Come walk with me in the peak Autumn beauty of the Northwoods. To say that I love this time of year is an understatement. Most everyone can appreciate the colorful falling leaves---it reveals the 'true self' of a tree when its leaves are no longer producing chlorophyll. Their true colors are revealed, and there is something simple … [Read More...]
Archives for September 2014
Gleanings from September
September has flown by it seems. These are the last weeks of summer and the introduction to fall. There is the scare of frost that pushes one to fling bed sheets over potted annuals and tender basil and tomato plants because we cannot bear to see their darkened, wilted leaves just yet. Later, we resign ourselves to its inevitability–but that is an October state of mind. We want to hang on to the warmth and jubilant growth and production of summer–even as we see the reverse process going on right before our eyes–the cooling, turning, falling, and wilting.
Bees still feed on sedum flowers, though not with the busy energy of playing children. They are placid and slow in the coolness.
A Buck moth–so named because it emerges during the rutting season of whitetail bucks–clings to the prairie grass at St. John’s Arboretum. It looks as if it wears a warm fur coat to get it through its short, egg-laying Autumn life.
One afternoon as I walked out our driveway, I looked up at the top of a dead spruce tree. Birds perched like Christmas ornaments on its branches. Most of them flew away before I got a good look at them with the camera, but I discovered they were Cedar waxwings.
Another visitor to the dead spruce was a Northern flicker, stout of body and bill with the red nape of its Woodpecker family. It’s one of the only woodpeckers to feed on the ground and to migrate from its northern areas.
In September we saw some of our frequent yard visitors mature into young adulthood. The small, spotted, twin fawns now looked muscular with thick coats, and I had a feeling of sadness to think of them in the sight of a gun instead of my camera.
The young turkeys, once scurrying balls of feathers, were indistinguishable from the adult females who wrangled them around all summer. Their feathers shone in the sunlight with the diverse markings and rich copper, brown, and bronze colors of the adult bird.
I carried out an amphibian rescue from the deep egress window well on the northeast side of our house after our Black lab would run to it and peer over the edge at the critters who had inadvertently fallen into the abyss. Three Tiger salamanders, two Leopard frogs and a Partridge in a…..no, I mean a chubby, bumpy, brown toad.
(This one is so shimmery and pretty!)
And finally, I wanted to show you my favorite fern–Northern Maidenhair–with a whorl of lighter green fronds floating on dark, wiry stems. They grow along the shady narrow road that climbs the bluff from the bank of the Mississippi River at Cassville, Wisconsin to the cemetery where Chris’ folks are buried. That’s the first place I remember seeing them. These grew where the woods and the wetlands merged at St. John’s Arboretum. My attempt to establish them at our place has met with disappointment, as our hilltop sandy soil drained away the moisture they require. But I’m not giving up yet–Chris has a project going that may be the solution to my problem….
It is human nature to not want to let go of the things in life we love or that give us pleasure. Summer is a pleasurable time in Minnesota, a time we do not take for granted. It is short and sweet, and we want to hold on to that sweetness. But the night temperatures fall into the thirties, the colorful, fallen leaves cover the green grass, the produce from the garden is mostly all harvested, and the denial of what’s coming is getting pried away by reality. We get out our warmer clothes that have been put aside, not even put away, and we start to make our mental list of things that need to be done before winter. We rescue what we can, and with loving appreciation we let go and give the other up to God. We move on to our October state of mind.
The Prairie and the Wetlands
In a single short hike at St. John’s Arboretum, one encounters three distinct environments–the prairie, the wetlands, and the woodlands. My last post showcased the amazing fall colors of the woodland maple trees; this post will share a glimpse of the wetlands and prairie. The trail is called the Boardwalk Loop and has two stretches of floating boardwalks across the wetlands. I like the blues and greens of the Monet-looking artwork of duckweed medium by the artist Wind–probably with the assistance of Waterfowl!
At the far edge of the open water, the bright white of a swan caught my attention. As I was trying to focus in on the swans, I also found a great blue heron standing amid the ducks and the duckweed.
I was unable to identify this sunflower-looking swamp flower growing up through the duckweed and framed by cattails. What a picture of optimism! Sunshine yellow in a sea of green in the fall of the year and the center of attention among the overbearing cattails!
