The wall is rising like a phoenix from its ashes. Mike Tucker of Friar
Tuck Landscaping bid in the job, as I think has been mentioned earlier,
and he got going last week after the wet weather through the Spring had
caused some delay. The old, vandalized wall was taken out and hauled
away in two days and on the 15th Kevin Bigalke, from the Friends, and I
talked with him on site. Since then new stone has been going up at an
impressive rate and Mike thinks he will complete the job by the Fourth
of July weekend. I have taken a few pictures of the work in progress to
share if we can figure out a way to put pictures on the site.
The wet weather has brought the surface water on the Prairie to the
highest level we've seen in ten years. The larger overflow pond between
Zones Five and Three is a foot or so above what we used to consider
full, flooding some fringe areas and even reaching the lowest point of
the mowed path in Zone Five. The small secondary overflow pond between
Zones Three and Four is flooded again after being dry for years and
water is draining continuously down to the beaver pond below the
bluffs. Earlier this month the flow was so strong it was a challenge to
find a place to cross, but it has moderated so that there are now
several places where stepping stones are available. But the spur of the
path that went off to the east into Zone Three is cut off and we
probably won't try to re-establish it this year.
Prairie Restorations had planned a late burn in Zones One, Two and
Three and I expected it to be carried out last week as things finally
dried out. But as of yesterday (22nd) it hasn't happened. I'm a little
concerned about going too much later as our population of native forbs
and grasses are in peak development just now.
I guess I haven't done much of a job of keeping this journal of the
Prairie year current but I had imagined last summer after our last
paper newsletter that we would, at our quarterly meetings, come up with
a theme and accept or delegate responsibility for putting together
contributions to our online newsletter by such-and-such a date and post
it all at once. We've never really gotten our act together that way and
maybe I was the only one that thought it was important. But it seems to
me that the bare minutes of the meetings are a little sterile.
After the February meeting of the Prairie Advisory Committee I wrote
up my typically wordy account and sent it off to Jerry so that it would
be available for anyone to read prior to the March meeting, but it
didn't get onto the site until after the meeting. I am hoping that this
will be available for people to read before the Annual meeting in about
three weeks and I asked Bob to give it a plug in his e-mail notice of
the upcoming meeting.
Anyway, to fill in the last three months' activity, I went out Easter
Sunday and did find a couple of bunches of pasques living up to their
name. There were many more in the first week of April but I thought
fewer than previous years as it was quite dry then with the pond levels
quite low.
Our resident Canada geese, known as Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
and Uncle Albert by me and my faithful readers, relocated their nesting
area down to the beaver pond where they had to compete with numerous
other nesting pair. I haven't observed them with this year's crop of
goslings as I haven't gotten down there that much so I don't know how
the move worked out for them.
Catching a few breaks in the cool, wet weather in late April and May I
saw the usual profusion of blue-eyed grass and the occasional prairie
violet on the rocky hilltops, with a few patches of vetch flowering by
larger outcroppings.
By early June, golden Alexanders and hoary and fringed puccoons were
providing some bright yellow accents as the Prairie changed from
washed-out straw to new green grasses.
By mid-month I was seeing a number of blooming harebells and yarrow
along with prairie ragwort, goat's beard, northern bedstraw, white
campion, and large patches of Canada anemone in areas that had a little
shade. I only saw a few wild roses this year although ditches around
the area seemed full of them. I haven't seen the profusion of tick
clover spikes in Zone Five that have been so impressive (and
impressively spreading) the last few years, but maybe it's still early.
This week there are some nice stands of prairie larkspur near the path
in Zone Four, and I'm beginning to see the mid-summer bloomers --
black-eyed Susans, ox-eyes, giant-hyssop, and the first blush of orange
on butterfly milkweeds. Lead plants, silvery scurf peas and prairie
clover plants are lush and in all the places they should be but they
haven't yet begun to flower.
It's pretty and if you can catch a day when you think you can cope
with the heat, humidity and mosquitos, drop out and check out the new
Prairie Entry and take a hike.
As mentioned above, the SKP Annual Meeting is July 12. It would be
nice to see some fresh faces and some interest in serving on the SKP
Board. We are no longer bedeviled by gambling issues (although we have
been lax in finishing up leftover paperwork from that) and it seems
like this would be a time to talk about the direction SKP should take
for the future. Half the present leadership seems to wish they didn't
have to do this anymore, and the other half seems to want to hang onto
their titles without demonstrating any new ideas or much energy.
Decisions are made by those who show up. I hope to see many of you
there.
