Collaborative Poems by Indiana Poet Laureate Shari Wagner's August 26, 2017 Arts in the Parks and Historic Sites poetry workshop at Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve, Limberlost State Historic Site
Contributors: Kristine Anderson, Cassie Caylor, Tanya Caylor, Rosemary Freedman, Linda Reising, Christina Simmons, Katie Simmons, Jessica Thompson Kathleen Yeadon (Rosemary and Kathleen were
part of the July 22 workshop also)


The Prairie Dock
    after Mary Oliver

Come with me
through a yellow canyon

of prairie dock, their faces
bee magnets

or vagabond stars 
urging us on

to hide and seek
in an ocean of yellow. 

They show us courtesy,
blooming in late August

announcing, or rather
chiming, the fall. They

whisper in passing 
how small we are. They are

The celebrities of the prairie,
waving like sails catching

the wind. But wait--
their leaves cling like ballast

close to the ground. Come,
grasp those leaves, rough

like the hands of farmwives.



August Gold

"What a quantity of gold
there is in a marsh........"
-Gene Stratton-Porter

There's gold 
in the petite bells
of partridge peas,

in how they line-up
along the stem, good
soldiers at attention

There's gold 
in evening primrose,
gold as in slow churned butter
and pressing your lips 
to the first peach
of the season

There's gold in tickseed
ready for the pounce

and in rudbeckia's 
black and yellow-winged
butterflies

There's gold
in cottonwood leaves,
yellow hearts
pasted over green

Gold in prairie dock,
a thousand stars
anchored to the earth,
reaching for the blue

There's gold
in the goldenrod, or so
Thomas Edison believed,
making rubber tires
for Henry Ford's car


The pictures were taken by Shari Wagner.

Butterfly Farming by Melissa Fey

I never dreamed that when I attended a workshop on Monarch butterflies in August 2015 that I would get "hooked." I went to learn about the life cycle of the Monarch and the fascinating story of their migration journey to Mexico every year. We each were sent home with a Monarch egg and a caterpillar and that was all it took.

The story of the Monarch (Danus plexippus) butterfly is truly fascinating. The butterflies that leave here in the Fall fly almost 2,000 miles to winter in Mexico. They live in large colonies that hang from trees. In March, they start to migrate back north. They will get as far as Texas and deposit their eggs on the new grown of milkweed plants for a new generation and then die. The Monarchs that hatch in Texas will fly as far as Tennessee and lay their eggs; these butterflies that emerge are the ones that fly to the Midwest in the early Summer. It is unknown why they migrate or how they know where to go; just one of those mysteries of Nature.

That first year, 2015, I raised and released 73 Monarch; 2016 was not as good a year for the butterfly and I was only able to raise and release 35 butterflies. However this year is turning out to be a great year for the Monarch. 

I started looking for eggs in early July. Before long I had numerous baggies full of milkweed leaves with eggs attached. It normally takes about 3-5 days for the eggs to hatch, at that point I transfer the leaf to a plastic container where the caterpillars continue to eat and grow. The caterpillars continue to eat for 14 days before turning into a chrysalis. In about 10 more days they emerge from the chrysalis as a beautiful Monarch butterfly. The last couple of days before the caterpillar turns into a chrysalis they have a voracious appetite and eat several leaves each day. I have to check the caterpillars morning, noon and night to make sure they have plenty to eat and to clean out the waste in their containers. This means that every day I am out foraging for more and more milkweed leaves and finding more and more eggs and caterpillars.

This year I devised a method to allow the caterpillars more freedom and fresh air, rather than being stuck in a plastic jar. I purchased a mesh organizer that has 6 large compartments. I refer to it as my "caterpillar condo". Once the caterpillars have grown to 2" long I move them to the "condo," where they can munch on leaves and explore the mesh surrounding them. When they are ready to turn into a chrysalis they climb to the top of their compartment and attach to the ceiling. This way when they emerge they can hang down and have a large open area to flex their wings. There is an occasional escapee and they sometimes move from one compartment up to the next, so I think they like it.

The butterflies that emerge towards the end of August are the ones that make the long tip to Mexico. An organization called Monarch Watch tries to gather data from citizen scientists, such as myself, to determine the numbers of the Monarch plus their range. I purchase tags that are affixed to the Monarch's lower wing. The tag is 3/8" round and has an 800 number, website address and a coded number unique to each butterfly. Information I gather: date released, location and sex, are recorded on a spreadsheet for each coded number and then emailed to their organization. In Mexico, they pay villagers to read the tags so scientists can record and track the Monarch migration. Their website can be accessed the following year to see what butterflies "made it."

The Monarch butterfly is not endangered, but its numbers have dwindled because of loss of habitat, drought and cold weather. What can you do to help? We cannot control the weather, but we can help with the butterfly's habitat by planting milkweed. This is the only plant that they will lay their eggs on and the caterpillar will eat. Please help bring back the Monarchs.

To learn more about the Monarch visit: www.monarchwatch.org  
To keep track of the Monarch migration visit: www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch


Melissa Fey is an Advanced Indiana Master Naturalist and an an officer on the Friends of Limberlost State Historic Site board. 

In her book "Music of the Wild," Gene Stratton-Porter quoted Thoreau and disagreed with his statement about cutting down the clouds. In her writing, she showed that she understood about the need for conservation and the consequences for not conserving our resources.

There is a preserve just south of Geneva Indiana called Music of the Wild; Part II of the book was written about this area along the Limberlost Creek. The preserve is open to the public. In October, the second annual guided hike of this area will be given by Limberlost Naturalist Curt Burnette or you can rent-a-naturalist through Limberlost State Historic Site for your own custom tour.  

​
Gene's writing:
It was Thoreau who, in writing of the destruction of the forests, exclaimed, "Thank Heaven, they can not cut down the clouds!" Aye, but they can! That is a miserable fact, and soon it will become our discomfort in air until they meet other vapor masses, that mingle with them, and the weight becomes so great the whole falls in drops of rain. If men in their greed cut forests that preserve and distill moisture, clear fields, take the shelter of trees from creeks and rivers until they evaporate, and drain the water from swamps so that they can be cleared and cultivated, they prevent vapor from rising, and if it does not rise it can not fall. Pity of pities it is; but man can change and is changing the forces of nature. I never told a sadder truth, but it is truth that man can "cut down the clouds." In utter disregard or ignorance of what he will do to himself, his children, and his country he persists in doing it wherever he can see a few cents in the sacrifice. 

Indiana Poet Laureate Shari Wagner is our poet-in-residence at Limberlost State Historic Site in 2017. These workshops are made possible by the Arts in the Parks and Historic Sites program with a grant from the Indiana Arts Commission.  In her July 22 workshop, she incorporated some of Gene Stratton-Porter's poems.  Below are three short poems that Gene wrote for "Music of the Wild." The photographs at the end of the poems are Gene's.

The Orchard Moth
When the sun has gone to rest,
And the moon rears her shining crest,
The night moth courts in orchard glade,
To the screech owl's wavering serenade.

The Smokehouse
Through cycles the sycamore lifted its head,
      Above savage and beast with stealthy feet,
Now it stands by the old woodshed,
      And serves to cure the summer meat.

Screech Owl
The screech owl screeches when courting,
     Because it's the best he can do,
If you couldn't court without screeching,
​     Why then, I guess you'd screech too.