WINTERY SCENES

Spent a few days over the holidays at Prairie Pond Woods. On Sunday, we woke to some of these winter scenes outside.  There was truly peace on our little patch of earth. 

Male Cardinal in Spruce

Chickadee at the Feeder

Hillside View from the Front Porch

The Pond.  Where?

Waiting for Spring

Waiting for the Bluebirds

CAN YOU SPOT THE COMMA?

It is mid-October, but there are still butterfly species nectaring about at Prairie Pond Woods, and a few individuals that have come back to the deck flowers for the past few days...one Red-spotted Purple, three Great Spangled Fritillaries, and two Eastern Commas.  They're not looking so good...a bit haggered...so I'm guessing I won't see them at all by the weekend.  And every afternoon between 4:00-5:00 a very beautiful moth flies, quite spastically, over the deck. Too spastically so far for me to get a good photo.  Maybe tomorrow.

By now you've probably seen the Eastern Comma in the photo.  

But can you see why it is called a Comma?

 

In the lower portion of it's ventral wing is a small, silver "comma."

Its cousin, the Question Mark, looks similar but has a dot at the bottom of the comma making it look like one. Two species easy enough to identify!

I'm always amazed at how these seemingly delicate creatures can hang on through cold nights and frosty mornings...but they do.  And it is a great thing when folks plant late-blooming flowers, such as asters and golden rods in their gardens to help these late-blooming Lepidoptera.

So, what's flyin' around outside your place?

GOLDENROD

On roadsides,

in fall fields,
in rumpy branches,
saffron and orange and pale gold,

in little towers,
soft as mash,
sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,
full of bees and yellow beads and perfect flowerets

and orange butterflies.
I don't suppose
much notice comes of it, except for honey,
and how it heartens the heart with its

blank blaze.
I don't suppose anything loves it except, perhaps,
the rocky voids
filled by its dumb dazzle.

For myself,
I was just passing by, when the wind flared
and the blossoms rustled,
and the glittering pandemonium

leaned on me.
I was just minding my own business
when I found myself on their straw hillsides,
citron and butter-colored,

and was happy, and why not?
Are not the difficult labors of our lives
full of dark hours?
And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is better than these light-filled bodies?
All day
on their airy backbones
they toss in the wind,

they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,
they rise in a stiff sweetness,
in the pure peace of giving
one's gold away.


~ Mary Oliver

POEMS FOR AN AUTUMN DAY

Autumn Day
Rainer Maria Rilke

Lord, it is time. The summer was too long.
Lay now thy shadow over the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds blow strong.

Bid the last fruit to ripen on the vine;
allow them still two friendly southern days
to bring them to perfection and to force
the final sweetness in the heavy wine.

Who has no house now will not build him one.
Who is alone now will be long alone,
will waken, read, and write long letters
and through the barren pathways up and down
restlessly wander when dead leaves are blown.

Wild Geese
Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

A MORNING WIFI-ING

All I think anybody really wants in life is enough time and a space to call their own. Add to this a little extra money, after paying the bills and the ever-increasing taxes, to buy a few frills on occasion. Just a life free of worry and too much toil, and a space to make our own and call our home, that’s what we are all looking for.

But sometimes we want someone else’s space, a place where our surroundings are unfamiliar but comfortable. A place where we can get something to eat or drink that we wouldn’t normally make at home. A place surrounded by people who will leave us alone but make us feel a part of some kind of food-eating and beverage-drinking community looking for warmth or comfort or productivity.

We could do all this busyness in our own homes, but we don’t. I have coffee. I have bagels. I have, lettuce, ham, and mayo in the fridge. I have classical CD’s. I even have a comfortable chair in front of a big window with the view of the woods outside, and wireless internet. And though I may do my best thinking there, I am most productive here, probably like everyone else at this coffee shop, reading the paper, talking on the phone or musing over a legal pad. I'm sure these people are not homeless and have a space somewhere called an office or even a family room, a place where it is quieter, where the views outside are not malls or dirty streets. But here we are, alone together, with no personal distractions, just impersonal ones.

