Wednesday, June 27, 2012

2,000 Miles in the Great Plains

Over six days I drove for 27 hours and roughly 2,000 miles, from my home in Lincoln, NE, on over to Colorado, down into New Mexico, east to Oklahoma, then back up to Nebraska. I went to NM for a family reunion, but really, the true pull of the trip was to see parts of the Great Plains I never have before--a way to give me visual context for my Oklahoma memoir. The last stop was the most emotional and special for me--a third visit to my family's 1894 homestead.



Sunset over the front range in Colorado Springs
And now this is all on fire
The reunion was in Red River, NM, a tourist trap in northern NM. The views were stunning.


I braved a 20 minute ski lift to go up to 10,000 feet. I am terrified of ladders, mind you. This was a terrible experience I made myself do for some unknown reason. The reward was feeding french fries to:


In a family auction I won this doily, made by my great great grandmother who came over from Russia in 1874 with the great German Mennonite migration. I am so honored to own this intricate cloth.


After Red River I headed to Taos for an evening to see what's what, and on the way out of town to cross the Texas panhandle into Oklahoma I drove by this:


I was floored by how much sagebrush there was. I think of it as so stereotypical. Really, our media-enduced fantasies about reality make us view our world through stereotyped lenses, so when we experience the real thing we wonder if it's fake or true, Matrix like. The only way to know is to go forth and live it for yourself.

In retrospect, I raced through this trip. I wanted to get to Oklahoma--which seems ironic since I've always despised the state. I've had trouble thinking about my memoir, how to structure, how to organize 1,000 pages of notes over three years of research (but knowing structure comes from a central / driving need, a search, a question). It's overwhelming, but as much as I have an emotional connection to this book like no other, I also lacked the emotional depth or beginning I craved to link ideas together, or create a narrative. I may or may not have had this breakthrough I sought while walking my family's homestead. I can tell you--whether from exahaustion, the 100 degree heat, or pure desire--I nearly wept walking across the wheat stubble, scratching my feet against the sounds and smells I remember as a child during harvest, trying to make myself travel through time to something I could never understand. When I walked through the missing walls of the second barn--the first was taken by a tornado--I imagined myself walking alongside or through my great and great great grandparents' bodies.




The transition from the field back into my car was like night and day, so quickly from one existence into another as if a shade were drawn. I thought that I'm writing about a life fewer and fewer people live and that even fewer remember, that I'm writing for a readership of ghosts and myth.

In my journal I wrote: "The wheat stubble scraping against my shoes like a washboard, the locusts shooting out from the red earth as if exploding upon re-enty into another world, bouncing across an atmosphere of memory."


In my journal I wrote: "Just barely nudge one last post on the barn's absent east wall and the whole roof sways like johnson grass down by the south catch pond."

"Wind comes from the southwest unimpeded across the plains like Coronado, searching aimlessly for the city of gold, perhaps to conquer an emotion in all of us that stirs and frightens--that we will never be enough, that the land will echo beyond our transparent lives, that we are as fragile and easily tossed into the wind as topsoil and song."

"Who are we without a creaky windmill to sing us to sleep at night."

And at the old church cemetery--the abandoned church having been burned down on purpose after the windows were broken by vagrants: "In the field to the north, where the Bergthal church was, torn fake flowers litter the folds of grass and soil. On the nothern edge a thin strip of wildflowers--thistle, sunflower, winecup--hold even more blooms, merging wild with synthetic sentiment and nostalgia."

Before leaving town I found Big Jake's Crossing on the Washita River, just a mile or two southwest of the homestead. Big Jake was a Cheyenne chief who camped there along the river after settler allotments, and this is also where my grandma was baptized. An hour or more northwest up against the current was where piece chief Black Kettle and his village were massacred by Custer in 1868.


Standing on the concrete bridge, turtles dove into the water from warm perches on the shore and rocks.

And here are some images of downtown Corn.




Below is my elementary school in Weatherford. I remember walking 2 miles one way, and I also remember the window on the left where my 1st grade green bean plant in a styrofoam cup soaked up the sun. I've always lived a dual, conflicted life--I grew up in Minnesota, yet learned the state songs and mottos of Oklahoma, so I hum to myself "Oooooooklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain" as I color in scissor-tailed flycatchers in my mind while snow falls in December as the Vikings choke yet again.


