Hawk Lessons

During the summer of 1972, before I began my senior year of high school, I had several encounters with birds that made an impression on my adolescent brain. Like all teenagers I was floundering my way towards a sense of where I fit, wondering how to take my raw material out into the world and form it into an adult. At various times that year it seemed the universe was speaking to me through the voice of a marbled godwit, a great blue heron, a group of pelicans and particularly through the harsh cry of a red tailed hawk.

Early that summer my task for the day was to get a fence ready for the cattle we would soon put out in the pasture just west of my prairie restoration. I threw some metal line posts, some used wire for splicing, a bag of staples, a post maul, a fence stretcher and a few tools into the back of our old pickup. I packed a sandwich or two and a quart jar of water and left for a day of fencing.

While I wasn’t a lazy kid, neither was I an efficient and driven worker at sixteen. After two or three hours I lost interest in the fencing, dropped my tools back in the pickup, and decided to take my lunch on a walk to Anderson Lake, about a half mile to the west. I ate a sandwich as I walked, first crossing our prairie hayland, then jumping the fence bordering a neighbor’s pasture. I crossed a couple hills and came upon a view of a valley heading down to the lake. Bordering the lake a hundred yards ahead was a large dead cottonwood with a nest in the crotch between the last two sizable branches, about 40 feet in the air. As I approached it a large hawk lifted off the nest, screamed at me and flew into the sky until it became a line drawing, and then little more than a dot. It turned in swirls and spirals, still screaming from perhaps 1000 feet in the air, “SKREE! SKREE! SKREE!”

There was only one choice available to the young man I was at sixteen. I had to climb the tree to see what was in the nest. What else could I do? It is only with hindsight that it seems obvious that climbing 40 feet up the slippery surface of a barkless cottonwood with an angry hawk parent voicing its indignation up above might not be a good idea. A different way to state this might be that I was compelled to climb the tree by a teenager’s need for excitement and novelty, the need to explore and learn In any case, there was no hesitation as I attacked the tree.

At that age I was an accomplished and experienced tree climber, but I found the cottonwood a challenge. Without bark there were no grooves to stick my fingers or the toe of my boots into for purchase. I had to get to the first branch, almost ten feet in the air with the smooth, slick trunk below. I was finally able to reach the branch by using a bump from a long gone limb as an aid, From there I found more good branches to use, until I was about ten feet below the nest. The only branches at that height were both small and beginning to rot. It would take both skill and daring to complete the climb to the nest.

But what then? I needed to take a minute to think this through. Why was I so determined to reach this nest? The previous year I had climbed to a hawk nest in a box elder in an old farmsite north of our place. As I rose through a tangle of branches to the lip of the nest I met the open gapes of three halfgrown hawks pretending to be badasses by hissing and screaming at me. In my surprise I lost my grip, but caught myself in the tangle of branches a few feet down, The only penalty for my foolishness was a momentary loss of dignity and a few scratches. The penalty of losing my grip on the cottonwood would be far greater. And above the hawk still screamed.

After thinking through the options I decided to retreat. It wasn’t so much a “discretion is the better part of valor” decision as a realization that I was acting like a damned idiot. If I fell I could be badly hurt, perhaps killed. Worse, no one would even think to look for me here, a half mile from my pickup. A mental image of committing to a jump to a rotten branch which snapped in my hands, with me ending up falling through space convinced me to start my way back down. A few minutes later I was on the ground ready to go back to fencing. I gave a last look to the hawk still circling far above and began to saunter back, probably a bit smug in my new found maturity. After I was fifty yards away from the nest the hawks screams seemed louder, so I looked back up to watch it gliding back to earth in a tight spiral, no longer a line drawing, but the image of a raptor. As I watched it circle downwards the realization crept up that it was not circling the nest, but directly over me.

Holy Crap! Normally I don’t spook easily, but I instantly received a very large dose of fear induced adrenaline. I had watched hawks dive on rabbits and mice from the safety of a tractor many times. There would be very little time to react should my aggrieved adversary decide to dive on me. With the strength of my fear I began to sprint, trying to put distance between the nest and me. Though I was running with the speed of youth, I felt like my boots were caked with cement. At the same time, I was yelling at the hawk, professing both innocence and contrition, not caring that true innocence precludes the need for contrition. When I had reached the top of the hill where I had first seen the nest I looked up to see the hawk break off its intimidating spiral, gliding back to the nest where it sat and screamed its final indignation towards me: “SKREE! SKREE! SKREE!”

I walked a ways farther and then dropped to the ground, deflated like a spent balloon, the adrenaline wearing off. My heartbeat became less of a machine gun and I thought about what had just occurred. Never before or since have I been frightened in that primal manner, though I have been in several situations much more dangerous. I felt that life had given me a powerful message.

The message was to be mindful; to be intentional; to show respect for the decisions I made. It was to look at the world as a place to enter and be a part of, not a toy to manipulate. The opportunity to retool my outlook can only be called “grace” by this old Catholic altar boy. I tend towards linear thought and cold logic, and can be a bit dismissive of mystical interpretations of events. My wife is the shaman in our family, not me. Yet it pleases me to imagine that in a moment of heightened consciousness, fed by fear, I entered the fierce, unyielding world of a red tailed hawk. To the hawk, the world and every action is serious, with life and death consequences. I am humbly grateful for that lesson.

Valkyries

When my mother, Marian, was 90 years old she decided that she needed a new hip. The pain from the arthritic joint was turning her into a recluse. In her words, “What the hell good am I to anyone like this?” She had no intention of living the rest of her life as a shut-in, so action needed to be taken.

There were two barriers, however. First, there was an irregularity in her EKG, something that had first shown up several years before in preparation for hernia surgery. Her second problem was high blood pressure, though the readings were only high when taken at the clinic. They seemed to be stress induced, the main stressor being the worry that she would be unable to get her new hip with high blood pressure. These were significant issues to overcome, but my mother had worked as a nurse for twenty years after she and my father had retired from the farm, and she knew her way around the health system. Soon she had a plan to overcome the barriers.

