Saturday afternoon around 3:00, I got my first ever “root-y” call; “I’m on my way to the prairie, call me,” followed by a phone number I won’t print.
My rendez-vous was to take place at the south end of the Wolf Road Prairie—a place that has been hiding in plain sight for several hundred years. Local artist and prairie enthusiast Alice Ann Barnes offered to meet me with some plants to solve a growing water problem in my yard. Her suggestion was some of her homeless, hydrophilic irises.
If you can mow your lawn with a hungry airboat, you get what I’m talking about. Eighty-percent of my yard can accommodate normal stuff like evergreens and shrubs. However, one corner of my lot is relegated to the farming of rice and papyrus (the village is reluctantly reviewing my plans for a matching pyramid). There’s a talk among the townsfolk that new-house-fever killed the mature trees and ground that thirstily lapped up rainfall.
The prairie, however, stands in soft contrast to the new construction and the complexities of modern engineering. It’s a miracle of evolution juxtaposed by savannah and 31st Street.
To convince my son to actually go for a walk, I embellished the description of the outing with talk of lions and tigers. I warned him that since he did not own any Kevlar, he should also wear long pants and shoes to stay safe and ward off grizzly bears. The ruse worked, and off we went.
I wore an embarrassing combination of wellies, shorts and, most disturbingly, a Cubs hat. Alice Ann and her friend looked fresh as daisies walking up to meet me in their skirts and carrying things that professional herbalists and artists carry, like irises, baskets and messenger bags.
I had a boy and a camera, and was curious which one would last the longest in the heat.
I hadn’t walked the prairie in a couple years and was surprised that many of the plants were tall enough to play for the Bulls. The rains clearly had an impact on their desire to outgrow men and trees. Not only were they tall, they were bushy and mean.
The gifts of the prairie aren’t easily offered. I found this out as a wild black raspberry plant grabbed and tore at my bare white knees as if to say “haven’t you ever heard of self-tanner?” These young plants also bore a striking resemblance to an evil twin—poison ivy. With venomous weeds at our feet, and thorny bramble at eye height, we hung our heads as a necessary nod to the unpredictability of nature, and the Cubs’ season.
To walk the prairie is easy; there are deer paths and many sidewalks to nowhere. The sidewalks were part of a 1920’s housing development that went bust before ground broke. Some of them are still lined with trees waiting for homes that were never meant to be.
On the southwest end of the prairie, a four-hundred year-old tree has pushed one of these sidewalks up vertically as if by slow volcanic force: it’s only passable by young artists, yoga teachers and ten-year-old boys.
Sometimes the trees do win.
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