Farther up the boardwalk was a stand of wild rice. Wild rice is a tall aquatic grass that is a valuable food source for waterfowl and red-winged blackbirds, as well as for people. Minnesota is one of the largest producers of cultivated wild rice in the United States. Most of the ripened grains had already fallen or been eaten off the stalks, but the close-up photo shows a stalk with the grains still intact.
As we hiked from the wetlands to the prairie, this towering tree silhouetted against the blue sky and white clouds was one that succumbed to the wetlands. A number of trees along the border were unable to live with their roots in water.
Autumn on the prairie! Asters and goldenrod bloom in bright colors among the stands of prairie grasses. Big bluestem, reaching over five feet tall, makes an impressive show and harkens back to the time when bison roamed the grasslands.
A dried, brown milkweed pod slowly opens to release its fluffy parachuted seeds to the winds. It’s the end of its reproductive cycle in this short Minnesota growing season–or perhaps it’s the beginning….
This tiny showing of Nature’s artwork is part of a priceless collection that we all have available to us to view, appreciate, and wisely and respectfully use. The flora, fauna, food, and beauty that Nature provides in glorious abundance is often taken for granted or dismissed as not important in the economic scheme of things. Every thing has a place and a purpose in this rich cycle of life that connects each living being. Like the tree lost to the wetland and the bison gone from the bluestem prairie, we must make sure that we are not lost to the wrong environment for our circle of life to continue.
Happy 1st Day of Fall
Happy 1st day of Fall to all of you! It is a beautiful autumn day–clear blue sky, bright sunshine, cool temperature, and a tapestry of orange, red, yellow and green leaves. It is the season for picking apples, making apple butter, drinking apple cider, choosing pumpkins, carving jack-o-lanterns, raking leaves, and running through a corn maze. It is harvest time for the farmers, closing time for the cabins and camps that have housed a summer of delightful fun, and hunting time for those who carry a bow or gun for sport or to put food on the table.
Over the weekend, our yard was a wildlife paradise of sorts, as the deer grazed through the delectable offerings one evening and the posse of almost fully grown turkeys swept through the yard at midday with flapping wings and watchful eyes.
The sumac is in all its glory–the understory to yellow-leaved ash and poplars.
We met up with Aaron at St. John’s Arboretum yesterday for a spectacular walk through the woods. The maple leaves glowed against the dark trunks and branches on trees so lofty it took my breath away.
Fallen leaves lined the path through the woods and decorated the ferns and wood nettles with bright spots of color.
Fall is the between season. Most of us do not want to see the end of summer as we wonder how it could have slipped away so quickly. And we regret that things we wanted to do were left undone. Some of us are beginning the dread of winter–few in Minnesota complain that winter isn’t long enough! But in between those wishes to go back to the warmth and the not wanting to go forward to the bitter cold is this cool spot in the timeline. We may end the season of Fall in a blanket of snow, but the beginning is spectacular, and we have many weeks before us of warm days, cool nights, great color, and autumn treasures. Enjoy!
Caterpillars, Cocoons, and Butterflies
I love a good picture book! And Eric Carle is one of the best authors/illustrators for Nature picture books for young children. It is important to teach children about Nature, to introduce them to the natural world, and to instill in them an appreciation for all creation. If you teach children to love Nature, they will respect and care for our Earth.
The winners of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar board books are:
Maggie and Lynda–two of the most beautiful butterflies I know! You both have so much to offer to all the people around you! Maggie, your energy, humor, and goodness reach out and touch people deeply. Lynda, what wisdom and love-in-action you model to those lucky enough to be in your presence. So glad I have spent many years in the company of both of you! I will get your books to you next week!
The other butterfly–Emily–who indeed has migrated far from home–you inspire me every day with your energy, your insight, your compassion, and your love. I still have our Very Hungry Caterpillar book in a box somewhere!
Amy, you are so right that this northern climate going into fall and winter makes one want to spin a cocoon! It’s a good place to be when it’s cold and dark outside. It can be a time of rest, reflection, and rejuvenation–you of all people know the benefit of such a time. And when you spread your wings and your talent and love, we are all blessed by knowing you.
