Robert Creech

I have sometimes thought of spring like a conversion––Paul on the Damascus Road. A field I have driven past all winter is suddenly and without warning painted in colors of green, yellow, pink, and blue. Overnight, it seems. The new life of spring, green and fresh, supplants last year’s old life, depleted and dried.

It isn’t really like that, although it appears that way through my driver’s side window. Up close, it looks very different. Spring, it turns out, does not magically appear overnight, but sneaks up slowly before the surprise attack.

However, beneath the cover of those old stalks, something else is taking place. A green carpet is beginning to spread, preparing to burst into colors and reclaim the fields in a glorious revolution that happens every spring. 

I think renewal is often like this. I wait for the sudden conversion in my life or my world, which seldom comes. Instead, evidence of the new life shows up here and there, beautiful and small but indicative of the powerful force that is driving it to the surface, a sign of so much more to come. 

I don’t mean to sound maudlin, but it strikes me that as I watch my sixty-ninth spring dawn around me, I will get to witness a finite, small, and diminishing number of those in my life. Once, they seemed ordinary and plentiful. They are not. I hope to observe this revolution in detail, gratefully and affectionately. – RRC

Snow-on-the-Prairie is a species of Euphorbia that blooms in Texas in September. We’ve seen it in fields around the Hill Country. But last week we had snow on the prairie in a way we had not seen. Winter storm Uri scattered the white stuff all over our fields.

Things have not changed much in the square meter I’m monitoring in the prairie. But today, things were dewy and damp, leaving jewel-like droplets on the grasses. The sparkling bluebonnet leaves in the square meter were replicated throughout the prairie as I walked through this January morning.

One of the many expressions of beauty on the winter prairie is the occasional frosty morning in South Texas. Today offered one of those mornings. The remnants of last year’s growth reflected the rising sun like diamonds.

Progress on the “Bee & the Clover” has slowed, partially due to Covid-19. Our contractor was ill with the virus and so has been recovering. Since I last posted about two months ago, the outside of the building is nearly complete. We await the installation of the roll-up garage door and the upstairs porch’s construction, and the decking downstairs. The details of the interior, sheet-rock, cabinets, plumbing, electricity are all in the future.

Chris Helzer, The Prairie Ecologist, is a naturalist and photographer whose fascinating work has inspired me. He conducted a project a couple of years ago in which he photographed a single square meter of a mature prairie every week for a year. In the process, he photographed 113 different species of plants and animals, including 15 plant species, 22 different flies, 18 beetles, and 14 bees. You can watch a brief video of his project. 

I’m going to try my own square meter project on our nascent prairie, just to see what I can observe here. So here are some of the first shots from the dead of winter.

The obvious occupant of the space is the tall Alamo Switchgrass plant, one of the “big four” tall-grass prairies.

The other obvious occupant of the ground is the Little Bluestem, another “big four.” In the fall, Little Bluestem takes on a deep red-brown color. The tiny fuzzy white seeds are a treat for the sparrows and meadowlarks in the prairie.

So once a week, I plan to visit the site and see what shows up besides me.

We had crews out here three days this week. The windows and front doors were installed, some of the metal frame detail was finished, and today the metal building crew began to attach the Hawaiian Blue siding. We weren’t sure how a blue barn would look on the prairie, but we are very pleased. They’ll be back on Monday to add some more.

This week the framers returned to begin to put some skin on the bones of the Bee & the Clover. Doors and windows arrived on Friday and windows were installed on Saturday. We climbed up to the second floor to look around. When the walls are up, these views will not be available any longer. Outside the front door, however, overlooking the garden, will be a porch extending out ten feet and will provide a nice view to the SW.

Meanwhile downstairs, windows will face the NW and the SE. Doors will face the garden on the SW.

On Monday of last week, a big flat-bed truck from the lumber yard arrived with the materials for the interior framing of the three bedrooms in the barndorminium.

The framing crew showed up early on Tuesday and then again Wednesday through Friday. By the end of the week, the two downstairs rooms were framed out, and the joists and decking for the second floor were in place. 

We hope to see the second floor completed this week. It is good to be able to see the progress.

On Monday afternoon the structural steel arrived and early Tuesday morning the crew was busy on the site. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent unloading the steel and welding pieces in place in preparation for construction.

On Thursday the big Genie Telescopic Telehandler was unloaded and construction began.

 Then by late afternoon on Thursday, the main rafters were welded to the columns on the bedroom end of the building.

By quitting time on Thursday the outline of the structure on the bedroom end was done. It was fun to get an exact idea of the size and shape of the building for the first time.

Friday went much faster. Four more columns and their main rafters were up by noon. Then more purlins were welded in place. Next week, perhaps we’ll see some skin on the bones.