tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26343483307353831942024-02-19T03:58:36.909-06:00The Prairie YearKaren Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-66124667574033766502016-05-23T10:10:00.001-05:002016-05-23T10:10:56.747-05:00Frog pondThe late May frog pond<br />
frogs rest -- in shallow water<br />
tadpoles wriggling<br />
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-46749106768713441512016-01-07T10:40:00.000-06:002016-01-07T10:40:20.925-06:00Butterfly Summer 2015<br />
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waiting for spring<br />
remembering butterfly summer<br />
hoping and dreaming...<br />
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Last year, my grandson and I (with help from the rest of the family as well) collected monarch caterpillars and released 17 new butterflies into the Midwestern sky. It's not that many (though it seemed like a lot!) This year...<br />
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I made an ebook of our experiences -- you can click on the link below to view it as a PDF file. It's my New Year's gift to you. <br />
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<a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2F0r4uyQG0QcmFVaWhTQ1YxSkU" target="_blank">Butterfly Summer: a story of milkweed and monarchs ebook</a><br />
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If you want to help the monarchs, plant milkweed! Seeds are available from <a href="http://www.monarchwatch.org/" target="_blank">Monarch Watch</a><br />
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Wishing you another summer of monarchs!<br />
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-80137325151587108342015-01-20T10:50:00.000-06:002015-01-20T10:50:49.752-06:00Tracks in the Snow<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Waking to snow comes with an excitement I remember from
childhood – something new and fresh is going to happen, and I want to be there
to photograph it. I dig my boots out from under the year’s piled up
accumulation in the closet, bundle up and grab my camera and I’m off to
Meadowbrook prairie.</span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8whiPQG_xNamrLfQrOumQBEg-nNw9LI6EuOncvs5suFyqpb-e6jREglDQRGS8Gx12UUVO5O35JgN_yXUxYhctvpUGUNavZxa9QJHWej5Gm0BPMw2N1iIBYVZJ4Vy3jE8kCtDOkoPowgnF/s1600/IMG_7576.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8whiPQG_xNamrLfQrOumQBEg-nNw9LI6EuOncvs5suFyqpb-e6jREglDQRGS8Gx12UUVO5O35JgN_yXUxYhctvpUGUNavZxa9QJHWej5Gm0BPMw2N1iIBYVZJ4Vy3jE8kCtDOkoPowgnF/s1600/IMG_7576.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The late autumn turning into winter is the hardest time for me.
Once the leaves fall on the trees along the stream, and the grasses turn dry
and tan and start to lean, and the milkweed and thistle seeds have flown, the
prairie settles into a dullness whose subtlety I seem to have forgotten how to
appreciate, and I start to get tired of the same old photos of dead grass and blown
flower heads. There’s hardly a bird to be seen. It’s colorless gray sky every
day. My visits to the prairie slow in frequency. I realize the busyness of the holidays
had come and gone and I’d barely gotten a single walk in. And then the rains
came, and then the deep cold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The snow reminds me: I miss the prairie when I don’t get
myself out there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8tEX4mdFw4Y/VLftLmxUR2I/AAAAAAAAEqc/YEAkWU50HdU/s1600/IMG_7608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8tEX4mdFw4Y/VLftLmxUR2I/AAAAAAAAEqc/YEAkWU50HdU/s1600/IMG_7608.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m not the first one here. Someone has been skiing the
outer paths, leaving deep blue runnels in the sparkling snow. Deeper into the
prairie, in the paths where I like to end up, there are places where no human
has yet been since the snow fell. I happily lay down my own tracks and look
back to photograph my crooked progress through the snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In some places there are non-human tracks. Some I recognize,
even though in the powdery snow the shapes don’t hold. Deer have passed, I
recognize the shape of the hoof prints. And rabbits – their small front paws
and larger back paws making their distinctive patterns of four feet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Snow has brought out the life of the place – in a very real
sense, since the creatures who might find food in the grasses now have to come
farther afield to hunt for it. The birds, downy woodpecker and red bellied
woodpecker, call and land on the tree trunks to dislodge hidden sleeping
insects, and near the stream some ovenbirds flit in and out of the fallen brush
that’s snow covered, pecking at the snow for fallen seeds. The snow’s padding
hushes everything, and the smallest sounds come crisply to my ears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AjjhUzE44Es/VLftLHrxARI/AAAAAAAAEqU/DR_-FMcJxXE/s1600/IMG_7579.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AjjhUzE44Es/VLftLHrxARI/AAAAAAAAEqU/DR_-FMcJxXE/s1600/IMG_7579.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A small, sharp crackle and there ahead of me are three deer,
leaping, white tails bouncing, across the path, towards the stream, through the
narrow deer trail that crosses the main path. Their brown backs blend in so
well with the dead stalks and grasses; if they were unmoving, they’d be
invisible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A meandering line of very delicate small tracks might be a
mouse or other small rodent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A long
trail that runs crookedly from one side of the path and then down along the path
to a spot where it clashes with some larger tracks. These are padded tracks – not
a dog, since no human boot prints accompany them. Maybe a coyote or fox? When I
look past the spot where mouse and coyote must have tangled, I am glad to see
the line of delicate, tiny tracks beyond and leading down into the grass. The
mouse must have slipped out the predator’s grasp. I hope he made it to safety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fPadi20u9sI/VLftKjCQuyI/AAAAAAAAEqQ/UqSuEXgjn3M/s1600/IMG_7577.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fPadi20u9sI/VLftKjCQuyI/AAAAAAAAEqQ/UqSuEXgjn3M/s1600/IMG_7577.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s going on in the natural world when I’m not there
tracking things up and disturbing the everyday routines of the creatures who
call the prairie their home?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The snow
shows me what’s been there. And there I am as well, my passing impressed in the
snow with all the others. It’s like a map with overlays, showing the many
connections of lively traffic through these paths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It gives me an odd, dizzying feeling, to be thrown into a
world where all the activities of the prairie are so transparently available
all at once. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this laying of tracks
had gone on in the night or early morning hours, and probably something similar
happens every night, that and more – but today the snow’s impressionable nature
allows me a unique view into what is usually invisible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Pausing before a spot where all the footprints,
ski tracks and animal prints are all muddled up – laid down one over the
other-- I charge through the snow, adding my boot prints, aware suddenly of how
many creatures share this prairie park set in the middle of our town, and how
happy I am to be a part of that community.</span><br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-88843767811363680332014-10-10T10:36:00.004-05:002014-10-11T08:49:21.118-05:00Goose Lake Prairie<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3cDbwYB9Us8/VDatZrGMULI/AAAAAAAAERU/nI48b0LMQ9E/s1600/IMG_6010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3cDbwYB9Us8/VDatZrGMULI/AAAAAAAAERU/nI48b0LMQ9E/s1600/IMG_6010.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On a trip up north, we stopped at Goose Lake
Prairie. It's an Illinois Sate Park a little south of Chicago, near the confluence of the Kankakee and Des Plaines Rivers. The original purchase in 1969 was 240 acres of prairie land, but now the park spreads to more than 2500 acres, and contains the largest tallgrass remnant in the state. Some of this land is original prairie -- never ploughed up -- but the part where I walked is reconstructed prairie, made after the lake was drained, with pathways and a spot for the log cabin that was moved here from a nearby location.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AClDoLQiCKE/VDatZIvc7tI/AAAAAAAAERQ/r9jMWz7pRpo/s1600/IMG_6012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AClDoLQiCKE/VDatZIvc7tI/AAAAAAAAERQ/r9jMWz7pRpo/s1600/IMG_6012.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br />We assumed because it was Sunday that the visitors' center was closed, and so I started down the trail behind the building -- we wanted to get back home before dark, so there wasn't time for a major hike. Just behind the building I saw the butterfly house -- and the door was unlocked, so I walked in -- It's just a small shed-like structure open with screens and windows for walls, a sidewalk in the center and prairie plants in beds on either side. Of course, in mid-October there are no butterflies there. I'll have to come back in the summer to see that. Down through the prairie and past the pond, the path led to the old log cabin. There was a peaceful mélange of silence and sound there, and I had a sense walking
under that vast sky, of the openness of the prairie as it must have been long ago. Wind and a few birds. No one else was there. The season of growing is mostly done for this year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AHfoiPQdJk8/VDataDM5YLI/AAAAAAAAERc/PmqTnRFDzGA/s1600/IMG_6023.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AHfoiPQdJk8/VDataDM5YLI/AAAAAAAAERc/PmqTnRFDzGA/s1600/IMG_6023.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The cabin is at the bottom of the path
in a shallow valley and stands next to a pond. In the pond are large
rocks -- exposed during the reconstruction or thrust up by the earth at some long ago time -- what do you call those
kind of rocks that are pushed up from deep layers of earth -- erratics? something like that. They are
sandstone, I think</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, beautiful soft stone with red and brown and ochre striations. They sit in the pond
and reflect in the water. I'm always surprised when I see how Zen-like the prairie earth can be. Some of those rocks are strewn around the pond as
well. There's an old fashioned windmill -- what were those used for? pulling up
water from wells? I'm amazed at how little I know about how folks lived in the past. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZENCUiCbmQU/VDatac9P6gI/AAAAAAAAERk/zYz5cm9AEBg/s1600/IMG_6037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZENCUiCbmQU/VDatac9P6gI/AAAAAAAAERk/zYz5cm9AEBg/s1600/IMG_6037.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The place had a peaceful feel to it -- the autumn wind, the
purple asters and rosinweed still blooming to give the place some color. The
sky was mostly pewter colored and laid with dimply clouds. I caught sight of a
hawk near the pond, hidden by the trees so I only caught a glimpse, and a heron
flew over and landed somewhere in the fields beyond. In the rosinweed, I
thought<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>saw hummingbirds. And one last
lone dragonfly. I had the feeling of ancient wind blowing over me -- there was
a quietness there, a silence of ages past -- though I was told the prairie
there is reconstructed and the cabin itself is a reconstruction. There was an
old cabin that was moved to the location from 10 miles away-- but this one was
built by a group of young people in the 1980s, I think, using original
materials and tools that would have been used to make it originally. To
preserve some old way of the land -- of what Illinois used to be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0yw0vZSWk6bpn7Mn8LUSvgNB1L2deD-1tDY5sHJStrrGGNNX33cdkxBXtZo7nCFdbmcfBh-zKQBdJIaoPXza1P8Pehl-1c82PZIi_seeYcwk9c30HUq0Xi7GiEprekUMCTcxrGMYp2kmD/s1600/IMG_6025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0yw0vZSWk6bpn7Mn8LUSvgNB1L2deD-1tDY5sHJStrrGGNNX33cdkxBXtZo7nCFdbmcfBh-zKQBdJIaoPXza1P8Pehl-1c82PZIi_seeYcwk9c30HUq0Xi7GiEprekUMCTcxrGMYp2kmD/s1600/IMG_6025.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It's a beautiful cabin -- with a stone chimney built on the
outside and a second floor. The door is locked and I peer in the window to see
a bed made of woven rope on a wooden structure, the fireplace, a table set with
pewter mugs. I wish I could have gone in. I wish I could have entered the past,
been a ghost to the lives of the people who did inhabit it. -- but of course
that's imagination. The rebuilt house has never actually had any inhabitants but
imaginary ones. In the spring, the park holds a festival, the house is opened up and volunteers in period costume wander and work as they would have back in the 1800s when the place was new and the prairie was just beginning to be destroyed by the plough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">DNR website for Goose Lake Prairie State Park:</span><br />
<a href="http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/PARKS/i&m/east/goose/home.htm">http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/PARKS/i&m/east/goose/home.htm</a><br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-61157362848882641892014-10-07T14:07:00.000-05:002014-10-07T14:07:52.742-05:00Goodbye to the butterflies<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">October. At Meadowbrook, I have been in the habit of walking
through the sensory garden before I start my prairie walk. There, among the herbs and heliotropes and zinnias,
I've been enjoying the butterflies this year. In the past weeks, I've seen
flocks of painted ladies and cabbage whites, monarchs and tiger swallowtails.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, with the weather cooler and the trees starting to blaze into color, I see a lone painted lady and a few cabbage
whites flitting around the fading flowers in the sensory garden. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It seemed like a good butterfly year. I'm sad that it's
done. I have a plan for reading and research in the cold months -- I want to know more about butterfly migration and how those little critters accomplish so much in their short lifespans. I have great hopes for the next growing butterfly season.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This year, there were more monarchs around than I'd remembered seeing
the year before, and I found caterpillars in my own small prairie plantings. I watched them metamorphose and
released them -- the first one was the subject of an earlier blog post. The
second one happened when a friend called me to say she'd seen a fat
caterpillar in her flowerbed and he looked to be in danger of becoming bird prey
and did I want to come and get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
rushed over with the cage and thought I should ring her bell and call,
"Caterpillar rescue!" Sharon showed me where he was from the inside of the sunroom. She has planted a surfeit of giant zinnias that have grown as tall as the roof of her porch, in multicolor profusion. I had to pick my way through the jungle (as she calls it) avoiding the bumblebees, to cut off a stem of swamp milkweed on which he was munching, and place it in the plastic cage I'd brought over for that purpose. I took him home, imagining this time I would catch all the drama of metamorphosis on film. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Again, I missed the things I wanted to see -- the chrysalis
formed at night while I was asleep, and the emergence happened while we were away from
home for the day. I wanted to take the beautiful butterfly over to Sharon's to
release him back to that wonderful zinnia jungle that Sharon has planted. I'm
not sure how monarch inner GPS works -- but I wondered if it was necessary for
him to see the place he came from in order to find where he will need to go when the fall migration begins. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I took him over there on a Sunday in September -- a day when
a group of us meet to meditate, which always begins (as Cynthia says) with
"tea, conversation, and butterfly observation."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That day there were five or six monarchs
floating over the zinnias and the week before we'd seen a giant swallowtail --
its wings so battered that it looked as if a bird had eaten him and spit him
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were congregations of painted
ladies lunching at the zinnias as well.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p> </div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I asked Cynthia to take some video of the event with my
phone, but afterwards I couldn't find the video. While it was sad not to have a recording of the moment -- we had the moment: a beautiful early autumn day in the zinnia jungle among the butterflies, and tea, conversation and meditation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I was happy last week to
discover it was there on my phone after all -- I'd just missed it. I was happy to replay it and watch the
butterfly we released fly up and over to those zinnias, where he sipped their
nectar long and deeply. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Sharon swears she saw him hanging around the zinnias the following week. But last time we met, most of the butterflies were gone. </span></o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don't know where he is now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe in that cloud of monarchs seen near St. Louis, and on
his way to Mexico. I hope so.</span><br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-46166217754797538652014-08-29T11:52:00.001-05:002014-08-29T12:01:53.911-05:00Postage stamp prairie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I finally went to the small Florida Avenue prairie reconstruction on campus. It is a 2.7 acre plot in front of the University Archives/Student Life Archives Building, around the corner from the Idea Garden and Arboretum. It's about a town block of space -- but there's enough there to see there that I spent an hour walking its paths last week with the camera.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_KT82btV_tU/U_zY6ASmgaI/AAAAAAAAEBs/L6xSdvfRObc/s1600/IMG_5270.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_KT82btV_tU/U_zY6ASmgaI/AAAAAAAAEBs/L6xSdvfRObc/s1600/IMG_5270.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a>We drive by it often -- and have been watching it for years. First it was a "no-mow zone" full of spiky weeds, chicory, Queen Anne's lace and foxtails, and gradually it has been turned into a prairie space full of the kinds of things you want to see in a prairie -- yellow tall coreopsis studded with a flock of goldfinches that swoop down from the nearby trees; blue, lavender and magenta varieties of aster; coneflowers, common milkweed and butterfly weed and the butterflies they attract. I saw a monarch gliding over the flowers, and nectaring on orange butterfly weed clusters, and a big yellow Eastern tiger swallowtail, a small checkerspot butterfly, gray hairstreaks, and many cabbage whites. At the top of a clump of yellow coreopsis suns -- a bit of bright blue-- an indigo bunting.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p3a2gaU76gw/U_zY-UfVQWI/AAAAAAAAECE/pZD8y16x4hM/s1600/IMG_5307.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p3a2gaU76gw/U_zY-UfVQWI/AAAAAAAAECE/pZD8y16x4hM/s1600/IMG_5307.JPG" height="200" width="133" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2nFOxP3162k/U_zY8sq8RGI/AAAAAAAAEB4/Zl76UqG-0dE/s1600/IMG_5282.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2nFOxP3162k/U_zY8sq8RGI/AAAAAAAAEB4/Zl76UqG-0dE/s1600/IMG_5282.JPG" height="133" width="200" /></a>This prairie is the result of a dream and a collaboration, and has been labored over by students, professionals, and community volunteers. John Marlin, Illinois Sustainable Technology research affiliate, oversees the effort (funded by student sustainability funds) -- and Red Bison, a student organization for prairie preservation and restoration, is in charge of the weeding effort -- a major project to keep the pokeweed and prickly lettuce from overtaking the native plants that take time and tending to establish their territory. Master Naturalists from the area are also to be found there on work days. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RSokjm_JtaI/U_zY8RbM7VI/AAAAAAAAEB0/74MT_smBNrk/s1600/IMG_5285.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RSokjm_JtaI/U_zY8RbM7VI/AAAAAAAAEB0/74MT_smBNrk/s1600/IMG_5285.JPG" height="218" width="320" /></a>It's one of the university's first attempts at prairie plantings on campus -- which, once established cost less to maintain than other kinds of plantings and have the benefit of being beautiful, carbon rich, deep rooted and therefore beneficial to the soil, and native to Illinois. The native plants invite native wildlife -- birds and insects. The space is small, and only a few seasons old, but I wonder what else it harbors that I don't see in my ramble through the mulched paths on a bright Tuesday morning.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NWO9MS6-sg8/U_zY-jE6nhI/AAAAAAAAECI/DgcGYPvrC6w/s1600/IMG_5315.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NWO9MS6-sg8/U_zY-jE6nhI/AAAAAAAAECI/DgcGYPvrC6w/s1600/IMG_5315.JPG" height="224" width="320" /></a>Standing at the center of that prairie, I look up when I hear a hawk calling. He's circling over the postage stamp-sized prairie and it gives me such an odd sense of perspective -- this small square that's trying to turn into prairie, the birds and butterflies that find a haven here, and that hawk flying overhead, homing in -- the wild is calling the wild home. <br />