And to my fellow caterpillars, my sisters Brenda and Sam, we all find ourselves in this empty nest struggle–the end of all the years of caring for our kids on a daily basis to the beginning of the years of relating with our adult children. How do we do this?!? No manual for that either. It makes me want to eat chocolate–when I know I should be eating green leaves! And so we work on our next transformation…. Love to you both!
Eric Carle is best known for his children’s books, but when our daughter Emily was in an old bookstore in Ely, MN, she found the book Nature Thoughts–A Selection that was illustrated by Eric Carle! The copyright was 1965 and the original cover price was $1.00!
One of the quotes from this book talks about the changes in Nature–how we are given ‘some beauties’ in every season. My wish for you is to recognize the ‘beauties’ in your life, no matter the season, so you can cherish them, appreciate them, and take good care of them.
Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.
Charles Dickens
From Hungry Caterpillar to Beautiful Butterfly
We lived in Missouri when the kids were little, and we had black walnut trees on our acreage. Messy as they are in autumn when the green nuts fall from the trees and turn tarry black, they are the host tree for the eggs of a magnificent moth. The kids and I found a silken wrapped cocoon among the leaves one day in late summer and brought it into the house. The cocoon resided on the end table under the brass lamp, and for months we didn’t give it much thought. One day I heard a noise–a rattling, shaking noise–coming from the cocoon! And it was moving! In a number of days, the activity inside the cocoon increased until one morning, a wet-looking, bedraggled moth emerged and crawled up the lamp to hang on the lampshade to rest and fill its wings. The wings were bright green with eyespots and long tails on the hind wings. It was a big, beautiful Luna Moth! The kids were so excited that their cocoon had ‘hatched!’ The moth flew around in the house for a few days, then laid rows of brownish eggs on the lampshade. The adult moths do not eat–they mate, lay eggs, and die within a week of emerging from the cocoon.
The whole transforming process of butterflies and moths–from eggs to hungry caterpillars to flying adults–is intriguing and inspiring. It is the iconic metaphor of changes in life–beginnings, development, growth, rest time, transformation and struggle, and the beauty of the emerging self.
I have collected a few photos of butterflies and caterpillars over the summer–others, like the Yellow Swallowtail, teased me with their frequent visits to the flowers, but I just wasn’t able to get their pictures.
The familiar Woolly Bear caterpillar, known for the folklore of predicting the severity of the upcoming winter, is also called the Hedgehog caterpillar because it curls up and ‘plays dead’ when disturbed.
The more interesting fact about this caterpillar is that it overwinters in its caterpillar form, producing a cryoprotectant or natural antifreeze in its tissues that allows it to live frozen all winter. The Woolly Bear caterpillar thaws in the spring and pupates to become the little known but beautifully named Isabella Tiger Moth.
I found a Red Admiral butterfly on a tree up in the Brainerd Lakes Area and a White Admiral right outside our front door.
A Painted Lady graced the Purple Coneflowers at the College of St. Benedict, complementing one another in their colorful beauty.
On a Milkweed plant along the road by our house, a hungry, striped, Monarch caterpillar munched on its food of choice.
At the Butterfly Garden at the College of St. Benedict, a brilliantly colored Monarch in pristine condition alighted on a milkweed flower, while nearby a tattered, pale-colored one rested on buds that were not yet open. What storms and struggles had this faded beauty been through? It must have been close to the end of its 6-week adult life. Only the adults who emerge from the chrysalis in late summer migrate en masse up to 3000 miles to warmer climates.
The transformation of caterpillar to butterfly is illustrated in Eric Carle’s classic children’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
In celebration of two seasons of blogging, I am giving away new 5″ x 7″ board books of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to two readers. ‘Like’ my NorthStarNature Facebook page if you haven’t already, share this post on Facebook or with someone you know, and tell me in your comment if you feel like a caterpillar, chrysalis (cocoon), or butterfly at this time in your life! I will randomly choose two names and let you know the winners on Friday. Thanks to all of you for reading my blog!
