Kimberley Roll is an excellent nature photographer who often visits Limberlost. She has hiked the trails at the Loblolly Marsh and the Deacon's Trail and Miller's Woods at the Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve.  Kimberley's photographs capture something about Limberlost that mere words do not. We hope you enjoy Nature in November at Limberlost. 

Eastern Comma at Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve.

Trumpeter Swan at Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve.

Turkey Tail Fungus at Miller's Woods.

Pawpaws at Miller's Woods.

Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve on a late November day.

One of our native sparrows, the Swamp Sparrow, at Miller's Woods.

Late blooming Bellflower at Miller's Woods.

Cut-leave grape fern at Miller's Woods.

Galls

Great blue heron

Kestrel

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Indiana was second only to New York State in the number of bestselling authors the state produced. It is the Golden Age of Literature in Indiana. In 1926 the State of Indiana published a list of thirteen noted Hoosiers for their achievements in literature.

The state survey observed that it "seemed to fall into two groups: those whose ability as storytellers found scope in tales of romantic days gone by, and those who saw beauty in everyday life, and charmingly recorded it."

There were two women and eleven men on this list. The women were Sarah T. Bolton and Gene Stratton-Porter. The men were James Whitcomb Riley, Gen. Lew Wallace, John Finley, Albert J. Beveridge, Charles Major, Meredith Nicholson, Booth Tarkington, George Ade, Kin Hubbard, Maurice Thompson and Edward Eggleston.

It was noted that they were all important figures who "gained for Hoosierdom fame in literature."

Letter to Gene Stratton-Porter

I knew where you lived my whole life
Your name as familiar as my relative's
But this tomboy didn't want to read
About any Limberlost girl and her Laddie
When the coonskin cap boys were showing off
On the frontier playground.

Who knew you could outshoot the boys
With your lens and maybe even your pistol?
You didn't need the vote to explore
Your own frontier any more than you needed
Schooling to be a scientist or a shapely
Smile to lure a rich husband who'd fund
Your appetite for adventure. Snakes couldn't
Scare you away from the lovely swamp things
Whispers that would've wounded me a century later
Flowed past you like the wind ruffling
Your unapologetic air
but never taming your nature.

Why didn't I get to know you sooner?
If you could be here now would you gripe
On this hike about all that was lost?
Or would you embrace those who returned 
With just a bit of encouragement
Diminished yet still recognizable 
To the swampland reunion?

By Tanya Isch Caylor


Nature's cafeteria

Walking through Loblolly Marsh
I thought I saw a spider's web
But the tiny caterpillars inside weren't victims -
This was their tent,
Keeping predators off their juicy leaf.

Those Eastern Tent Worms looked
like kids in a school cafeteria
clustered together, crazily gobbling
Climbing all over each other
Not sitting still for nothing. 

Overhead a drop of water hung
Like a chandelier
Reflecting sunlight
From the ceiling.

Such a big tent for such a tiny worm
But it's a huge crowd
Feeding, growing, dreaming
Of the day they take flight as moths.

By Cassie Caylor