Prairie Passages

Monarchs on a Stick

2010-09-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Although these couple of weeks are typically associated with the state fair, in prairies insects of all kinds are intensely seeking the last nectar of the season. These three monarch butterflies were feeding on a liatris in Chester Woods Park.

Dog Days of Summer

2010-09-06T19:49:00.000-07:00

A sultry wind blows across the yard. It’s been hot for most of the month of August. So hot, most of us stay inside as much as possible. My mother says it’s almost like the long stretches of bitter cold we endure in the winter. We are housebound. We haven’t had rain recently, so the ground is hard and dust gathers on the patio chairs and the hood of my truck. Lawns and gardens are browning. Even the Black-Eyed Susans look thin and thirsty. The bee balm and yellow coneflower, done flowering for the year in a prairie near here, have become crispy. A few leaves on the Black Walnut tree nearest to the house have begun to turn yellow and those that have fallen skitter across the driveway, driven by the late summer wind. My friend Jodeen diligently picks the fully ripe tomatoes off of the prodigious vines in her vegetable garden before it is too late.

When I hear the phrase “Dog Days of Summer,” I think of dogs with their tongues hanging out. The saying seems like something that would have originated during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. A little research reveals that the Romans used the phrase to refer to the time of year when Sirius, the “dog star,” in the constellation Canis Major “large dog” rose with the sun at the equinox. According to my star maps, Sirius does note rise in the early summer evenings, but instead appears more boldly in the winter, forming a triangle with Betelgeuse on Orion’s shoulder and Procyon. They are three of the brightest objects in our night sky. Even though Sirius doesn’t dominate the hottest summer nights here, I like the idea of having a connection to an ancient civilization that used the stars for a guide to the seasons rather than a National Weather Service app.

For the Egyptians, in addition to hot weather, the rising of Sirius was often a prelude to the Nile flooding. Thus, the dog days have an ominous aura about them. The hot wind does suggest to me that anything could happen, that change is in the air. For Minnesotans, that change could be that the other seasonal shoe will drop and along it with the mercury that used to be in our thermometers. Even those of us who love autumn know what quickly follows. We’ll be wearing our down jackets and mukluks before we know it. 08/29/2010

Hoo is Singing Outside Your Window?

2009-03-22T18:52:00.001-07:00

One night in December, while I was reading in bed, I heard hoo-hoo hoo-hoo-hoo. I heard the owl again the next night and for many more nights through the cold and the dark of January and into February. I soon found myself waiting to hear its call each night while I read. Most likely a female owl was initiating the annual mating ritual.
Rather nocturnal myself, I knew the owl would be a compatible and kindred spirit. For as long as we know, people have admired and sometimes feared the owl in life and fantasy. My eldest niece has been an admirer of the snowy owl in Harry Potter and generations of children have been bemused by the wise owl in many Winnie-the-Pooh stories. The darker side of their reputation among humans relates to being the bearer of bad news, often death.
Wanting to know more about my late night neighbor, I went to the 7th annual International Owl Festival in Houston, Minnesota held the first weekend in March each year. Five teaching owls met the audience in the school auditorium, including a Great Horned Owl, the species that I am most likely hearing based on the call I heard and it╒s range covers almost all of North America.
The owl was so calm and yet aware, occasionally turning its head, mostly watching and observing with its large yellow eyes within a bundle of neatly tufted brown and white feathers. I was within two feet of this admirable creature and then several of its colleagues: the tiny eight inch tall saw-whet owl called "Little Bit." If he lived in the wild, he would probably make his home in a hole made by a woodpecker. There was a Barn Owl and Barred Owl and two Screech Owls, one red and one gray. All of the owls had been injured and were unable to return to the wild. One had collided with a car, another had eaten a mouse that had ingested poison, and couple of others had fallen or been pushed out of their nests too soon.
My admiration of owls grew during that presentation. I learned that they can indeed turn their head 270 degrees, meaning they can turn their heads the left and look all the way over their right shoulders! Fourteen vertebrae in their necks, in comparison to our seven, allow them do this, and their hearing and sight is superhuman. They can hear a mouse moving under two feet of snow. Feathers around their face form an amplifier. In addition, their ears are placed asymmetrically, allowing them to detect the exact location of a sound more precisely, something like radar. Although their daytime vision isn╒t so very acute, they can see six times better than humans at night.
Keeping our acerage in some sort of ecological equilibrium is challenging. Recently, we had too many rabbits; they were making everything into salad for themselves. Lately, we seemed to have a few rabbits, not as many. Further, I read owls eat skunks, and they can take down prey up to three times their size. My esteem for them continues to grow.
I wish I could see the owl sharing my place, but its elusive and solitary nature has prevented any encounter so far. I began looking for a nest, at first mistakingly looking for a bundle of leaves or sticks. They might have a nest like that, but after reading more, I have learned they prefer a hollowed out place in a standing, but probably dead tree. I have plenty of those here. I had been considering having them cut down, but now that I know they are owl habitat, I will have to keep them.
I don"t hear the owl calling anymore. I hope she found a mate and is busy warming the nest. The male owl will be busy hunting for both of them, keeping some of his catch frozen until they need it. When they do, she will pull it inside the nest and reheat it like a frozen dinner we take out of the freezer! I"ll keep watching for any sight of her or her family, but next I expect to hear a chorus frog start up his love song. It's now his time of year.

Some of the information for this blog entry came from the 7th Annual International Owl Festival and some came from the second edition of Paul A. Johnsgard's book "North American Owls: Biology and Natural History" (2002).

To hear Virginia (no relation), a Great Horned Owl living at the Houston, MN Nature Center, click below:

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Bubo-virginianus-8.mp3

Expediting Spring

2009-03-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

February 23, 2009

My friend Jodeen warns people that I own a .22 and a sledgehammer, and I'm not afraid to use them. She is right, but whenever I use either one, I know my rational solutions to problems have failed. Take today, for example.

It's a sunny day in late February, about 9 degrees above zero. A fresh blanket of snow fell yesterday and left white dollops on the yew tree outside my window. It's pretty, but I'm tired of winter. There isn't much for prairie admirers to do in the middle of winter, except practice identifying plants by their winter stalks. Spring takes too long to arrive in Minnesota, so the last few years, I've have tried to expedite the process by starting seeds in my greenhouse.

This morning, the greenhouse heater roared to life when I flipped the switch. While I stacked black plastic pots along the deserted benches, the temperature slowly rose, and with it the scent of spring emerged out of the dirt and old leaves. I was in heaven!

I began puttering with various thermometers and gadgets. All was going well until I discovered the end of the phone line connecting the freeze alarm was, ironically, frozen under a thirty gallon metal garbage can, which fill of debris, was sitting outside exactly where I left it in the fall. When things like this happen, I feel like a character in the 1960's television show "Green Acres." None of my education or training has prepared me for resolving problems like this.

I made several trips from the kitchen with hot water. Still, the can would not budge. First, I looked for my crowbar. When did I last use the crowbar? I couldn't remember. As I looked through the open shed wishing I were more organized, (Are you remembering that it is only nine degrees above zero?) I saw my trusty sledgehammer!

I took several healthy swings at the bottom of the garbage can. No luck. The ice was thick under the can. The sledgehammer only banged up the thing metal side and ice ships flew in several directions. I had to abandon the idea of extracting the end of the phone line from under the ice. I had to cut it. This meant the inception of another project: finding a way to reattach a plastic connector onto the phone line, so it can be plugged in. I see several trips to the hardware store in my future.

In the meantime, I'll monitor the temperature in the greenhouse manually with a wireless thermometer and nurture seeds I will start in the dining room, my prairie in the making.