I hope I'm ready. A storm has been building. As a writer it's a fine line to know when to make one's self write, and when to wait (to leave the dough in the oven a bit longer). All I know is that I saw the Plains in a new way and that I can't go back, which seems to be half the American dream--simultaneously looking forward while glancing over our shoulders wistfully. Maybe that's also being human. All I know is I get dizzy easily, turned around, lost when I should simply be looking and living the here and now as fully as I can. But that's what books are for.


Thursday, June 21, 2012

After a Rain

Finally rained last week--3 inches--after well over a month of no rain at all. I took a morning stroll to bare witness to the fact that it did, yes yes yes, it did indeed rain.

An early sunflower decided to bloom well before full height. This is happening a lot this year with all kinds of flowers.

Baptisia seed pod

Aster yellows disease on coneflower

Drops on an iris leaf

Friday, June 15, 2012

Solving the Puzzle


It's been 24 years since my grandfather passed away (6/16) when I was 11. It's amazing how his death still lingers in me so raw--perhaps because it was my first such experience that I can remember. The below passage is from Morning Glory, though as I begin another book, Turkey Red, I'm now recalling the passing of my grandmother who, somehow beyond the grave, is willing her life story into me (just as I think all our ancestors do). It takes time to find the way into our lives through family, and we should never be impatient to do so--the arrival will be that much more bittersweet and empowering. The key is to have no fear (because there will be a lot to fear when you start digging and reflecting).

While my grandfather was receiving treatment for his cancer and the blood clots forming in his leg, my family went back to Oklahoma for a visit about two years after we moved north, and only three months before he passed away. Grandpa spent hours laying on the couch stretched out flat, except for his one leg elevated on a pillow—when he got up it was as if that leg were in a cast, as rigid and awkward as having a ladder attached to your hip.
In their small living room, with a picture window overlooking the empty red lot across the street, Grandma had set up a puzzle on a fold out card table so grandpa would have something close by to do when he felt well enough. Placing it in front of the window, Grandpa could look up, hunched over himself and the puzzle pieces, and see the mail come. One afternoon while we were visiting, Mom was in the kitchen helping Grandma wash dishes, and I convinced Grandpa to get up and help me on his puzzle. But maybe he convinced me. I don’t really remember anything but his large fingers struggling to grasp the thin pieces, instead sliding them over to me across the vinyl surface.
            “Here’s a corner that looks like it might match your edge,” he said. Then I would reply, “Yea, maybe. Do you think this one matches your pile?” In his focus he didn’t say anything, he just breathed in deep, quick gulps of air
            But maybe I didn’t say anything either. I likely sat their in silence with a combination of bewilderment, confusion, and fear—which surely came from not understanding his slow death, the pain he constantly felt, his own inevitable fear of mortality. And that fear came from the imposing, burly figure he still seemed to me, even as his cancer progressed.
            When you’re a child everything seems so much bigger and mysterious, richer and shadowy and even exciting when you confront it, no matter if it’s good or bad. I still remember the awe I had for the teasing 3rd graders when I was in kindergarten, who harassed me in a bathroom stall to the point of my being unable to pee and so I just held it in the rest of the day. That emotional and physical pain is something I remember well, and I willingly refuse to use public restrooms in favor of the internal pressure pressing against me—it is almost sweet and comforting, settling my stomach, yet a complete denial of myself.
In the largeness of discovery there is also an intense focus that pierces through it like a sliver of light, a flaming arrow shot toward a target straight and true. The first time one recognizes this trajectory in an event in life, every subsequent moment feels a bit less visceral, and yet much more empowering.
            I put on a good face for my grandpa, helping him fit a few pieces together over the course of ten minutes. I’m sure he struggled to focus, I’m sure he counted every second and willed himself to another moment with his grandson. I never once looked up at him, afraid that if I did so he might scold me for noticing his effort, or maybe I was afraid I’d be unable to see him as how he had been before, as I always had and would want to see him for the rest of my life but would be unable to. When he could no longer overcome his body he suddenly, fiercely, asked me to help him back to the couch. “I have to quit! I’m sorry, B.R., but I’ve gotta lay back down.”
He hobbled to the couch, grunted, pulled his leg up on to the cushions and went limp, exhaling the struggle from deep inside. “You should keep working though,” he said, staring into the ceiling, wincing like he’d just stubbed a toe. “I’ll watch.”
            I sat at the table a while longer doing as he asked. I found the last piece to a side he’d been working on and carefully dragged the loosely connected trail around the tabletop. In the middle was an island of image—the paw of a grey kitten on a piano key. Outside it was an Oklahoma summer, hot and windy, red dirt blowing across patches of neglected brown grass. Not even two years removed from my accent and this place, I longed for the cooler, darker suburban forests of Minnesota, the sweet-smelling refuge of decay, the way a shaft of light pierced into you from the side through a canopy of maple leaves and urged you onward until there was no more light, just you and the memory of who you were moments before.