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You can find background and a timeline of prairie restoration here: <a href="http://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/prairie-restoration-florida-orchard">http://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/prairie-restoration-florida-orchard</a><br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-4433976593210531162014-08-18T10:49:00.002-05:002014-08-18T10:52:59.534-05:00What to expect when you're expecting a butterfly<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ttNj0EUYIVw/U-zQC0twWMI/AAAAAAAAD8Y/BwsSC0zdWW0/s1600/IMG_5192.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ttNj0EUYIVw/U-zQC0twWMI/AAAAAAAAD8Y/BwsSC0zdWW0/s1600/IMG_5192.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a boy! Notice the two dark spots on the lower wings.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Wednesday morning was butterfly birthday! When I got home
from writers' group the night before, I looked at the chrysalis for
any changes. It was hard to see in the poor indoor light, but maybe the
chrysalis had darkened just a bit. I thought I still had plenty of time, but
in the morning when I creaked down stairs at 7 a.m., there was the monarch,
emerged from and clinging to the broken open and now clear chrysalis case, wet wings hanging down. Once again I'd slept through all the excitement. He was still sitting in that same position two hours later.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
I kept watch all morning, to see when he would be ready --
at first his wings looked wet and floppy and a splat of liquid fell -- is this
the meconium? it looked clear to me. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thought about skipping my morning work hours,
thinking I would go to work in the afternoon as usual, but then it seemed to me
that the butterfly wouldn't be ready and I did not want to rush things, so I
called my boss, telling her I was not going to be in and that I had a kind of
lame excuse -- butterfly babysitting. I moved the cage out to the patio
so he could get warmth and light and I could more easily take photos, and I
spent a very relaxing day watching, reading, writing, photographing. After a
while he started to open his wings and flutter them, and to scrabble his legs on
the plastic wall of the cage. He did not seem eager to get out -- he spent a
lot of time resting quietly. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kOWZpEzdyM/U-zQBEoXpnI/AAAAAAAAD8A/8_V2qK1xrUU/s1600/IMG_5184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kOWZpEzdyM/U-zQBEoXpnI/AAAAAAAAD8A/8_V2qK1xrUU/s1600/IMG_5184.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Around 3 pm I decided it was time. I took some video of the
butterfly fluttering and then got Tom to help me with the release. We
took everything to the side yard and Tom took the video. I
removed the lid and reached down into the cage (I'd found a video on YouTube
that showed me how to pick up a butterfly -- with a finger under his head, he
will crawl up on your hand). His delicate feet tickled, and after one slip, I
tried it again and lifted him to the camera. I'd brought out a plate of sliced
peaches -- thinking he might like a drink before he set off, but as I was
getting ready to set him down near it, he lifted off and flew fast and high and
gracefully up into a tall hackberry tree. That quickly, he was out of my reach. I watched him sitting up there for a few minutes, then looked
away and when I looked back I couldn't find him again. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3JH1yvcIx00BxSPJUOpEq12YGPri6R-05e5zy8HL62vcYKS8boJJoEScP9x2fMTnbhctJbeVIO5vZAH9aBBZLJwr1kxabxDJ5WiUvwonVX0LjA6B6xXDn7ZFo5ncMFGr2jBELsod64uD/s1600/IMG_5198.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3JH1yvcIx00BxSPJUOpEq12YGPri6R-05e5zy8HL62vcYKS8boJJoEScP9x2fMTnbhctJbeVIO5vZAH9aBBZLJwr1kxabxDJ5WiUvwonVX0LjA6B6xXDn7ZFo5ncMFGr2jBELsod64uD/s1600/IMG_5198.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I got out the hose to water the hanging pots, and as I was
spraying them, I looked up through the hop arbor and there he was, just
overhead, swooping down as though tipping a wing at me, his burnt orange and
black wings luminous as stained glass against the clear blue August sky. I wish
him safety as he goes. Such a little tag of tissue in a big world full of
predators, winds, rains, and truck grills. It gives one pause for hope that
something so little and seemingly fragile might end up thousands of miles away
by winter in a forest in Mexico, if we humans don't screw everything up --
mowing up the milkweed they've adapted as their breeding foodsource and
knocking down and developing the forests in which they overwinter. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They are
adaptable -- I wonder how long they've been traveling in this way, following
the abundant milkweed north over the prairies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As long as 10,000 years? But there comes a point at which adaptation
will no longer be able to make corrections that will allow the species to
survive. I hate that humans are the cause of that -- that we paved paradise to
make one more parking lot. As good as this connection feels that I've made with this butterfly
through its metamorphosing -- I feel as if he's a foster child of mine --saving
one butterfly is not enough to make a difference. Saving 10 or 100 is not
enough, if I had unlimited cages and could find sufficient caterpillars for
that. Planting my backyard full of milkweed is not enough. It's not a one person problem. Corridors are needed
and care, and consideration for the natural world, to which we are connected at
our soul's deepest core. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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What I was reading while I was waiting for the butterfly to emerge:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Monarch<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watch webpage (<a href="http://www.monarchwatch.org/rear"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.monarchwatch.org/rear</span></a>) and Journey North ( <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/sl/14/0.html"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/sl/14/0.html</span></a>)
</span> show what changes to watch for in the chrysalis, and information about how to start your own monarch nursery.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> And I'm reading<em> </em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em>Chasing
Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage</em> (revised edition) by Robert
Michael Pyle, in which the author follows the monarch migration south to California. I hadn't realized there are two monarch migration tracks -- the eastern and the western. West of the Rockies, monarchs end up in southern California, and eastern butterflies migrate to Michoacán, Mexico. It's an adventure story, with a lot of information about monarch migration and life cycle included. I haven't finished reading it -- I thought I'd have more time! </span></span><br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-76453091488681157602014-08-05T11:50:00.001-05:002014-08-05T11:52:19.146-05:00Butterfly Rescue<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pt9coAMzhkw/U-EBZxOp5fI/AAAAAAAAD3s/_BrQbBmpCv0/s1600/IMG_4955.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pt9coAMzhkw/U-EBZxOp5fI/AAAAAAAAD3s/_BrQbBmpCv0/s1600/IMG_4955.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swamp milkweed in the wild</td></tr>
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<br />
I'm babysitting a caterpillar again!<br />
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This year, I was determined to plant my small "prairie bed" with milkweed and other plants that butterflies, particularly monarchs, would like. There are many plants that monarchs might sip nectar from, but they use only milkweed varieties for laying eggs, and that's the only food the caterpillars eat. It's been a struggle to get native milkweeds into my garden -- the seeds I started early in the spring didn't thrive and the plants that survived are still very tiny. The small plants I bought in April at the Grand Prairie Friends sale are obviously not going to bloom this year. But a few weeks ago we found some larger perennials at the garden store -- a butterfly weed that was blooming a lusty orange and a swamp milkweed that was so tall we could barely fit it in the car. <br />
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It took a few days to get the bed ready to plant them -- but the day they went in the ground I went outside after a few hours to check on them, and a monarch butterfly was lingering, evidently enjoying them. If you plant it, they will come! I was happy that this small reaching out to the butterfly nation was so well received. Since then I've been watching for eggs (which I didn't notice) and for caterpillars.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dNTbEaCyLIE/U9-p_Uti8AI/AAAAAAAAD2I/IIFe7i1x7oM/s1600/IMG_4965.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dNTbEaCyLIE/U9-p_Uti8AI/AAAAAAAAD2I/IIFe7i1x7oM/s1600/IMG_4965.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a>This weekend, I checked on the garden, and there on the butterfly weed was a monarch caterpillar -- stripy and fat, munching away at the leaves. I ran inside to get the plastic cage and the camera, hoping none of the hungry birds in the yard would snatch him before I got back. I set up the cage with a bit of paper towel on the bottom and a stick he might like to hang his chrysalis from, and snipped off a generous bunch of butterfly weed leaves for him to nibble on and told him gently that I'd try to keep him safe while he metamorphoses and let him go when he was ready. It can't hurt to be considerate of a creature's feeling, though I suspect that caterpillars are mainly eating machines and don't have a thought in their heads about that or anything else.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H_5IdKHeSEM/U9-qA4TqjjI/AAAAAAAAD2c/jIyLBg0hulg/s1600/IMG_4972.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H_5IdKHeSEM/U9-qA4TqjjI/AAAAAAAAD2c/jIyLBg0hulg/s1600/IMG_4972.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a>Then I watched and worried, like any new parent. <br />
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Saturday morning I clipped some fresh leaves to replace the old ones, and changed the paper towel on the bottom of the cage, which was littered with black frass pellets (technical term: caterpillar poop). In the evening he climbed to the top of the cage and I wasn't sure if he was ready to pupate or if he was just trying to get back to the garden. The next morning he was back to chomping leaves.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0jHWwkja1_xrLxHvLN2ei-tRG6UboNsryNTGU4x9SXZheGT4OTZlX398e_6_Z8FxQxqU9sXyw5Jm8nxw5LpVFYUACN2igt9f2RAkP2-l07Knair1B2jxrWKp3m4E0lerGggAIHnHVhraA/s1600/IMG_4978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0jHWwkja1_xrLxHvLN2ei-tRG6UboNsryNTGU4x9SXZheGT4OTZlX398e_6_Z8FxQxqU9sXyw5Jm8nxw5LpVFYUACN2igt9f2RAkP2-l07Knair1B2jxrWKp3m4E0lerGggAIHnHVhraA/s1600/IMG_4978.JPG" height="218" width="320" /></a>Sunday night he climbed up to the top of the cage again and later I noticed he'd attached himself to the top (ignoring my stick completely) and was hanging down. Later he had curled up a bit, and sometime Sunday morning, I noticed he'd started to make the chrysalis - he was partially a smooth light green, but the top part of him was still a stripy caterpillar. By Sunday afternoon, the chrysalis was complete.<br />
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Now it's just a matter of waiting. For me at least, there's nothing more to do until butterfly birthday, which might be a week or so away.<br />
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For the caterpillar -- something momentous is going on inside that pale green case.<br />
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In the coming days, I'm going to do some research, and learn as much as I can about what's going on in there. And I'll post any changes as they happen. I hope you'll stay tuned.<br />
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R<br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-24267813432328664022014-07-17T10:01:00.000-05:002014-07-17T10:02:11.510-05:00Dragonfly Days, Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everywhere I’ve gone in the past week or so, if there’s
water and sunshine, there are many varieties of dragonflies and damselflies,
hovering, darting, flashing their wings and glittering in the sun. I took lots of pictures
and bought a new insect field guide to help me with identifications. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ebony Jewelwing is a damselfly -- this one a female <br />
(note white wing spot). Seen at Busey Woods.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dragonflies hold a fascination for me, these creatures with
their bright colors, glittering wings, and amazing way of flying – they can
dart and hover and fly 30-60 miles an hour forwards and backwards, and rise like
modern helicopter, but are in reality one of the most ancient species of
insects alive. They are thought to have been on the earth for 300 million years
– and while they seem large for insects now, the fossil record shows that in the
Paleozoic age they were giant sized. An ancestor of the present day dragonfly, meganeura’s
wingspan stretched nearly 2 feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can
easily imagine myself in their world, boggy with tall horsetails and these
beautiful bird-sized insects patrolling the air and waters– but of course no
humans were around to see them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Green Darner or Pondhawk? at Busey Woods</td></tr>
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I’ve seen them wherever there’s sun and water – and I’ve
been walking at Busey Woods, and Meadowbrook prairie, and especially at Japan
House Garden, where 5 or 6 species that varied by color, size, shape and flight
behavior hovered and zoomed. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Male Widow Skimmer at Japan House Garden</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If I had wings that glittered like bright water in the
sunshine, I’d probably spend all my time hanging out there too, just to show them off, but of course
that’s not the reason they are there. Dragonflies are ectothermic, and so their
body temperature is affected by ambient temperatures more than warm-blooded
creatures are – they are sluggish in the cold, and dormant at night. They become active when the sun warms them, adjusting their body temperature by angling their long abdomens toward or away
from the direction of the sun’s rays. If you’ve seen a dragonfly perched on a
grass stalk with its tail in the air, it is “obelisking” or finding an angle
that will allow less sun on its body’s surface to cool down. That’s what
was happenng last week on the hot day I went to Japan House.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blue Dasher? "obelisking" at Japan House Garden</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dragonflies (and their taxonomic relatives the damselflies)
have a life cycle that’s dependent on water. The females lay their eggs in the
water, and the resulting nymphs spend their larval stage under
water – sometimes a year or more spent in this phase. They crawl up onto a stalk near the water when they are ready to metamorphose, splitting their larval shell and unfolding their wings. I’ve seem adult dragonflies in the
middle of the prairie, where there are plenty of small insects to harvest, but
they don’t stray terribly far from their watery homeland, and return there to mate and lay eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halloween Pennant at Japan House Garden</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Dragonflies and damselflies are “indicator species”;
their presence in a wetland area tells scientists that the ecosystem is a
healthy one. At Japan House pond, the pond must be healthy indeed, judging by the number of dragonflies and damselflies. The pond is surrounded by plants of various
types and levels that are useful and necessary for dragonflies to thrive –horsetails and tall grasses
and sedges edge the water for dragonfly mating and general socializing, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>plants
are abundant under the water to hide the eggs and nymphs, and there are plants that bridge water and air, where a nymph can metamorphose. </span><br />
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The Japanese have been fascinated by dragonflies for centuries, so it seems right that they would be found in abundance at Japan House on the UI campus. One long-ago Japanese emperor said that the shape of Japan looked like two mating dragonflies, and an ancient name for Japan was Akitsu Shima (Dragonfly Isles). Dragonflies have been the subject of art and haiku poetry and used decoratively, and an old tradition has children catching them for good luck. They use two rocks tied to a string and throw this up to bring the dragonfly down. On a fishing trip to Crystal Lake Park last week, my bonus grandson merely held out a stick, and a blue dasher landed on it and sat a good long time for our pleasure.<br />
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In Japan, dragonflies are a sign of autumn, but in the Midwest prairie, they mean summer has arrived in all its fullness and sunglitter. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mating Bluets at Japan House Garden</td></tr>
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-22333021934859786652014-07-08T11:41:00.002-05:002014-07-08T11:41:27.490-05:00Dragonfly daysLast week I visited two gardens on the U of I campus. Within walking distance of each other, the two gardens could not be more different in feel and aesthetics.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyzzHwmMtwWz3QgdXJO9IgClIjwLv0hRewCE4sNhjuNgBCmcBk7jIL4BBXvL3QK8C9qwQ3TIl6LNvjIaQYuMsXKSBe4IBJAOiMY-F5wkrIJ8b2-nhJKWBZrfCTVPTrPir81fhyphenhyphenQF-2Hd0F/s1600/IMG_4687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLJCE8d4hVs/U7rAexTNNcI/AAAAAAAADws/nzvNQu5Lwks/s1600/IMG_4626.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLJCE8d4hVs/U7rAexTNNcI/AAAAAAAADws/nzvNQu5Lwks/s1600/IMG_4626.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Idea Garden on the corner of Florida and Lincoln Avenue is a brilliant splash of many colors,
textures, ideas -- from flowers to herbs to roses to fruit gardening, dry and
wetter gardens, plantings and borders and a children's garden. Every step leads to something surprising and beautiful, aromatic or textural. Bees,
butterflies and other insects flutter, buzz and hover. It's 15,000 square feet of plantings with a gazebo in sunny spot and the sun was hot and I'd
forgotten to douse myself with sunscreen. But I had to look at every bit of it --the garden is full of surprises (it's theme this year "Sense and Suspense").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I was noticing all the shapes flowers can be -- from
tubes to trumpets to bells to sunrays -- and the shapes of leaves and the
colors of leaves-- from bright spring green deep maroon to variegated white and green and yellow. Everywhere is
profusion and abundance -- as if every plant imaginable was tossed in there to
grow -- but of course, it's carefully planned and pruned too -- so that each
plant at is visible and shown to its best advantage. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Idea Garden was begun in 1997 as a project of the University of Illinois Extension and the Master Gardeners program, with a mission to demonstrate and give Master Gardeners practice in garden design and maintenance and environmentally responsible gardening practices, and to offer education and inspiration to visitors</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It's always a work in progress, according to he Idea Garden's website -- redesigned and updated regularly. It seems to me like a purely American idea of a garden -- abundant, designed for beauty, appealing to all the senses (oh, I longed to pick one of those plump grapes or blueberries and pop it in my mouth!) But utilitarian too -- there's a vegetable garden and a dry garden as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> A garden is by definition a planned thing (the word "garden" means "enclosure"). But anyone who has gardened knows there is a lot that is "accidental" about
gardening -- things that human beings don't have
control of -- weather, rain, germination, growth, sun, etc. There are things
people can do to tend the growth and give it as good a chance as it can have --
but we are not in control. And of course, we choose what to plant and what to
pull and what to prune and what to let go -- but I can't really imagine I'd
like the garden of someone who thinks he/she has total control of what goes on
there -- it would be sterile, missing the crucial element that
gives it its greatest joy: the magic and
mystery, and the knowledge that when you're gardening you are collaborating with the
natural world. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyzzHwmMtwWz3QgdXJO9IgClIjwLv0hRewCE4sNhjuNgBCmcBk7jIL4BBXvL3QK8C9qwQ3TIl6LNvjIaQYuMsXKSBe4IBJAOiMY-F5wkrIJ8b2-nhJKWBZrfCTVPTrPir81fhyphenhyphenQF-2Hd0F/s1600/IMG_4687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyzzHwmMtwWz3QgdXJO9IgClIjwLv0hRewCE4sNhjuNgBCmcBk7jIL4BBXvL3QK8C9qwQ3TIl6LNvjIaQYuMsXKSBe4IBJAOiMY-F5wkrIJ8b2-nhJKWBZrfCTVPTrPir81fhyphenhyphenQF-2Hd0F/s1600/IMG_4687.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a>It was a short walk to the Japan House garden, but like walking into another world.