The EKG blip was mitigated by finding a doctor who wrote an opinion minimizing the importance of the abnormality, a “bundle branch block”. In addition, she had lived with no problems since the original EKG, so that barrier was overcome. To combat arguments regarding the high blood pressure reading she was certain the nurse would measure, she brought in a voluminous log of much lower blood pressure readings she had taken at home over the past two weeks. Thus buttressed, and with me along as a witness (she had me watch her take two readings earlier that day), she talked the orthopedic surgeon into performing a hip replacement.

The surgery went well. Afterwards her spirits were high, despite the inevitable post surgical pain. My older brother, Leon, came to be with her, and after a couple days brought her back to the tiny hospital in Webster, her home town, to convalesce a few days before going home.

Leon went home, and I went to check on her the next day. I found her slumped in the recliner in her room, looking for the first time in her life like a frail old woman. “What happened, Mom?” I asked. “You look like hell!”

She looked down and to the side, deciding how to spin her reply, and finally said,”I had a little upset last night, Bobby.” Then there was a short pause to decide how honestly she would answer my question. “The doctor thinks I might have had a small heart attack.” She looked down at the floor while she said this, not wanting to make eye contact.

“What??? What are they doing about it? Why are you just sitting here? What actions are they taking? What does the doctor say?”

She raised her head, looked at me with steely eyes, and said, “They’re not doing anything. He wants to send me to a hospital in Sioux Falls, but I told him I wouldn’t go. Talk to the doctor yourself. He should still be on call.”

I went to the nurses station to page the doctor, and when he came I asked, “What happened last night? My mother says that you think she had a heart attack, but there are no measures being taken. She is just sitting in her recliner. Are you all right with that?”

“I am NOT all right with that!” he indignantly replied. “I want her to go to the Heart Hospital in Sioux Falls, but she categorically refused. She practically kicked me out of her room. We just can’t do much for her here.”

His plaintive tone told me that Marian had cut him off at the knees when he had suggested an ambulance ride to Sioux Falls so I left him at the nurses station with an aggrieved look on his face and went back to confront my mother.

“The doctor still wants to send you to Sioux Falls. Why won’t you go?”

“Bobby, I already know what they will do with me down there. I’m an old woman who just had surgery, so they won’t do anything. They will put me in a bed with an IV and just stare at me. After a few days they will tell me to go home. I can do the same thing here. I feel better now and would just like to spend the night and talk in the morning. If I have a bad night I will consider it again. What’s the worst that could happen? I have a heart attack and die.”

After dismissing the worst case scenario with a metaphorical wave of her hand she sent me home. She was much better the next day, excited because my younger brother, Jim, was flying out from California to stay a few days with her. My wife went to get Jim, dropped him off with Marian, and left them to visit. After a couple days Marian seemed perky enough to go home and her first day at home was great. She spent the day regaling my brother with all her ideas of activities possible now that she had the new hip, thrilled that her baby boy was home to see her. As I remember, she wanted to go see the renovations done on the diocesan Cathedral in Sioux Falls, and she wanted to plan a trip to Wisconsin to see her younger sister.

Late that afternoon she tired of talking, and excused herself to go to the bathroom. Immediately she called for my brother, “Jimmy, come here, I need you!” He found her slumped on the floor, confused. Jim dragged himself away long enough to call 911, returned to her, and held her while her life ebbed away after a heart attack. She passed away a couple days after her 91st birthday.

A day or two later I was back in Webster making funeral arrangements. The funeral home was only a couple blocks from my mother’s house so I welcomed the walk to clear my head. My mood matched the weather, black swirling clouds buffeted by a strong wind. I stood looking at the turbulent sky, trying to make sense of my turbulent emotions.

And then the vultures came. A lot of vultures. Perhaps two hundred vultures were taking advantage of the strong south winds, swooping and circling just above the treetops on their way north. The Valkyries had come for my mother, the warrior, to take her to Valhalla. In my fey mood, walking with one foot on each side of the great divide, I momentarily wondered if they also were there for me. My place, however, was still on earth, and after a few minutes they were gone, leaving me there with my mouth agape.

My mother had grown up speaking Kasuby Polish, a dialect from near the Baltic Sea. Her arc began with horse teams and hard labor, and ended in the twenty first century. Though there were many aspects of Dakota farm life that frustrated her, she always shaped her environment and crafted her own path. “What’s the worst that could happen? I have a heart attack and die.” She knew that, unhesitatingly moved forward, and lost her bet, getting to die in the arms of her son. Pretty damned cool. If anyone deserved to feast in Valhalla (or it’s Polish equivalent) Marian did. A lot of lessons and a lot to live up to. If I can live my remaining years with half the courage and strength as my parents I will be satisfied. And if I am lucky, maybe the vultures will come for me as well.

Postscript:

About two weeks after my mother’s death I was back in Webster cleaning up some of her business when I received a phone call from her surgeon. “Bob, I just heard that Marian had a heart attack and passed away. I’m so sorry. I feel responsible for her death.” Wow! The surgeon had both the balls and the humanity to speak from his heart, quite a gift in our litigious society. I returned the gift, telling him that while the surgery probably did lead to the heart attack, Marian went into the surgery with her eyes wide open. I thanked him for the call and for trying to give my mother the opportunity to lead a richer and happier life. It felt very good to be able to tell him that. We need to go forward bravely; the worst that can happen is that we die.

Contingency

During the summer of 2018 there was a phenomena which illustrated how much there is to learn if you keep your eyes open. About the end of June I started to see some regal fritillary (Speyeria idalia) butterflies. It seemed a bit early, but May and June had been warm. The black samson (Echinacea angustifolia) they like to nectar on was beginning to bloom already, so the phenology was appropriate to the year.

The next week when I returned to my prairies all hell had broken loose. Everywhere I looked I saw regal fritillaries. They were feeding on a variety of blooms; they were wafting around at eye level, flipping past my head as I walked around; they were all through the sky as far as the eye could see. At any time I could look up and see twenty or thirty fritillaries across my field of vision. Where the hell did they all come from? What were the important weather events to allow excellent egg deposition and survival the previous fall, allow overwintering of early instar larvae, allow sufficient violet growth to feed those larvae during the spring and allow efficient pupation to create the clouds of butterflies I enjoyed that summer? What was the ultimate cause of the population explosion?

