Finding Peace on the Prairie

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”–Julian of Norwich

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Forecast: 25 degrees. One last time, I promise myself. I’ll cover the garden. One last time. Haul out the sheets. Tuck in ruffled kale, rainbow swiss chard, sugar snap peas. Smooth striped sheets over beets.

Kholrabi and parsnip? Check. Lettuce? Covered. All of these vegetables in my autumn garden are reliably frost tolerant, but—25 degrees! I don’t want to risk leaving my raised bed unprotected. Good night. Sweet dreams.

Monday morning, the plants look a bit shell-shocked, but are still in good shape. With a predicted wild swing to almost 70 degrees later this week, I want to hang on to the last vestiges of my garden. Just a little longer. Please.

It’s time to let go.

October ended this week with a full Hunter’s Blue Moon pulling me out like the tides to the back porch.

Bright red Mars has been a delight, rising in the east each evening just after sunset.

The late year constellations are slowly coming into focus. They signal change. Transition. The year 2020 is winding down. Today—Tuesday, November 3— I’ll walk the tallgrass prairie.

In these last months of this year, when faced with something overwhelming, the tallgrass is my solace.

In a year when life seems out of kilter beyond my wildest imagination, the prairie reliably does what it always does. Grass emerges in the spring. Wildflowers bloom, set seed. Leaves crisp, decay, fade away. Forty-mile-per- hour winds that rip leaves off the trees? No problem. Late October snows in my backyard prairie patch? No big deal. The prairie’s deep roots, put down over years of readiness, keeps it strong.

The prairie is indifferent to politics, pandemics, and any sort of news. Comforting, isn’t it? As Mary Oliver writes in her poem, Wild Geese, “Meanwhile the world goes on.”

The prairie embraces the change each season brings. As I hike today, I’ll listen to the breeze shush the big bluestem and switchgrass. Follow the scattershot of unnameable birds strewn across the sun-faded blue of the sky. Caress the cold sandpaper of prairie dock leaves. Inhale the scent of a hundred thousand prairie grasses and wildflowers cycling through the season—living, dying, dormant, reborn.

Earlier this week in my backyard, I planted spring bulbs for bees. Or—was it really for the bees? Maybe it was for me. I want to cultivate anticipation, rather than dread. If a bag full of crocus, daffodil, and allium bulbs can help me do that, so be it.

I plant the bulbs near the fairy garden the grandkids created, near an old aquarium with a screen top. In September, I found two black swallowtail caterpillars munching on my parsley. I stashed them in the aquarium outside (leaving a few of their kindred to nibble parsley in peace).

Their rather ugly chrysalis are strung on the loose branches inside the glass walls. Seeing the aquarium is another reminder that spring will come. With warmer weather, the butterflies will emerge, fresh and ready for a new world.

That last flush of vibrant fall foliage this past week reminds me of an opera’s grand finale. October wore brilliant, colorful costumes as everything lay dying and was brought to a stunning conclusion. You felt the curtain drop as October ended and November began.

And now, we wait for November to usher in the next act in this pandemic.

Issa Kobayashi wrote, This world of dew— is a world of dew— and yet, and yet.

The past eight months have been unimaginable. And yet. And yet. We are more resilient than we think. Like the prairie, we’ve put down deep roots. We’ve tapped into strength we didn’t know we had.

As we look ahead, we’ll think of ways we can care for each other more fully. Support those who are less resilient. Reach out to our friends and loved ones, especially those alone. Ensure no one goes hungry in a time where so much is unstable and jobs are uncertain. Protect the elderly, the children. Stand for justice, even when it’s uncomfortable to do so. We’ll be flexible as we continue to learn and adapt about this strange time we find ourselves in.

Let’s walk the prairie, and admire its beauty and resilience. Then, let’s work together—no matter what the day brings—to create a better world.

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Julian of Norwich (1343-1416) is the author of the first book written in English by a woman. She was an anchorite, a mystic, and lived during the time of the “Black Death” in England, in which 40-60 percent of the population died from bubonic plague.

All photos and video copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): mixed kale (Brassica oleracea), author’s backyard garden, Glen Ellyn, IL; butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; prairie grasses and wildflowers, Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL; full Hunter’s Blue Moon over author’s prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL; line of osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera) with bright Mars rising, College of DuPage East Prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; trail through Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL; video clip of snow in October on author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL; ducks and geese on a lake at Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL; lake at Springbrook Prairie, Naperville, IL; purple crocus (Crocus sp.); author’s backyard garden in March, Glen Ellyn, IL; eastern black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar (Papilio polyxenes) on parsley (Petroselinum crispum), author’s backyard garden in September, Glen Ellyn, IL: eastern black swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes) on cut-and-come-again zinnia (Zinnia elegans), author’s backyard garden, September, Glen Ellyn, IL; bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; full Hunter’s Blue Moon over author’s prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL: sunset over author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL; walking on Springbrook Prairie at sunset, Naperville, IL.

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Today is election day. Please vote!

