We begin with an undistinguished photo. I was tempted to label it "photo of nothing much." But it's the setting for a drama.
Indeed, soon this scene will be transformed to this:
... a grass roots magic trick and adventure.
On the morning of December 26th, Boxing Day (see Endnote 1), a cohort descended on this area, to do good, as we perceived it. Though delicately covered with morning dew, the nasty shrub up front in the first photo is buckthorn. Once the most common tree and shrub of this 85-acre Forest Preserve, a nasty and malignant invader, it now survives here mostly in narrow strips where the preserve borders a road. Today we'll expand the good and drive back the bad yet further.
In the middle of the buckthorn and other invaders is one woody plant that we will spare from axe and saw. The blue and white ribbon identifies this young oak as a tree-to-save.
For some of us, this year-end event is an annual ritual. Others are here for the first time. We start with a circle and share thoughts about ecology, safety, and goals. In all today, we are 44 people - showing up for a drama, workout, and mitzvah (see Endnote 2).
Covid was still with us. We don't know whether to wear masks or not. Some do; some don't. Out here in the free-flowing air, we feel safe.
A ten-minute hike brings us to the work area, and pretty soon a bonfire is eating cut brush.
Somme Prairie Grove was an oak savanna ... and is becoming one again. No "pristine" tallgrass savannas survive. This site (alongside a few other lucky remnants) is in rehab. It has progressed enough that it was recently honored (and permanently protected) by legal dedication as
an Illinois Nature Preserve. The core of its 85 acres is rife with uncommon young oaks, native grasses, orchids, butterflies and birds. They have names like prairie dropseed, eared false foxglove, Edward's hairstreak, purple twayblade orchid, and willow flycatcher.
We too are diverse. Here balding, famous, and irreverent photographer Mike McDonald throws an armload of slain brush on the fire. His dramatic and fun book, "
My Journey Into The Wilds Of Chicago" includes a photo or two of Somme.
As the day proceeds, there is a certain amount of laughter, socializing, questions, suggestions, and regular actual human interactions. Below, at right - chemist, writer, and zone steward Christos Economou talks with performance artist and Morton Arboretum Adult Learning Programs guy Robb Telfer. Christos wrote some of the early Bell Bowl Prairie alarms. Robb published the first big expose on what was happening, influentially in the Chicago Tribune. Robb masked and Christos not, they rest from work a moment to plan and plot more initiatives for this important mission. (
Save Bell Bowl Prairie!)
I was impressed by a young woman (below) who, on this winter day, dressed in a tee-shirt. Behind her, in regulation safety-helmet and chaps, Estelle Ure with quiet electric chain saw cuts stumps low so they won't trip us up.
Next I notice the young woman throwing an invasive trunk into the fire like a javelin.
No one was in the way, so why not? (We hear that this mighty warrior actually went to ecosystem restoration summer camp in Michigan. Yes, apparently, there is such a thing.)
Once the brush is cut and shortened, it gets dabbed with herbicide, so it won't re-sprout.
Once the brush was cleared around it, this baby oak - which could end up to live three or four hundred years - seemed so precious that one person proposed that we name it. Many engaging names were suggested, but when Joe Handwerker came up with the Boxing Tree, a blessed murmur of consent arose. It will henceforth be Boxing Tree. And it will not stand in bare dirt as it does now.
On Friday, December 24th, Eriko, Christos, and Katie finished assembling our Somme 2021 ecosystem
seed mixes.
Don't be fooled by the grocery bags. These are hundreds of rare, local species, hand gathered, now in twenty-three carefully crafted mixes. Tomorrow we will spread "wet-mesic closed savanna" seed under this tree and "wet-mesic open savanna" seed in nearby in the newly-under-restoration and newly-named Boxing Meadow. Following this drastic cut-and-herbicide operation, we will also need to ward off various kinds of infection by weeding and possibly scything invasives for two or three years. But we can see the future, because we know how to provide this short term intensive care. It will be rich with diversity here, as in the photo below, or a similarly rescued bit of ecosystem. Thanks to this recovery, the species populations on the whole site will be that much more numerous, robust, and sustainable.
This precious site has been restored mostly a half-acre or so at a time, over the decades, on days like this.
Rare butterflies, gentians, salamanders, pollinators, and perhaps even future generations of people thank us, in their inchoate ways. Or at least that's what we feel.
What a day!
Endnotes
Endnote 1
Boxing Day seems to be kind of a ridiculous holiday. I've long heard it mentioned without knowing what it was. In fact, it's a product of imperial British income inequality - a holiday for servants who have to work on Christmas day. They get a box of presents on the next weekday. Thus, Boxing Day is the day after Christmas - unless it falls on a weekend, which changes it to Monday. So today, being the Sunday after Christmas, turns out not to be the real Boxing Day after all. But we have no intention of forfeiting the fun. It was Boxing Day to us. We'll take any excuse for a celebration. This treasured young tree and bit of soon-to-be-seeded ecosystem will be Boxing Tree and Meadow from now on.
Endnote 2
A mitzvah is an individual act of human kindness in keeping with religious law. The word conveys a sense of heartfelt sentiment beyond mere legal duty, as in "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). In this case, our neighbor is the Somme Prairie Grove ecosystem: more than 500 species of plants and uncounted thousands of animal species (many very small) along with probably-many-more-rare species, yet smaller, often-symbiotic: bacteria, protists, fungi, algae and others. Biodiversity of future importance to the planet recovers here.
Our one species had been unintentionally wiping out this diversity, mostly over the last century. Tis the season to do some good for it. If you might like to volunteer, for an extended such season, check out the Somme Preserve volunteer schedule.
Or raise awareness and take part in sharing ideas at the Somme Community Facebook page.
Acknowledgements
Photos by Stephen Packard and Eriko Kojima.
Thanks to Eriko Kojima for proofing and edits.