The cheap answer is that the flapping wings of a butterfly ultimately causes a typhoon in the Pacific, the chestnut from chaos theory. Everything is contingent upon everything, a chaotic system impossible to fathom. The other extreme we are prone to is to attribute a phenomena to a single, simple cause. A facile oversimplification is almost always wrong. The fritillary outbreak was undoubtedly due to more than one factor. So let’s go through the list.

First, late summer and fall weather was pretty gentle in 2017. There was enough rain and a warm enough fall for good plant growth. The winter was fairly open and gentle until a cold wet April added 20” of snow. While there are always some violets (Viola pedatifida and Viola nuttallii) in our hills, neither I nor my neighbors (I do a little trespassing to look around now and then) had an unusual amount. If you had asked my opinion that spring on the potential for a fritillary outbreak I would have guessed that populations would be down because of a lack of snow cover in midwinter and the crappy April. What happened?

Well, here’s my guess. What stood out in 2018 as unusual was that when it finally warmed up at the end of April it stayed consistently warm in May and June, with good moisture. Cool season plants that had been languishing on April 25th absolutely detonated in May. Temperatures at the nearest weather station near Watertown were 6.3 degrees above average in May and 4.5 degrees above average in June. Add in the moisture from the April snows and the spring rains, and even the gravel hills looked like gardens. Certainly other factors were important as well. Perhaps disease or parasitism or predation were less significant than average. Maybe the warm weather limited fungal disease of the larvae or the pupae. I don’t know. What I do know is that the weather conditions of 2019, when another cold, snowy April turned into a cold damp May, led to a dearth of regal fritillaries. They were hard to find this past summer, though I saw a few. Where did contingency lie? It is fun to consider

Postscript

As I have written earlier, one impetus for this project was to provide habitat for Dakota skipper butterflies. Providing habitat for regal fritillaries was not something I had considered in designing my seed list. After the fritillary outbreak I purchased prairie violet (Viola pedatifida) seed as well as whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) seed (I had noticed adult fritillaries nectaring on whorled milkweed) to spread last spring. While the future for Dakota skippers is pretty dicey, regal fritillaries seem to have more resiliency, or perhaps less specificity in habitat requirements. It pleases me greatly to add another species of conservation concern to my habitat plan. Perhaps, if it is a better spring, I will see one using the restoration this summer.

Again and again it strikes me how much I have to learn, and that much of learning is simply spending time in the prairie with my eyes open. In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you could miss it.”

Roots 2

Continuing the theme of the last post, here is a bit on the other end of my father’s life:

After they retired from the farm, my father found a way to live for 28 more years. Most of the credit goes to the informed and watchful care of my mother, who went back to school at 57 to get a nursing degree. He spent his retirement much as he had spent his teenage years, minus the drinking. He walked downtown every day to play cards and play pool, mowed the lawn and watched television. I am almost the same age as he was when he retired and that sounds horrible to me, but it suited him. Finally, in his mid-eighties, all his health problems caught up to him, till his world revolved around the dining room, which held his lift chair, the commode, his hospital bed and the dining room table. Once a week I would get him into the bathroom to sit for a shower. The demands of his care became more and more onerous till we worried for my mother’s health. She was losing weight, not sleeping well and developing a hernia from helping my father.

The three brothers had a good talk as we walked off Christmas dinner, 2005, to discuss the matter. What could we do to help our mother more, or get our father to the nursing home he needed for his advanced care? Earlier during the fall of that year I had been visiting when my father had broached the subject, “Marian, you need to put me into a nursing home. Taking care of me is killing you,” he said in an anguished voice, and then he looked to me for support. He had waited until I visited so that he would have a chance to make his case. Though he was obviously scared at the prospect of a nursing home, he felt he needed to take a shot at lessening the load on my mother.

My mother looked as if she had been slapped in the face and responded before I could say anything, “Why in the hell do you want to go to a nursing home? They won’t take half as good care of you as I do. You’ll just lay there wishing someone would help you. No one can take care of you the way I do!”

“I know that, dear, but taking care of me is wrecking your health. You have to put me in a nursing home so you can get a break and get some sleep,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Not a chance. My mother’s life was made normal and meaningful by caring for Lester, and she was perfectly willing to shorten her life to do it. She gave six or eight reasons why the nursing home was a bad idea, from poorer care, to the expense, to how it would really be harder on her to drive back and forth to the nursing home. Neither Lester nor I could say a word. With that background to our Christmas conversation all the three brothers could come up with on our walk was that we would all try to help my mother more. It was her right to shorten her life to take care of Lester.

A few weeks later I got a call from my mother about 6:30 in the morning. Of course the first thing you say after an unexpected phone call at that time of the morning is to ask, “What’s wrong, Mom? Is Dad all right?”

” Bobby, get in your vehicle and come here right away. Your Dad had a (very short pause while she weighed her response) a kind of seizure. Come now!”

I kept asking questions while I threw some clothes on but continued to get evasive replies, so I hopped in my pickup to drive the 35 miles to Webster, where my parents lived. About halfway there I called back to ask whether the ambulance was there yet and my mother replied: “Just don’t have an accident! We will talk when you get here. Hang up the phone and watch the road.”

I drove 80 mph in the early morning light without seeing another vehicle the entire way and burst into the house breathlessly, “Where’s the ambulance??? Where’s Dad?”

“Just sit down Bobby, so we can talk.” And as I walked over to the hospital bed to sit down I saw my Dad in the lift chair, deader than a fucking doornail. He was a greenish gray color as the blood was draining to lower points in his body. My mother handed me a stethoscope and instructed me to listen to his chest.

I did, of course hearing nothing, and turned towards my mother, “He’s dead, Mom, there’s nothing there.”

“Nothing at all? Ok, now we can call the ambulance. A few weeks ago he went into a diabetic coma. I revived him, and he was more angry at me than I can ever remember. He said he was ready to die; I needed to be able to let him go, and he made me promise never to resuscitate him again If there’s no sound from Lester’s heart the coroner will just pronounce him dead peacefully and the ambulance crew won’t feel they need to perform CPR. Dial 911.”

