The Prairie Whispers “Courage”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” —Viktor Frankl

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I look out my kitchen window at my prairie planting and see something purple. It’s the first hyacinth in bloom. I’m a native plant aficionado, so hyacinths aren’t really my thing—and I planted prairie over the old garden bulbs that came with the house we purchased 20 years ago. But I welcome hyacinths this week. I welcome their fragrance. Their beauty. That purple.

As I look out the window, I’m folding a piece of parchment paper to reuse. I’ve been baking. A lot. Comfort baking, I imagine.  I’m also trying to minimize trips to the store during this time of Covid-19 uncertainty. “Shelter in place” means making the most of what we have on hand.

I think of my grandmother, now long passed, who would have recognized this moment. One of my early memories is of her washing a piece of foil, then folding and putting it away to reuse later. As a child, I scoffed at this, impatient. There is always more than enough of everything, wasn’t there? An endless supply. Little did I know. But she knew.

Grandma also had a victory garden. Long after World War II was over, her garden gave her a sense of food security. Today, I feel a kinship with her as I start vegetable and flower seeds; spade my soil to plant lettuce, peas, potatoes.

I feel the ghosts of my grandmothers in my kitchen as I plan meals using the ingredients I have on hand, plant a garden, struggle with uncertainty, just as they once did during the Great Depression and wars. This March, I’ve remembered—and marveled at—the courage they showed as they lived through times of insecurity, fear, and uncertainty. Courage I didn’t appreciate before. Courage I didn’t really understand when I was a child, or even a young adult. Courage I didn’t understand until now.

I wish both my grandmothers were here so we could talk.. They’d tell me their stories of these times, and I could ask them for advice. As a child, I squirmed when they hugged me. What I wouldn’t give to hug my grandmothers now.

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Jeff and I hiked the Schulenberg Prairie Sunday in 50-mph wind gusts, needled by sharp darts of drizzle that stung our faces and soaked our jeans. It was cathartic. And invigorating. We hiked  staying “present to the moment” by necessity—aware of the cold we felt as we  sloshed through the flooded prairie trails.

I noticed the way the black walnut and oak trees were darkened on one side from the slashing rain, and bone dry on the other.

Shadow and light.

The tallgrass is flattened now. In previous years, its tinder would be gone to ashes from the prescribed burn that happens here each spring. For perhaps the first time in its almost 60-year history, this planted prairie I’m hiking through may not see fire when it needs it. A prescribed fire here calls for a team of two dozen people or more working together, and it’s difficult to envision those simple gatherings happening anytime soon. By the time our Illinois shelter-in-place guidelines are lifted, it will likely be too late.

I walked, and I wondered, and I looked. In the savannas and woodlands this week…

…I found sharp-lobed hepatica, nodding in the rain.

Joy!

I’m looking for a different wildflower today, the pasque flower. Its newer scientific name is Pulsatilla patens, synonymous with the older name,  “Anemone patens.” It’s one of the first native wildflowers to bloom on the prairie. “Pasque” comes from the Hebrew word “pasakh,” “passing over.” The flower blooms despite the flames of early prescribed burns, usually during the Easter season (thus the name “pasque” is also associated with this holiday from the old French language.). When the pasque flower blooms, I feel as if winter has passed.

Last year, the few blooms we had were memorable, perhaps for their scarcity.

“Anemone” means “windflower.” “Pulsatilla” means “sway” or “tremble” which the pasque flower does in March and April breezes. Appropriate names for a flower that faces down cold, brutal winds, prescribed fire, and seasonal instability.  Our population of these fuzzy-leaved lavender bloomers had dwindled in previous years; down to just one clump plus a few stragglers. Since then, I’ve sown seeds to re-invigorate our plant population from another preserve.

Would anything be up? Jeff and I slogged through the mud and peered closely. And there! One tiny fuzzed green shoot. And another! Barely detectable in the wind and drizzle.

Life was going on, despite the chaos of the outer world. Nature calmly follows the rhythm of spring. It was a shot of hope in a dismal month. Brave little pasqueflower. It seemed to whisper to me. Courage.

I find myself trying to summon courage for each day. Not for tomorrow, or for next week, but for the 24 hours ahead of me, in which I need to make good choices. Courage right now, as Governor Andrew Cuomo has said in one of his binge-worthy news conferences on Covid-19, means “looking for the light.” I desperately want to be strong, but some days, it’s tough to know where to start. Looking for the light seems like a good place to begin.

Courage.

The courage to get up each morning, get dressed, make a meal. Even if no one sees us.

Courage. The courage to rise each morning and school our children.

Courage. The courage of those who live alone, whether from necessity or from choice—and who ride this season out, bereft of their usual friendships and routines.

Courage. Those who work in a makeshift office in a bedroom, an attic, a basement, or from the kitchen table. We may deliver groceries, work in hospitals, fill prescriptions. We watch our businesses implode, our freelance work vanish, our jobs lost, our retirement savings plummet.

And still. We choose to take the next step. We teach a lesson on weather to our children. Go for a walk with the dog and wave to the neighbors—-neighbors we’ve never seen before until two weeks ago and suddenly have gotten to “know” from across the road—because they are out walking too.  We realize that so much is out of our control.