Japan House was closed for the summer, but the gardens and grounds are open.
Shaded by cherry trees and American cypresses with knobby trunks and roots and
feathery leaves, the air was cooler, and it was a relief to be out of the
sun. There's a pond with a willow tree dangling its branches near the water,
horsetails and reeds along the edges of the water where dragonflies cruised and perched -- I saw maybe
four or five varieties and tried to get photos of them all - the biggest ones
with black wings glittering in the sun, the blue ones with green eyes, the
brownish ones, the thin blue ones -- a pair mating -- and damselflies as well.
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I scared up a little turtle at the edge of the water, who slipped into the pond
quickly and silently. The garden itself is quiet, not flashy. There's a new
hosta garden added since the last time I visited-- hostas mostly known for
the shapes and colors of their leaves. Everything in the Japanese garden is
restrained and quiet -- from the rounded and pruned bushes to the subtle colors of the
Japanese maples. Very few flowers bloom here -- in the spring, of course,
the cherry blossoms, in pink and white profusion, but now, in July, only a day lily or two -- and these in
soft, muted colors, not the bright yellows and oranges of the Idea Garden.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> The Japanese garden seems very much a planned thing -- one has the
sense of the designer planning each view and vista, and though it's a small
garden space, it has the feel of openness, of bigger spaces as if all the landscape of Japan is here in miniature. The sky opens
above, the small pointed trees arranged to somehow suggest a longer view, a
mountain path though here we are in flatland central Illinois, and in the distance the view of the roof and chimneys of the President's mansion. There's a
white rock garden and a few stone structures and in the hosta garden
knobby rocks studded with fungus. There's a new structure too, a
small gazebo with a beautiful wooden bench, polished to show the
grain of the wood -- very organic looking and at the same time, definitely a
carefully made thing. I sat in the little teahouse structure behind Japan
House to take pictures: the reflection of trees and bushes in Japan house's
picture window. There's a small fountain where one spigot of water pours down onto some
carefully chosen smooth black stones. I feel peaceful here listening to a robin
in the tree and walking along a stone path. </span></div>
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In Part 2, more about dragonflies and damselflies. Stay tuned!<br />
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The Idea Garden's website, with a garden plan and maps of every area:<br />
<a href="http://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/champaignmg/6.html">http://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/champaignmg/6.html</a><br />
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Japan House garden's website, with a statement from the designer:<br />
<a href="http://japanhouse.art.illinois.edu/en/garden/">http://japanhouse.art.illinois.edu/en/garden/</a><br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-88340222606193934502014-06-05T10:21:00.000-05:002014-06-05T10:29:20.658-05:00After a hiatus<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6K_79Q8RKf8/U44B3zOWHjI/AAAAAAAADuQ/g_g4xBV20iw/s1600/IMG_4393.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6K_79Q8RKf8/U44B3zOWHjI/AAAAAAAADuQ/g_g4xBV20iw/s1600/IMG_4393.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMkhyphenhyphen6m2jtP-hqme0IPO2tEFc__wsrdjCjr4T_rX0X09t7GPxX3sKAhQx8-zYl2mILP_CXjA9vrLCIUyISnab9yvvasZkSpTj0yiAGm1BHhXSIwr4fQ3Ltwkhltb2wZ-5Aw9XpjVJ0V5Z/s1600/IMG_4407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I went to the prairie this week, I was feeling sort of ...I don't
know -- sad, depressed? What is it that's going on with me lately? As I walked
I was thinking a lot about the blog and how I've let it go, and wondered, am I
just tired of the prairie? No, that's not it --all through the winter and spring, I've been walking there as regularly as always, but I've been feeling as if I
need to do something different -- either learn something new about the place, find something new to look for and explore there, or do
something else entirely to perk myself up, to pique my curiosity. I'm not happy
with myself for letting the writing of the blog go dormant for the whole winter, and I'm not happy
that I haven't accomplished more than I have with the fiction projects I was working on while I let the blog languish. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMkhyphenhyphen6m2jtP-hqme0IPO2tEFc__wsrdjCjr4T_rX0X09t7GPxX3sKAhQx8-zYl2mILP_CXjA9vrLCIUyISnab9yvvasZkSpTj0yiAGm1BHhXSIwr4fQ3Ltwkhltb2wZ-5Aw9XpjVJ0V5Z/s1600/IMG_4407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMkhyphenhyphen6m2jtP-hqme0IPO2tEFc__wsrdjCjr4T_rX0X09t7GPxX3sKAhQx8-zYl2mILP_CXjA9vrLCIUyISnab9yvvasZkSpTj0yiAGm1BHhXSIwr4fQ3Ltwkhltb2wZ-5Aw9XpjVJ0V5Z/s1600/IMG_4407.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I walked by that old dead tree -- one I've seen
there for as long as I've been walking in Meadowbrook, some 15 or so years now
-- I stopped to look at the clouds racing by between the arms of that old tree.
It struck me there was a haiku there. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The way the haiku process works for me: I'm walking and suddenly there's a moment -- a feeling, thought or idea that stops me. I have to think about it, ponder, wonder -- and then
later, I feel the need to unearth the words that can express that feeling. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ijdT_a3IWYI/U44B2-WlvZI/AAAAAAAADuI/f448aidzO8Y/s1600/IMG_4414.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ijdT_a3IWYI/U44B2-WlvZI/AAAAAAAADuI/f448aidzO8Y/s1600/IMG_4414.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thought about finding the precise word for the way the clouds
move (sailing? drifting? rushing? wind-driven?) and I thought about how long that tree has been
there -- dead though it is, it still serves a function in the prairie/woods --
a welcoming home to birds and insects and other creatures - as it decays and changes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The
essential thing seemed the nature of the movement of the clouds past the arms of the dead
tree. Of course clouds and trees don't have feelings or agency, I am the one who has feelings and needs to know a purpose for myself to be alive and here. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I
can imagine being the tree. At 62 years of age, I feel slowed down, but with a lot to give still,
still useful and part of the world. I can imagine (and
remember!) being like the clouds -- thinking I'm going where I want to go, without realizing I'm pushed and driven by the prevailing winds. I'm no stranger to the feeling of not wanting to
be held down, rushing on in what seems a purposeful way. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All are impermanent -- clouds and tree, as well as the one
who watches and thinks these thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">On my way out of the prairie, a monarch caterpillar is chomping at a milkweed leaf and he might be the most impermanent of all -- this fat little eating machine who might become a bird snack or might just make it through a little longer to spin a chrysalis and emerge as a monarch butterfly, as proud an accomplishment as I can imagine.
</span></span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> clouds sail</span></o:p><br />
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">past the arms</span></o:p><br />
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;">of a long dead tree</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-58499649619388279152013-11-25T09:51:00.000-06:002013-11-25T11:30:35.231-06:00Drawing from Nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to
lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its
plain.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>—Henry David Thoreau</div>
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Some journal entries and reflections:</div>
Tuesday, Nov 12. --Woke up this morning to the sound of scraping,
knowing without looking out the window it was Tom in the driveway, scraping the
truck's windshield. It's cold out, I thought, and there's frost. But then I
peeked out -- snow! Enough to barely cover the fallen leaves and form a puckery
blanket on the grass. The leaves, still colorful on the trees and bushes, each one cups a handful of of mounded-up snow. There's a hint of smell in
the house when there's snow on the ground -- a
tickle in the nose of cold, dry air. An excitement that is pulled out of me
with a shivery sparkle of childhood memories that haven't gone a bit stale or
dusty. Fresh, new snow. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IoomJ6awMxBLgnzSMSoT25fuJxJRF8AdJYE-lGWmmXByE_U5g3RkLEQVe7R6JXQapy5fnyN-XEIW5OB54z2CiECOpffAx3wnymyLh9MXKqDyafSYqMAftS855nSqNXO6fX8RBldhzwUV/s1600/IMG_2588.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IoomJ6awMxBLgnzSMSoT25fuJxJRF8AdJYE-lGWmmXByE_U5g3RkLEQVe7R6JXQapy5fnyN-XEIW5OB54z2CiECOpffAx3wnymyLh9MXKqDyafSYqMAftS855nSqNXO6fX8RBldhzwUV/s320/IMG_2588.JPG" width="320" /></a>Wednesday, Nov 13--The Japanese Maple tree looking bare this
morning. Since the little bit of snow and very cold day and night, its
beautiful head of red leaves is mostly gone. When I woke up Tuesday, the tree's
deep red leaves still brightened the front yard, but by Tuesday
night, returning home from my writing group in the dark, I felt a carpet of soft leaves on the sidewalk and stairs underfoot. In the snow or the cold or the
wind, the small line of cells that glues the leaves
to the twigs had let go. Today only a few small, curled, and brown leaves remain
on the bare branches, and those maybe need a touch of wind to brush them off.
It was glorious while it lasted and now it's done. Winter's got at least a foot
in the door. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9V-uYCMd9UQ/UouXuAp3mwI/AAAAAAAADmk/6MrueQYKutE/s1600/IMG_2581.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9V-uYCMd9UQ/UouXuAp3mwI/AAAAAAAADmk/6MrueQYKutE/s320/IMG_2581.JPG" width="320" /></a>Linda <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had brought for the Tuesday night group's writing prompts a
book about nature journaling and some leaves and acorns and dried weeds she'd gathered
at Allerton Park, and we sketched and wrote, the room quiet with attention.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4y4GVHByHyb5EwvcW2Zg-HQtFv_wg-FCUpAMOSh5dS2FLVKz9AWpuoqZ7lyfkK7-UOkOpcrzNSiZyFLhyEXMPS0g9TzZM2vajn1j-9qiDKgeFxYZT-ISqzqE_5h42Z6a2pt45QdjunTzf/s1600/nov2013phonepix+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4y4GVHByHyb5EwvcW2Zg-HQtFv_wg-FCUpAMOSh5dS2FLVKz9AWpuoqZ7lyfkK7-UOkOpcrzNSiZyFLhyEXMPS0g9TzZM2vajn1j-9qiDKgeFxYZT-ISqzqE_5h42Z6a2pt45QdjunTzf/s320/nov2013phonepix+004.jpg" width="320" /></a>Everyone had a different touch, a
different style, a different idea about what they were looking at, some
detailed as a map, others more "sketchy."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made a small arrangement of objects, a
still life, on a piece of white paper, of two leaves and a nut case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could take a photo in a few
seconds, which might capture the sharpness of the oak leaf's points, the red
shading to maroon of the southern sugar maple leaf, the flaws in the nut case,
the striations inside the shell. To draw them, I have to look at them more
carefully, and because I don't think I know how to draw, I have to think about
where to place my pencil, how to move it along the edges of a leaf path to get down what interests me about what I'm seeing.</div>
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It's an act of translation,
from eyes to object to brain to eye to pencil to paper -- lots of places for
things to go wrong, get misconstrued, for mistakes of judgement and shape and
relationship to happen. I was happy and not happy with the drawing I produced.