What a day we live in when our friends and family, or at the very least, our compatriots are off fighting in foreign countries, while the rest of us sit and listen to soothing music, doing our end of the quarter reports. No huddling in our various villages waiting for the barbarian invasions. No scrap metal drives or bombing drills. Not yet, anyway. Today we can just glance up to the CNN-MSN-FOX-box and catch what’s going on in Iraq or Afghanistan, while eating a croissant. Or watch a thirty-something woman visit with her domineering Italian mother. Or observe a young man nervously wolf lunch before his job interview that, though he doesn't know it, may change his life forever. Hubs of distraction. Hubs of accomplishment. Hubs to meet someone or be met.

The new church? Perhaps. The new conference room? Definitely.

“So, what makes you unique as a Systems Integrator, than all the others applying for this job?”

I hear the young man in the khaki shirt with the logo answer, but I am fairly sure he was thinking, “Oh God, here we go again with this stupid question. Just hire me and let’s get on with it. I’m your man!” But the dance goes on…only now it’s with 2 cappuccino lattes between them.

And the dance of seduction goes on as well I’m sure, though I am years removed from hearing the music. If I pay attention and squint my eyes I pick up on what I think are the signs; the busboy lingering long at the table of a smartly dressed young lady in the corner. A beauty, and probably out of his league, but he tries. I’m not sure what the lawyerly looking man against the wall is about, but our eyes have met a few times. He’s been done with whatever he was working on for 20 minutes now, and has spent that time just watching people, too. There he goes. Oops, perhaps I was wrong; he just left and got into a Grand Prix. Perhaps he’s a public defender. Good for him.

So it goes…an Altman-esque morning of people coming and going, with their large handbags and tiny phones. How many degrees of separation between us all? How many people have worked for the same boss at one time and could share war stories of trying to just make it through the day? How many parents stand across the soccer field from each other every Saturday? It doesn’t really matter. It is understood that in this new techno-culture of instant connection and information we are all part of the machinery. And somehow, I guess, that makes us feel good.

I LOVE THE PRAIRIE!

While my perennial home garden looks sad, dry and pathetic due to the heat and lack of water, the prairie part of Prairie Pond Woods is in full, vibrant bloom mode...complete with more butterflies than I have ever seen!

 

That is the joy of native prairie plants…and the joy of prairies in general. I know, I know, I rant about it every year beginning in July and don’t stop until October!

 

But prairies have a beauty and wisdom all their own. Every year is different. Every year something new appears or reappears after a long absence, when conditions become just right. I love this dynamic. And the color combinations are exquisite!

 



A whole field of purple and yellow complimentary colors with green, white and lavender accents...it is dazzling! I want to just stand there for hours.

 

One patch by the fallen willow displays the white splashes of boneset, the orange dots of spotted jewelweed, the vivid, purple tufts of ironweed , all atop a layer of lavender mistflower mixed with the yellow starbursts of black-eyed Susans (the photo below just doesn't capture the delight of it all). 

Some Big Bluestem in the foreground

The Start of The Refresher Course

While strolling along The Refresher Course, whose paths I reluctantly widened this year, I was amazed to see a few Butterlyweed plants still in bloom. They usually peak about the third week in July, so an extra few weeks of show is quite the treat!

Butterlfyweed Pods "ripening" in the sun

Every fall when the wind stirs, I hope seeds are being dispersed to other less colorful parts of the prairie. When the birds begin to migrate back south, I wonder what new seeds they are depositing, maybe from the well-known Lynx Prairie just a mile or so away as the crow flys.  And when the deer amble through at dusk, I know seeds are shaking loose and hitching a ride on their bodies. 

Like all gardening or land restoration, it is an act of complete trust.  So much of the process is silent, unseen and dependent on so much more than we realize.  Growth and diversity are amazing and miraculous events...may you find them in your gardens and in your hearts.

Enjoy these other random photos, shot while "strolling the grounds...."

Question Mark

You can see the "question mark" on its ventral hindwing

Played Peek-a-boo around the stem until I out-maneuvered  it and got the shot

I'm thinking this praying mantis is full with eggs...  Yay!!!

Wingstem

Ironweed

The not-so-eentsy-weensty spider...

Abandoned Field Sparrow Eggs

Hazelnut Pods

Sphynx Moth

Common Buckeye

Red-spotted Purples enjoying minerals and salt from Scat!

