Loss, and growth

Since mid-November, I have been writing every day for hours — it's the most disciplined I've ever been with writing — with anything,  actually — in my entire life. I have been writing and sending out a newsletter about daily actions anyone can do to strengthen democracy, a free press, a healthy environment, and people's civil rights and liberties.

It has not seemed relevant to this blog so I haven't been posting in this blog. I don't think I want it in this blog. But it leaves this blog neglected.

This blog has morphed over time as well; it started out being largely about my search for a more responsive education system that supports and respects teachers and students. When I observed the wedges being driven between various education stakeholders in Chicago and across the country by the privatization movement, I created an education idea-exchange, H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk, and this blog became a companion for that. As my freelance and my personal work changed, my interest in nature-based formal education changed to a love and fascination with local greenspace more generally.

I have considered letting the blog morph again into an instrument of civic participation and activism. I don't think that's the right fit for this blog. You can receive my daily five-minute actions by going to tinyletter.com/fiveminutes (click on the red link to see an archive, and yikes please excuse the massive typo in the first sentence of today's letter). You can also find me occasionally guest blogging about activism on elainesir.com, a lively space for unique interviews with fascinating people and examinations of work, life, family, and society.

This blog may morph again; actually, it might be bound to. I think I need to embrace my tendency to wholeheartedly explore many things — all kinds of things, interlocking things and very different things, things that do not meld into one cohesive Big Picture — as a feature rather than a bug.

I have been thinking about this tendency, and this blog, and my work, and my interests, and my way of going through the world, and I do perceive a thread. What I want to do in all these things is facilitate equitable access to things that make life free and worth living — access to nature for all people, access to a good and respectful education, access to the resources needed to do one's job right, access to civil rights and liberties.

In my consulting work, I do an array of things — line editing, curriculum development, content architecture, nonprofit program development. I have been advised to narrow my focus or it'll never all work. But I have accepted, I think, that I can't; or rather, that narrowing my focus means doing a wide array of consulting with one thread in common: helping people and organizations with a mission to better help their clients access their content.

Meanwhile, while Resistence is Necessary and Not Futile, I sorely miss my forays into the urban wilds. I hope to continue to explore nature in and around Chicago and elsewhere, and I hope to explore this thread of access more; and I hope my newfound writing discipline will actually benefit, not continue to silence, this blog!

Thanks for your support while I sort out these new priorities for this new era.

June to July on the prairie

If the prairie were a person, it late June to July would be a growth spurt into adulthood. In July on  Schulenberg Prairie, there is a lot of new stuff, but there is also a lot of just getting bigger.

Compass plant leaves go from distinctive to enormous, with towering stalks ready to bloom.

Prairie dock leaves become elephantine, and, like their cousins the compass plants, put up giant stalks, soon to become yellow flowers.

The culver's root, which was just starting to bloom in June, is in full bloom (and being enhjoyed by pollinators) in July.

Culver's root bloom in June

Culver's root bloom in July

And the white false indigo blooms have followed a similar timeline.

Exuberant in July

Just beginning in June

Other plentiful blooms include rattlesnake master and purple (and white) prairie clover. Lead plant grew in steely clumps, though I didn't get any closeup pics. I'm sorry I missed seeing them close up—their shimmering purple-to-orange heads are mesmerizing.



























The coneflower was on its way out, though there were still legions of false sunflower.

On the guided walk I took at Morton Arboretum in June, our guide, Cindy Crosby, pointed out this lovely bough. It was a carrion flower, a creepy name (inspired by the blooms' smell, evidently) for an elegant-looking plant. 

Carrion flower bough, June

Delicate round carrion flower blooms

When I went to the same spot in July, there was no trace of the plant. Poof! Gone. 'Til next year.

July -- carrion flower bough and blooms are gone

What a beautiful festival of textures and colors.

A beautiful July prairie scene. 

And, as always, there are a thousand million blooms and plants I can't identify! Here are, well...three. Prairie hive mind what be these stems? Update: Many thanks to Mark, who identified these in the comments! The purple spike looks like hairy hedge nettle. The pods indicate a tick-trefoil, probably showy tick trefoil. The shrub is smooth sumac. I feel like I should have known at least the last. In the fall the sumac is so fire-red that it should be impossible to forget. 

hairy hedge nettle

tick tefoil

smooth sumac

smooth sumac

May to June on the Prairie

If the prairie were a person, early June would be tweenhood. There are delicate blooms and fresh greens on low growth, as in May -- but there are new elements, too, elements that communicate the beginnings of a more seasoned reception to the world.

The prairie dock is still bright green, but it's more sandpapery, more enormous, and less fuzzy than its cute toddler self.

sweet fuzzy toddler prairie dock

Tweenaged prairie dock

The wild hyacinth and shooting star are gone; in their place, pale beardstongue and prairie rose, among others, fulfill the role of graceful plants low to the ground.

Shooting star and hyacinth fields in May

Prairie rose

Pale Beardstongue

The earlier plants aren't totally gone, of course. Here's a shooting star in May and one in June, after it's gone to seed. To an untrained eye like mine, they look like different plants, though the shape of the cluster of blooms lends a hint to their kinship.

Shooting star, May

Shooting star, June

Tougher-stalked, higher blooms abound--coneflowers, false quinine.



The wild white indigo has unfolded its pea-family leaves extravagantly, leaving no indication of its former strong resemblance to asparagus. Blossoms have started, too.

Wild white indigo in May

Wild white indigo in June

The first blooms - June

Black-eyed susans, indian plantain, and tall compass plant blooms are making themselves known.

black-eyed susan

Indian plantain

Compass plant

Rattlesnake masters' distinctive leaves were visible in May...now here come their buds, in June.

Rattlesnake master, May

Rattlesnake master bud, June

There are also sprays of tiny blooms this month: pale clouds of bedstraw, scurfy pea, and baby budding leadplant. There are milkweed (common and butterfly) and prairie phlox, lots of spiderwort and false sunflower, and so much more. All props go to Schulenberg Prairie in Morton Arboretum, an incredible place. Many conservative plants--rare plants that were once numerous before we paved and grazed every square mile of the Midwest, but that cannot survive in disturbed areas--reside there.

The June photos are from a guided walk with Cindy Crosby at Morton Arboretum. I love these walks, as I learn so much more, and so much faster, than I would going on my own and looking up each of these blooms. I in fact have a folder full unidentified-plant photos from each unaccompanied visit. I look forward to the day I can skim through and add names to each, wondering to myself how I ever could have not known these old friends.

Speaking of, can anyone identify this May flower?

Update: Mark in the comment below as well as Spiderwort on Twitter have kindly identified this plant as white blue-eyed grass. Thanks, guys!