I'd included the front and back of the maple leaf, so I could get the colors
and vein ridges included; I drew the inside of the nut case and then turned it
over to get the outside of the shell, with its subtle colors and blemishes. How
woody it looked. I realized I'd never looked at a nut shell this closely and
carefully. I could imagine how it would look sanded and polished. I marveled at
this little wonder, this seed case and how it came to be among all the others,
how it cracked in quarters -- must be a hickory nut. I don't think I could have
gotten all of this from taking a photograph .<br />
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I want to to take a sketchbook and some pencils on my
next walk in the prairie. Maybe I'll go without the camera? I'll feel a little lost and naked
without it, but maybe I'll let my fingers and pencil do the looking this time. </div>
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Sunday, Nov. 17 --At the prairie, I tried a little drawing. I drew milk weed pods and goldenrod twigs with seed mostly blown, and ironweed brushes.. I wanted to sit down and draw, but the ground was wet from rain earlier in the day -- the day of tornadoes that touched down in Washington and Gifford and passed Champaign-Urbana by. The afternoon was sunny and blustery.. I brought home some oak leaves I found -- thinking that looking at them and drawing them in the warmth and comfort of home might help me to learn and remember their identifications. I found some with pointy leaves, deep lobed, and rounded lobes, large and small oak leaves, brown leathery ones and yellowish ones, all on the walk from the prairie to the parking lot. I'll need to get out the field guide and find which are which. <br />
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<div class="quoteText">
Dorothea Lange wrote, and I've quoted it
often, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see
without a camera.” But it's easy to miss things when I'm holding a
camera. There's something very quick about it, this technological short
cut, and if I'm not mindful, I can easily photograph without deeply
looking at what's there. Maybe for me the
pencil can be a tool for learning how to slow my looking, a help to my photography and my ability to see deeply.</div>
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.</div>
Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing, says this: <br />
<br />
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"We do a lot of looking: we look through lenses, telescopes,
television tubes...Our looking is perfected every day, but we see less and
less" </div>
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I want to learn to see more and more.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SnA_tQY03GM/UouX9kkIfeI/AAAAAAAADnE/ZQ4RJ5M3bEM/s1600/IMG_2601.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SnA_tQY03GM/UouX9kkIfeI/AAAAAAAADnE/ZQ4RJ5M3bEM/s320/IMG_2601.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-19650474414807282972013-11-10T09:00:00.001-06:002013-11-10T09:10:18.919-06:00The Secret Lives of Foxes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCICLteMNQYiKkEoOpRgMVFgiTXunMu2pWet8ksAdI3qIXSLZhL6-HBC1rDxPMtS_KRgNX1UXHQ7hGP4dNkCue3H_JspnvOeIAUegJEb9roG2vEEXJI_BLzb9_R8NfSzyErNikTctRZr1G/s1600/IMG_2503.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCICLteMNQYiKkEoOpRgMVFgiTXunMu2pWet8ksAdI3qIXSLZhL6-HBC1rDxPMtS_KRgNX1UXHQ7hGP4dNkCue3H_JspnvOeIAUegJEb9roG2vEEXJI_BLzb9_R8NfSzyErNikTctRZr1G/s320/IMG_2503.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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I went to walk in Busey Woods on Sunday, and though I like a
solitary walk, on a Sunday afternoon, especially as perfect a fall day as last Sunday, I expect to cross paths with people who are out with the same idea. I was
enjoying the smoky reds and glowing yellows overhead, and the scuffing of my feet through the soft mat of fallen leaves on the path, the slow churr of a cricket, and every once in a
while the greetings of the folks also out for their nature walk: families with
small children, young and older folks in pairs, a woman with a baby in a front carrier, a few solo runners, people with
cameras. On Sunday afternoons, people thread their way through the network of paths and boardwalks, and most nod or say hello as they pass. It's a
sociable event, a Sunday walk in the woods, and I'm thankful for this park, which is, after all, for the
use of everyone who comes to appreciate
nature each in his own way. Someone preserved this space, created and maintains the boardwalks and paths for the pleasure and sanctuary of plants and creatures that find their way there. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MICHhYVsn4k/UnklNoOtMiI/AAAAAAAADl8/ED20ct2S-MI/s1600/IMG_2525.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MICHhYVsn4k/UnklNoOtMiI/AAAAAAAADl8/ED20ct2S-MI/s320/IMG_2525.JPG" width="213" /></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had come around the
saline ditch path and was at a spot I'm fond of where there's a pile of bricks, and some old
concrete porch steps lead to nowhere. Maybe it's the remains of an old house that once stood on the site, or something that
was just dumped there. I think of those steps as a good place to meditate. As I approached it, I was relishing the way the yellow leaves glowed with sunlight and the way the glow contrasted and was contained by the dark tree trunks, so that I was reminded of a
Tiffany stained glass autumn scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two young Asian men were near the ruins: one setting
up a camera on a tripod and one sitting at the top of those steps to
nowhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stopped to chat with him for just a
moment, then went around the bend and heard behind me bird song so emphatic and musical that it seemed surreal. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fk2uhXPDtEU/UnklQqtZtDI/AAAAAAAADmE/jYZkeBv7yvY/s1600/IMG_2531.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fk2uhXPDtEU/UnklQqtZtDI/AAAAAAAADmE/jYZkeBv7yvY/s320/IMG_2531.JPG" width="208" /></a><br />
I wondered if those young
men were playing a recorded bird to try to summon real birds to them to
photograph (I do have an imagination). But when I turned back to look, there on
a turned up dead tree stump was a small bird singing. I was
going to say "singing his heart out" but a bird's heart must be very
small and this music was was bigger than that. He sat there for a few minutes, singing
and posing this way and that, long enough for me to snap a few photos.Another man came around the bend with a camera, and I said, "Did you
hear that? Do you know what it was?" I was thinking a wood thrush, (though now, looking at the photos, I think it is a wren) and he
said it sounded like a thrush but he didn't know what kind, and he hadn't
gotten a photo.<br />
<br />
As we stood talking, there was a rustling in the brush
and leaves and we looked up as a streak of orangish fur shot past. Pointed dark-tipped ears, thin graceful legs, followed by.a long tail with a
white brushpoint, It was quick! Neither of us could get out cameras up fast
enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"What was that?" he
asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Looked like a red
fox," I said. "I've never seen one here before." I have
never seen one that close up. <br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The young man was excited too
about seeing the fox, and told me, "You are good luck for me!" which made me laugh. Maybe he was good luck for me. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNkov7GX_6DSXXVFVsk3CvLIzlyWvyO3pUyHMKxjBN9rGF6t_f5TWu6Hp7wBWwd36WUxFUoQCtFXG04cDqB6EbQmAsfgc_8zWmywXF4FP6r90Y_-uyqLBhZL_iMRnLD8ltuFXA6WHCk5z8/s1600/IMG_2506.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNkov7GX_6DSXXVFVsk3CvLIzlyWvyO3pUyHMKxjBN9rGF6t_f5TWu6Hp7wBWwd36WUxFUoQCtFXG04cDqB6EbQmAsfgc_8zWmywXF4FP6r90Y_-uyqLBhZL_iMRnLD8ltuFXA6WHCk5z8/s320/IMG_2506.JPG" width="213" /></a>That fox created in me an excitement I can't really explain; it was like a stray, beautiful and fleeting thought. The rest of my day felt rare, and even a few days later, when I think of it, I feel as if a strange wind has blown through me. In folk lore, the fox is a trickster, civilized and wild at the same
time. It seems fitting that he was amongst the Sunday woods walkers that day, but what was the fox up to? <br />
<br />
It was not unnatural to see it there, but surprising that it was so close. Foxes' main
predators are coyotes, but foxes are adaptable, "edge" creatures. Because coyote populations are
up in rural areas, foxes have moved into more urban areas. Our little 59 acres of Busey
Woods must seem a perfect spot for a fox to hang out --
there are plenty of bunnies and mice to eat, I'm sure. I could imagine (and
hope it's true) a fox den with babies this spring and that I might just be
lucky enough to see them if I happen to be wandering at just the right
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Funny how just when it seems there's nothing new to see, if I
am present, aware, watching, something new rushes past me out of the underbrush. To be aware of the patterns of movement, the bigger patterns of migration
and adaptation is a place to start to understand something about the
world and about the landscape and environment. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yjA10TwNKgo/UnklUH0b2hI/AAAAAAAADmM/aUPkk6MOSR8/s1600/IMG_2530.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yjA10TwNKgo/UnklUH0b2hI/AAAAAAAADmM/aUPkk6MOSR8/s320/IMG_2530.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
I.wonder if the Busey Woods fox is a male
or female. I wonder if there is more than one, or are they solo sorts of creatures?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I wonder if I'll see the fox again?
</span></div>
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When I think of the gracefulness of that running fox, and how fast it streaked across the woods, my heart beats faster. How close it came to the Sunday walkers! It is living happily (I
hope) in Busey Woods, a place created by nature and sculpted by human helpers. I'm grateful for my own secret life here, and for those who created and
maintain and love this place into being. </div>
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<br /></div>
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When I walk there, I'm aware that I'm in the midst of the
city of Urbana. I'm aware of the traffic going by on the cemetery road, but
still, within that wooded parkland, there's quiet, there's a place to walk on
soft earth padded with fallen leaves. It's a haven for me and the other
residents, citizens and visitors to Urbana who come there, and to resident and
migrant birds, wildlife, trees, fungus and wildflowers. In the spring, I've seen fairy shrimp in the vernal pond, and at various times of the year
deer, squirrels, dragonflies, butterflies, preying mantis, turkey vultures, red tailed hawks, and a barred
owl.</div>
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There's probably a lot I haven't seen, my vision not attuned
to all that's hidden, or what comes out at night, or at dawn, or in the rain,
those times I don't walk outside but instead sit inside my warm, dry, lighted
rooms, as humans tend to when the weather is not amenable. There might be holes
and hollows and dens and nests in the woods that just look to me like piles of
leaves or random fallen branches. </div>
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<br /></div>
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When I came out of the woods, I read again the leaf-shaped
sign with a quote from John Muir: "In every walk with nature,
one receives far more than he seeks."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I sought a little peace, and received a sense community, wren music, leaf glow, fox grace.</div>
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There's information here about red foxes in Illinois:<br />
<a href="http://web.extension.illinois.edu/wildlife/directory_show.cfm?species=redfox">http://web.extension.illinois.edu/wildlife/directory_show.cfm?species=redfox</a><br />
<br />
And at <a href="http://www.dnr.state.il.us/orc/wildlife/virtual_news/releases/070104_red_foxes.htm">http://www.dnr.state.il.us/orc/wildlife/virtual_news/releases/070104_red_foxes.htm</a><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is an article about red foxes moving out of
the rural areas to more urban settings. </div>
<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-80169527305003749032013-10-31T09:15:00.001-05:002013-10-31T09:19:00.777-05:00Looking for subtle colors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Iomf-Ba-0TU/Um5s-83Vd8I/AAAAAAAADkg/cyaxtTbXIto/s1600/IMG_2476.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Iomf-Ba-0TU/Um5s-83Vd8I/AAAAAAAADkg/cyaxtTbXIto/s320/IMG_2476.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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<br />
I've let October get away from me! It has been a difficult month for various reasons. I realized I hadn't even been to the prairie in weeks, and was glad when Sunday's weather was warm and sunny, and I had time to go to Meadowbrook to walk for a while.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DH77vgQdgqM/Um5tcwwX1pI/AAAAAAAADlI/CEVnrtGiW0I/s1600/IMG_2493.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DH77vgQdgqM/Um5tcwwX1pI/AAAAAAAADlI/CEVnrtGiW0I/s320/IMG_2493.JPG" width="320" /></a>The prairie seemed quiet -- not many bird sounds and
not much insect sound now, just a few slow-singing crickets and maybe a lone katydid. I saw one or two grasshoppers jumping unenergeticaly in the grass and a single, very worn-out
looking yellow sulfur butterfly.<br />
<br />
The year is winding down, the growing season done. I was
standing in the parking lot before my walk, deleting some old photos from the
camera, all the bright blooming goldenrod of last month, when I heard someone call my name. It was Cynthia H., on a last visit to
her garden space in the community garden. We chatted about the finalness of the
end of the growing season, the picking the last of the green tomatoes, but it was a cheerful conversation too, about how she's
eager to retire from her job as a school librarian. "Then," she says, "I won't just garden on the
weekends."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Qr-kFtdvUY/Um5tXWYsQbI/AAAAAAAADlA/RXc4nAIg1F8/s1600/IMG_2459.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Qr-kFtdvUY/Um5tXWYsQbI/AAAAAAAADlA/RXc4nAIg1F8/s320/IMG_2459.JPG" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid9_Md0C8vmx6lUcFo-FJMubvHU7FnTvhPk2hM4BLMlFgFj3paFThJN-9Q3d5tYTm17VOEjYDNBMOInTi3vylUgE9V3RTfGaJo3VSuF5EGwx6qoy9pDgoOB-Or8uV_Jh-ADdpTJ5geXH-g/s1600/IMG_2463.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid9_Md0C8vmx6lUcFo-FJMubvHU7FnTvhPk2hM4BLMlFgFj3paFThJN-9Q3d5tYTm17VOEjYDNBMOInTi3vylUgE9V3RTfGaJo3VSuF5EGwx6qoy9pDgoOB-Or8uV_Jh-ADdpTJ5geXH-g/s320/IMG_2463.JPG" width="213" /></a>In the park, the maple trees are colorful and there are pale
green nutcases hanging from the trees, and fallen nuts on the ground. The brilliant blooms of September are finished -- the prairie now abloom with ghosts: dried flowerheads, puffs of white goldenrod, brown spiky rattlesnake master and brown-eyed susans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there are colorful things, too -- the maple leaves,
the subtler colors of dried flowers and the scatter of fallen leaves on the paths in
many shades of gold, russet, brown and tan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And a few bright gold balls of ground cherries along the path. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3g62Ik2T68A/Um5tRU_x9VI/AAAAAAAADkw/P-pJTdgfF-Y/s1600/IMG_2470.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3g62Ik2T68A/Um5tRU_x9VI/AAAAAAAADkw/P-pJTdgfF-Y/s320/IMG_2470.JPG" width="320" /></a>Some of the milkweed pods are still pale green nubbly
things, not yet open, but some have dried up, turned brown and split at the
seams, and the seeds are either lined up in neat rows inside, or have
already been nudged out by the wind and are still clinging, but ready to fly,
the silk wiggling in the wind. It's a new beginning for them.<br />
<br />
I watched a flock of flickers and cedar waxwings land in a nut tree. It's comforting to know I will see them in the same spot in the woods this time of the year, every year. Tuning my eyes, ears, mind to larger patterns is a good exercise for sad or difficult times, I think.Tuning my mind to look for subtle colors helps me accept the season's ending. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5BtfpX0WJJ4/Um5t4Ox3WUI/AAAAAAAADlc/vvQ6kDMNsPA/s1600/IMG_2495.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5BtfpX0WJJ4/Um5t4Ox3WUI/AAAAAAAADlc/vvQ6kDMNsPA/s320/IMG_2495.JPG" width="179" /></a></div>
</div>
Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-16486052239073380192013-09-15T11:37:00.001-05:002013-09-15T11:42:11.764-05:00Surprises on the prairie<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Friday </span>I walked in
the prairie, the bright yellow of goldenrod everywhere, punctuated with
lavender of thistles and dark purple of asters. The yellow susans' petals have all
dropped, leaving cornrowed heads, stark and beautiful, their seeds arranged in chevron patterns. The milkweed pods are rough green and bursting, and one or two have split, the silk wind-teased but the seeds not yet flying.
The clouds are puffed sails, shaded with gray around the edges to give them fullness. The sky behind them is blue; the sun trying its best, though the temp never did get much above 80. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjIlkTzKoUD0izM9wLyL3D9Sf3bVNvkVcWyPLp0252pehpyeYxkbbSnA_08aXgFcPAYU68-hloasxMat3CYIE0LONTW0_zjoDiA-FI5Jthv7EyquqDhRcWKKZCOAufcZmyON2uMRr-pp-X/s1600/IMG_2241.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjIlkTzKoUD0izM9wLyL3D9Sf3bVNvkVcWyPLp0252pehpyeYxkbbSnA_08aXgFcPAYU68-hloasxMat3CYIE0LONTW0_zjoDiA-FI5Jthv7EyquqDhRcWKKZCOAufcZmyON2uMRr-pp-X/s320/IMG_2241.JPG" width="320" /></a>Everywhere there were thistle flowers, there were, hovering
above them and uncurling their slender probosces to dip into the brushy flowers, hummingbird moths. They are a little smaller than an actual
hummingbird, but flying, they look like hummingbirds until you get a
closer look. They are not shy like hummingbirds, which zip
off about the same time you notice them. These guys didn't seem bothered at all by my watching
them up close or photographing them. Their markings beautiful, and the wings a hummingbird blur. I never saw one sit
basking, I never saw the wings stop moving.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSw2mqfEp4RG07weD3a-jaQhC9uE-_6IfZvEDeQk6s-vfRa7KZMyKsfHkW5OV2JU3Q3ZUl5u_EzWPYxyFO3J0d0Hckh0fFEWDbVOsJEhYfX4yo6cmkDy5JBQWYssiTRAQ3Ng5Kllm_KUYs/s1600/IMG_2242.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSw2mqfEp4RG07weD3a-jaQhC9uE-_6IfZvEDeQk6s-vfRa7KZMyKsfHkW5OV2JU3Q3ZUl5u_EzWPYxyFO3J0d0Hckh0fFEWDbVOsJEhYfX4yo6cmkDy5JBQWYssiTRAQ3Ng5Kllm_KUYs/s320/IMG_2242.JPG" width="320" /></a>They are white-lined sphinx moths,
a variety of hummingbird moth. I may have seen one before, but never in this abundance (there were hundreds of them) in all the years I've been
going to Meadowbrook. Their larval food seems to be varied: pink gaura, spotted spurge, purslane and other weeds -- maybe something
that was in abundance this year. The caterpillars go underground
for the pupal stage and emerge as moths, so that to raise these from
caterpillars you must put an inch or so of dirt in the cage for them to burrow into.
I don't recall seeing the caterpillars, and there must have been a lot of them
to produce this many moths. Wish I'd been more observant! I wonder if it is a
fluke that there are so many this year, or if they are going to continue this
way.<br />
<br />
How can these beautiful and intriguing creatures lift those big bodies? How do moths wings work anyway? Yesterday, Carrie showed me one on her windowscreen -- it was still and had been sitting there all morning, unlike the Meadowbrook sphinxes. It must take a lot of nectar to keep those wings going and those thick bodies aloft!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HGz0-Mk-IwA/UjRsluxi83I/AAAAAAAADjo/84c7wLfA7p4/s1600/IMG_2248.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HGz0-Mk-IwA/UjRsluxi83I/AAAAAAAADjo/84c7wLfA7p4/s320/IMG_2248.JPG" width="320" /></a>Also in my walk Friday, I saw a black swallowtail and several monarchs. I wonder if the monarchs who are
flying now have laid eggs, and if those will hatch this fall still or wait
until spring? I saw a bird I think was a phoebe, and an ovenbird in the trees near the bridge at Mather
crossing. And I did see a hummingbird, but it was too quick for me to get a
photo. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p3gG1sCtdDI/UjRsvmr7xPI/AAAAAAAADkA/xaDE_I5aiHk/s1600/IMG_2265.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p3gG1sCtdDI/UjRsvmr7xPI/AAAAAAAADkA/xaDE_I5aiHk/s320/IMG_2265.JPG" width="213" /></a>The streambed was dry in most places, and in some spot the
path was cracked in beautiful patterns that mean it's a place that once got
very wet and now is parched. There was only one place in the entire length of
the streambed where I saw any water at all -- near the old beaver dam there was
a small puddle, mostly mud, and as I walked by I heard a plop as a frog jumped
in. "Poor frog!" I thought -- "there's hardly
enough water to hide in." Where are the rest of the frogs? Where are the
other things that live in that water? The dragonfly larvae and other things? I
think the dragonflies who are going to emerge this year have already done so --
but what of the babies for next year? This year seemed like a bumper year for
dragonflies -- but maybe last year was better. Last year we suffered horrible drought
all summer -- this year it didn't happen until August. It's dry now -- we had 1/2 an inch or so of rain last week. Not enough to do
anything. And another small dribble forecast for next week. We need lots of rain.
