Say It With (Prairie) Flowers

 When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. — Georgia O’Keeffe—

Mass killings. Zika virus. Politics. Refugee camps.

So much grim news in the world.

Meanwhile…the prairie concentrates on putting out flowers.

Spikes of blooms in softest vanilla…

 

Spidery ones, slung with silk…

 

Fringed, sassy flowers. Pucker up! They seem to say.

 

In just a week or two, the purple prairie clover will slip on her ballerina tutu and dance with the dragonflies.

 

For now, there are flowers that hum with activity…

 

And blooms that seem to promise that the world will continue, even as it seems full of senseless hate, violence, and bigotry.

 

There is solace among the flowers. Peace to be found in an afternoon on the tallgrass.

 

Sometimes, we need to spend some time with flowers to remind us what’s right with the world. This is one of those times.

 

Share the prairie with a friend this week.

Give someone a world of flowers.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): clouds over the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; contrail and half moon over the Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild white indigo or false indigo (Baptisa alba), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  sunflower with a spider (Heliopsis helianthoides) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosus) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) with a 12-spotted skimmer, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;    purple coneflower with  bee, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; common milkweed  (Asclepias syriaca) with a bee, Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; pale beardtongue, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; exploring the Schulenberg Prairie at The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pale purple coneflowers (Echinacea pallida), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL. 

The introductory quote is by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986),  an American painter best known for her images of larger-than-life flowers.

Tallgrass Time

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”— John Lubbock

June – and summer arrives on the prairie.

 

As the prairie heats up, we slow down and observe more closely.

 

On one side of the trail, purple meadow rue shakes out her tassels.

 

On another, scurfy pea tumbles out its blooms.

 

Everywhere, bedstraw laces the prairie with white.

Occasionally, Scribner’s panic grass explodes in electric profusion.

Nothing to panic about. It all speaks of summer. A time to walk, to look, and to marvel. A time to pay attention.

The big story on the early June prairie is pale purple coneflower.

Hairy…

… alien-esque. The flowers bend and turn.

Petals emerge, sharp looking and spiky…

…then drop softly to the sides.

 

The plant takes on a new look, more badminton birdie than alien.

 

And you can’t help but feel joy in the presence of all that bright pinky-purple.

It’s the joy of the flowers. The happiness of the season. The delight in idling for a while on the prairie, and seeing what unfolds.

It’s summertime.

All photos by Cindy Crosby at the Schulenberg Prairie,  The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL (top to bottom): the prairie in June; red-winged blackbird with white wild indigo (Baptisia alba) ; purple meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum) ; scurfy pea (Psoralidium tenuiflorum); Northern bedstraw (Galium boreale); Scribner’s panic  grass (Dichanthelium oligosanthes scribnerianum); all other photos pale purple coneflowers ((Echinacea pallida).

John Lubbock (1834-1913), whose quote begins this essay, was an English writer, botanist, archeologist, and contemporary of Charles Darwin.

Rush Hour in the Tallgrass

Sure, it may look tranquil– from a distance.

But on the last day of May, you can feel the urgency on the prairie. Things get a little crowded; plants begin to jostle each other for available space.

The urgency is there in the alien-looking pale purple coneflowers, which merge into the tallgrass. Then they push, push, push their petals out into the fast lane.

 

You can feel the nature putting her foot down on the gas pedal. Dragonflies shed their underwater nymph status, pump out wings, then lift to the sky. What a ride!

Other commuters, like the damselflies, are deceptively still. They startle you when they suddenly dart out into air traffic to snag an unwary insect near the water’s edge.

New blooms appear each day, bumper to bumper. Each has its host of pollinators. They fuel up, then collect their tiny bags of gold dust. They share the wealth, from bloom to bloom.

 

The flowers range from jazzy, eye-popping hoary puccoon…

..to the pale, meadow rue buds; unnoticeable like a family sedan…

…and prairie alum root flowers, that sport some extra detail work, if you look closely.

 

The earliest spring bloomers signal the work of flowering is over, and drive home seeds.

 

Deep within the fast lane; amid the crush of the prairie blooms…

 

…a thousand insect motors are idling. They accelerate into a buzz of activity, a hum of new adventures unfolding.

It’s the last day of May on the prairie. Summer is on the horizon. What adventures await you in the tallgrass?

This is one rush hour you don’t want to miss.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): Schulenberg Prairie Visitor Station area, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; pale beardtongue (Penstemon pallidus), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; three photos of pale purple coneflower  (Echinacea pallida) opening, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; female calico pennant (Celithemis elisa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; eastern forktail (Ischnura verticalis), Nachusa Grasslands, Franklin Grove, IL; spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) with a pollinator, author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; hoary puccoon (Lithospernum canescens), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; purple meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum), author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; prairie alum root (Heuchera richardsonii), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata) going to seed, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; prairie phlox  (Phlox pilosa) and spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) with grasses, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  bee on wild white indigo or false indigo (Baptisia alba v. macrophylla).

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.