A Chilly Morning to See
It was a chilly morning this morning–cool enough to wear long pants, a fleece, and a windbreaker. The dog and I walked our usual morning route. I noticed how the new mullein plants were growing alongside the road. Mullein or Flannel Plant is an introduced biennial from Europe. The first year the plant grows only the soft gray basal leaves. The woolly leaves have been used as wicks for torches, lining for socks and moccasins to insulate from the cold, as diapers, as a balm to soothe sunburn, and as a tea to treat colds. The plant will overwinter in this state.
The second year, the flower stalk grows two to six feet tall with a spike of yellow flowers.
It then dries to a dark brown at this time of year so the seeds can disperse for the next year’s crop of velvet-leaved, first-year plants.
I saw a grasshopper on a milkweed plant, sluggish and slow moving in the cool air. I noticed he was missing a leg. Perhaps the dog had grabbed at the hopper on a previous walk and caused the mishap, since catching grasshoppers seems to be her new preoccupation.
The spotty-leaved red twig dogwood was beginning to show its color, as was the poison ivy.
Then as I looked past the clover patch that I walk by every day, I thought, “What the heck–is that a boat in the grass down there?!” Through the camera lens I could see an old rowboat.
Why had I not noticed that before? It was on the bank of a small drainage pond that was now filled with cattails.
I realized that someone had probably been able to float it in June when we had so much rain and before the cattails grew tall, but it certainly looked out of place now. Out of place in a lovely kind of way.
I consider myself an observant person, but I realize that we often see only what we want to see. I ‘see’ nature everywhere I go–tiny details to movement to the big picture, but I couldn’t care less about ‘seeing’ fashion. When my oldest daughter was in kindergarten, she would come home and tell me exactly what the teacher wore to school that day–and she still ‘sees’ and loves fashion details!
Sometimes we don’t see things that are in plain sight. Now granted, our brains have to filter out many things that are right before our eyes or within hearing distance or touching our skin just because we would be overwhelmed by stimuli if it did not. But often we put our own filters or blinders on what we see and know. And that can be a deterrent to living a full and wonderful life.
So I’m going to be open to ‘see’ more things in my life. Maybe seeing the boat this morning did that for me. And now that I think about it, I did see a pair of brown leather boots that I liked in the latest Eddie Bauer catalog!
“One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?’ ” –Rachel Carson
Flower to Fruit Transformation
In the ‘About Me’ section of my blog, I wrote how I loved the constancy and adaptiveness of Nature. The constancy of Nature occurs in the cyclical motion of the seasons. After a warm, beautiful summer, we know that fall will be easing in and pleasing us with her gorgeous leaf colors and bountiful harvest of pumpkins, apples, carrots, and many other delights. We also know what will be coming after that! This predictable evolution of seasons is marked with transformation, metamorphosis, and change.
In less than three month’s time, the bright white blossoms of the wild plum tree are transformed into ripening fruit surrounded by changing leaves.
The woodland Jack in the Pulpit has become a stalk of brightly colored fruits.
The amazing Buckeye tree with its prolific early summer blooms is now covered with fruit that contains the shiny, brown nut-like seeds.
The delicate wild rose flowers have changed into sturdy rose hips that contain the seeds.
And the dangling white-green flowers of Solomon’s seal are now dark, plump pairs of fruit.
These short-term transformations are really all about Nature doing what Nature does–producing seeds for future growth. The plants adapted to a late spring, a soggy June, a dry July, and a cool August–and still got their work done! The seeds for next year’s ‘crop’ have been produced.
Perhaps I like Nature’s adaptability to change and its many stories of transformation because I’m not very good at change myself. My love of routine and of the things I like, keeps me sailing on a calm sea. If change is coming, I like to see it coming. Nature reminds us that we really aren’t as much in control as we think we are. There is a rhythm to life, a development, a change, a transformation, a metamorphosis, a conversion, a shift, a remodeling that innately runs through our lives–and then it happens again and again and again. So I will try to take my cues from Nature–to be open to change and up for the task of transformation.