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It was beautiful to walk through the prairie because the
bluestem grasses reached over my head and were leaning into the path so
I had to brush through them. I love when the prairie is this full and tall and
seeds are just getting ready to fly. I feel sheltered, enclosed, hidden, privy to secrets, when I walk
there in fall. I can't see to the other side, and when someone comes up on
me in the path, it's a big surprise. A barefoot(!) runner came up on me from
behind and I jumped and gasped. He smiled and ducked his head as
he passed. Barefoot is quiet! I had no warning he was coming. </div>
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I was thinking as I walked that no
matter how many times I've been to the prairie -- over how many years, seasons,
etc. -- there's always something surprising, if I am open to see things as they
are, and not bring my expectations with me. I might not see the migrating birds I was expecting, but then there are those hummingbird moths. Watching them, I was in a fantasyland of weird,
wonderful creatures. <br />
<br />
I could walk the prairie every day and never really
exhaust all the possibilities of things to look at and wonder about -- in this
small park. It's not just the beautiful or
surprising<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that are resident here -- the migration brings visitors, the fluctuations of weather<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and other factors bring species to light that
haven't been abundant before, or make rare those that have.<br />
<br />
It makes me aware: a prairie isn't a
noun but a verb. It's a process of conditions and forces and matter working to create whatever is
here this day, this moment. We tend to talk about "the prairie" as if it's one thing, unchanging -- but there are many varieties of prairie in Illinois alone; mesic and dry prairies, sand and hill prairies, original prairie, restored prairie, and prairie altered by human action, agriculture and building and living. A prairie is different by season, weather, year. Here's something I read recently by eco-philosopher Joanne Macy: "I am a flow-through of matter, energy, and information." She's speaking about the Buddhist concept of "no fixed self," but I can imagine, if the prairie had a voice, this might be what it's saying . </div>
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I loved visiting Midewin's huge tallgrass prairie (more about this and photos in the next post), and imagining, even
though it's not finished yet, what a real restoration there might look like, or what this landscape
might have looked like before it needed "restoration"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hundreds of years ago. Midewin needs
restoring because humans have damaged and changed the landscape over the past 200 years, (this site was formerly an ammunition arsenal); only now
are environmentalists trying to bring it back to what it might have been in pre-settler days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meadowbrook prairie has been cultivated for many
years; it was once farmland. And in the little cemetery prairie plot at Loda that I visited last month, pristine and untouched, plants that don't grow in newer restororations grow there and have done so for generations, where a plow has never gouged the land.</div>
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Human care of the land is important, but has its limits. And in the case of prairie restoration, it's an afterthought. How many years does it take to make a
prairie, and how quickly can one be destroyed? <br />
<br />
Meadowbrook is a place
I have a deep connection to because I've walked it so many times, because I've
seen it change, because I've been there in all seasons and many kinds of
weather over many years. And because it brings me surprises like hummingbird moths, herons and white gentians. I guess It has seen a lot of change in me, too. I like to have a friend like that.<br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-31854218634898335532013-08-19T09:47:00.000-05:002013-08-19T09:49:58.249-05:00Babysitting butterflies<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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When it was over, I sat looking at two empty chrysalis cases
in a plastic cage. It made me think about empty nest syndrome, about my
daughters growing up and leaving home, and
the quiet in the house when both were no longer playing The Cure and Green Day
at sonic boom levels, when schoolbooks no longer littered the dining room
table, and sneakers and hair scrunchies no longer decorated the living room. My
girls were out and on the path their lives were going to take them, and my
daily work was going to be different from then on. It was time to let go. But before that realization, there was that breath of empty space and wondering, "What do I do now?". </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7C5vGGJSt_g/UhDYrVLqEHI/AAAAAAAADgs/WAWAspYsJOg/s1600/IMG_1912.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7C5vGGJSt_g/UhDYrVLqEHI/AAAAAAAADgs/WAWAspYsJOg/s320/IMG_1912.JPG" width="320" /></a>After a day of butterfly babysitting, I felt a little like
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Friday, two butterflies emerged from their chrysalis cases. I didn't
actually see either one split its case and crawl out. Isn't that the way it is with big events? Sometimes
they just happen even though you think you are vigilant. </div>
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When
I came downstairs<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at around 7:30 a.m.
for coffee to carry up to the writing room, there was a butterfly on the bottom of the cage, which must have just climbed out of the chrysalis. Tom left just before 7, and when I called to tell him, he said he didn't notice
anything happening when he left. I watched the
butterfly with soggy, floppy wings climb onto the twig with his wings
hanging down, occasionally with a slight flutter or movement of the wings, but
mostly just sitting. After a while, he was down on the bottom of the cage
again, still hardly moving, and it wasn't long before he was seeming a little
more confident and active. A little before 10 a.m. I took the cage outside and removed the top. He
sat for quite a long time facing me, looking out of the cage's plastic window
while I looked in at him. I took photos and just watched, fascinated.. I could see his markings so clearly, the black wings
with orange and blue spots and yellow crescents along the wing margins. Inside,
black and yellow markings. A black swallowtail male, yellow
spots in lines up and down the fat body, and the shiny black head and large
matte eyes, with a yellow dot between them, and the delicate, curled proboscis.
Watching him, I wondered what he saw, and could he see me? I felt so thankful to
have had this opportunity to be witness to this process, this life change, and
felt in some ways while he'd been transforming in his chrysalis, I'd had some sort of sympathetic metamorphosis right along with him. . </div>
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I sang happy birthday, dear butterfly. . Every once in a while the breeze
would riffle his wings a little. Then suddenly, as I watched, he fluttered not
just a little but violently, lifting that big body just a bit -- as if he was
testing the wings' strength -- and he landed again on the cage's bottom. Then immediately he did
that crazy flutter again and lifted up right out of the cage, and off -- gone
so fast I didn't have time to get a photo of his solo flight. No time for a
long goodbye. There was nothing tentative about that
flight up and away, onto whatever butterfly business he had to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was left sitting there, staring into the
cage, that chrysalis that had held caterpillar, pupa,
then emergent butterfly empty and papery-crisp. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8sBIxpw6ecs/UhDZABpJfeI/AAAAAAAADg0/kvKkPuHgeLY/s1600/IMG_1894.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8sBIxpw6ecs/UhDZABpJfeI/AAAAAAAADg0/kvKkPuHgeLY/s320/IMG_1894.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I was a little worried about the second chrysalis, which had turned brown days ago and which showed as yet no sign of activity. I went upstairs to write and when I came down around 2 p.m, the second
butterfly had emerged. Again I'd missed it! He was at the bottom of the cage and on his back, and seemed to be
struggling and couldn't right himself. I held the stick down near him and he
grabbed on, gratefully, I thought. I righted it and set it back in the cage, and
he hung there letting his wings dry and harden for quite a long time. </span><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fVEkYDqO2ZE/UhIvgMLNm_I/AAAAAAAADhU/NddngmtnawE/s1600/IMG_1943.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fVEkYDqO2ZE/UhIvgMLNm_I/AAAAAAAADhU/NddngmtnawE/s320/IMG_1943.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">After a
couple of hours, I noticed he had climbed to the top of the cage as if looking for
a way out, so Tom and I took the cage outside and opened the door in the lid.
He didn't fly out right away. I watched him for a while longer, and finally he
did fly out, landing on the patio table, and even stopping for a moment atop my
journal, which I took as a great honor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He flew over to a patch of day lilies that
had finished blooming a while ago, his flight seeming a bit top heavy, his
wings not quite ready for real flight yet, and climbed up a dry stalk and just
sat again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I sat close by with the camera, feeling very protective. Because I
saw him this far, I wanted to make sure he was going to be ok on his own. After
a while, he flew off that stalk, and over to the fern bed but he still couldn't
get very far off the ground, and made his way back to the day lilies and just
sat. It was nearly 6 pm and I had some errands I needed to do and so was just
getting ready to say goodby to him and wish him well. I went into the house,
and heard a sound on the stairs -- Carrie and Holden were there -- they'd come
to print out Holden's school supply shopping list before going to the store. I
dragged them outside to look at the butterfly, still in the day lilies. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">When I got
back from my errands, I went out in the yard again, and the butterfly was gone. I hope he is
safe. I hope both of them are safe. Because I was watching them, guarding them,
I feel responsible. I wonder where they are, what they are doing. I'm left
feeling a little empty but a little more open and connected to the world, too.
I'm left with two chrysalis cases and wondering what to do with them. </span><br />
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<br />
I feel very protective of my butterflies.They could be far
away by now. I know they were both males by their markings -- the black and yellow on the backs of the wings. They must be off looking for females.
So much of life is about making more life, making life happen and continue.</div>
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<br /></div>
Saturday, I kept hoping I'd see one or the other of "my
butterflies" but they seem to have gone far afield. I wonder how far
swallowtails go from their homes, the places they started out?<br />
<br />
I'm planning for next year -- to plant more dill and parsley for the swallowtails.<br />
.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8L0C7hbJDJg/UhDZJgGLhrI/AAAAAAAADg8/B2H2U23annk/s1600/IMG_1891.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8L0C7hbJDJg/UhDZJgGLhrI/AAAAAAAADg8/B2H2U23annk/s320/IMG_1891.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-20316198540995438782013-08-06T11:47:00.000-05:002013-08-06T11:59:38.766-05:00Welcoming winged things and a walk in the prairie<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sZEWwE25GKI/Uffc6BJcVQI/AAAAAAAADd4/Js3NTHq2CVg/s1600/IMG_1640.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sZEWwE25GKI/Uffc6BJcVQI/AAAAAAAADd4/Js3NTHq2CVg/s320/IMG_1640.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Last Sunday afternoon I went to the Pollinatarium to hear a
talk on butterfly gardening given by Maggie Dougherty Roberts-- to learn about how to make spaces that will attract
and nurture butterflies and moths, and other pollinators as well. Maggie is a master gardener and
master naturalist. The Pollinatarium, if you've not been there, is an amazing little wonder of a space on
the UI campus. If you are a grade school kid anywhere in the area, you've
probably been there on a field trip to see the bee room and learn about the bees, the hives,
the prairie, and taste the many varieties of wildflower honey.This summer there's been a series of talks on Sunday afternoons.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3K6CJ3RtIrI/Uffc639IZhI/AAAAAAAADeA/XEKy8ksDlls/s1600/IMG_1634.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3K6CJ3RtIrI/Uffc639IZhI/AAAAAAAADeA/XEKy8ksDlls/s320/IMG_1634.JPG" width="320" /></a> I learned some useful information to help me with the space in my yard I've been
devoting to native plant species and butterfly and bee and bird nurturing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Butterflies, Maggie told us, like the
kinds of flowers that supply a "landing pad" -- an open flower,
composite or radial -- daisy and sunflower-like flowers. And different flowers
attract different species of butterfly and other insects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Butterflies sip nectar from flowers, but also
need specific plants on which they lay eggs and that provide food for the
larvae.. For example, monarchs lay eggs only on milkweed, and the caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed </div>
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<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ax8qAmXJOis/UffdLhtCceI/AAAAAAAADeg/tGlWrWyNDM8/s1600/IMG_1667.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ax8qAmXJOis/UffdLhtCceI/AAAAAAAADeg/tGlWrWyNDM8/s320/IMG_1667.JPG" width="213" /></a>The amount of ground needed to make a space that butterflies will want to bother landing in is not great -- about 100 square feet, a space 10x10 feet, and it doesn't
need to be all in one spot in a yard. You need a big enough patch of welcoming flowers to make it worth a butterfly's energy to drop down, so mass plantings they can see from the air are the best.
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After the talk, I went out to the prairie plot next to the
pollinatarium. It's a fine and high grade of prairie, full of plants that bees
and butterflies love. There I saw bergamot blooming, and cardinal flowers,
mountain mint, wild quinine, tall coreopsis, gray headed coneflowers, and among
them,bumblebees, honeybees, a little shiny green bee on an orange milkweed
flower, and to my great joy, my first monarch of the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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And I took home a mountain mint cutting from a plant the Pollinatarium was sharing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to plant in my
garden at home. </div>
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</xml><![endif]-->Friday I went to Meadowbrook park for a walk in the prairie.
The day was overcast. At the sensory garden and herb garden, the scents of
buddleia and lavender and other herbs unidentified by me wafted in the
air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Butterflies -- red spotted purples
with their shimmery blue wings and red admirals were attending to the butterfly
bushes, and was able to photograph them there. One butterfly I didn't identify
-- a smaller one, not that colorful, but with beautiful small lacy eye-like markings. Then I walked into the prairie, surprised to
see the blanket of yellow and lavender -- the watercups are blooming among the
bergamot. In last year's drought, they didn't bloom at all, the buds turning
black and shriveling before they could open. This year, they are magnificent.
I'm always amazed at how many of the prairie flowers are shades of yellow. And among all that yellow, I could hear the wichety wichety
call of the common yellowthroat warbler. Yellow calls to yellow -- from sun to flower to feathers. I've been waiting to see him -- and I
did see him and his gentle lady, sitting in a watercup as if ready for a teacup
bath.
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BOjHMHCEzWU/UgEk2ccu55I/AAAAAAAADfY/I4T2652hMb0/s1600/IMG_1733.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BOjHMHCEzWU/UgEk2ccu55I/AAAAAAAADfY/I4T2652hMb0/s320/IMG_1733.JPG" width="201" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HsX7TohNy9QgwDRkmCG40PRJn7eq1DVsh7Od6aENkolkx0-iL1dA2fpPXueuFmM6WArW4hGS3LwiVg_6ywhEXfECIxwRkDyBoSUOfkeqf5IeviyDW2Esj-XwnkHbnB1_pZN47vVZAXS4/s1600/IMG_1644.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HsX7TohNy9QgwDRkmCG40PRJn7eq1DVsh7Od6aENkolkx0-iL1dA2fpPXueuFmM6WArW4hGS3LwiVg_6ywhEXfECIxwRkDyBoSUOfkeqf5IeviyDW2Esj-XwnkHbnB1_pZN47vVZAXS4/s320/IMG_1644.JPG" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAro7GeBBTWipIOHj97dX1peeDwqSUtSy9_KaIfsXPPDlaBg8SCOnQMn3HE1qRjzxfk7F041nrYtG_jzJb9WkVW6wgQHW29kTXf5Av8SSdRJaxFT4_1gruIGQsr4YrXgfSqRSPl2bbR3A/s1600/IMG_1712.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>The prairie showed at least one splotch of red -- cardinal flower, which
I saw in abundance at the Pollinatarium's prairie planting, but which is not so
common at Meadowbrook. The bluestem is getting taller, and some of the heads
are now open, those 3 toed turkey feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> I scared up a pheasant, who was in the path and went running before
I could see much but the brown of his body and the flash of his tail. They
really know how to hide in the grasses. </div>
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This is the time of year when I love the prairie best.. Full blooming everywhere, and the plants tall
enough that I feel hidden and sheltered in the prairie as I walk. Birds, bees,
butterflies, deer, flowers, tall grasses. The prairie smell, grassy, earthy,
clean. The sounds of rustling grasses, birds that chink and check and are
mostly unseen. Sky overhead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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At the beaver dam -- there's no dam left. And it's so
overgrown now, the water is barely visible. But it's moving, and looks clean
and fresh. </div>
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At home, I found big caterpillars -- swallowtails, I believe -- gobbling up my parsley plant on the deck. I'd noticed earlier the dill plant was totally denuded, but didn't see caterpillars then. I brought two inside with a good supply of parsley leaves, and am watching them. </div>
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This morning I noticed that one of the
caterpillars had climbed onto the stick I'd placed in there, and spun
a chrysalis in the night. I wish I'd seen how he did this. It looks very unlike
the monarch chrysalises I've seen. It's so like a curled up leaf,
that out of doors I wouldn't notice it, even if I was looking. It's
greenish gray, and sticking out from the twig - attached at the bottom, and not
at the top, as I would have expected. The second caterpillar is now on the
other twig, and so I imagine he too will make a chrysalis today or tonight. I think it will take 9-11 days for the imago to emerge. Stay tuned for further developments. </div>
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It's awesome (in the original sense of the word) to think what's going on inside a caterpillar
during metamorphosis--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>change on a cellular basis, during which every bit
of the caterpillar is liquefied by enzymes and getting rebuilt into "imago," an adult butterfly. It gets "undifferentiated" and then remade. Wow. Maybe there's some transformations we humans can experience
where we emerge knowing we are a "different
person."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, our changes are mostly invisible and internal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span> </div>
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How trusting would you have to be to curl up into something that looks like
a dead leaf and let go of everything inside you? To be so vulnerable to outside forces, a wind, a passing animal or
bird, helpless to do anything except wait for change to happen inside? My stomach gets a twinge just
thinking about this kind of trust of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Caterpillars don't question everything the way we humans do,
don't worry about impermanence and try to hang on to what they've got. They know instinctually
when it's time to stop eating the parsley and start finding a twig to cling to, because a hormone is released at the right time. They don't know they'll become a butterfly. They don't know
that everything in themselves is dying in order for a change to occur. They
don't (I imagine) agonize over these things, as we humans do over every gray hair and ache, pain and digestive
disturbance of aging. </div>
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We are gifted and cursed with consciousness. Look what we do
with it most of the time -- use it to induce suffering in ourselves and others.
