s simple observation out of my head.

How do I want to spend my days? This new year?

I want make time. To be there.

To look at the prairie up close, and marvel at a seed head’s complexity.

To listen to the empty wild white indigo pods, tap-tap-tapping in the wind.

To notice the tracks of a coyote in the snow and follow them…

…find the remains of her dinner in the snow…

…a reminder of how fleeting and precious life is.

How violence and beauty coexist in the natural world.

Let me soak up the colors of prairie grasses around a lake…

…marvel at the ice forming on the grasses…

Take time to notice the kaleidoscope of the sky.

Sunrises.

Sunsets.

And all the ways the clouds configure themselves in-between. Such ongoing drama! Yet, the bison on the prairie graze beneath the sky, oblivious.

Don’t they know? Each day may be our last.

I want to admire the unpopular opossum, with his face like a valentine.

Be there to see the moon rise in the East,  like a smile.

Appreciate the play of light and shadows on snow.

Why? Making time to be fully present to life on the prairie helps me be fully present to life off the prairie. To the people I love. To the work that I do.  It is restoration of another kind. The restoration of my soul.

There might come a time when I may no longer be able to hike the tallgrass. Until then, I’m storing away images in my mind.

Inhaling deeply so the smells of the prairie are etched into my memory. Mentally recording the sounds of the sandhill cranes and the song sparrow. Remembering how the tallgrass brushes my face.

If  the time comes when I can no longer physically hike the prairie, I’ll still be able to sit and think back on how I spent my days. The images will be there, like pages in a scrapbook. I’ll count my life richer for this: paying attention.

All photos by Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): figwort (Scrophularia marilandica), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) SP; unknown seed, SP; white wild indigo pods (Baptisia alba), SP; coyote tracks, SP; squirrel kill, SP; coyote, SP: grasses, Meadow Lake, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; grasses and ice, ML; grasses and ice, ML; sunrise, Newton Park, Glen Ellyn, IL; sunset, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; clouds over bison, NG; opossum, author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; crescent moon over author’s prairie, GE; blue shadows, SP; coyote, SP; switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), SP.

Note: SP, NG, GE: Schulenberg Prairie, Nachusa Grasslands, Glen Ellyn.

Quote from  Annie Dillard is from The Writing Life.