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[July 17, 2010, 9AM]
Wildflower walk through the Indian Creek Wild Area. We will be meeting at the Visitor Center at 9, and will be hiking three mile loop through an area burned in 2008.
Join through the state
June 2009
January 2009
November 2008
September 2008
August 2008
June 2008
May 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
Hawthorn Chapter of MONPS (Columbia)
June 2010
Sand Prairie On June 5, Perennis members descended on Sand Prairie CA in Scott Co. for the first summer outing. Among the plants in bloom were prickly pear cactus, Stylisma pickerengii, the tail end of larkspur, Rudbeckia hirta and a Heterotheca restricted in its range to the sand prairies of southeast Missouri. By noon, we traveled a few miles to the Baptist Camp up the road that maintains a small sand prairie loaded with blooming prickly pear cactus. Afterwards, we went to River Ridge Winery for a light lunch, great wine, and good conversation. Please join us on July 17 at Trail of Tears State Park in Jackson, Missouri for a wildflower walk through the Indian Creek Wild Area. We will be meeting at the Visitor Center at 9, and will be hiking three mile loop through an area burned in 2008. [06-20-2010] February 2010Eulogy of The Last Oak: Thoughts on the falling of Big Oak Tree State Parks’ last champion oak on the 25th of December, 2009 In one short moment, silence was broken and the earth trembled along the cold Mississippi. In that moment, a chronology of the past centuries ceased to be written within the grain. The sheets and endless chapters so carefully recorded stopped keeping time, and within itself a chapter was completed and laid to rest upon the mantle. Stories so unimaginable filled the pages of this work. True tales, the kind from which legends and mythology are borne. The composer of this book stood witness to events long recorded in the history books of the schools and libraries. Most events would be forgotten, but each one was carefully scripted into the wood, it took note of each passing and each small change. A sentinel, a silent guard of tranquil forests, it watched over the landscape. But it was not the only one, there were others, not so long ago, that, like him, etched the days and nights, the seasons, into record. They were long gone now, returned to the muck. Faded, like the thick fog that rolls along the river flatlands until sunlight forces it to change. He was the last of his kind, the last of his cohorts to take stock of an ever-changing world. Now his children, left to fend for themselves, must overcome the greatest of odds to achieve his wisdom, his wood-wise. Only centuries in the passing will tell if they are as strong. For they know not as they were not there. “I was there.” A statement that demands a listening ear to a story, and conveys ownership of an event. A statement that yells, “I know”. He had that. We don’t. We now can only day-dream of the beauty and nightmares, the triumphs and travesties that occurred during his stance. Twelve generations of European settlers have passed since the great tremble of the Midwest in 1811 and 12, but he was there. He was there when the first European generations traveled within earshot along the Great Muddy. He was there when the last of the dark skinned, brightly feathered people of the land walked away to return no more, or at least in their natural grace and freedom. He was there. He was there each time the Mississippi roared and filled the landscape. He was there when wars broke out against tribes, villages, and then brothers. He was there when a country “under God, with liberty and justice for all” was borne. He was there. He was there every time freedom was given to some, but never to all. He was there when the greats were laid to rest. He was there when they vanished or left. He heard the noise, that great, terrible noise. The one that echoed the scarring and hollowing of the trees near by. And he was the momentary perch for the source, that Lord God Bird of black and white dress and imperial red and ivory adornment, just before it flew in dipping undulations into the mists of time. His branches had grown heavy under the stain of the great weight of the passenger pigeon, then lightened, never to be burdened again. He nestled the brilliant flocks of green and yellow with thick, hooked beaks among his top limbs. Listening to the chatter, a mind-numbing chatter that was the most amusing instrument of the eastern forests’ symphony. That music stopped. Hushed like others before and others to come, and still yet those voices of the deep swamp forest grew faint later in life. He was there. But he was just a part of something bigger, something unimaginably wild. He kept his ground as that wilderness was laid waste. First it was the slow, steady rasps of the saw, followed by great, thunderous crashes. And the horizon began to open around him. Then it was the smoking, bellowing monster of clanging and eerie sounds of steel on steel against untouched muck that changed the course of water, life giving water, forever. Next came hums and roars of cars and trucks and tractors and combines and diesels pulling freight and odd machinery designed for one thing in mind; to keep the wilderness at bay and civilization in progress. Then, just an orphan or refugee, no longer in the same place it seemed, as it was a new world. The people claimed freedom and prosperity was for everyone, but he thought otherwise then. And year after year, he found his fellows dropping from site until at last, he stood silent and alone. Others around him experienced some of these things, but “he was there” long before. In late he was adorned with fans and wondering eyes, laughing children, and to each left awe-struck. He was honored for great stature, but it mattered little to him. He knew others, bigger, better, more worthy. He was just the last, that’s all, the last, not the greatest. But the people didn’t really know, only he was there, only he could say “I was there”. Then at last, under great weight, gravity, and a the strong arm of a wintry gale, he stepped down to rejoin all the others before him. All rises of the sun and passing’s of the moon that were kept score, ceased. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, muck to heavy, swampy muck. And in the next century, a slight depression in the ground will be the only reminder that “he was there”. [01-26-2010] |
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