And yet, the world goes on.

In the midst of it, we find courage to make the choices we can make.  Courage to sit through another online meeting—trying to show up with our best game face, even though we feel like getting into bed, pulling the covers over our head, and not coming out for the next month.

Or maybe the next two.

Courage to be patient with our children as they sense the fear we feel and need us now—and our reassurances—more than ever.

Courage to be kind to our spouse and those we share space with—adult children, older parents, grandchildren. We find ourselves together 24/7, without the distractions of outside errands and activities. Our margin for patience gets slimmer each day. But we dig deep. We find new reserves. Because patience and kindness are the things that matter most. They are choices we can make.

We ask for courage to be patient with those who don’t see this crisis the way we do, and act in ways we find irresponsible—or perhaps, overly-cautious.

Courage to bake bread, start learning a new language, clean out a drawer, begin a journal, plant garden seeds, laugh at an old sitcom, watch re-runs of classic baseball games because there is no opening day. Because the crack of a bat, the roar of the crowds— the  memory of what once was normal is something that reassures us. We find humor in situations—-even when we don’t feel like laughing. Why? Because those are choices available to us, when so many other choices are not.

We scrape up our last bit of bravery to find courage to live into the next hour, much less the next day. To think ahead? It’s terrifying. We turn on the news, then turn it off. We need to know, but we don’t want to know.

In a world where once we had so many possibilities at our fingertips —and just about anything we wanted was available to us at the tap of a computer key—we have different choices to make now. How will we live in this new reality? When we look back on this next year—in five years, ten years—what stories are we living out that we we tell our children, our grandchildren, and our friends? How will we use this time we are given? What chapter in our lives will we write? It’s up to us. Today. Right now.

Don’t surrender to fear.

We can choose to love. To be kind. To keep moving forward.

Take courage. You’re not alone.

Together, let’s keep moving forward.

*****

The opening quote is from Viktor Frankl’s (1905-1997) Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor and Austrian psychiatrist who lost his wife during their incarceration. A quest for meaning was what Frankl said helped him survive tremendous uncertainty and suffering. “Meaning,” he says, came out of three things: work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty. Read more here.

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All photos and video copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): Dutch hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; rolling pin, author’s kitchen, Glen Ellyn, IL; Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; seed starting, author’s office, Glen Ellyn, IL: flooded trail, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tree lashed by rain, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sharp-lobed hepatica (Anemone acutiloba), Lisle, IL; pasque flower (Pulsatilla or Anemone patens) in bloom on the Schulenberg Prairie in 2019, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pasque flower (Pulstilla or Anemone patens) seeds, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pasque flower (Pulsatilla or Anemone patens) shoots, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Schulenberg Prairie; Schulenberg Prairie; shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia), author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), log on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; March on the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; western chorus frogs (Pseudacris triseriata); The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; compass plant (Silphium laciniatum); mosses (unknown species, would welcome ID suggestions!); common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morotn Arboretum, Lisle, IL; switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bridge over Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; chalk art, author’s driveway, Glen Ellyn, IL.

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Cindy’s classes have moved online! For updates on classes and events, please go to http://www.cindycrosby.com. The next Tallgrass Prairie Ecology class online begins in early May. See more information and registration  here.

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Have you always been curious about the native landscape of the Midwest, but didn’t have time to read?  Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit (order directly from Ice Cube Press) and The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction  from Northwestern University Press (order from your independent bookseller if they remain open or deliver, or from Bookshop or Amazon.com.  I’m grateful for your support for prairie, books, small publishers, and freelance writers like myself.

Spring Comes to the Prairie

“The world’s favorite season is the spring…” — Edwin Way Teale

*****

Hail pocks the windows. Then, a deluge. The first big storm of the season rolls in Sunday evening. It’s over in an hour or so, with a double rainbow chasing the retreating clouds into the dark. Heading for bed, we crack the bedroom window open, letting the rain-washed air blow in. So quiet.

Then, I hear it.

It’s a lone western chorus frog, calling for a mate. All winter, I wondered if they’d reappear in our backyard prairie pond. The water thawed completely this weekend, and the marsh marigolds put out their first tentative blooms. It’s time.

I’m not sure where our little frog will find a mate; it’s a ways from here to the DuPage River which limns our neighborhood to the east. How far can another frog travel? Did this frog overwinter under the ice?  I wish I knew more about frogs!  Putting down my book, I listen to it calling in the dark. The sound of spring!

After about ten minutes of admiration, however, I wonder if I can sleep through this ear-splitting serenade. Creeeak! Creeeak! Creeeak! The lone western chorus frog’s vocalizations can be heard a half mile away.

I believe it.

There was no shortage of frogs calling, chorus and otherwise, at Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin  where Jeff and I traveled this weekend. Here, our chorus frog would go from solo artist to part of a massive choir, with leopard frogs chiming in and plenty of wind instruments. Plenty of potential mates.

 

 

Our trip to Horicon Marsh was rich for the short hour we had there, hiking in the rain. A mosaic of tallgrass prairies and woodlands…

 

…and oh, those wetlands!

