Breaking Sky On The Tallgrass
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click on image for a larger view)
Finally...June feels like June! Its been a long cool and wet slog but its almost warm just days before the summer solstice makes it official. The native pasture and area prairies are really appreciating the rainfall...we've just about made up our groundwater loss from last year's drought, I just hope the spigot doesn't shut off come July like it did last year!
I had to include the shot above for this blog because I often (just ask the Mrs.) find myself wondering out loud how it looked around here a couple hundred years ago when the tallgrass prairie ruled the plains, undisturbed by modern agriculture. The image is from the small Bison herd at the Prairie Heritage Center southeast of here. Of course there wouldn't be those rogue trees out in the open, or the farmstead in the mid-left of the picture, but the image evokes a "hint" of true wildness here as the patchy fog clears from the landscape.
Crab Spider on Penstemon
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click on image for a larger view)
Our native pasture is popping here and there, really fun to see. Right now the Penstemon grandiflorus (Large-flowered beardtongue) is the show stopper! The locals driving by keep slowing as they pass the gravel esker here on the pasture...the flowers really like the sandy/gravely, well drained soils. The resident Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Bumblebees just love these flowers! I got a fun photograph of one of the Crab Spiders sitting patiently waiting for a fly or bee to choose "its" blossom.
Penstemon grandiflorus (Large-flowered beardtongue)
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click on image for a larger view)
This portion of the pasture was not burned this year because the adjacent pasture finally was burned (never burned in recent memory)...I want the invertebrates to flourish here...more diversity begets more diversity and when burning each year, you'll lose too much of it!
Senecio plattensis (Prairie Ragwort)
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click on image for a larger view)
Another plant here that seems to prefer the gravel slope is the Senecio plattensis (Prairie Ragwort) . It probably favors less fertile soil because of the reduced competition
from other plants(?)...seems logical.
Tradescantia bracteata (Prairie Spiderwort)
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click on image for a larger view)
I have to look for the Tradescantia bracteata (Prairie Spiderwort) each spring because of its smaller stature...it is generally already hidden amongst other plants...the Prairie Spiderwort is much smaller than the more commonly planted "Ohio" Spiderwort
(Tradescantia ohiensis). We gathered seed for the specimens in our pasture just 75 feet away in the ditch near the old Waterman Creek oxbow. 
Mirabilis nyctaginea (Wild Four O'Clock)
photograph © Bruce A. Morrison
(click on image for a larger view)
We have already gone through our Fringed Puccoon (Lithospermum incisum), Starry Solomon Seal (Maianthemum stellatum ?), Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) and the Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea) is waning. But the Wild Four O'Clocks are still popping along the ditch fenceline. They're so cool up-close - you have to be up close to appreciate them; their blossoms are only about 3/8" or smaller here.
Its going to be hard to keep up with things now...already been forking thistle and nettles on several occasions and been busy patching up the barn roof too...that and the art studio business. Its nearly summer now and when things heat up they develop fast!
Hope you're keeping up with things as well; maybe we'll see ya on the tallgrass this summer!
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