Monday, June 11, 2012

I Made This

The first two monarchs of the season, both female, emerged after 10 days. Here's a bad picture of one.


Haven't had any egg laying for a month--pretty dry, to boot, so stuff that's making the mad dash upward and outward is stressed out. I mean, drought in June? It's our wettest summer month. I've never had to water so early.

If you're in Lincoln Saturday, come to the Haymarket Farmer's Market and talk to my wife and I about native plants, ecosystems, organic plant care... then buy some seeds, books, photos, bee houses, plants, etc. Monarch Gardens will be across from Lazlo's in front of the train station from 8-noon unless there's a thunderstorm or I win the lottery. If I win the lottery, you're all invited to my 10,000 acre prairie restoration and artist's colony.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 7 -- Asters

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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The last day is a two-fer. Because asters are some of the last plants that overwintering insects--and insects soon to lay over-wintering eggs--gorge on like I do with a box of Godiva. On both New England and smooth aster I've seen hundreds of butterflies, wasps, bees, beetles, flies, moths, and heavenly angels all at one time. Every day. For as long as they bloom, which is a good two weeks in late September into mid October--one time into November when the freezes were late.

'Purple Dome' New England, with white Boltonia and blue Aster 'October Skies'
Aster laevis, smooth aster, on the right
Bee on Aster laevis
A good thing to do is pinch these asters back in late spring and early summer every few days, especially cultivars of New England and the straight smooth aster species. More blooms is the goal. The New England aster species plant can get 3-5' tall and 1' wide (moist to medium clay in full sun), but cultivars are usually much shorter. Smooth aster is about 2x2' feet if you pinch, and you better, because Grandma always did when you came for a visit.

Thus concludes a sampling of insect-loving and somewhat unique native Nebraska wildflowers this last week. Below is a list of the other posts if you missed them. We now return you to our more mercurial blog posting times.

Day 1 -- Baptisia

Day 2 -- Wild Quinine

Day 3 -- Milkweed

Day 4 -- Liatris Ligulistylis

Day 5 -- Joe Pye Weed

Day 6 -- Blue Sage


Thursday, June 7, 2012

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 6 -- Blue Sage

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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Want a true native to Lincoln, Nebraska? Salvia azurea 'Nekan' was found on the north side of town, though I'm not sure why it's different than regular 'ole blue sage--it is blue though, rare in flowers. The leaves smell lovely, and every September at dusk I see hummingbirds nectaring on it.



Full sun, dry to medium clay, 3-4' tall by 1' wide. If you pinch it back in late spring and early summer, you'll get a bushier plant with more flowers.  This is a good perennial with which to get kids interested in growing, since the seeds germinate easily and quickly in a potting mix or broadcast on the soil surface.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Opening My Garden

This Saturday, June 9 from 1-3pm, I'll open my garden to anyone who wants to see a suburban prairie-esque space, and a wildlife haven. Stop over and buy a few seedlings for cheap, or just enjoy the early summer show. Leave a comment, email, or message me for the address or with questions. We're over by Pioneers Park.

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 5 -- Joe Pye Weed

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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Eupatorium includes several species and tons of cultivars. If you're a native purist, the 6-8' tall and 2' wide E. purpureum will do you well. They all will though. Insects and butterflies galore. In winter on taller species birds love to perch and look for seeds, and in March you can cut down the hollow stalks into 6" long bundles, hang them on the fence, and wham bam you have a native bee house (native bees are solitary, super reluctant to sting, pollinate earlier than honeybees, and pollinate far more blooms and crops than honeybees).