The ambulance crew bustled in a few minutes later, and sure enough they immediately pronounced him dead. They told my mother and me to wait in the kitchen to spare us the sight of them manhandling him on the gurney, but it was unnecessary by then. My father’s spirit was gone and he was a sack of potatoes. My mother and I did the business we needed to do, called the immediate family and sat down at the kitchen table in exhaustion.

“That’s done. But now what will I do?” my mother asked.

I can only dream of being as tough as they were. It’s a lot to live up to.

Reflections on Entering Winter

I have a treasured memory of a sparkling winter day with the temperature hovering near zero and absolutely no wind. Anderson Lake was about a mile west of the farm, so I drove as close as I could, about a half mile away. I then spent the rest of the day wandering on the lake, listening to the deep booms caused by the expansion of the ice, a disconcerting sound until you realize you are walking over at least 30″ of solid ice. It was also the rare winter where the ice surface was smooth enough to skate and slide across, even in winter boots. For several hours I slid, observed the shoreline along the lake and investigated the pattern of vertical cracks extending through the mass of ice. I ended the afternoon laying on my back listening to the ice music and feeling the deep vibrations.

Another memory is of the only time I brought a girl home from college to meet my parents on the farm. Patty was a town girl from Rapid City, an area disparagingly referred to as “the banana belt” for its comparatively warm weather. Weather forecasts were not as accurate 45 years ago as now but I am certain the forecast was not good. At the age of 19, though, I doubt any forecast would have mattered to me. Our journey began in a driving snow and steady wind, but soon we drove into a full scale blizzard, fighting low visibility and snow drifts on the road. First we tried to drive into our farm from the east, but had to turn around two miles from home when we found three foot drifts across the county gravel. “No worries”, I said, “we will just backtrack, swing around to the west and come in on the tar road which runs a couple miles west of our farm.” This try ended six miles southwest of our place when we ran into a stretch of drifts behind a long shelter belt. I was a little concerned now, but backtracked once more, found a passable highway which took us north of the farm, gunned my boat of an Impala through many drifts, and finally buried my car in snow only a quarter mile from home, just in time to be picked up by the neighbors out running around on snowmobiles.

We were home, safe and dry, and I hoped I had impressed Patty with my resourcefulness and bravado. Unfortunately I think Patty didn’t see this so much as a grand adventure, but more an example of suicidal stupidity. I was unaware of this, though, as she spent the weekend in the house with my mother sewing a dress, while I spent the weekend shoveling out the car and the farm. A young man is invariably clueless, and I was wondering why she had no interest in joining me outside to learn about our farm. She seemed to have no interest in the dairy cattle, the snow or anything I was doing with my father and brother outside. She was pleasant, though cool, as we drove home in brilliant winter sunshine on Sunday. but I thought little of it, Then, before our relationship got any farther, she decided to return to her old boyfriend. He was going into the military, which obviously was much safer than being around me, and we drifted apart. “Ses la vie”.

I used to truly enjoy the power of winter, but damage from my cancer treatments has taken such experiences away from me. My trachaeostomy doesn’t allow me enough air to expend the energy needed to tromp through deep snow or to fight against a bitter wind. The exhilaration of being out in a blizzard is lost to me forever. I have become a “weenie” who shrinks from the challenge of majestic winter weather, and it has become difficult to know what to do with my time through a long, tough winter.

This has made the opportunity to enjoy truly nice winter days more sweet. I am compelled to make the most out of any day gentle enough to allow me to spend time out in the world. I had such a day the last week of November. The temperature was near 50 and the wind was light. There might not be another such day until April, so even though I was on antibiotics fighting a lung infection I headed west up on to the Prairie Coteau. Deer season had just begun, an event I no longer participate in, but I like to see who is out hunting by my farm.

I parked near the prairie which had a prescribed burn in 2018, and walked to the top of the nearest hill. My only goal was to view the vista and smell the air. It turned out that I should have had a deer license, as I immediately kicked up a doe and a large buck from a bedding area on the next hillside. I hunted this farm for 30 years and this would have been the best chance I ever had to get a deer on this prairie. The young lovers pranced gaily away, ready to produce another generation to bound over these hills, which pleased me greatly.

That was inspiration to continue my walk. I am considering a land swap with a neighbor, trading 20 acres of farmground bordering the south side of this prairie to 20 acres to the east. I would then restore the prairie on the land to the east, which would provide connectivity to grass on the next quarter and set up a more practical grazing unit for future management. As I sauntered around I considered the possibilities. The land I would trade has been in my family about 120 years, and it will take several more walks to get used to the idea.

With the afternoon going so well I then went down to the linear wetland in the prairie to the patches of sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus) that I had found the past summer. I gathered a gallon of seedheads in an old plastic grocery bag I found in the pickup which I spread on my restoration when I felt better. And with that I decided that a sick old guy needed to wrap up his excursion and head home to rest. There is a long winter ahead, but I was able to be out this day. If experiencing joy provides sustenance to one’s immune system (and I believe it does), good health was sure to follow.

Postscript, January 13

This text above was written in early December when the landscape looked like this at the restoration:

Though the temperature has broken 32 a couple times since then, the post refers to what was the last nice day of fall/early winter. I have had few days since where the weather has allowed me to go for a good walk. Thus, there have been too many days of incarceration in the house and I once more am fighting a bronchial infection. Opportunities of all kinds in life are legion, but precious nonetheless; any day that the intersection of my health and the weather allows a sojourn in nature must be grasped; hell, it needs to be leapt upon and throttled. I will never again get to spend several hours on a cold clear day listening to the music of the ice, and I hope to hell I never fight a blizzard for hours in my vehicle, but someday soon I will walk in the prairie again. In three months the pasqueflowers will bloom and I will be there.