I could have spent hours watching the muskrats building their lodges.

Or trying to ID ducks and other waterfowl, as well as various migrating birds. The splattering rain made it difficult, but there was no way to miss waterfowl like this guy.

I later read that the wingspan for a trumpeter swan may be up to six feet. Wow! They’re the largest waterfowl in North America, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The swans look huge in the pelting rain, as they float across ponds and pull up aquatic vegetation.

Along the highway, a little outside Horicon Marsh, we see movement through an old field. Pull over!

A family of sandhill cranes! We watch them stalk the grasses.  I’ve seen sandhill cranes on the ground in the Chicago region, but it’s an unusual treat. We admire their size; those rusted-metal wings, those scarlet caps.

We watch them until they fly away.

While we were in Wisconsin, spring came with a rush in northeastern Illinois this weekend.  The same storm that rattled my windows Sunday evening soaked the prairie. New plants, like crinkly wood betony, popped up across the scorched earth.

The first shoots of rattlesnake master, compass plant, and pale Indian plantain have emerged, distinctive even in miniature. Turtles are out in nearby lakes and ponds, basking in the sunshine.

On Monday,  I walked my dragonfly monitoring route along Willoway Brook for the first time this season, looking for green darners migrating back from the south.  It’s 74 degrees! At last. Several of my dragonfly monitors report seeing green darners flying at ponds and lakes at the Arboretum, but I come up empty on my prairie route.

I do discover a red-winged blackbird, looking balefully at a toy ball which has floated downstream. Perhaps he sees it as competition?

Red-wings are tireless protectors of their spring nests, attacking anyone—or anything– that gets too close. I mind my steps accordingly.

Hanging over Willoway Brook are the remains of dogbane plants, sometimes called Indian hemp. They’ve escaped the prescribed fire of a few weeks ago.

Dogbane was valued by Native Americans, who wove it into textiles, cords and string. I enjoy the plants for their seed pod ribbons and silken seed floss.

Last year’s plant remnants are juxtaposed with this year’s earliest blooms. In the prairie savanna, I see the first bloodroot in flower. Hooray!

Ants, flies, and the occasional bee are out and about, looking for wildflowers. The earth hums with activity. Not much floral matter here, yet. But it won’t be long. Soon, the prairie and savanna hillside will be covered in blooms. The singular will give way to the aggregate. The bloodroot will be no less lovely for being more common and prolific.

Before I leave the prairie, I take a quick look at the area where I seeded in pasque flowers last season. Nope. Nothing. It’s bare and rocky, and at first glance, I find only mud. And then…

Another pasque flower plant is up! Is it from seed? Or perhaps it’s an existing plant that took a year off last season? Either way, I feel my spirits lift. Now, we have two plants in situ. This pasque flower, along with the remaining mother plant and its siblings grown from seed, cooling their roots in the Arboretum’s greenhouse, may be the start of a pasque flower revival on the prairie.

Elation! My joy stays with me on the drive home, through dinner, and as I get ready to turn in.

As I’m about to I put down my book and turn off the light, I hear it. The “Creeeak! Creeeak!” of the lone chorus frog. But—is that a reply?

Yes! There are two chorus frogs in the pond.

Happiness. I turn off the lights, and go to bed.

*****

The opening quote is from Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980), an American naturalist born in Joliet, IL. He was a staff writer for Popular Science, and the author of numerous books about the natural world. Pulitzer-prize winning writer Annie Dillard said of Teale’s book, The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects, that it is “a book I cannot live without.” Enough said.

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All photos and video clip copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): western chorus frog, author’s backyard prairie pond, Glen Ellyn, IL; marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris), author’s backyard prairie pond, Glen Ellyn, IL; soundtrack to Horicon Marsh (wind, frogs–western chorus (Pseudacris triseriata) and northern leopard (Lithobates pipiens)–and various birds), Dodge County, WI; tallgrass prairie and woodlands, Horicon Marsh, Dodge County, WI; Horicon Marsh in the rain, Dodge County, WI; muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), Horicon Marsh, Dodge County, WI;  trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator), Horicon Marsh, Dodge County, WI; sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis) family, Green Lake County, WI; sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis), Green Lake County, Wisconsin;  sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis), Green Lake County, Wisconsin; wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  my turtle ID is sketchy, but possibly painted turtles? or red-eared sliders? ID correction welcome (Chrysemys picta or Trachemys scripta elegans), Meadow Lake, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Willoway Brook, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) and ball (Roundus bouncesis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; dogbane/Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pasque flower (Pulsatilla patens), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

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Cindy’s Upcoming Speaking and Classes:

Join Cindy and co-author Thomas Dean for a talk and book signing at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, IA, April 22, 7-9 p.m., for Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit.

Spring Wildflowers! Join me on two woodland wildflower walks this month at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL, April 18 and 26, and a prairie and savanna wildflower walk on May 4. Click here for more information.

April 23: “Frequent Flyers of the Garden and Prairie: Dragonflies and Damselflies,” Villa Park Garden Club, Villa Park, IL,  7:30-8:30 p.m. See www.cindycrosby.com for details.

“Tallgrass Prairie Ecology” online continues through May through The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.