jenna

Melinda and I walk in the prairie about every other day. The prairie wants us to. It changes that quickly and someone needs to see it. And we need to. In these times of separation and quarantine, being outdoors and witnessing the life of spring in South Texas helps to center us, to remind us of God’s providence with His Creation. The world of humanity is suffering in unimaginable ways, but the natural world about us goes on its way with life and beauty, bearing witness to God’s goodness.

The American Basket Flowers are standing tall across the field. Theses beauties were part of the seed mix we planted sixteen months ago. A few of them are just now opening their blooms to the sky. Soon there will be scores of them.

Insect life is abundant. Butterflies, moths, bees, flies of various sorts, wasps, caterpillars, and beetles are everywhere. It is a challenge to try to capture the beauty of a blossom without being photo-bombed by some other creature. Some kind of fly and a beetle are taking advantage of this Black-eyed Susan.

Last year Maximillian Sunflowers, also a part of our seed mix, stood some six feet tall with flowers around their stalks from the ground to the top. They died off with winter, but at the base of nearly each dead stalk still standing in the field is the evidence of new life and a promise of more flowers this summer.

We came across one patch of Berlandier’s Yellow Flax. We can’t recall seeing that one before. The blooms are small, but striking.

The dominant yellow in the fields these days are the neon blossoms of the Plains Coreopsis. Whole fields of them can be seen along the county road. In the back of the property we also find Nueces Coreopsis (below).

And Lance-Leaved Coreopsis (below)

The prairie is now demanding some work of us. Some invasive plants are best deal with by using our solar powered plant removers (shovels and pruning shears). We are hunting down and removing the small patches of prickly pears that are showing up and we are taking on the Baccharis (also known as Roosevelt Weed, Poverty Weed, or Depression Weed) that is coming up in numbers. When we first got the property in 2007, these covered the fields.

The Spotted Horse Mint or Spotted Bee Balm is back. It is just now commencing its blooming. They’ll be plentiful soon.

Near the house there is a patch of red-colored dock that the Salt Marsh Moth caterpillars are finding attractive.

More than anything, however, we are delighting in seeing the grasses make their appearance. We’ve found evidence of the Big Four (Little Bluestem, Big Bluestem, Switchgrass, and Eastern Indian Grass), but others in the seed mix are there as well –– Lovegrass, Green Spangletop, Windmill Grass, Eastern Gamagrass, and Side Oats Grama.) These are summer grasses and so will be showing up more and more as the weather warms. The Eastern Gamagrass is already forming its distinctive seed heads and the Switchgrass is stretching taller than last year (it can get almost 9 feet tall!).

Occasionally, the orchid-like Prairie Nymph appears at our feet as well.

All of this is to be taken both as a present moment to be attended to and as a promise of what is to come in the prairie.

The colors of fall around the Creech place include a few that have been planted for their showiness. The Turk’s Cap below is a native Texas plant that we placed in the bed by the front porch.

The fire spike was propagated from cuttings shared by a fellow Master Gardener last fall. These also are lined up in a flowerbed in front of the house.

The zinnas, a favorite of the Pipevine Swallowtail, are growing in the vegetable beds out front in lieu of a fall garden.

 This Zizotes Milkweed chose the front garden on its own. The Lady Bug is doing her best to deal with the aphids that are covering the plant.

But some of the things around are going in the field, and they portend a field of prairie grasses over the next few years. Here the Side Oats Grama retain some of their seeds as winter approaches.

The False Golden Asters, along with Camphor Weed and Cowpen Daisies have added their bright yellows to the fall fields.

Easter Gamma Grass shows up across the field with its distinctive seed pods.

Everywhere there is a bare spot, the Bluebonnets are making their appearance, waiting for March to astound us.

I’m not sure what this forb is. But the light plays with it well.

Remnants of Maximillian Sunflowers stand watch over much of the field.

Yellow Indian Grass is among the most beautiful of the grasses when it is blooming. Lots of this has appeared in the first year. It will be taller and more evident in the next year or two.

I think this is a head of Green Spangletop. A stand of this showed up across the front of the field nearest the house, and is one of the seeds in the mix we planted last year.

The Little Bluestem is the most plentiful of the grasses that have emerged. In the winter it takes on a rich rusty brown color that is easy to spot along roadsides in Texas.

A friend of ours came to visit, having seen our farm in years past when we’d leased it out for the growing of corn, wheat, sorghum sudan grass, sesame, and milo. He knew of our prairie project, but hadn’t seen it yet. When he saw our fields he remarked to his wife, “Is that what Melinda and Robert wanted their fields to look like?”

To the untrained eye the prairie, nascent or mature, looks a lot like an unmown, neglected field. Part of that impression comes from our being accustomed to the manicured lawns of the city, or the orderly products of agriculture.