Two of my taller Joe Pyes--8-10' front right, 7' middle back
I think they smell awful, but butterflies disagree
White-blooming 'Prairie Jewel'
E. coelestinum
I have a joe pye weed that is 1' tall, and one that is 10' tall, and one that has mottled cream and green leaves ('Prairie Jewel'). Do some research and you'll find the perfect one. They tend to like moist to medium clay and full sun, though again, I have a taller variety in part sun that as a result gets a bit smaller and blooms a bit less, but it still thrives.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 4 -- Liatris Ligulistylis

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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If you plant swamp milkweed anywhere near Liatris ligulistylis, I promise you all the BMWs and beach houses in the world that you'll have tons of monarchs. This liatris is by far their favorite nectar plant. I mean insanely so. One time I counted 14 butterflies on one stalk--but maybe that was just a good migration day. Since it blooms in August into September, the last brood of monarchs is emerging and flying through (peak migration south to Mexico is in mid September). Still, sometimes it blooms in early August, so to have it planted by milkweed means you should get a female to lay some eggs on that milkweed--this liatris is a siren song. And it comes up easily from seed.



Liatris grows 3-4' tall but only 1' wide. I have it in full and part sun, from dry to moist clay, and it seems to not prefer one over the other, though I'd avoid soggy soil. Charge the camera battery.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 3 -- Milkweed

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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I ask people all the time if they plant milkweed, because it is a host plant for monarch butterflies. Oh yes yes yes, they say, Asclepias tuberosa. Oh no no no, I reply, not good at all.


Red Swamp Milkweed
See, in my garden over 5 years, I've seen about two monarchs on orange-blooming tuberosa. On incarnata (swamp), I've seen one thousand. So the latter is the one to get--not just to help monarchs whose habitats are being poisoned and destroyed like never before (along with pretty much every other butterfly)--but because when it blooms in June and July all insects go nuts nectaring.

*** Milkweed is NOT a weed!!! ***

Swamp milkweed should be in full sun if you want it to bloom and give you some cool furry seeds. Otherwise, I also have it in half sun, moist to medium clay soil, anywhere from 1-3' tall and 1' wide. I have both the red and white-blooming cultivars, though the larvae seem to prefer the straight red species. Other good milkweeds to have are A. sullivantii, speciosa, syriaca, and purpaurscens, but you'll have to research those to know more.

'Ice Ballet' or some such odd name
Some of the 200 monarch caterpillars I raise each year

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 2 -- Wild Quinine

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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I'm betting you've never heard of Parthenium integrifolium . It's a strong-standing perennial that doesn't look "flowery," but I guarantee you'll notice it. A June bloomer, its flower heads look like mini cauliflowers to me. Insects certainly do visit, but for me, the interest is in the unique blooms and how bright they are from a distance before most anything else is alight.

Wild quinine can do wet to dry soil--I have mine in medium clay, full sun. 3' tall by 2' wide.


Not quite open yet

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Nebraska Wildflowers Day 1 -- Baptisia

This is Nebraska wildflower week. Each day I'll feature a native wildflower that grows well for me in my fickle clay AND brings in butterflies. Hopefully, you'll find something you've never seen before.

To end the week, on Saturday, June 9 at 10am, I'll be giving a presentation on Nebraska wildflowers at Finke Gardens and Nursery. And don't forget, I do run a native prairie garden coaching business. Ahem.

Also, check out Bob Henrickson's (NE Statewide Arboretum) fantastic advice on planting a mini prairie in your landscape.

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Baptisia australis is the species name of a shrub-forming perennial legume. It gets long tap roots so hates being moved, but this also makes it very drought tolerant. I have several cultivars, as well as the species, up on a small incline competing with red cedar roots in clay soil--and the baptisia thrive. I also have many butterfly eggs dotting the leaves right now, but I'm not sure which species of butterfly it is, however, someone sure likes it as a host plant. Maybe sulphurs?

Species
Carolina Moonlight
The flowers bloom in May--this year early May, but usually mid to late May. It's a favorite of early bumblebees, and I had 10 queens on a baptisia at once this May. A key nectar source as bees establish nests, and then as a host plant for butterflies like several kinds of sulphurs. The seed pods turn black in fall and make lovely baby rattles, or just provide winter interest. Baptisia likes sun but can take some shade, but you'll likely sacrifice some blooms. 3' tall and wide.

Moonlight on right, Twilight under bald cypress on left
Twilight Prairie Blues
Twilight