Join Cindy for a class—or ask her to speak virtually for your organization–now booking talks for 2021. Email Cindy through http://www.cindycrosby.com.

Register for Cindy’s Literary Gardens Online: Friday, Dec.4, 1-2:30 p.m.CST– Join master gardener and natural history writer Cindy Crosby from wherever you live in the world for a fun look at great (and not-so-great) gardens in literature and poetry. From Agatha Christie’s mystery series, to Brother Cadfael’s medieval herb garden, to Michael Pollan’s garden in “Second Nature,” to the “secret garden” beloved of children’s literature, there are so many gardens that helped shape the books we love to read. Discover how gardens and garden imagery figure in the works of Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Goudge, Rumer Godden, May Sarton, Mary Oliver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Henry Mitchell, Barbara Kingsolver, and Lewis Carroll–and many more! This class is online. Register here through The Morton Arboretum.

Just released in June! Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History. Order now from your favorite indie bookstore such as the Arboretum Store and The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn, or online at bookshop.org, direct from Northwestern University Press (use coupon code NUP2020 for 25% off), or other book venues. Thank you for supporting small presses, bookstores, and writers during these unusual times.

Want more prairie? Follow Cindy on Facebook, Twitter (@phrelanzer) and Instagram (phrelanzer). Or visit her website at http://www.cindycrosby.com. See you there!

Prairie Comforts

“If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but by all means keep moving.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

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A bitter wind rattles the windows.  The forecast calls for a possible freeze tonight, jeopardizing my risky plantings of onions, carrots, peas, radishes, kale, and spinach in the backyard garden. Spinach has leafed out. Radishes are up in the raised beds.

Such tiny seedlings to face a freeze! Enlisting Jeff’s help, I find a sheet and some old towels, then  we drape the raised beds and tuck the ends in with bricks. Now, my garden is ready to face the frigid night ahead.  I hope.

After we finish, I look around the yard and admire what spring has accomplished. Marsh marigolds necklace the pond. Are they blooming in the prairie wetlands right now? I wonder.

A few marsh marigolds have escaped the pond, leapt the steps leading to the patio, and are in bloom around the hose.

These enthusiastic wildflowers bring me a lot of joy.  Marsh marigolds are one of the Midwest’s native plants. A similar, but unwelcome yellow flower also stalks my neighborhood: the Ficaria verna, the lesser celandine. On our walks through local subdivisions, Jeff and I spy this invasive hanging out on a street corner and tucked into the edge of a copse of trees.

As a prairie steward, I keep my eyes open for this marsh marigold imposter and ruthlessly eradicate it where I can. Give it an inch and it will take over the block. Look at the leaves and flowers of lesser celandine above, then look at the marsh marigolds below. Similar. But different.

I’m grateful for the marsh marigolds this week. They’re a welcome ray of sunshine. A little bit of comfort .

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On Sunday, Jeff and I drive to our daughter’s house for a subdued Easter celebration. In the spirit of social distancing we set up lawn chairs in a corner of their yard and they watch from the porch as the little ones hunt eggs. Afterwards, we swap holiday food in bags–my bread, their lamb and potatoes—and we head home for our duo Easter dinner.  The sidewalks and neighborhoods are crowded with families riding bikes together; going for walks.

As we drive past the College of DuPage prairies, I notice something different.

Not a soul in sight.

Stop! We turn into the parking lot. The skies threaten rain, but that isn’t going to stop us.

Such joy!

The prairie at this time of year is a mix of burned areas and unburned areas. The prescribed fires that keep a prairie healthy have done their work. That green! I had forgotten how intense it is.

Prairie dropseed scrub brushes are distinctive at this time of year when other plants are barely up.

Rattlesnake master is unmistakeable—one of the first prairie plants to poke its leaves out of the ground.

Look closely at those leaves above. Like yucca, aren’t they? As its scientific name, Eryngium yuccifolium intimates. Over there –is that a sedge? Yes! But I’m not completely sure of its ID. Mead’s sedge? Pennsylvania sedge, maybe? Hmmm. I try keying it out on my iNaturalist app, but the app isn’t, either. A little mystery.

Along the path, the bee balm, Monarda fistulosa, spreads its tender growth like a throw rug. I crush a tiny leaf and inhale. Mmmm.  Like minty oregano.

The prescribed burn has cleared most of last year’s grasses from the prairie, blackened the earth. Despite the blustery weather, the prairie will warm up quickly.

Already, the fringed clamshells of compass plants hold promise. Although the shoots are only a bit taller than my index finger, I’ll see blooms this summer on stalks up to 12 feet high.

What will I be thinking in late July when it blooms? What will the world be like? After experiencing this pandemic, and the closure of so many natural areas—and crowds in others—I doubt I will ever take a prairie hike like this one for granted again.

A killdeer calls, then scrabbles across the prairie. Looking for a nest site? Perhaps. I feel my spirits lift. Killdeer are always one of the first signs of spring on the prairie.