Our concept of what is beautiful requires some adjustment. Willa Cather wrote, “Anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie.” The prairie’s beauty is not found in the imposed order of human effort, but in the living, breathing, order of an ecosystem that abounds in diversity, insect and animal life, color, texture, and structure.

To quote Melinda’s favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (“Inversnaid”),

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Late summer and fall is the time for the tall grasses to make their inflorescence/seedhead, which makes them much easier for us non-experts to identify. We have been looking for the Big Four of the tall-grass prairies to show themselves. Now all four have done so. Many of the hundreds of bunches of grass will not mature enough to make seed this year, but enough have done so to encourage us that what we’d hoped for is actually happening. We’ve also seen Sideoats Grama, Lovegrass, and Eastern Gamagrass.

This is my 67th August in Texas. You’d think I would have learned by now. August is hot. Global warming notwithstanding, it is always hot in August. And in South Texas it is also dry, unless something tropical develops off the coast.

So my walk in the field today was noisy. The sounds of thousands of grasshoppers fleeing from my presence were accompanied by the crunch of my steps on the dried rust weed. Despite the heat and drought, however, the native grasses continue to progress. In parts of the field they are sparse and small, hidden under the canopy of the Mare’s Tail that took an opportunity to flourish this summer. In other places they are plentiful, but small and dry. But in the twenty or so acres nearest the house, they are growing in good numbers and size. Many are forming their seed heads––Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, Lovegrass, Sideoats Grama, and Switchgrass are discernible. Most of the clumps are mysteries to me until they identify themselves with their distinctive seed heads. The yellow Partridge Pea bushes are plentiful. I found one Texas Coneflower blooming in the middle of one of the bunch grasses.

We’ve now been a month without a drop of rain and temperatures have been over 100 most days. In a few more weeks that will break and become more seasonal. I suspect the grasses will respond to the fall rains with joy.

Psalm 147:8 (NRSV)
    He covers the heavens with clouds,
    prepares rain for the earth,
    makes grass grow on the hills.

Patience is a difficult practice. We’ve been used to seeing hard red winter wheat seeds sown in December quickly emerge and mature, changing from a beautiful blue-green in March to the golden waves ready for harvest in May. We have seen sorghum sudan grass leap from the fields to heights of six or seven feet for a crop of hay. But the perennial native grasses do not behave in such a way. They require patience.

Will Newman, a local wildlife biologist who works with Quails Forever, walked the fields with us back in the early spring, when only a few of the grasses we planted were poking their heads through the red-brown sandy loam. In the first year, he told us, these grasses will spend much of their energy putting down deep roots. They “go deep.” In the second year, the plants will spread out and become a bit larger. They “creep.”  And in the third year, the tall switch grass and others will reach their heights of six to nine feet, with roots twice that length.

They “leap.” Will said not to worry about the field until August or September, when the warm weather grasses would become more visible.

Well, it is August 1. Melinda and I walked through a portion of the field today, as we often do. The grasses in the field closest to our home show abundant signs of “prairie life.” Many of the seeds we put in the ground in January are making themselves known. Blue-green clumps of Little Bluestem are standing their ground. Yellow Partridge Pea bushes are attracting bees and wasps. A stand of Sideoats Grama already has a seed head. One tall grass, that we think is Indian Grass is showing its seed head as well. This is one we really hoped would establish itself. White Prairie Clover has been scattered over the field all summer, as have other flowers we planted –– Coreopsis, Basket Flowers, Lemon Bee Balm, and others. We’ve seen coneflower plants across the field for a while. Their broad leaves are easily identifiable. But today we saw one blooming for the first time. Love Grass has grown up in places and formed its airy head. We won’t be able to clearly identify many of the grasses that are emerging until they become more mature. But they are everywhere!

Earlier this week Jamie Killian, the Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist who has been working with us on the project came for a visit while we were gone and took a few photographs. She emailed us later: “The prairie looks great to me. I saw several species that were in the seed mix. I like the little bluestem.”

Meanwhile, we learn what we can and marvel at what is happening. Three years seems like a long time. Note the three “prairie blogs” on the right. The photos there are beautiful and the content is always inspiring.

Fine-backed Red Paper Wasp on Partridge Pea

One of my favorite Eugene Peterson stories is the one where the Norwegian farmer/neighbor, Leonard Storm, invites 5-year old Eugene, to ride with him on his big John Deere and plow the field. Great story.

Today Herb suggested that he teach me to drive his International Harvester Farmall tractor so that we could continue planting while he had to be out this afternoon. So Melinda and I spent the afternoon driving the tractor through the field planting the native grass seeds.

