It's been a beautiful summer at Dancing Rabbit. We've watched
the wildflowers come and go, the birds raise their families and
the insects of every kind do just about everything. My observations
of nature have been supplemented recently with some classroom
time. It gives me the opportunity to learn a deeper story than
what I can pick up out in the field.
Especially exciting this year has been the increasing health
of our prairie restoration sites. Two of our fields are thick
with grasses taller than I. (Though I guess that's pretty easy
to do, because I'm only 5'2".) Another field that has been stubbornly
resisting the prairie plantings has sprung up with lots of grasses
this year. And the little prairie garden in front of my house
is promising to give us a good show of flowers next year to go
with the big clumps of grass with beautiful seed heads this year.
Many of the native perennial plants take a year or two of establishment
before they flower.
The fall is a particularly beautiful time to see prairie plants.
The grasses turn a lovely orange, and the yellow, purple, and
white flowers are everywhere. Its been a wonderful surprise to
stumble upon little prairie remnants on our land. I'll be walking
through fields I know I've walked through before and I'll see
a flower I didn't know we had on our land, like blazing star,
purple milkweed, or rigid goldenrod. I have to smile and applaud
the little plant for its persistence through years of fighting
the plow and the cow and the Eurasian grasses.
The cattail pond has been a hot spot this year. There had been
muskrat sightings in the past. But they must have had kids, because
I spotted four muskrats all on the surface at the same time chewing
on cattail roots. We also had a mating pair of green herons. We
know because we saw their not-as-scared-as-they-should-be two
offspring hunting frogs in the pond, ignoring our gawking and
gardening so close by.
It's been a dry summer, but we had a magical week in August in
which it rained and rained. Even more magical was what followed:
there were mushrooms everywhere! Luckily I had just gotten back
from a fungus class up in Iowa and I went on an identification
frenzy. We had mushrooms that stain your fingers red, that melt
into an inky mess within 24 hours, that look like little ears
and taste great in a stirfry, and that are bright orange and glow
in the dark. The diversity of the fungal world is amazing. I can't
wait until it rains again and the mushrooms pop out of the ground
for us to enjoy their beauty and taste.
I knew that insects were a large and varied group, but now that
I'm taking an Entomology class at Truman State, the local university,
my eyes have been opened wider yet again. Did you know that they've
identified about a million species of insects around the world,
and that is probably just a fraction of what is out there? I've
gotten up close and personal with the grasshoppers and the walking
sticks, the flies and the leafhoppers. Unfortunately part of my
personal process of discovery has been a collection of insects
for my class. They all need to be dead and they need to be killed
by me. So while my karma has been damaged, I am learning a lot
about these amazingly complex and diverse creatures by handling
them and examining their minute features. I would suggest next
time you find a dead insect, instead of being grossed out, take
a few minutes to see the fine details of our arthropod cousins.
I've had less time to be out on our land these days as I log
more hours in the classroom, so until next time, get out there
and watch the wonders of the world for me!
Intentional Community Bookstore
by Rachel Katz