Back to My Roots – Prairie Grasses

June 26, 2013 by 8 Comments
Little Bluestem

Little Bluestem © 2013 Bo Mackison

I like to think of landscape not as a fixed placed but as a path that is unwinding before my eyes, under my feet.  ~ Gretel Ehrlich, in introduction to Legacy of Light (1987)

Redtop - Wisconsin Prairie

Redtop in Wisconsin Prairie © 2013 Bo Mackison

I must confess that I have a weakness of empty places. ~ Tony Hillerman in Travelers’ Tales American Southwest (2001)

I don’t think of prairies (or deserts, for that matter) as empty places.

I see them as open spaces, places where the eye can travel without abrupt barriers, where the land offers opportunity for connection, not a dis-connect.

Little Bluestem - Wisconsin Prairie

Little Bluestem in Wisconsin Prairie © 2013 Bo Mackison

. . . Fitting floor / For this magnificent temple of the sky. . .  ~ William Cullen Bryant (1866, “The Prairies”)

I like to walk in the prairie landscape, in the desert landscape, and be able to see in the distance.

Not distance from a mountain top – there is no easy access to walk the landscape spread before me from a mountain peak – though the view from mountain top is exhilarating, awe-provoking.

No, my preference is to see the distant landscape, and know it is under my feet as well as beyond my gaze.

—————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is getting re-acquainted with the prairie and grasslands in preparation for the next set of Wisdom Cards.

Filed Under: Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lands that I Love

September 18, 2012 by 10 Comments
Late Autumn in the Prairie - Hidden Colors

Hidden Colors in the Prairie © 2012 Bo Mackison

A passion builds inside anyone who spends time on the prairie. ~ D. Showalter

In the winter, I spend my time in the Southwest and often wander the open spaces of the desert. It felt like home, the desert stretching as far as I could see, the first time I stood in the desert’s midst, turning in a circle, looking at the diversity, at the low clumping grasses, the bursts of yellow wildflowers, standing in the thick ground vegetation where I had perhaps expected sandbox sand.

It was a surprise to me. Why would I have such a thrilling connection to this secret land, land many people describe as desolate, and yet I could see nothing but wonder. This was not a land of my desolation.  A land of little water, yes, and of grand schemes for plant conservation, but wherever I looked there were compact surprises of the natural sort.

And now, in this last week of summer, where the touch of autumn rests heavily in the niches of Wisconsin, I notice similarities of the prairie and the desert.

The tallgrass prairie stretches far, blocks my view with its six-foot tall grasses and flower stalks, and I imagine it stretching for miles. Imagine I must, for most of the prairie has been swept clean, readied a century ago by the tractor’s plow, for corn and soybeans.  And now the neighboring land waits for winter covered with a different type of remnant, the sheared rows of cornstalks.

So I keep my eyes focused on the prairie spaces, on the swaying grasses, the sudden stalks of flowers dancing above my head, the prairie flowers twisting, wending their way, forcing their way ever skyward. Grasses and flowers with pioneer names – calico asters, switch grass, prairie cord grass, needle grass, cup-plant, compass plant.

In autumn, these prairie spaces have a certain look, the familiar is so similar to the arid desert grasslands.

Prairie in the autumn. Desert in the winter.

Lands that I love.

——————-

Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  Another day traipsing paths through prairie – her muse for both photography and words.

Filed Under: Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Prairie Grasses in Wisconsin

September 9, 2008 by 7 Comments

Say the word “prairie” and many people visualize Laura Ingalls in her log cabin or rolling wagons crossing open prairie land, the wagons filled with settlers on their way out West in search for a better life. But I’m thinking most really have no idea of what a prairie looks like up close.

Sure, most know there are lots of sunflowers and yellow goldenrod wildflowers and some tall grass, but ever give thought to the hundreds of varieties of grasses that make up the tall grass and short grass prairie lands. Obvious, right?

Well, maybe not so obvious at all. It’s easy to overlook grasses. I mean, it’s just grass, right?  So let me show you just how different a few of these grasses really are.

Side Oats Grama Grass

Side Oats Grama Grass © 2008

This prairie grass is found in the high prairies in southern Wisconsin and extends to central Wisconsin in fewer numbers. It’s one of my favorite grasses to look for – I love the purply-blue fruits hanging in a row like someone pinned them on a clothesline.

When buffalo roamed the region, this was their main source of food. It’s an easy grass to identify – all those oats are hanging off to one “side”. So it is side oats grama grass. Grama is from gramen, the Latin word meaning grass.  1 1/2 to 3 feet tall.

Indian Grass

Indian Grass © 2008

Before agriculture and tended crops developed, Indian grass was second only to big blue-stem grass as the most important plant in the tall grass prairie, both in its numbers and in its nutritional content.

It is extremely drought resistant because of it’s extensive deep root system – typical of the prairie plants. The frequent prairie fires do not damage these grasses – they are highly adapted to the burns. This grass was one of the taller one,  usually standing 6 to 9 feet tall.

Canada Wild-Rye Grass

Canada Wild-Rye Grass © 2008

This is one of the most important grasses in the tall grass prairie. It acts as a nurse crop for prairie seedlings early in the growing season before it declines as the warm season grasses mature. Canada Wild-rye Grass grows 2 to 5 feet tall and forms a loose sod. Native Americans used the seed for food, as did a multitude of large and small animals.

The grasses had other uses besides as food.They were used as fuels, and also the fibers were woven into mats for internal walls in small cabins, window coverings, and floor coverings.

Filed Under: Nature Explorations, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,