We find he’s encountered the same resistance from neighbors and nature as we have. And any of us who has ever planted a patch of prairie has Stephen Apfelbaums’ Nature’s Second Chance on the nightstand or close at hand for reassurance and comfort.
It’s perhaps the most emotionally-charged piece of writing I’ve ever read, and I assign it to students in my nature writing classes. Louise Erdrich’s essay Big Grass, appears in The Heart of the Land, a general nature collection from The Nature Conservancy. As I leaf through the images of prescribed burns and smoldering flames, I also feel a little warmer. When the gray days seem endless, I browse through the color photos of lavender coneflowers and orange butterflyweed.
Each is filled with gorgeous photography and eloquent writing. Kudos to The Nature Conservancy for their work, documented in two beautiful coffee-table type reads, Big Bluestem: Journey into the Tallgrass (Annick Smith), and Tallgrass Prairie (John Madson/Frank Oberle).
Journal of a Prairie Yearis a quiet, month-by-month documentary of Gruchow’s walks that begin in January and end in December Grassroots, a prairie memoir of sorts, contains his seminal essay on tallgrass, “What the Prairie Teaches Us.” Few people have loved and written about prairie the way Paul did, and his passion for the tallgrass lives on through his words. Two of my favorites, Journal of a Prairie Yearand Grassroots: The Universe of Home- both by Paul Gruchow - have been excellent companions during this week’s bone-chilling weather. It’s hazardous hiking even for those of us who are passionate about the tallgrass. The ice-slicked prairie trails glisten, hard-packed and unforgiving. Temperatures in the Chicago region continue to plummet below zero.
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