There are so many other possibilities. </div>
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Here are some butterfly gardening links you might find useful:</div>
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Monarchwatch.org provides lists of plants that are welcoming to
butteflies -- both for nectar and for larval hosting at
http://www.monarchwatch.org/garden/. </div>
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For more information on plants and layouts and butterflies by state, go to http://www.thebutterflysite.com/gardening.shtml </div>
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-7201683697399629272013-07-19T12:41:00.003-05:002013-07-19T13:03:20.685-05:00Growing Over<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zjx8ZJruAGo/Uelt-r5YMUI/AAAAAAAADco/rzsDTpXoTBg/s1600/IMG_1495.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zjx8ZJruAGo/Uelt-r5YMUI/AAAAAAAADco/rzsDTpXoTBg/s320/IMG_1495.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B5HJzMTA9_c/UeluJM_TdMI/AAAAAAAADc0/KS44WWRno2Y/s1600/IMG_1528.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B5HJzMTA9_c/UeluJM_TdMI/AAAAAAAADc0/KS44WWRno2Y/s320/IMG_1528.JPG" width="320" /></a>I took an early morning walk in the prairie at Meadowbrook
on Tuesday, so I could get out before the heat of the day flared up to clamp
down on my motivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was already
hot on the prairie, but the dew on the grasses hung like crystals in the
sunlight. I was surprised and pleased to see the wild bergamot in bloom, those
frilly flowers so at odds with the sharp fragrance of their leaves when broken.
Yellow and brown Drooping Susans are blooming all across the prairie. They are
also called gray headed coneflowers, not as nice a name,in my opinion, as the one I give them.
Sometimes when it's windy, I want to call them Dancing Susans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don't droop until later in the season, and aren't gray-headed and drab until fall. </div>
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<br /></div>
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White butterflies fluttered among the
coneflowers, along with a few varieties of dragonfly -- one bright green one in
addition to the usual dusty blue bodied ones and the black and gold ones I'd
seen before. Many sunflower-like things are blooming: coreopsis and watercup
and tall compass plants. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3L5-FnjoUrw/Uel5n-ARNVI/AAAAAAAADdo/ghsb-X5Icg4/s1600/IMG_1533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3L5-FnjoUrw/Uel5n-ARNVI/AAAAAAAADdo/ghsb-X5Icg4/s320/IMG_1533.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I ran into a man I’ve met, Gary, who's a steward for
Meadowbrook prairie, and asked him if he'd seen the Common Yellowthroat. He
said yes, and told me where -- the usual spot where they hang out in the bushes
along the beaver dam area. I commented on how ugly the beaver dam area was
right now, since the dam has collapsed and the beavers are gone, along with the
pond and the frogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I liked Gary’s response – that soon
it will grow over, and when it does, maybe the beavers will return. A hopeful view
and a wider one than my own, and I hope it’s true. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m9_y8eZrcx8/UeluLQ8BVvI/AAAAAAAADc4/AMgnTzItVEg/s1600/IMG_1536c2w.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m9_y8eZrcx8/UeluLQ8BVvI/AAAAAAAADc4/AMgnTzItVEg/s320/IMG_1536c2w.JPG" width="202" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lgtP1Ld0Ssc/UeluTHeQyUI/AAAAAAAADdE/wY8iM6fcJYE/s1600/IMG_1487.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>I headed over to the beaver dam. But though I heard the Common
Yellowthroat’s song, I still didn't see the bird. What I did see near the
beaver dam, sipping at a gorgeous orange blooms of trumpet vine twined into a
dead tree, was a largish hummingbird, his body hanging in the air in that
distinctive hummingbird way, but seemingly too big for a hummingbird. It
perched on a dead branch and I could see: long beak, short body, feathers on
the head a little tousled, but definitely a hummingbird. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lgtP1Ld0Ssc/UeluTHeQyUI/AAAAAAAADdE/wY8iM6fcJYE/s1600/IMG_1487.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lgtP1Ld0Ssc/UeluTHeQyUI/AAAAAAAADdE/wY8iM6fcJYE/s320/IMG_1487.JPG" width="320" /></a>I’d been hoping to see butterflies, but beyond the white
flutterers that don't seem to land, I didn't see many – One, too far away to
identify might have been a pipevine swallowtail. The milkweeds are blooming,
and many are past their blooms, the stems dangling. The plants look mostly
uneaten. I don't think there were monarchs to lay eggs at Meadowbrook this year
-- or not any I've seen, and no sign of munched leaves, and not many milkweed
bugs either. A lot of cluster galls like false buds on the goldenrod stems. Bees
in a feeding frenzy and one of those big blue-black wasps. </div>
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This is the height of summer. Last year by this time we were
deep in the dust of a drought that lasted all summer. And this year’s heat wave
is just a blip compared to last year’s. I should remember to give thanks for
small blessings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ExNv5LjVSQ0/UelugDCP72I/AAAAAAAADdI/835UY0AnzQE/s1600/IMG_1523.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ExNv5LjVSQ0/UelugDCP72I/AAAAAAAADdI/835UY0AnzQE/s320/IMG_1523.JPG" width="213" /></a>I haven’t been to the prairie as often as I want to. I am
having trouble keeping up with my posts to the Prairie Year blog. I’m working
on a different sort of project this year, that’s taking my mornings, my time
and energy and focus. But I don’t want to let go of the Prairie Year. That
would be (as my mother would have said) like cutting off my nose to spite my
face. The blog would not exist without the walks. Walking in the prairie
reminds me to breathe, to go where the wind blows, to bloom when it’s my time
to bloom, as everything there does, in the proper order and place and time, and sometimes, to wait for things to grow over. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope my loyal
readers will understand if there are fewer posts to the PYBlog. It’s not that I
love the prairie any less – it is the place where most of my writing is born,
those long walks when I’m not really thinking about writing poetry or fiction,
but just being out in the beloved prairie, which has some surprise and some wisdom to offer every
time I visit. </div>
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-38489826183969681182013-07-01T15:03:00.000-05:002013-07-01T15:13:00.185-05:00What's not there<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaRS7nGjLJRpeYCew4ljp5B4OA7ZXoY98U0bkCMp1KGHIrrqLCsXZRSB4-6rUb_mVwdpwdMY76Vgc7qBKOf20U45dG7HQlVVQlJi3NDTiLyGk1XItLNRDyFSAa9vwALiFo5f_pev1lxx-r/s1600/IMG_1367c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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Maybe this is too obvious to even write down, but it's what came to me on this week's prairie walk:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I open my eyes and look, I'll see whatever is here. If it's not here,
I won't see it no matter how hard I look.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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I keep hoping to see the common yellowthroat,
and today I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd heard its familiar <i>witchety witchety</i> call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I saw no sign of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
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I thought too about the frogs, whom I've
seen and heard no sign of at Meadowbrook this year. I recall times when I
couldn't walk along the stream without that "eep plop!" of frogs
scared up by my footsteps or shadow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That hasn't happened this year. I haven't seen the bullfrogs sticking
their heads up from the beaver dam pond -- because there's no longer a beaver
dam pond, now that the beavers are gone and the dam has eroded to nothing. </div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8M5e9_FSZDA/UdBLzowQDMI/AAAAAAAADak/IGiamXSq26E/s1600/IMG_1358.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8M5e9_FSZDA/UdBLzowQDMI/AAAAAAAADak/IGiamXSq26E/s320/IMG_1358.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dragonfly in evening wear. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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What
I did see: a dragonfly of a variety I don't remember seeing before. So elegant
-- with a gold stripe down its back and black chiffon wings
iridescent in the sunshine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who can
look this elegant at 10 a.m.? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h90H-6tUEqM/UdBL3dowhmI/AAAAAAAADas/6pCBw3mwGuY/s1600/IMG_1361.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Some things seem to want to be seen, or not mind being seen
-- the redwing blackbirds, the dragonflies, the winged things that preen
and pose for the camera. Others keep out of sight-- they hide, or so it
seems. They don't come out in the open, they don't let you get closer
than they are comfortable with, or they live where you won't see them at all, unless you're looking places
you don't normally go (like off path, down on the ground, up in the trees,
inside of dead logs).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h90H-6tUEqM/UdBL3dowhmI/AAAAAAAADas/6pCBw3mwGuY/s1600/IMG_1361.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h90H-6tUEqM/UdBL3dowhmI/AAAAAAAADas/6pCBw3mwGuY/s320/IMG_1361.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've always called this "bug spit." It's some kind of egg case. </td></tr>
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This week on the prairie, I noticed the plants, forbs and grasses are waist high. The watercups' cups are filled with water from recent
rains. Yellow sunflower-like things are blooming:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rudbeckia,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>drooping susans, and some others whose names I'm not quite sure of. The
milkweed are opening their multiple flowerets, and small milkweed bugs and big milkweed bugs are out. I saw a
soldier beetle, too.<br />
<br />
A young deer in the path startled and leaped away. A small rabbit darted into the grasses
when he heard me coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the things I'm not seeing is butterflies, except for white sulfur and the tiny gray hairstreaks. I haven't seen monarchs, or swallowtails or red admirals or painted ladies. There are fewer butterflies of most sorts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's
not just at Meadowbrook, but everywhere. </div>
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<br /></div>
On Saturday, Tom and I drove to Tuscola for a "butterfly open house" to see Kirby Pringle's documentary on
the plight of the monarch butterfly and see the butterfly nursery where he and his wife Cindy have been helping caterpillars turn safely into butterflies in the Jarman Center. <br />
<br />
The Pringles
are art photographers, and own a company called Dogtown Artworks, with a studio in the Jarman Senior Living Center. They have
produced two or three children's books and a series of photos and cards
featuring dogs dressed up like humans. Their newest book is called <i>The
Butterfly that Would Not Fly</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this
book, they gathered photos of monarch butterflies, and decided when they were
done that they also wanted to make a documentary film to focus attention on the
life cycle and the current plight of the monarch butterfly, a species whose population has decreased significantly in recent years.
<br />
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<br /></div>
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The event at Jarman center was small-town and
friendly, attended by the senior residents and locals, oldsters as well as families with young children and teens. .The dining hall was set up with chairs at the long tables,
there were cookies and lemonade, and Kirby and Cindy introduced the program and
started the video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The film explains with great clarity the complicated life cycle of the monarch, and shows
some </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">surprising close-up images</span> -- eggs hatching, the caterpillar squeezing
out and turning back to eat
the egg case, then the pale green pupa popping out of the
tight skin of the caterpillar, scrunching out of it like a large lady
out of a too tight bathing suit. Then, after days of hidden metamorphosis and
waiting, the crumpled butterfly pushes its way out of the
chrysalis and
unfolds its wings. Kirby said to get the film the couple had to take
shifts to
watch all night so they wouldn't miss anything. It's an amazing film,
and
tenderly done, with original music by local musicians. </span><br />
<br />
Afterwards, we were all invited to their small gallery, and there
at the front window were three large plastic containers, each with a small
green chrysalis hanging inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
are butterflies due to emerge within the next few
days. Some have already been released. The reason it's important to help
the butterflies, the Pringles tell us, is that the caterpillars are so vulnerable to predation by
birds. Since the population is already so stressed, and there are so few butterflies around, they can scarcely afford to lose
too many caterpillars for birdsnacks. They need all the help they can get. So the
Pringles look for eggs on their milkweed plants, and bring them into the
nursery to protect them while they grow into caterpillars, make
chrysalises and metamorphose into butterflies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Since Monarchs lay their eggs only on milkweed plants, and
the caterpillars eat only milkweed, the loss of milkweed plants to mowing or
farming practices is a great loss to the butterflies, and undoubtedly carries
some of the blame for their declining population. Their life cycle is
complicated -- involving four generations and a migration to Mexico and
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
At any rate,
there's something that we can do to help on this end, and that is to prevent mowing of
roadside areas and places where milkweed grows, and to plant
more milkweed varieties, especially common milkweed, Asclepias syrica, in gardens, backyards and parks and prairies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Pringles provided seed packets, and I
brought one home for my small "trying to be native garden" to plant this fall (the seeds need the cold of winter to germinate in the spring.) </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SeaxA_iY8pQ/UdBMB2-RdeI/AAAAAAAADbE/O6a1lx0-do8/s1600/IMG_1342.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SeaxA_iY8pQ/UdBMB2-RdeI/AAAAAAAADbE/O6a1lx0-do8/s320/IMG_1342.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Milkweed at Meadowbrook</td></tr>
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At the Jarman Center, the residents coming down to the
dining room for meals stop to watch the progress of the metamorphosis, and when
a butterfly is ready to be released, they gather to watch, and sing "Happy
Birthday" to it as it flies out into the prairie sky, ready for the next
leg of the long journey. </div>
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I'm going to look more carefully for monarch eggs on the
backs of the milkweed leaves next time I'm on the prairie, and those chewed leaves that show a caterpillar has been feasting. And I'm going to
make sure I plant milkweed in my "prairie garden." </div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I'm sad that the frogs and beavers are no longer at Meadowbrook, but they are not in the same kind of danger the monarchs are. We may lose them completely, and that would be a great loss to the world. </span>Once a species is lost, it doesn't come back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
We humans have long gone about
our business of taking over the land for commerce, farming, development, and
for the most part, not considered the negative effects our activities might
have on other species. Every species is important, that's something we know if we're looking with a wider perspective. We are all
connected in ways we will probably never understand fully. </div>
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</div>
Before we went to Tuscola, Tom said, in his inimitable not-wanting-anyone-to-be-disappointed way, "It probably won't
be as exciting as you think it will be." And in one way he was right -- it
was a small and rather homey event, the Dogtown gallery is small, and the butterfly nursery right now consists of three plastic snack containers, each containing a stick and a pale green chrysalis.<br />
<br />
But it's a
big idea -- to help a few butterflies make it through a vulnerable time. To save a species. It comes out of the desire of big hearts. I like that
the Pringles are sharing the butterfly nursery with the seniors and the community, and sharing this documentary with the larger world.<br />
<br />
It's a small effort in one way, but not so small<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">, the way taking care of a new baby is domestic, but in no way unimportant. </span>This gift to the monarchs and the community took many hours of filming and editing, and all night watch-keeping over munching caterpillars, silent chrysalises, and emerging butterflies. It took eyes, hands, hearts and souls, and a community of folks who will sing Happy Birthday to the winged things to help ensure that next time we look, there might still be monarchs flying over the Prairie State on their way to Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's a good and noble effort.<br />
<br />
The News Gazette article that led me to the butterfly open house can be seen at<a href="http://www.news-gazette.com/environment/2013-06-26/butterfly-open-house-works.html" target="_blank"> http://www.news-gazette.com/environment/2013-06-26/butterfly-open-house-works.html</a> , and the Pringles' video of the documentary is on YouTube at<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwb50jDl6r0">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwb50jDl6r0</a>. </div>
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-84594075044675064792013-06-13T13:45:00.004-05:002013-06-16T10:08:42.415-05:00Adventures in Wild Illinois<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-asDL-f8hMnc/UboKmkHD5MI/AAAAAAAADY8/hOMuaWSXSJc/s1600/IMG_1152.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-asDL-f8hMnc/UboKmkHD5MI/AAAAAAAADY8/hOMuaWSXSJc/s320/IMG_1152.JPG" width="213" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PH2rQ0aVDNs/UboKA_ZkjhI/AAAAAAAADYU/dCvrFgezvTA/s1600/IMG_1018.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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Saturday, June 8, was National Get Outdoors day. Did you? It's not too late!</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2hmTVUJkR0/UboPRuAgTMI/AAAAAAAADZM/wRVKLYDf3Xw/s1600/IMG_1168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2hmTVUJkR0/UboPRuAgTMI/AAAAAAAADZM/wRVKLYDf3Xw/s320/IMG_1168.JPG" width="213" /></a>Yesterday, my daughter and I took the two boys, aged 6 and 10, out to Homer Lake for a hike. Hiking with boys is very different from the kind of nature-communing walk I usually take by myself in the woods or prairie.<br />
<br />
I did tell them they would be more likely to see some wildlife if they were quiet, but when you go hiking with young and imaginative explorers and adventurers, it's not always quiet. Well, we were outside, so it was hard to argue against "using our outside voices."<br />
<br />
We imagined that Sasquatch was following us, and laying traps for us. We were ready with sticks for bears and mountain lions. And we had a map of the trails to get us back to the parking lot. We came face to face with a white tailed deer, and saw a butterfly that sat as still as a yellow leaf. We followed the stream. We found a colony of mushrooms. <br />
<br />
But the map didn't make a lot of sense, so every time we came to a fork in the path, someone got to say which way to go (me, because they <i>thought</i> I knew the way). Every time we came to a marker that said, "Exit," we took it. There were many such markers, and we were tired and thirsty when we got to the road 1 1/2 hours later! Turned out we'd ended up just where we started, but the better for wear.<br />
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Last week, I drove out to Sangamon Forest
preserve and had a small adventure of my own.<br />
<br />
The weather was perfect, not too hot for a walk in the sunny prairie
there. The prairie is so different from Meadowbrook, maybe because it's on
higher ground than the surrounding area, woods and river. The penstemon was
blooming like crazy, but not as much blue spiderwort there as at Meadowbrook. I noticed some little
yellow flowers (not sure what they are, a sort of pale yellow petal, arranged
radially, five petals, and sort of spiky leaves. A few coneflowers were
starting to bloom, and I think they are later at Meadowbrook. The baptisia
spikes were sparking into blossom, too, also earlier than at Meadowbrook.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b1kQ_4XLDOY/UboKGHSJQMI/AAAAAAAADYc/vOARhe7uIaM/s1600/IMG_1044.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b1kQ_4XLDOY/UboKGHSJQMI/AAAAAAAADYc/vOARhe7uIaM/s320/IMG_1044.JPG" width="320" /></a> I could hear dickcissels and saw one
or two on a stalk -- there aren't many old dead stalks, since they burned that
whole prairie, last fall, I think. l I walked for about
an hour around the prairie, and then went down the hill to the path into the
woods and along the river. Earlier this spring, it was flooded and I couldn't
get down there. This time it looked to be not so wet. A park
volunteer who was collecting samples of invasive plants told me it was "squishy" down there, and that the mower had
skidded in the mud on the path,
but I went down the path anyway, thinking I might get a little muddy.<br />
<br />
There
were some spots where the path was a puddle, and I thought, well, I don't mind
getting the tops of my sneakers wet. Then finally, there was a spot I couldn't
get through without going over the tops of the sneakers, so I rolled my pants
legs up and thought, as long as it's not past my shins, I'm ok. That was the
worst one and then it was uphill for a while. There were indigo buntings in the
trees, and a blue jay. I was so focused on not falling in the slippery, stinky mud, I
wasn't paying that much attention to the birds. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tWUFRUB7QLA/UboKI6mSqrI/AAAAAAAADYk/JmWYjdOgurs/s1600/IMG_1041.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tWUFRUB7QLA/UboKI6mSqrI/AAAAAAAADYk/JmWYjdOgurs/s320/IMG_1041.JPG" width="320" /></a>When I got to the river, there
was that huge, ancient turtle sprawled on a stone. I couldn't see him well from the
bench I'd sat down on, so went closer to the bank for a
closer view and a photo. But the bank was slick and muddy, and my feet starting
slipping. I was praying I wouldn't land in the lake. I put my camera strap over
my head so it wouldn't get wet, and grabbed at a branch as I started to slide.