The rains finally began to slack up in mid-December and on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day the seed that we’d hoped to have had in the ground in September found its way to the fields. Last week we shredded the standing grass in the field.

Yesterday Texas Parks and Wildlife delivered the no-till seed drill and Herb, our farmer friend and tractor operator, went to work. The no-till seed drill allows the seeds to be planted at the proper rate and depth without disturbing the seed bed in the soil, as disking or tilling would do. This will prevent the weed seeds lying dormant in the ground from germinating along with the seeds we are planting.

Each of the twenty bags held millions of tiny seeds bearing the DNA of grasses, forbs, and flowers that have evolved over eons, adapting to the soil and climate of Texas, contributing to the ecology of the tall grass prairies that covered much of Texas not that long ago. These prairies have shrunk to less than 1% of the original twenty-million acres. In less than a century agriculture and development practically eliminated a beautiful and important feature of creation in North America that had stood in its ground for millennia.

I have two books to recommend to anyone who is interested in prairies and their preservation. Cindy Crosby’s The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction might become required reading for visitors to our place, just so they’ll know the difference between a prairie and an unmowed field. Crosby not only explains prairies and their restoration, but also teaches us how to experience the prairie with all five senses. She also writes a weekly blog called Tuesdays in the Tallgrass, that contains both beautiful photography and thoughtful writing about prairies.

Melinda and I have also enjoyed reading Matt White’s Prairie Time: A Blackland Portrait, which deals with the stories of life on the Blackland Prairie of Texas as well as stories of the demise of that landscape. He takes us on visits to various prairie remnants in Texas. Our land is not in the Blackland region, but right where the Blackland Prairie, the Oak Woods & Prairies, and the South Texas Brush Country ecological regions come together. Much of the flora on the Blackland Prairie once grew in this area as well.

Having longed for the rain to cease so that we could plant, we are now eager for moderate winter rains to do their part in helping these seeds fulfill their purpose and bear fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold.

In July and August the idea of too much rain in south Texas was barely conceivable. We had less than a half inch of precipitation and temperature regularly over 100 degrees. We were making plans to plant the native seeds in mid-September and hoping there would be enough moisture to soften up the soil a bit.

Then the rain started. In September we had more than 15″ of rain in Floresville, more than half our annual average. The rain has continued, and we are waiting for the weather to dry up enough to take equipment into the fields. Right now we have several thousands of dollars worth of seed sitting on a pallet on our driveway. Hopefully, these will find their place in the soil before too many more days pass.

Meanwhile, nature goes on with its life. Queen butterflies and Pipevine Swallowtails are plentiful and the Northern Harriers we noticed last fall and winter have returned.

On a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, Melinda and I drove to the Kirchoff Family Farm, about twenty minutes from our place, to join others in a prairie workday. We met Brenda, one of the Kirchoff landowners, and Jeffrey, a reporter for the Wilson County News. The four of us worked in a spot on the prairie harvesting Switchgrass seed that will be used to seed areas of their property that need additional tall grass. Brenda was not much of a taskmaster. She called a halt to the work after an hour and a half and took us on a tour of the place in her John Deere Gator.

One of the plants the Kirchoffs are trying to establish is Zizoetes Milkweed, a native milkweed used by Monarch butterflies as a host for their eggs. We got back to the farm the next weekend and discovered that we have a couple of dozen of them growing in our front yard!

Meanwhile, the work on the Creech prairie restoration project proceeds. We have done three applications of the herbicide to eliminate invasive species and give the prairie grasses, wildflowers, and forbs the best chance of establishing themselves.

This week we received an email from the TPW wildlife biologist working with us, indicating the mix of seeds she was about to order for our planting during the week of September 17.  It’s a long list, but includes: LittleBluestem, Sideoats Grama, Lovegrass, Switchgrass, Indiangrass, Purple PrairieClover, Big Bluestem, Green Sprangletop, Eastern Gama Grass, Canadian Wildrye, Englemann Daisy, Plains Coreopsis, Maximillian Sunflower, Partridge Pea, AnnualSunflower, Illinois Bundleflower, Blackeyed Susan, Mexican Hat, AmericanBasketflower, White Prairie Clover, Texas Bluebonnet, Indian Blanket, LanceleafCoreopsis, Lemon Mint, Annual Winecup, Golden-Wave, Greenthread, Purple Coneflower, Tahoka Daisy, Winecup, Prairie Verbena, Bush Sunflower, LazyDaisy, Rose Milkweed, Butterflyweed, Frostweed, Foxglove, Rattlesnake Master, Golden Dalea, Gayfeather, and Blue Mistflower.

I know some of those, but many are strangers at this point. Praying for good winter rains and abundant germination next spring!