PHOTO & QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

 Monarch Butterfly

Beyond living and dreaming

there is something more important;

waking up.

-Antonio Machada

I'M SO BUMMED!

Imperial Moth Larva

While mowing part of the backyard tonight I must have run over this wonderful caterpillar specimen! I'm so bummed. On my second pass, I noticed the big, fat body in the grass and hit the breaks. Unfortunately, it was smashed a bit into the ground and no longer alive. I must have done the dastardly deed on the first go around.

Approximately 3-3.5 inches long. Common host plants are oaks, sweetgum, sycamore, elm, hickories, walnut, maple, basswood, honeylocust, pines, red cedar, and bald cypress. I found it under a ginko tree, but near a bald cypress, sweetgum and pine tree.

The last abdominal segment bears conspicuous yellow and black triangular plates. I'm not sure what they are for but they are funky!

The Adult Imperial Moth
Gorgeous!

I TOOK A WALK TODAY...

Though the prairie is gloriously in bloom right now and will be for the next several months, I felt like heading up into the woods today. Maybe, in this oppressive heat, it was thinking about all that shade under the dense canopy of oaks, beech and maples. Maybe it was the rattlesnake plantain I thought might be in bloom by now. Or maybe it was a gracious, divine prompting, leading me straight to two new discoveries on the property!

As soon as I crossed the pine entrance into the woods, all was a calm, drastic change from the fluttering , hopping and whizzing of things in the prairie. Except for the cicadas hidden and droning in the trees, there seemed to be nothing going on. No longer was it the place I kept coming to in the spring to spot colorful yellow-throated vireos or scarlet tanagers high overhead. Today, all things interesting and beautiful were to be found on the floor of the forest…and almost missed!

 

Rattlesnake Plantain

The first time I checked on the rattlesnake plantain, one of the 7 orchid species native to Ohio, was in the spring. A small, perennial cluster was just emerging at the base of a tree off the path leading to a place we call, The Woodland Cathedral, and they leaf spread was no more than several inches in diameter. Unfortunately, it didn’t look that much different a few months later. And many of them looked like they had been stepped on, perhaps by deer or some other animal. In fact, I couldn’t find them at first they were so insignificant, but that looking is what lead me to my next exciting find…Indian Pipes! 

Fungi, such as the whitish Indian Pipe, are interesting because they do not use chlorophyll to create nutrients through photosynthesis. They feed off of the nutrients created by decaying organic matter.  Plants like these used to be called saprophytes...but are actually no longer considered plants and have been given the name saprobes.  I also discovered the dried remains of Sqauw Root, another important decomposer…and another “first” for the Prairie Pond Woods species list!

 

Hard to see but it's dried up Squaw root

 

From there I was hooked on a quest to see what else might be erupting from the leaf litter…so on I went. Below is a gallery of the phungi photos I took around dusk!

This was quite interesting...

Very ethereal

 

Turkey tails

Box Turtles love fungi!

The underside...kind of reminds me of coral

I TOOK A WALK TODAY...

…in the prairie at Prairie Pond Woods, where the butterflies this year are indescribably abundant! Even when I walk out onto the front porch or into the garage, they flutter up from the floor like swarming flies. 

The two butterfly bushes flanking the back deck are consistently dripping with 15-20 tiger, zebra, and black swallowtails, frittilaries and skippers in each. Every time I take a photograph, I’m disappointed because there is no way to capture them all nectaring and flitting about. 

And the prairie looks like a major air show with butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and bees darting from flower cluster to flower spike and back again. This season is dominated by Tiger Swallowtails According to my phenology journal, last year it was Monarchs…at least at Prairie Pond Woods. And earlier this summer it was Mourning Cloaks, one of my favorite butterflies with their black, yellow and blue coloration.

Many species of butterflies will continue on into the early fall, and some even in to the late fall, so there is plenty of time to see this amazing display. There are still 3 women’s retreats scheduled for 2010, one in September, October and November. 

And don’t forget...Prairie Pond Woods is available for individuals and couples for reflective or creative retreats. Book all 27 acres for a day, a weekend or a week!