County Crush

In the modern world, there are many, many things that the curmudgeonly ProfessorRoush does not understand.  Chief among these is the proliferation of late night television ads promoting iPhone and video games such as "Candy Crush."  Growing up in the era of "Pong" and "Space Invader" standalone kiosks, ProfessorRoush never caught the passion then, and subsequently never became addicted to the generations of video and computer games that followed.  Are these TV ads really cost-effective ways to promote the games and make money?   Or are the games themselves just a doomsday plot by nefarious actors, a mass way to engage the masses, similar to the gladiators of Rome?  Does no one else remember a young Ashley Judd acting in Star Trek Next Generation Episode 106,  circa 2002 and titled "The Game"?

Sorry, I'm off on a tangent from my original goal for this blog entry.  This isn't supposed to be about all the things I don't understand.  My original intent before the temporary mental digression was to rant as coherently as possibly about  a specific recent action by the country roadskeepers.   Bear with me, Readers, as I get to the point.

Walking Bella down the road on September 19th, I noted that the wild Liatris punctata clump that I watch for near the road and that I'd written about previously, had bloomed once again and was, in fact, proliferating nicely (see photo above and compare with the previous year).  Tall and colorful, and breathtakingly beautiful, it came complete with some pale yellow Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) butterflies as this photo proves. 

More recently, however, I noted that the county had mowed the roadside with a bushhog, as it does annually to increase traffic visibility near turns and make the roads "neater," an activity that my German genetic heritage regretfully approves of.   This year, however, the county mowed a broader swath, a "two mower-wide path", and in the process cut off all these beautiful Liatris clumps before they could form seed.  Please take a moment of silence here for this elimination of beauty from the prairie and mourn as well for the butterflies and bees deprived of food.  Dear County, was that act of environmental fascism really necessary?  Ozymandias, King of Kings, gaze on what you destroyed!

Thankfully, on a brighter note, even a two mower-wide swath didn't reach these fledgling Liatris further down the road.  I can only hope to see these mature and spread across the untouched prairie of our neighborhood.

What's my purpose here?  In a broad sense, it is to write again that, as always, nature is better left alone and I'm happier when it is.  And also I recognize that perhaps, just perhaps, ProfessorRoush doesn't fit so well in the "modern" world.

Mowing Musings

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark form)

If you've followed this blog long, you have probably guessed that many of my photo inspirations, and the majority of my "musing" time occurs during mowing.  That means that while he gathers his thoughts and the materials for these blogs, ProfessorRoush is often sitting atop steering a rapidly spinning knife moving at 2-4 miles/hour across the lawn and around, over, or through various obstacles, some of which turn into lethal projectiles when they exit the mower deck.  And this all occurs while my attention is distracted to the borders or plants beside my path of mowing rather than staying focused on the task.  It is a miracle that I have yet to injure anything more dear than an errant clump of groundcover.

Flowers, animals, insects, weather, and my general sense of the world are all fair game for my attention and interest while mowing.   For instance, within the last two weeks,  I've mowed while simultaneously racing the absolutely beautiful rainstorm encroaching from the northwest (photo at left), and I've had the (I believe) newly hatched, dark form Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus, photo at top) fall from an ash tree right into my lap as I passed.   The "dark form" of this dimorphic butterfly means that this specimen is almost certainly a female.

In the former instance, I kept one eye on the sky as I mowed, both hoping for rain and hoping it would hold off a few extra minutes until I could finish.   In the former, this beautiful and delicate creature that my passage disturbed was unable to fly, and so, afraid that the circling Purple Martins would spot it struggling in the grass, I stopped the mower and gently lifted it back into the lower branches of the ash, under concealment and away from the hungry Martin eyes.   After, of course, I took an extra moment to photograph and document its presence and beauty.

Flannel Mullein

As I mow near the periphery of my influence, where the "yard" changes over to bovine-grazed or bush-hog-mowed native prairie, I keep an eye out for blooming wildflowers, learning their identities and habitats, timing my worldview by their annual growth and bloom cycles, and discovering which insects or fauna each attract.  On a recent mowing,  the bright yellow, nonnative, drought-tolerant biennial  Flannel Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) was blooming (above and at left).  This woolly-leaved plant is said to have been traditionally boiled with lye to make a hair dye, presumably for use by those who believe that "blonds have more fun"/  Left alone, unmowed unlike the clump above, those yellow eye-catching spires reach taller than my head and spread enormous, soft, hairy leaves across their base.  

Blue Verbena (Verbena hastata) was also blooming on "mowing day" and was attracting an energetic Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) butterfly to pollinate and feed from it.  Blue Verbena, also known as Blue Vervain, is a native, very drought-tolerant plant and a common tall perennial of my prairie.   Its seeds are a major source of feed for the finches and sparrows of the area, and, as you can see, its nectar attracts its own admirers.

Blue Verbena & Clouded Sulphur butterfly

The complimentary coloring of the  light yellow butterfly and violet Verbena naturally-form a nearly perfect color-wheel contrast, and I couldn't resist stopping the mower once again to grab these photos.  Capturing this rapidly-moving butterfly in a still moment takes patience and time, both of which I provided and yet I was still unable to capture a suitable photo of it with wings outspread. 

Some weeks, my mowing time is extended from around 2 hours to 3 or 4 hours depending on the scenic distractions and the number of times I stop for photos or to remove random offensive weeds.  But can you really blame me?

Gayfeather Guilt

Days later, the guilt of my actions still haunt me.

Last weekend, I was preparing to put up the bush-hog for the winter, having recently mowed down an invading army of sumac and volunteer cedars and other noxious weeds of the Kansas prairie.  Every winter I switch the bush-hog for the road grading blade (in preparation for the occasional rare snow), and every spring I switch it back in preparation for the fall pasture mowing, which I time after the milkweeds and other desirable wildflowers have dispersed seed.

This year, I was contemplating my nicely mowed pasture in contrast to the overgrown roadside of my neighbor across from it and I offered to mow his roadside before putting the mower away.  I mowed up, and down, concentrating carefully on the slanted sides to avoid tipping the tractor.  On the repeat center run, however, I stopped cold at the sight of this clump of gayfeather brightly accenting the White Sage around it.  I believe it  to be Dotted Gayfeather (Liatris punctata) due to its short stature and location on the dry prairie.  What a beautiful sight!

It was, as you can easily see, a magnet for yellow sulphur butterflies, probably Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) butterflies to be exact, although I could easily be mistaken given my poor butterfly identification skills.   Immediately, I faced a dilemma.  Proceed ahead a few more feet and this perennial clump wouldn't be setting seed this year nor would other butterflies be able to stock up on energy from its nectar.  Mow around it, as I would do and have done in my own pasture, and risk having my neighbor think I was nuts.

I mowed on, a flippant choice at the time forced by self-image and social norms.  As the Knight of the Crusades said in the third Indiana Jones movie, however, I "chose poorly".  I've now faced a week of guilt over it, a sure sign from my conscience that I chose the wrong path.  I really hope these butterflies made it across the fence line to another fertile clump, another precious waystation on their winged journey.  My karma has taken a hit that will need some careful and conscious effort over the next few months to mend.  Excuse me while I go collect some gayfeather seed to start several other clumps in my pasture.