Burs and Horse Tails
The fawn came into the yard in the middle of the day–we didn’t see her twin or the doe. We had just been outside and had the water hose dripping at the base of the crabapple tree. She checked out the hose, the flat football that was left in the yard by the dog on her last retrieve, and the round, brown flax seeds in the flower garden before she wandered back to the woods. I noticed that she was covered by sticky burs on her withers, shoulder, flank, and tail. Anybody who has spent time hiking in the woods or prairies will know what it feels like to have some uninvited guests–cleavers, tick trefoil, or spanish needles–attach themselves to your pant leg, socks, or shoelaces. It’s annoying and bothersome–both to walk with them and try to remove them. The spotted fawn with her burs reminded me of the horse I had for more than twenty years of my life.
I bought Apples when I was fourteen years old with money I made cleaning out stalls at the neighboring horse farm. He was ten years old when I brought him home–a little red roan with a beautiful head, short ears, a red tuft forelock, and a long, full tail. That tail was a cocklebur magnet! He would come up from the pasture in the fall with his tail looking like a brown plank of wood–a prickly, sticky mess. So I would catch him, tie him up, get out a hunting knife and begin the slow, tedious job of removing each bur. It would be so matted with the burs that I would ‘saw’ through the hair of his tail with the knife to loosen sections, then pull the cockleburs out in clumps or one by one. None of this could have felt good to him, but he trusted me and calmly stood there until his tail was back to its free-flowing and foot-shorter state.
My morning walks take me past an open plot that despite its yearly mowing is sort of wild. This cocklebur plant was missed by the mower and bloomed purple as the burs started forming.
Cocklebur is a broad-leaved annual with rough triangular leaves. It can grow up to six feet tall on stout, spreading stems. The plants are toxic to pigs, cattle, sheep, horses, and fowls when at the seedling stage. Each plant can produce hundreds of burs.
The fruit is covered by strong, hooked spines and contains two seeds.
As nasty as cockleburs are, they were the inspiration for a Swiss engineer named Georges de Mestral in 1941. When he and his dog were out walking in the woods and came home with these burs on them, de Mestral looked at them under a microscope. He saw the hundreds of hooks that attached so easily to fur and fibers. Over the next years, he developed the hook and loop in nylon and called it Velcro!
Often in life we find something has ‘stuck’ on us without us being aware of how it happened. We walk around carrying it. It can be painful moving forward. We don’t know how to get rid of it. How in the world did this happen? We either learn to live with it until it falls away with time or we have a kind helper who lends a hand to untangle things. And sometimes, the very thing that clung to us and caused us pain is transformed into a new and wonderful creation.
Gleanings from August
This impressive display of purple coneflowers Chris planted at the College of St. Benedict reminds me of a crowd of people at an outdoor concert–all shapes and sizes enjoying the sunshine and gathered for a common purpose. In the case of the coneflowers, their common purpose is Beauty! August and sunshine and purple coneflowers! Earlier that day while at St. John’s Arboretum, we saw flying sandhill cranes and a pudgy chipmunk who didn’t seem the least bit concerned that we were treading on his home territory.
An evening August visit to Eagle Park revealed bursts of bright sunflowers amid the prairie grasses and a pair of sandhill cranes but no eagles.
One of the most interesting flowers we saw on the banks of the Mississippi River was the Obedient Plant. It is so named because the individual flowers on the showy spikes can be moved around the stem and will stay where you put them!
One of my favorite flowers we have at home is Joe Pye Weed. It is also a native plant to eastern and central United States, including Minnesota. It is close to six feet tall and has large pink-purple blossoms on dark red stems. We planted it in a relatively sunny clearing in the woods. And I love its common name–said to be named after a Native American healer who cured the settlers of typhus with the plant.
August brought many visitors to our yard–the doe and her spotted fawns, the wandering posse of turkeys, shy pileated woodpeckers, and the many wrens who hatched their young in the birdhouses. Another visitor announced his presence one morning with loud screeches. This young Cooper’s hawk was in an ash tree right outside our door.
And we are getting hints of fall–red leaves on sumac, clusters of white asters, and white berries on red stems of the gray dogwood.
Whether we are one of many in a crowd or a solitary individual, we have a purpose at any given time. Whether we are flying through the sky or planted in a sunny spot, we are part of a larger community that needs our gifts. As summer winds down, may you find purpose, the voice to share it with your community, and time in each day for appreciating the Beauty of Nature.