The College of DuPage prairies offer Jeff and myself some much needed solace. You may have felt, as I felt at first, that it is selfish in these times to grieve such things as the loss of a regular walk in a familiar place, or the disappointment of missing a particular patch of hepatica in bloom…

…or the loss of missing the arrival of spring migrants to a patch of woodland you visit. Perhaps you are unable to go into the field to do your science research; work you’ve planned and received funding for this season at great personal outpouring of energy. Or maybe you mourn the disappearance of the simple rhythms of being a natural areas volunteer and the companionship of others working with you to to restore a prairie, woodland, or wetland. You wonder what’s happening in the places you love—-some now closed off to you for the safety and well-being of all. A good thing. But difficult.

These losses—of course!—are small when weighed against the loss of a job; the loss of our health, the loss of a beloved friend or family member. The sadness when we can’t hug our grandchildren. The fear we feel over something as simple as grocery shopping.  I’ve felt small-minded for even fussing over a prairie closed; a crowded natural area. What are these losses, really?  And yet, I’ve come to realize they are important losses, none-the-less. These places are part of us. These ordinary rituals, these rhythms of our lives, when lost, un-moor us, unsettle us, shake us. They come at a time when other rituals and rhythms of life are also upended. We long for the simple comforts of our familiar places and routines. Many of them will be unavailable to us for a while.

My sister, a therapist, tells me we are experiencing trauma, and all of us will respond differently to it. And without some of our prairie walks and work in the places we know and love, we are forced to find new rituals and rhythms. Even as we do so, each of our losses must be acknowledged and grieved.

I’m establishing new rituals and reacquainting myself with some older ones I’ve neglected over the past few years. A neighborhood walk each morning and evening. A little sketching. Planting my garden. Putting more thought into meals. Eating breakfast together every morning with Jeff, instead of rushing off to work. Restarting my journal, which had gone through a period of neglect.

Watching the rhubarb and other perennials in my yard emerge. I planted rhubarb several times in my garden, and it was never happy. But at last, its seems, I’ve found a spot it likes. I think of rhubarb pie in a few weeks. Something to anticipate.

I’m enjoying the pleasures of clearing my prairie patch and backyard borders of last  year’s dead growth. Watching the crinkled shell-shaped leaves of alum root emerge.

I pay closer attention to my backyard these days on a daily basis. Each day, my backyard prairie patch—and the prairies in my community—offers surprises. Cup plant leaves appear. Birds return. Forgotten onion bulbs sprout in the vegetable garden. This week, I spotted my first dragonfly—a common green darner. These natural rhythms continue, even when so much seems in disarray.

I’m learning to live with greater ambiguity. Becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Instead of planning my year, I try to plan a single day. It’s about as far ahead as I can think. Sometimes, I realize, not much will be accomplished. And that’s okay.

There are new glories in the natural world to appreciate each morning. I only have to remember to look. To pay attention. In a world full of uncertainty, I may not be able to “fly,” as Martin Luther King, Jr, said in the opening quote. But I can keep moving forward, a little bit at a time.

The emerging prairie shows the way.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., (1929-68) was a civil rights activist who advocated non-violence. King won the Noble Peace Prize for his work for racial equality, and was assassinated because of this work in 1968. Listen to his most famous speech, “I Have A Dream.” given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): radish (Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. sativus) seedlings, author’s backyard garden, Glen Ellyn, IL; marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; invasive lesser celandine (Ficaria verna), neighborhood side of Willowbrook Wildlife Forest Preserve, Glen Ellyn, IL; marsh marigold, author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; street signs, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL; bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) overlooking the Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage Natural Areas, Glen Ellyn, IL;  pond on the Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage Natural Areas, Glen Ellyn, IL; College of DuPage Prairie in early April; prairie dropseed (Sporabolus heterolepis); Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage Natural Areas, Glen Ellyn, IL: rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage Natural Areas , Glen Ellyn, IL; unknown sedge in the Carex family (possibly Mead’s or Pennsylvania), Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL; compass plants (Silphium laciniatum), Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL; compass plant flower (Silphium laciniatum), Fermilab Natural Areas, Batavia, IL; killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL;  sharp-lobed hepatica (Hepatica nobilis acuta), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL (archival photo); Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Russell Kirt Prairie, College of DuPage Natural Areas, Glen Ellyn, IL; red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), College of DuPage Russell Kirt Prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) emerging, author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL;  prairie alum root (Heuchera richardsonii), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL; East Prairie, College of DuPage Natural Areas, Glen Ellyn, IL.

Thank you to Paul Marcum who helped me narrow down the sedge ID.

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THIS WEEK: Join me for a free spring wildflower webinar through the Morton Arboretum from wherever you are sheltering in place! “Illinois’ Wild and Wonderful Wildflowers,” April 17, 1-2:30 p.m. CST.–No cost, but you must register to receive the link and additional instructions:  Register Here.

The next “Tallgrass Prairie Ecology” class online begins in early May through The Morton Arboretum. See more information and registration  here. The website is updated to reflect current conditions. A free spring wildflower webinar is also in the works! Watch for a link on Cindy’s website, coming soon.

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.