For What It’s Worth

The title was picked without consciously referring to the Buffalo Springfield song of the late 60’s, but as the connection occurred to me, it seemed strangely appropriate. There is much angst about how divided our country is now, but it was even more divided back then, with many demonstrations escalating into riots and violence. Still, the paranoia and the closing off of alternatives because “we” could never trust “them” enough to collaborate and cooperate is all too familiar. There is an aspect of this adversarial tribal identification between many in the ag economy and the environmental community. I have worked as a consulting agronomist for forty years, but with one foot in the other world. I have no tribe. So here are a few thoughts on this topic, using recent examples from my life, which I can then tie back to my restoration.

A few months ago my wife, Linda, was talking to a U S Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) employee in Minnesota who had recently moved there from another state, and he related his surprise and dismay at the rancor shown to him by many farmers. They were openly angry with FWS (and with the Minnesota DNR) because of a perceived hostility to farmers and actions those agencies took which they felt were in opposition to their making a living on the farm. To borrow a line from another song from the 60’s, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now,” and I think I can put myself in both sets of shoes.

From the farmers’ point of view, it starts with the casual denigration of the way we farm today, our farms referred to as industrial or factory farms, in opposition to the small, diversified farms of 50 years ago. I grew up on one of those farms, and while it was a good life there were many aspects which no one would ask us to go back to. The work was brutal, even for children, vacations were unknown, and serious accidents were normal. I have a memory of being in church as a teenager and suddenly being struck by the number of physically damaged men, with fingers or even arms gone, hunched over with chronic back injuries. My father, who was without one finger from an accident and had a bad back his entire life from an attempt to stop a runaway team of horses was a good example. Public policy supports farmers financially on one hand, but limits them in other ways. A couple years ago Minnesota mandated perennial filter strips along waterways on all farms in the state. Without going into details, this mandate could easily cost an average size farm $5-10,000 per year in expenses and foregone income from those filter strips. Add in the competition for land from FWS and DNR purchased for wildlife areas, the problems landowners have with hunters trespassing on their land and fights over drainage issues, and some farmers feel besieged. We all are stuck seeing the world through our own eyes, and we like to see ourselves on the side of the angels, in this case feeding the world while caring for the land, and it is difficult to reconcile that with feeling you are viewed as a villain. The lament is, “Why am I viewed as a bad guy?”

On the other side, the FWS employee wonders what the hell he did to get yelled at. Visiting with someone about a voluntary easement for a fair price doesn’t feel like an aggressive or a hostile act. Buying land from willing sellers, which supports the land values of farmers, supports their balance sheets. The filter strips which limit silt and chemicals from impacting water users downstream furthers an important societal goal a farmer should understand and support. As an employee of FWS he is trying to build a richer and more abundant world to live in for farmers as well as everyone else. Most farmers hunt and fish, and all profess to love the land and the environment. But once again the lament is, “Why am I viewed as a bad guy?”

Still, we are all parochial and selfish; we are all weak vessels. We tend to group those with whom we disagree into a faceless group we can rail against or ignore, and a couple negative experiences indict an entire group. Witness how the 9/11 terrorists and ISIS became the face of Islam in many people’s minds, which is a bit like seeing violent neo-nazis or members of the KKK as emblematic of all Christian Americans. Thus has it always been, but I will forego other examples of these divisions to look at examples showing another path.

Recently I talked to a Farm Credit Services (FCS) loan officer about financing another potential project. He is my age, and very much a peer, having also grown up on a remote hill farm. He has made a good career for himself as a knowledgeable and very hard nosed banker. He also farms the land he grew up on and he was very interested in my prairie restoration and my conservation projects. He shared some of his ideas for his farm as he nears retirement, which includes putting several parcels into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) both for the soil and water conservation aspect and as wildlife habitat. He smiled and said, “As we get older we think more about the legacy we are leaving, and hope we leave things better than we found them.” The CRP program will pay him rent, but it would be easier, and probably more profitable, to continue farming the land. Yet my conservative banker friend was very pleased with the idea of a small sacrifice to improve the environment, and pleased that an FCS loan might facilitate my conservation project.

The other example I will relate happened several years ago. A pair of burrowing owls, the first that I have seen within 200 miles of here, set up housekeeping in an old badger hole in the road ditch two miles south of my place. The adjoining landowner is a gruff older farmer, recently retired, who rents his farm ground to the most aggressive young farmer in our neighborhood. There is little land in our township that is not farmed, quarter after quarter of corn, soybeans and alfalfa blanket the countryside. What these owls were thinking when they settled there I cannot imagine, much like a young family moving to a nice house in the middle of a barren landscape of warehouses. My wife and I worried that someone would take a potshot at them, whether out of fear they might be an endangered species which would limit their land management (a worry far out of proportion to the actual implications of harboring an endangered species) or simply out of the old country ethos that animals are there to shoot.

Yet every day we would drive by and meet the otherworldly stare of a burrowing owl. Usually one of the pair would lift six or eight feet in the air as we drove by, lightly dropping back to the earth after we passed. Soon we found that not only had the rest of the neighborhood noticed them, they had adopted them as the mascots of the township. The landowner had given strict instructions to his renter that the owls were not to be disturbed. Though this gentleman obsessively mows his ditches as if they were an extension of his front lawn, no mower was allowed near the owl nest. Other neighbors would sneak their vehicles past on the side of the road opposite the nest, trying to get a look at our new residents without disturbing them. The burrowing owls were a happening.

Unfortunately we then got a four inch downpour, and the runoff came down the ditch and flooded the nest. We never saw the owls again, and we are bereft of our interesting friends. The entire township mourned the loss of the owl nest. If that can occur in this very conservative, practical, Republican area, it can and does happen everywhere. Given a chance, people will accommodate the natural environment. People are always the problem and the solution; the joy and the sadness; the giver and the taker. Yin and yang. The eternal question is how to stack the deck so we get a little more yin and a little less yang.

This brings me back to the project of the year (not the one I was talking to the banker about), a small supplement to the 100 acre restoration that could have big consequences. I will probably devote an entire post to the project in the future, but here is a summary, along with a short discussion on how it fits into this post’s thesis.