The branch broke, and I was close to the edge, bracing one foot against
a wet tree trunk, trying
to push myself up to a standing position and turn around so I
could climb back up. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4EN37rzR9Q4FzydNVMxGThQ7X7c4ZC84bD7fORYhrEZeM7qcXuj-uqbjMitZ17CB2XPRy0qSQRRe3v8m6-DuOqHgKT8rIihyr6unbiCeWlMgnIzb5FVmTK-YczZ4XOfqk41o0wQPsb4KE/s1600/IMG_1057.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4EN37rzR9Q4FzydNVMxGThQ7X7c4ZC84bD7fORYhrEZeM7qcXuj-uqbjMitZ17CB2XPRy0qSQRRe3v8m6-DuOqHgKT8rIihyr6unbiCeWlMgnIzb5FVmTK-YczZ4XOfqk41o0wQPsb4KE/s320/IMG_1057.JPG" width="213" /></a>My feet kept getting mired in the mud, and I was hoping I
wouldn't end up sitting in that mucky, foul-smelling mud. My legs splayed
out and the only way I could lever myself up was to put one knee down in the
mud, grab the tree trunk and twist myself around. Finally, I
got up the hill and had to start laughing. One knee was covered in mud, my
hands and face streaked, my shoes squshing and oozing stink with every step,
my socks sodden, and coating of mud on the bottom of my camera bag. But the
camera and binoculars were unsullied.<br />
<br />
The turtle was still basking on the rock,
and I went to another, higher and dryer spot closer to the edge, and before I
could pull the camera up to my eye, he slid off the rock and into the water. I
guess he figured the show was over. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I felt as if I'd had a bit of an adventure, and it
hadn't ended too badly. My spirit was renewed, but my sneakers will never be the same.</span><br />
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-81050411054530785922013-05-28T11:56:00.003-05:002013-05-30T11:37:40.244-05:00Framing the landscape<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpr4m3egXOVsvroCRz7QkKxUFqqwnXTGgaplAlXYMXbPLk2Vgpp6BDCdfeDrnrBpA7N1fa1_arUOBwwpsRaoUDtthGuc4x2l0mQNShdKlfSkii0zNgWEJA6ZI1EUg311SqYCL-AE-XEuhz/s1600/IMG_0540c2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpr4m3egXOVsvroCRz7QkKxUFqqwnXTGgaplAlXYMXbPLk2Vgpp6BDCdfeDrnrBpA7N1fa1_arUOBwwpsRaoUDtthGuc4x2l0mQNShdKlfSkii0zNgWEJA6ZI1EUg311SqYCL-AE-XEuhz/s320/IMG_0540c2.JPG" width="190" /></a></div>
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Last fall I took the Master Naturalist class, 10 weeks of
all day sessions at the Extension office and the parks and forest preserves of
Champaign County, hoping to learn the scientific part of the way the prairie
fits in to the natural world and the state of Illinois, to tap into knowledge
of the names and workings of things natural, and to get some hands-on (and
boots in the mud) experience of prairie, rivers, woods, creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that the classes are done, I realize I
barely dipped a toe in. I wonder how many years, how many walks, how many field
guides and identification websites it might take to really know what makes a
prairie or wetland or woods. I won’t stop walking and looking and learning.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-me7q79rAkTY/UaTgR_DyRwI/AAAAAAAADTM/cQ--zWMZTBs/s1600/IMG_0639.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-me7q79rAkTY/UaTgR_DyRwI/AAAAAAAADTM/cQ--zWMZTBs/s320/IMG_0639.JPG" width="320" /></a>This spring, I'm on to another class and another approach to
seeing the world. I'm reading Christine Valters Paintner's book on photography
as a contemplative practice, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eyes of the
Heart</i>, and have joined her online class, which offers exercises and an
online community of photographers and "monks" who share the images
they've received and thoughts about the process from wherever they are (in many
parts of the US and around the world). </div>
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The class is in its 4th week, as I start this blogpost. This
week the focus is on color. When I walked in Meadowbrook park on Monday, I
especially was drawn to the peonies blooming in the sensory garden -- the deep
pinks, roses, whites tinged with blue or pink, the lilacs blooming in different
shades of lavender, the closed buds darker, the open flowers against the blue
sky and white clouds. Spring has opened up in the week I was away. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH1ZHeKHaT_A2YlDoHV2pt7SI5AxrJ9Prmy1qMkEk0Hu6HXWe_wpkeKGFkaf-46AqQOmWa25wr8uruaL2kI2rD_URLcMxrTV93mjP0_uKdvzkpS9-LhI2Y6zTZu7Yit15ioAaAWVReZ-GI/s1600/IMG_0714.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH1ZHeKHaT_A2YlDoHV2pt7SI5AxrJ9Prmy1qMkEk0Hu6HXWe_wpkeKGFkaf-46AqQOmWa25wr8uruaL2kI2rD_URLcMxrTV93mjP0_uKdvzkpS9-LhI2Y6zTZu7Yit15ioAaAWVReZ-GI/s320/IMG_0714.JPG" width="208" /></a>Color feels to me like something to submerge myself in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I loved particularly a small bee with
iridescent wings, sitting in a deep rose colored peony flower with golden
stamens. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When stilled, the bee had
caught every color inside those tiny veined wings, to reflect it out again to
the world. Such beauty is not rare, but to still oneself long enough to notice
and receive such an ephemeral moment, is something I want be able to do more
readily. </div>
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Paintner’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eyes
of the Heart</i> is the text for the class, and she offers a view of
photography as a contemplative practice, as well as a new vocabulary.. The usual language of photography, in
which we “take” photographs, “capture” images, is replaced by that of
grace and contemplation – we “receive” images and the camera becomes a
spiritual tool for “beholding” the world around us. </div>
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Last week's lesson was focus and framing, and it seemed
perfect and full of synchronicity that it happened while I was in Iowa, on
retreat at the Abbey of our Lady of the Mississippi with a group of friends. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UbjQiBPV0QE/UaThSvgbWPI/AAAAAAAADTk/pafQXal5uoA/s1600/IMG_0426.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UbjQiBPV0QE/UaThSvgbWPI/AAAAAAAADTk/pafQXal5uoA/s320/IMG_0426.JPG" width="320" /></a>I’ve been there before; this trip has become an annual event.
It is a time out of the world, and into the world in a deeper way. I had
brought “projects” to work on, but my main project was to rest, relax, walk,
read, write, be. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We noticed how much we
were sighing, sighs of release and satisfaction, rest and contentment.</div>
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Every day when I stepped out of the stone house for a walk
around the grounds in whatever direction drew me that day, I would stand for a
moment, surrounded by a panorama of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>rolling hills, grass, woods, plowed fields ready for planting, roads
that looked as if they led curving and turning all the way to the river, and
overhead sky, sky and more sky, wishing for a way to "capture" the
totality of the place on film</div>
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To photograph, I'd need to frame things up, focus on small bits
and their relationships. Everywhere I looked were fences, roads, what humans
use to mark boundaries of ownership and use. Those boundaries don't stop
nature. The farm pond was raucous with small frogs and toads, calling their mates. The birds sat on the fences and sang to the open sky. The lines plowed
in the brown earth by the tractors,beautiful in their abstraction, curved in parallels along the natural boundary of the tree line, and
when I looked at the photo I was surprised by the contrast of the orderly
furrows against the wonderful chaos of trees and brush. The fences were twined with weeds
and vines, and everywhere was evident the human attempt at order against the lovely chaotic
wildness of birds, trees, grasses, wildflowers. And above all that, the sky --
some days open and blue, changing at every time of day from sunrise to sunset
to starlight, sometimes sunny sometimes gray, sometimes a mist rising from the
hills on the other side of the Mississippi River.
Each day, a heron that flew over the arc of sky -- around the same time each
day, like a clock's hand sweeping by. The fields, as a friend said, "are happy with bobolinks and redwinged blackbirds." I wandered alone there, and we four wandered together happily and peacefully. We had nothing we needed to do but whatever we chose for that day. Everyone should have a week like this every once in a while.</div>
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The class, for which I am not doing anything but what I've
always done -- walk, contemplate, use the camera to frame and observe, has
given me a new perspective and a chance to "look at how I am looking." Paintner talks of
"receiving" photos rather than "taking" or
"shooting," and I find that while it's a little awkard saying that's
what I'm doing, I like that perspective very much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't want to be a big game hunter of photographic
images -- that has never felt respectful to me, either of the creatures and
plants and scenes I've "gotten" on film -- or or myself and my own
process. I find, using Paintner's process of "visio divina" -- a
meditative way to be with a photo or image based on the "lectio divina"
(a reading aloud practice used in contemplative communities)-- I often am led
to see something I didn't notice at the moment the camera shutter was clicked.
There can be an invitation to a moment -- and it can be deepened in reflection.<br />
<br />
Here's a bit of video I took at the pond. If you look carefully, jjust where the reeds meet the water, you can see the toad, sitting upright, his throat sac ballooning out as he calls.<br />
<br />
And here's the link to Christine Valters Paintner's website, the Abbey of the Arts:<br />
http://abbeyofthearts.com/<br />
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Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-11931558106742963842013-05-07T08:34:00.000-05:002013-05-07T08:34:57.047-05:00Keeping up with spring<br />
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I can't remember the last time I
was at Sangamon Forest Preserve -- late last summer maybe. I went last Tuesday, and enjoyed the drive on a sunny spring day. As I approached the park, a hawk flew very low over the road,
and a heron stretched his neck to look out over the river. In the park, nothing
much was happening on the prairie -- but when I say that, am I really looking
very carefully? It was hot in the sun, and I really wanted to walk in the woods
and along the river instead, where I knew there might be more birds and maybe
wildflowers blooming. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1JmktFHJ90/UYfD718_DsI/AAAAAAAADOo/p1S1rwaW4Rw/s1600/IMG_0069c.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1JmktFHJ90/UYfD718_DsI/AAAAAAAADOo/p1S1rwaW4Rw/s320/IMG_0069c.JPG" width="320" /></a>They've done some work on the park. New informational signage has been put up along the
trail since the with information about the
land, about the concrete block house nearby, blocks made by the
owner out of natural materials he found on the land; and there's info about the natural
features too. Several new benches were scattered along the trail. At one, I
sat down to watch a huge turtle basking on the opposite bank -- so big he was,
like a Thanksgiving dinner turkey platter -- his shell maybe 2 feet long. His
head was stretched up, his snout sort of long. Not sure what species it was -- there are 17 turtle species in Illinois.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hvt2hYsb8ps/UYfEIo2KcFI/AAAAAAAADOw/GGftdrhHdr4/s1600/IMG_0090.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hvt2hYsb8ps/UYfEIo2KcFI/AAAAAAAADOw/GGftdrhHdr4/s320/IMG_0090.JPG" width="320" /></a> Nearby on some half-submerged logs, a group
of smaller turtles sat, their shells grayish and dry in the sun, dull and dented as old tin pots.
The river was bursting its banks, and the ephemeral pond -- I hadn't ever seen
it before, having only gone in dry seasons, I guess -- covered a lot of ground. The
sound of frogs -- western chorus frogs and something else -- like those ones we
hear in our neighbor's yard -- a drone that filled the air with buzzing sound.
Saw a grosbeak and his mate. Heard many birds I couldn't find or identify, in
addition to cardinals, blue jays, red winged blackbirds. I took photos of
turtles and frogs. I didn't walk more than an hour, but I
was tired afterwards -- that walk at Sangamon is
hillier than Meadowbrook or Busey Woods. </div>
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I went to walk in Meadowbrook prairie on Sunday, though it was gray and rainy. Actually, it was warm and the rain was just a drizzle, so I
could still take the camera. not that many people were out because it
wasn't sunny and balmy. The grasses are definitely coming up, the trees are all
in bloom, the rattlesnake master is spearing up boldly. <br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4kddaysiyoo/UYfEU6fxvsI/AAAAAAAADO4/gF6xxk8U2xE/s1600/IMG_0163.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4kddaysiyoo/UYfEU6fxvsI/AAAAAAAADO4/gF6xxk8U2xE/s320/IMG_0163.JPG" width="320" /></a>The prairie was abloom with
yellow wild mustard flowers, the first thing I've seen blooming there. A blue jay flashed color, white tailed
deer looked a question at me near the stream crossing . I photographed the raindrop ripples in the
stream and in the puddles, and stood transfixed at a huge puddle in the path,
struck by the layers of things to look at -- reflections of the blooming
trees, grasses bright green poking up through the water, the sky reflected,
the mud below cut with deer hoofprints, and then the rain sprinkled
down and I was dazzled by the concentric circles of the ripples everywhere, an abstract composition of water on water, the radiating circles, the rain
on my head and in the puddle. I felt as if I were entranced by the many ways water reflects. The water is the substance, the light what
lets us look at it and know it. </div>
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When I got home, I took photos of the blooming crabapple
tree at the front of the house, from down below, and from the top of the steps,
and the Japanese maple is unfurling its deep red leaves, and full
of hanging seeds just forming. At Meadowbrook, I'd photographed an oak tree with
hanging "flowers" and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>some
maple trees also, touched by the tenderness and abundance of these flowers that I'd never noticed before.. </div>
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So much happens so fast in spring, it's such a contrast
to the slowness of the winter. Does time move at the same pace all year? It
seems as though we've whipped around a corner and it feels a little dizzying.
