“I leave to the children exclusively, but only for the life of their childhood, all and every dandelion of the fields and the daisies there of, with the right to play among them freely according to the custom of children warning them at the same time against the thistles.”

— Williston Fish, American Poet (1858-1939)

“In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.”

— E.O. Wilson, American biologist/myrmecologist (1929-2021)

Spring brings with it so many changes in the Prairie, it’s hard to take it all in. Each season has a beauty of its own. What looked barren only a month ago is now lush and green. The fields with its blowing wheat-colored sedge have now been bush-hogged, replaced by pale green tender growing vegetation. We rarely cut the sedge field in the fall unless to make trails. Deer find safe bedding in the tall sedge. The areas we designate as “yard” are mowed. Even so, small wildflowers continue to bloom. I can’t properly identify them for you with the exception of dandelions. There are small yellows no bigger than a pinkie fingernail and also white and some blues. Soon a scorching sun will drive them away. Clover abounds and Sam avoids patches when mowing. I can feed clover to Hatcher, the rabbit. She delights in “farm-to-table” fare.

In the garden there’s a pink buttercup flowerbed — primrose actually. They too are wildflowers. I picked a few and put them in a vase for the table. Surprisingly they lasted three or four days. Daisies are abundant, as are cosmos. A dear friend had an accident so I gathered up wildflowers and greenery to bless her with a homemade arrangement. They were nowhere near as lovely as a commercial arrangement. The first thing she said was, “Oh, you brought these from your yard.” My heart was touched.

May is the season we inspect the fields for thistles and ant beds. There were very few thistles this year. Whether or not the Pandemic had anything to do with it, I don’t know. There are 200 different species of thistle in the world with 62 in America. Some folks find medicinal value in milk thistle. We’ve identified ours as bull thistle, also known as spear thistle and common thistle. Nothing fancy about our thistle except it grows a beautiful rose-colored, almost maroon flower. If I could convince thistles to all grow in one plot, they’d be quite beautiful. They do provide nectar and pollen for bees and butterflies. Each plant can produce from 8,000 to 120,000 seeds carried by the wind. Last week, after the fields were bush-hogged, I drove the old Gator on a thistle hunt across the fields and found three bloomers. The internet listed numerous Thistle Farms but none of them intentionally grew thistles.

As for ant beds there were fewer ant mounds though some were pretty large. We don’t always bother those if they aren’t near the house or us. Black ants can break up soil and contribute to a healthy ecosystem. In the greenhouse they aerate the soil. They can eat garden pests. Fire ants are a different story so they have to be eliminated. Absentmindedly walking into a fire ant mound can be disastrous. Carpenter ants are destructive and can eat your house up. So, living in the Prairie one puts up a bit with thistles and ant mounds, oh my.

Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].

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