In the northwest quarter of our farm, we own the northwest 40 acres and a neighbor owns the other 120. On our 40 is a 17 acre crop field and to the north of the crop field is 23 acres of native prairie and wetland that had a prescribed burn in 2018. The prairie has not been hayed or grazed for almost 50 years, and badly needs a return to more active management. The neighbor and I recently agreed to trade the 17 acre field of mine for a similarly sized parcel to its northeast, east of my prairie as shown above. The parcel I am trading for is very rough ground with a draw through the middle where water has run steadily for the past two years, a very awkward area to farm. In the trade he would receive better farmground, but I receive an area that I would do another prairie restoration upon, fence it with the existing native prairie, and graze in two or three years, when the planting was well established. This small action hardly seems significant, but as the CRP contracts mature, it allows it to be part of a growing group of pastures which could eventually reach 400 acres in 6-8 paddocks, surrounding about 300 acres of crop ground.

On the one hand (yin) this allows great flexibility in management for the benefit of the prairies, native and restored. Almost the only reasonable tool to fight bromegrass takeover in mesic sites is grazing, specifically grazing early and late in the season. All the tools of grazing intensity and timing to benefit native plants and discomfit invader species can be used. The scale is such that habitat connectivity, not just within my farm, but with surrounding grasslands, is significant. It will also provide a large reservoir of native plant materials to gather seed from, whether for further projects of mine or for sale. When added to the other ecosystem services the prairies can provide it becomes an encouraging conservation project.

On the other hand (yang) this becomes a sizeable and hopefully profitable grazing unit for the neighbor’s son, a young man who would like to increase the size of their cowherd, allowing him to farm full time. Between the 400 acres of grass and the potential for grazing cornstalks and cover crops, this could support a cowherd of about 100 head for a 6 month grazing season. Right now their herd of 100 cows gets divided into 6-7 small groups, including on two small pastures of mine, creating inefficiencies and complicating management. Their cowherd could be increased by 60-80 cows with little extra work involved in the grazing.

In other words, one plus one could equal three, the definition of synergy. Yin and yang in harmony; a loud affirmation that we are all in this together. I am now planning, gathering information and gathering partners pursuant to a fall seeding, and am excited to see what can be accomplished. And though I am tempted to wrap this up with another old song lyric I will show restraint and not weary you with another 60’s reference. For what it’s worth.

Seeding List, 2018-2019

I thought it wise to get a list of the species that have been seeded in the restoration down somewhere other than a scrap of notebook paper, so here it is. First there is a list of the 99 species that have been gathered (mostly by me but with significant help from Ben Lardy and a few others) and spread over the field. In addition, and listed after, are the species that were seeded by the district to fulfill the CRP contract and a group of species that were purchased in small amounts. Identification was easy in most cases, but in a few cases my poor botanical skills mean that my ID was a guess at the species level. After the common and scientific names of the species that I gathered there is a number that is an indicator of the amount gathered. The code is: 1 = a lot, enough to provide a large contribution to the restored prairie, 2 = a moderate amount, enough to see throughout the restoration if establishment is good, 3 = a small amount, but still enough to establish new species scattered across the field, and 4 = a very small amount which I hope to see somewhere in the restoration eventually. The ratings are extremely subjective, but still give an idea of what was available and where I concentrated my energies.

Species list: Gathered

1. Black Samson Echinacea angustifolia 1
2. Dotted Gayfeather Liatris punctata 1
3. Leadplant Amorpha canescens 1
4. Stiff Sunflower Helianthus pauciflorus 1
5. Prairie Cinquefoil Drymocallis arguta 1
6. Porcupine Grass Heterostipa spartea 1
7. Blanketflower Gaillardia aristata 1
8. Purple Prairie Clover Dalea purpurea 1
9. American Licorice Glycyrrhiza lepidota 1
10. Slender Penstemon Penstemon gracilis 1
11. White Penstemon Penstemon albidus 1
12. False Boneset Brickellia eupatoroides 2
13. Groundplum Astragalus crassicarpus 2
14. Slender Milkvetch Astragalus flexuosus 2
15. Canada Milkvetch Astragalus canadensis 2
16. Tall Dropseed Sporobolus heterolepis 2
17. Cudleaf Sagewort Artemisia ludoviciana 2
18. Maximillian Sunflower Helianthus maximilliani 2
19. Golden Alexander Zizia aurea 2
20. Pasqueflower Anemone patens 2
21. Prairie Onion Allium stellatum 2
22. Early Figwort Scrophularia lanceolata 2
23. Rough Blazingstar Liatris aspera 2
24. Hoary Vervain Verbena stricta 2
25. Prairie Rose Rosa arkansana 2
26. Stiff Goldenrod Oligoneuron rigida 2
27. Old Field Goldenrod Solidago nemoralis 2
28. Heath Aster Symphyotrichum ericoides 2
29. Silky Aster Symphyotrichum sericeum 2
30. Hairy Goldaster Heterotheca villosa 2
31. Prairie Smoke Geum triflorum 2
32. Alumroot Heuchera richardsonii 2
33. Whorled Milkweed Asclepias verticillata 2
34. Canada Anemone Anemone canadensis 2
35. Aromatic Aster Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 2
36. Wild Bergamot Monarda fistulosa 3
37. Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata 3
38. Prairie Turnip Pediomelum esculentum 3
39. Downy Painted Cup Castilleja sessiflora 3
40. Meadow Rue Thalictrum dasycarpum 3
41. Northern Bedstraw Galium boreale 3
42. Showy Tick Trefoil Desmodium canadense 3
43. Downy Gentian Gentiana puberulenta 3
44. Prairie Larkspur Delphinium virescens 3
45. Standing Milkvetch Astragalus adsurgens 3
46. Pennsylvania cinquefoil Potentilla pennsylvanica 3
47. Prairie Ragwort Packera plattensis 3
48. Thimbleweed Anemone cylindrica 3
49. Fringed Sagewort Artemisia frigida 3
50. Prairie Sandreed Calamovilfa longifolia 3
51. Grooved Yellow Flax Linum sulcatum 3
52. Common Milkweed Asclepias syriaca 3
53. Missouri Goldenrod Solidago missouriensis 3
54. Canada Goldenrod Solidago canadensis 3
55. False Sunflower Helianthus helianthoides 3
56. Yarrow Achillea millefolium 3
57. Joe Pye Weed Eutrochium maculatum 3
58. White Prairie Clover Dalea candida 3
59. Wood Betony Pedicularis canadensis 3
60. Indian Grass Sorghastrum nutans 3
61. Prairie Cordgrass Spartina pectinata 3
62. Textile Onion Allium textile 3
63. Field Pussytoes Antennaria neglecta 3
64. Sawtooth Sunflower Helianthus grosserserratus 3
65. Big Bluestem Andropogon gerardii 3
66. Sideoats Grama Bouteloua curtipendula 3
67. Blue Grama Bouteloua gracilis 3
68. Black Eyed Susan Rudbeckia hirta 3
69. Little Bluestem Schizachyrium scoparium 3
70. Green Needlegrass Nassela viridula 4
71. False Toadflax Comandra umbellata 4
72. Green Milkweed Asclepias viridiflora 4
73. Prairie Jungrass Koelaria macrantha 4
74. Silver Leaf Scurfpea Pediomelum argophyllum 4
75. False Gromwell Onosmodium molle 4
76. Unknown Rush Juncus sp. 4
77. Prairie Blazing Star Liatris pycnostachya 4
78. Meadow Blazing Star Liatris ligustylis 4
79. White Deathcamas Zigadenus elegans 4
80. Blue Eyed Grass Sisyrhinchium campestre 4
81. Prairie Violet Viola pedatifida 4
82. Rattlesnake Root Prenanthes racemosa 4
83. Yellow Avens Bidens cernua 4
84. Bottle Gentian Gentiana andrewsii 4
85. Blue Vervain Verbena hastata 4
86. Chickweed Cerastium arvense 4
87. White Milkwort Polygala alba 4
88. Plains Muhly Muhlenbergia cuspidata 4
89. Panicgrass Dichanthelium oligosanthes 4
90. American Vetch Vicia americana 4
91. Switchgrass Panicum virgatum 4
92. Sun Sedge Carex inops 4
93. Threadleaf Sedge Carex duriuscula 4
94. Wild Four O’ Clock Nyctaginea mirabilis 4
95. Prairie lettuce Lactuca biennis 4
96. Idaho Biscuitroot Lomatium orientale 4
97. Scarlet Gaura Gaura coccinea 4
98. Evening Primrose Oenothera biennis 4
99. Yellow Coneflower Ratibida hirta 4