All winter I felt impatient with the slowness and the sense that nothing was
happening and might never happen again, and now I feel out of breath -- trying
to keep pace with spring.</div>
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-33362267990414831242013-04-26T15:26:00.000-05:002013-04-26T16:15:17.745-05:00100,000 Verses on a Prairie Walk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On our weekly drive through Crystal Lake park Saturday, Tom and I saw two
turtles (first of the year) on a log. One, with a dry shell, must have been
sitting there basking for a while; the other, still shining with water, had
just climbed up into the sunshine.</div>
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In our yard, <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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rosebreasted grosbeak , red finches, white throated sparrows and white-crowned sparrows. The bluebells are open, calling to the bees. </span> </div>
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On Sunday afternoon, I went to Meadowbrook park to walk and bask
in the fine spring weather. I was not the only person to think this was a good
way to spend the afternoon. The place was crowded with walking, running,
playing, laughing, talking, and gardening people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Entering the soft path, I passed a group of
four teenagers, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>barefoot and walking in
the stream. "Isn't it cold?" I asked. It still seemed like jacket
weather to me. And I don't think I'd be walking barefoot in
there – no telling what's on the bottom. "No," one<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>kid
said. "It feels really good." </div>
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The flickers were still there -- I counted at least 10,
flying across the path into the grove from the dried up prairie grasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poking up through the grasses, green shoots,
prairie dock, grasses, other things it's too early to identify. I slogged through some very wet and
muddy spots and I was glad I'd worn my bog boots. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P_mH7L-Px38/UXrOUjD6VnI/AAAAAAAADM4/M1-Fjpk-siQ/s1600/IMG_9964.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P_mH7L-Px38/UXrOUjD6VnI/AAAAAAAADM4/M1-Fjpk-siQ/s320/IMG_9964.JPG" width="320" /></a>Crossing the bridge, I <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was surprised by five deer nibbling fresh
green leaves,their brown fur camouflaging them in the brush, and I had stopped to watch them, munching nonchalantly, when a
young woman came over the bridge, towing a tiny dog on a leash and talking on
her cell phone. I overheard her saying, "It's the parking lot near the
hobo shack."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knew there was a
hobo shack in the park? Who knew there were still people that used the word “hobo”?
She paid no attention to the dog, and definitely didn't see the five silent
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I guess everyone has her own purpose for being in the
park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I came back around to the bridge
near the barn, I stopped to watch a yellow-rumped warbler in the brush, and try
to get it to pose while showing me his front instead of his rump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three guys came near, two men and a teenager.
One of them had a camera with an unusual looking flash attachment. I thought
they'd found a bird too, and when they came close, I asked what they'd found to
photograph. The man with the camera indicated the boy was the subject of the
photos. I said I was was watching a warbler and he said, "a
bird?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I'm foolish if I think
everyone is there with the same agenda as mine. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uG_LDkxJ1SOh5fQaDG7FveJIPzVz2nE1ldAQEAHCPxGrevE5PiYLJ9ScdbqO5xKvD3ClvPxb0MAPuCTupCrFLGO-9IxdNyBGD2SBoLCTImFKVx7yRrcroHGUmzMrBJi0X3nWRyjbQm_U/s1600/IMG_9968crop.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uG_LDkxJ1SOh5fQaDG7FveJIPzVz2nE1ldAQEAHCPxGrevE5PiYLJ9ScdbqO5xKvD3ClvPxb0MAPuCTupCrFLGO-9IxdNyBGD2SBoLCTImFKVx7yRrcroHGUmzMrBJi0X3nWRyjbQm_U/s320/IMG_9968crop.JPG" width="227" /></a>The thought crossed my mind that now that it is spring, I
might want to change my routine so I can go to the prairie when not so many
people are there -- they scare the birds, are noisy in their conversation,
crunching through the paths, throwing stones and sticks in the water, dropping
trash, talking on cell phones, etc. I know the park is for the use of all, but
I like to see critters, and they like it quiet and undisturbed. I suspect early
morning would be a better time to encounter more critters and fewer humans. The
sun is rising earlier, and when I meditate it’s too high and shines right in my
eyes. Why not just get up a little earlier and solve two problems at once?<br />
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I was reading the Dalai Lama’s book about the Heart
Sutra, and it mentioned a title I liked: “One hundred thousand verses on the
perfection of wisdom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a lot of
verses. I wish I could write, “One hundred thousand verses on a prairie path.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I already have, if I counted them up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s one of those titles that does multilevel
duty. The scrawled worm paths in a dead log, on a leaf, all are messages for me to read, and everything I see is a verse. I don’t think I could sit down and write
100,000 verses. But listen!. Nature speaks back. Or maybe nature spoke first,
and I am responding. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheihcCV7KC-ixdo6SibphlEThPRIbfiASkCih1RGE5e6NuE9tze4lymBp6KBquZ5OHAMvER65jLT_BJJlRCyLimWiK6kU42Q2BafXKtnpo0JrdMWJ0Ij_Ktsvw8aWuziTwznWVGEuaIBzk/s1600/IMG_9953.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheihcCV7KC-ixdo6SibphlEThPRIbfiASkCih1RGE5e6NuE9tze4lymBp6KBquZ5OHAMvER65jLT_BJJlRCyLimWiK6kU42Q2BafXKtnpo0JrdMWJ0Ij_Ktsvw8aWuziTwznWVGEuaIBzk/s320/IMG_9953.JPG" width="320" /></a>I was reading, too, about form and emptiness. It's not the
kind of thing I can understand with logic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I see myself walking in the winter’s dead prairie, as if I am
tumbling through time, and there are the forms empty of life, the dead stalks
falling, and the green blades arising from under them. Soon the old thatch will
be hard to see among the green lushness, the blossoms, the now flowering. Now
the park is full of people, because it's spring, when the winter walks were
lonesome. The dead stalks disintegrate little by little, releasing what they
held back into earth and air and water, their fire is long gone. Spring fires
up in the new green. I don't know if I understand at all the flow of emptiness
and form, of life and matter and energy, of impermanence and the present
moment. I just know, as I tumble through time, that I want to be true to this
moment, true to myself. </div>
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Those four teenagers I saw, I realize they are changing as I
look at them, and once I pass them, they will not be as they were. Or I as I was. For a
moment, they remind me of a composed painting, one leaning over a fallen log,
one in barefoot arabesque in the middle of the stream. One who looks past me,
one who meets my eye, a shirtless, tender-skinned boy with reddish hair; he is
the one who greets me and draws me into the tableau, into conversation,
encounter. Then, I walk past, and the tableau changes, I am certain, while I am
not looking at it. I pass them again, coming towards me, farther down the path;
the four of them tramping single file down the wet path. The same boy who
greeted me earlier is the only one who greets me again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And later, on the way out of the prairie,
where the paths are muddy, there are places that look like ponds instead of
paths. I see one large bare footprint, the big toe's impression spread out as
if pressed down as if, I imagine, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">without my eyes to hamper him, </span>the
boy lifted off and flew away. </div>
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-25146125627138610952013-04-12T10:44:00.000-05:002013-04-12T10:48:08.392-05:00Dear Reader...<br />
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<i><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TohdNpaPfzM/UWLiEGCYIvI/AAAAAAAADJw/qvuwXnIYvmA/s1600/IMG_9832.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TohdNpaPfzM/UWLiEGCYIvI/AAAAAAAADJw/qvuwXnIYvmA/s320/IMG_9832.JPG" width="213" /></a>Harshness gone. All at once caring spreads over/the naked gray of the meadows. -- Rilke</i><br />
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Sunday afternoon, I went out to Meadowbrook, the day was
perfectly springy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were a lot of
people out and about. I really
prefer to go on a weekday when kids are in school and most adults are at work. It's a different and livelier experience to share the park with
other people. In one of my favorite bird watching spots, a family has set up a picnic spot, the mother reading on the bench, the bikes parked next to her,
a blanket spread on the ground, and two small children playing near the stream. The little boy, maybe 5 years
old, tosses branches and twigs into the water, making a beaver dam, he says. I usually sit on that bench for a few minutes, but on Sunday I walk past them stopping to ask the kids if they’d found any frogs (they hadn’t). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><br />
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In the prairie, a bluebird lands on a tall
stem, and just as I am about to snap a photo, a woman and a big black dog come
crashing through. She apologizes, and I say, well that bird wasn’t being very cooperative anyway. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U7zlmjfVR1g/UWLiDI8G3KI/AAAAAAAADJo/NmokpAtB6H0/s1600/IMG_9850crop1.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U7zlmjfVR1g/UWLiDI8G3KI/AAAAAAAADJo/NmokpAtB6H0/s320/IMG_9850crop1.JPG" width="320" /></a>There trees were alive with birds -- a brown creeper, bluebirds,
redwings, some other little brown jobs, and in the wooded area, a great flock of
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There was something awesome about stopping to watch them -- they are large and
regal birds, with strong and unusual colors -- the red mark on the head, the black crescent on the breast, the long yellow tail feathers. When they fly, there's a hushed flapping. There were so many of them Sunday, in the woods and even landing on the path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another couple of birdwatchers with binocs
and cameras were on the path coming from the other side, and we stood,
bracketing the birds from either direction for a long time, watching in silence for fear of scaring them off. I know now that
I've seen those birds before, flying off too quickly for me to get an identification-- by the white patch feathers above the tail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nn0fo3cX9lM/UWLiNz-Mr9I/AAAAAAAADKI/47GKK-bX-kc/s1600/IMG_9862crop3.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nn0fo3cX9lM/UWLiNz-Mr9I/AAAAAAAADKI/47GKK-bX-kc/s320/IMG_9862crop3.JPG" width="320" /></a>Dear reader, as I walk, I'm thinking about you, who shares these walks and reads these offerings, and how thankful I am to know you are there. I know because you sometimes email me to comment on what you've seen or what I've said, and sometimes when we meet in town you tell me what's blooming or flying past your place, and what joys or aches the seasons bring. I like hearing from you, and knowing that these writings do reach you.<br />
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The walks themselves are solo essays into this small prairie world. Walking with others is very different from walking alone. If I'm with another, there will be conversation, not silent listening to the world around me. People tend to focus on each other, not on their surroundings. That's as it should be. <br />
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The writing is solitary also, as it must be, a silent communion (or struggle) with my memory, thoughts, reflections. Once it's published to the digital world, that's a different story. While I began this blog/journal to be a personal practice of walking, observing, writing, I think of it not as a private or personal journal but something that I want to share. I like to hear too, about what others are witnessing on their walks. So it could, I imagine, turn into a very slow and maybe long-distance sort of dialogue. <br />
<br />
I'm thinking, too,
about snowbirds, my friends who went away for the winter and will be coming back
soon, I hope. And friends who have moved away to warmer climes. When the migrant birds return, how right things feel again, and how
much lively music there is in the air. At home, I 'm waiting for the
catbirds' return -- their singing is so cheerful, brash and varied. When they
are back, I start to feel things are as they should be. I'm waiting, too, for Sharon, and Susan, Merianne and Suellen and Bill to make a return visit.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I heard the
white throated sparrow. He's back! The finches, who have been around all winter, again turning
bright yellow instead of that drab greenish brown. And in the prairie, I'm waiting for the dickcissels and the common
yellowthroats, One by one they return, spring unfolding bird by bird, leaf by leaf, blossom by blossom.</div>
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634348330735383194.post-69467513701979574732013-04-02T09:31:00.000-05:002013-04-02T09:50:23.621-05:00The Bluebell Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LfqEY81dfm0/UVmk_0VWscI/AAAAAAAADHo/0EY5rS1q_7Y/s1600/IMG_9744.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LfqEY81dfm0/UVmk_0VWscI/AAAAAAAADHo/0EY5rS1q_7Y/s320/IMG_9744.JPG" width="320" /></a>Sunday, I went out to take the compost out to the growing
heap in the back yard, and saw, coming back, a mourning cloak butterfly
swooping past me -- off to find some secretly blooming thing it already knew all about. I was surprised to see it so early
-- just last week a foot of snow got dumped in our area. Two days
later it was mostly melted, and by Sunday, it is "suddenly"
spring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> On my way back to the house, </span>I stopped to check on the
bluebells, and though there hadn't been a sign of them before the snow,
yesterday the first purple leaves were curling up, reaching towards green --
taller than I would have expected after two sort of warm days, showing small lavender buds, tiny
and tight-fisted, but definitely there. So my bluebell watch begins in earnest. I will
try to photograph them every day and watch their progress over the season, and
report the finding on budburst.com.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I went to the site today to register my yard, finding the latitude and longitude on a Google map. I can't really report until the flowers are in full bloom. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-027tp-AGBSs/UVmlLT9n6XI/AAAAAAAADH4/jucox1JgKP8/s1600/IMG_9721.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-027tp-AGBSs/UVmlLT9n6XI/AAAAAAAADH4/jucox1JgKP8/s320/IMG_9721.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parakeet flowers in the Meadowbrook herb garden</td></tr>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">On Friday, </span>when Mary and I were done with our regular Friday-afternoon-at-the-library writing date, I
went out to the prairie for a walk with the camera. In the herb garden, those
things I'm used to calling blue flags (are they some kind of trillium? they do have a tripleness to their petals. Maybe they are some sort of iris) are still in bloom. Some are purple, and the most splashy one has coloring that reminds me of a parakeet. A young man is there setting
up his tripod and camera to take a photo of those parakeet flowers. I was
surprised that after two weeks they still are gorgeously blooming.
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qxJo7A098A0/UVmlPOphoEI/AAAAAAAADIA/9okI_TfPUFw/s1600/IMG_9713.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qxJo7A098A0/UVmlPOphoEI/AAAAAAAADIA/9okI_TfPUFw/s320/IMG_9713.JPG" width="213" /></a>The prairie is still unspringlike -- though I thought I saw
some flies or some kind of flying insects zipping past me. There's no green
there yet, even under the thatch, nothing but cold brown dirt. But then the prairie
tends to be a late bloomer. I can identify with that. After the melting of last week's foot of snow, only small
stubborn dirty snow patches remain where the sun has not gotten to it, and
the trails look like streams and ponds instead of walking paths. I
imagine that water seeping into the ground, stirring up the ground and swelling the seeds. This spring's progress is a back and
forth seesaw of cold, snow, wintry weather, and springy<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sun, warmth, rain. Eventually we'll get there
-- to full blooming spring, the unfolding of it. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtIKhVrqVuR8978sYJilC2GwsNbDXcyqEfmBw_AIx-lEtySPsv0zwOdOlLy61RTnz6_zsiYFW9DjpEcZVEBt3sVRkqSHmH8u9tHrXy634xigkEQPXltHWjUO9Y6bzufllMc9Ekm22Hefm-/s1600/IMG_9707.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtIKhVrqVuR8978sYJilC2GwsNbDXcyqEfmBw_AIx-lEtySPsv0zwOdOlLy61RTnz6_zsiYFW9DjpEcZVEBt3sVRkqSHmH8u9tHrXy634xigkEQPXltHWjUO9Y6bzufllMc9Ekm22Hefm-/s320/IMG_9707.JPG" width="213" /></a>As I walk, I hear the red winged blackbirds, and something
else, a thin, sweet piping sound. I see what I think is a phoebe. And some
other birds, larger, that I don't get a good enough look at to identify. In the prairie path, it is very quiet. Near the woods and stream, I hear more birds
and the sound of running water, the stream snowmelt full. The
sound is a joyful one, to me, with its many notes and voices. At the
bridge I watch bubbles that form at the bottom of a small fall over barely submerged logs. Running forward, they catch between some sticks. There's a
playfulness about them -- joining up in a group, then leaping
over a barrier, then off again. To watch those bubbles is like watching children at
play, unselfconsciousness, without a purpose or intent, letting
themselves be swept up in the water's flow.. </div>
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I've been waiting, impatiently all this early spring season when it has seemed like nothing is ever going to happen. We've turned the corner on the dark and cold of winter, and now it's in the air, palpable knowing that spring has begun. This is the season of dreaming, the season that holds all
potential -- before the summer with its drought or tornados, before the
japanese beetles eat the rosebuds, before disappointments or successes -- the dream before reality sets in with all the things we
didn't realize we'd have to prepare to battle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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For myself, it is a time to imagine what I want
for the summer, how the year could play out in the best of all worlds. What will I plant? Where will I travel? What will I imagine into being? What is
really important to accomplish, given the limitations that are sure to come that are outside of my control? What I can control: my responses to
what comes. My outlook. My heartsong.<br />
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Bluebell idenfication information from budburst.com: http://budburst.org/pdfs/idguides/Virginiabluebells_id.pdf</div>
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<br />Karen Kowalski Singerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06844122246419380847noreply@blogger.com0