A Walk on The Wild Side

This morning I could no longer resist viewing up close the golden blossoms in our pasture, so I suited up for action. (Suiting up involves copious amounts of Skin So Soft and sulfur powder on my body and generous sprays of Off on my jeans and long-sleeved shirt. I finish by donning Dennis' knee high rubber boots and a straw hat.)

I made a bee-line for the greyheaded coneflowers.



On the way I passed some rattlesnake masters.



And closed in on one of the seed heads.



Immature milkweed pods are beautiful, too.



But nothing currently blooming compares with Kansas gayfeather for dignified grandeur.



A late-blooming clump of black-eyed susans caught my eye. Most of the black-eyed susans have already finished blooming.















Other wildflowers in bloom are the scurfpea, purple prairie clover, and hoary vervain. But the heat was building, so I headed back to the house, passing a great spangled fritillary feeding on a coneflower on the way.


When we moved here in 1976 this pasture was nothing but brome grass. Dreaming of restoring the pasture to its native state, I gathered the seeds of native wildflowers and grasses from local prairie remnants and scattered the seeds over our pasture. Year after year I added more seeds and, when we had the leaky pond bulldozed, the soil conservation people arranged to have native prairie seeds drilled into the disturbed earth. Now the pasture is home to dozens of prairie forbes and grasses, and my dream is close to realization.