Species in the original CRP seeding, not also gathered and listed above, and seed bought (mostly in very small amounts) and spread with gathered seed over the past two years.

1. Needle and Thread Heterostipa comata
2. Slender Wheatgrass Elymus trachycaulus
3. Western Wheatgrass Pascopyrum smithii
4. Canada Wildrye Elymus canadensis
5. Dudley’s Rush Juncus dudleyi
6. Large Beardtongue Penstemon grandiflorus
7. Showy Partridgepea Chamaechrista fasciculata
8. Grayhead Coneflower Ratibida pinnata
9. New England Aster Symphyotricum novae-angliae
10. Sneezeweed Helenium autumnale
11. Illinois Bundleflower Desmodium illinoensis
12. Fox Sedge Carex vulpinoides
13. Kalms Brome Bromus kalmii
14. Plains Bluegrass Poa arida
15. Hairgrass Deschampia sp.
16. Marsh Muhly Muhlenbergia glomerata
17. Compass Plant Silphium laciniatum
18. Pale Spiked Lobelia Lobelia spicata
19. Boneset Eupatorium perfoliatum
20. Creamy Milkvetch Astragalus racemosus
21. Butterfly Weed Asclepias tuberosa
22. Culver’s Root Veronicastrum virginicum
23. Mountain Mint Pycnanthemum virginiatum
24. Western Spiderwort Tradescantia occidentalis
25. Nodding Onion Allium cernuum
26. Canada Onion Allium canadense
27. Wild Mint Mentha arvensis
28. Sullivant’s Milkweed Asclepias sullivantii
29. Purple Giant Hyssop Agastache scrophulariifolia
30. Marsh Betony Pedicularis lanceolata
31. False Aster Boltonia asteroides
32. Flat-topped Aster Doellingaria umbellata
33. Heart Leafed Golden Alexander Zizia aptera
34. Prairie Aster Symphyotrichum turbinellum
35. Heart-leafed aster Symphyotrichum cordifolium
36. Sky Blue Aster Symphyotrichum oolentangiense
37. Marsh Muhly Muhlenbergia racemosa
38. Prairie Sunflower Helianthus petiolaris
39. American Sloughgrass Beckmannia syzigachne
40. Sweetgrass Hierchloe odorata
41. Bluejoint Calamagrostis canadensis
42. Wood Lily Lilium philadelphicum
43. Great Blue Lobelia Lobelia siphilitica
44. Prairie Coreopsis Coreopsis palmata
45. Virginia Ryegrass Elymus virginicus
46. Rough Dropseed Sporobolus compositus

So, that adds up to 145 species. I think I’m missing 1-2 species found or bought in very small amounts, but all the major players are here. I haven’t started a list of species found in the restoration yet, but will next summer. It’s gonna be fun.

The Never Ending Seeding

Near the end of the year I thought it an opportune time to summarize the past couple years attempts to bring a prairie restoration to life on my land in Day County, South Dakota. Much of the work that was done in 2017 and 2018 has been discussed in other posts, but it seemed worthwhile to integrate that work with what has been done the past year in a single post.

Over the summer and fall of 2017 I planned for and received a contract to put 154 acres into the continuous CRP program, split between the wetland restoration program (CP 23) and the pollinator habitat program (CP 42). Much of the CP 23 CRP, 54 acres, was on my northeast quarter, following a linear wetland that bisects the quarter. This was seeded to a diverse mix of native species (about 25 species) by the conservation district in November of 2017. I was not attempting to do a comprehensive restoration on this land because the shape of the tract meant issues with pesticide drift were inevitable. Thus, I had limited goals for the services this land would provide.

