Smoke season?

While poking through the photo archives, seeking inspiration and/or distraction, I was reminded that it's time to go check our nearby patch of prairie smoke. The photo below was taken on May 10, 2017. Somehow, my mind had latched onto the idea to look for prairie smoke about 2 weeks later than that. Tomorrow, a short prairie smoke trip may be just the thing to ease into a phase of recovery from a spring cold.

Geum triflorum (Prairie Smoke)

Photo by J. Harrington

There were no signs that our few pasque flowers survived the winter and/or the pocket gophers. We'll think about replacing them this autumn or next spring. Or, possibly not. Gardening is clearly not my forte and it seems much of what get's planted is simply sacrificed to the short term needs of the neighborhood wildlife. Then again, I remember the thousands of pines that Aldo Leopold and his family planted and replanted in their sand county and I don't feel quite as bad. Their persistence and commitment is admirable.

Vision

Robert Penn Warren - 1905-1989

I shall build me a house where the larkspur blooms
        In a narrow glade in an alder wood,
Where the sunset shadows make violet glooms,
        And a whip-poor-will calls in eerie mood.

I shall lie on a bed of river sedge,
        And listen to the glassy dark,
With a guttered light on my window ledge,
        While an owl stares in at me white and stark. 

I shall burn my house with the rising dawn,
        And leave but the ashes and smoke behind,
And again give the glade to the owl and the fawn,
        When the grey wood smoke drifts away with the wind.

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