The remainder, 100 acres on the southwest quarter where I planned to do a more complete restoration, were not able to be seeded at the same time because of concern I had for herbicide carryover on a few acres which had been spot-treated for tall waterhemp control in the soybeans in July, 2017. The spring of 2018 was late and wet, and it was mid-June before the field was seeded by staff of the Day County Conservation District with their drill. There were three different seed mixes for three different range sites: xeric, dry mesic and mesic. Each mix had 30-35 different species purchased through Milborn Seeds in Brookings, South Dakota. In addition to the official seed mix I spread seed that I had gathered the past growing season from adjacent native prairies I own, seed that had been gathered by Ben Lardy, a Pheasants Forever employee working in Day County and a variety of small amounts of seed that I had purchased from Prairie Moon Seeds in Minnesota. These were spread in appropriate areas about the same time.

I realized that the timing of the seeding precluded the seeds undergoing stratification, a period of cold needed to overcome dormancy, so my expectations for what I would see that summer were modest. However, even my modest expectations were dashed by what I observed. It became evident that the mixtures of seed had bridged in the drill box, and large areas had not been seeded. Perhaps 40 acres were showing no seedlings, 30 acres were showing scattered seedlings and 30 acres were already looking well established by Labor Day last year (most likely those 30 acres had received 70-80% of the seed). Most distressing, the largest empty area adjoined a native grass pasture where Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae) butterflies had been found. One of the main drivers for the project had been to extend the habitat for these skippers and so far I had nothing for them.

Zone 1: 30 acres of dry mesic soils which have an excellent stand from the original seeding

Zone 2: 30 acres which showed scattered seedling growth by fall, 2018. The two main areas include both the wettest and the most xeric soils on the field. Thus, even though I have it listed as one zone it is actually managed as about four.

Zone 3: Zero stand on about 25 acres of mostly xeric soils in the heart of the restoration.

Zone 4: Zero stand on 15 acres of mesic soils adjoining the farm field.

During the summer and fall of 2018 I gathered substantial amounts of seed from my prairies, as well as several other prairies owned by friends, and augmented that with seed gathered by Ben Lardy. After evaluating what we had, I further augmented that with seed purchased from Milborns, primarily grasses. In November we spread this on Zones 2 and 3, with emphasis on Zone 3 near the skipper habitat, adding 20-25 seeds per square foot. On Zone 4 we spread primarily purchased seed, including what Milborns calls “Native Harvest” mix, seed harvested directly from a native prairie. All this would receive a full stratification over winter, putting the fall seeding on track to jump out of the ground in 2019. And in order to put the maximum effort in improving Zones 2,3 and 4 I had to accept that Zone 1 would be what it was.

Over the long winter of 2018/2019 I thought about all the problems of the 2018 seeding, all the weak spots and all the mistakes I had made. I decided that it was worthwhile to continue to provide even more seed to provide a veneer of redundancy to cover some of those mistakes. Here is the plan those winter musings became.

First, I was still concerned with the barren hills on Zone 3. Here is what it looked like in late May, 2019, a year after seeding:

Though I had worked very hard to cover this area with seed the previous fall I bought and blended about 15 species, all with minimal seed dormancy, to attempt to get more seedlings started on the gravelly hills. Ben brought the broadcast seeder out once more and we spread another 15 seeds/square foot on the 25 acres of Zone 3 and 15 adjacent acres of xeric soils of Zone 2.

During the summer and fall of 2019 I once more obsessively gathered seed from my prairies. Building upon the knowledge gained the past two seasons, and upon what turned into a good year for seed production, I was able to make more efficient use of my time, both in knowing locations to find various species and in having a better feel for the “Goldilocks” timing for harvest. I was able to gather 8-10 new species and gathered much larger amounts of 15-20 species that I had gathered minimal amounts of in 2018. It was a very successful and enjoyable venture.

Once more Ben brought out the broadcast seeder and after blending my gathered seed with some additional grass seed it was spread over all of Zone 3, all but the wetter areas of Zone 2 and a few adjacent acres of the Zone 1. About another 10-15 seeds per square foot were spread.

We spread a different seed mix over Zone 4, the 15 acres on the east side next to the farm field. It had been too wet to seed in the spring, but I had also been neglecting that area for another reason. A bad infestation of Canada thistle had established itself during the summer of 2018, and I feared that any additional seeding was futile until the thistles were controlled. I had the farmer who rents my farm ground spray the 15 acres in late June with Widematch, a common wheat herbicide with excellent thistle activity. Then in November I purchased a 14 species blend of native species with tolerance to Milestone, another excellent thistle killer. Hopefully I can get some forbs established through the weeds, and if not I will at least have a 15 acre native grass border to provide a buffer between the farm field and the restoration.

That brings us to today. In total, 145 native prairie species have been seeded, with perhaps 100 seeded in significant amounts. Zone 1 has its original CRP blend of 30-35 species and the density of plants is such that it will be very difficult to establish anything more (remember this area likely got more than a 2X seeding rate to start). Zone 2 filled in pretty well last summer, and is likely to fill in completely this summer, hopefully including much of the gathered seed that was spread a year ago. Zone 3 still looks like hell, but by the end of the fall I could find new perennial prairie seedlings every spot I looked (and I looked at hundreds of spots). And Zone 4 is a big question mark, but it will at least have a diverse grass cover.

CODA

Life is frustrating for all of us because it so rarely matches our expectations. I have certainly been frustrated by the poor job done on the original CRP seeding. Even now after several remedial seedings it is nowhere near my vision for a prairie restoration. However, I must not let the act of looking back come at the expense of doing my best today. I like the Buddhist take on this universal dilemma. To paraphrase: “Suffering is universal and caused by our desire for life to be different than it is; yet there is a path beyond suffering through changing how we think about and act in the world.” I read a book about 20 years ago called “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” which compared Eastern thought to the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics. Two things stand out from my memory of the book. The first is that everything is always interconnected and changing. The second is illustrated by the way chapters were labeled. Each chapter was Chapter 1. We are always beginning again, and what we are doing is always important because each action changes the world. So today I begin again, as I will again tomorrow. We boldly and bravely go out every day to remake the world.