curling paper sheets

curling paper sheets

on a peeling river birch

growing by the Kaw

The cinnamon-colored, exfoliating bark of the River Birch is spectacular in the winter, after its spade-shaped, double-toothed leaves have turned yellow and fallen. Long reddish-brown male catkins dangle from the bare branches. They will stay on the tree all winter and will pollinate the plump green female catkins that grow in the spring. The fruit is a tiny cone filled with winged seeds that travel by wind and water. As the name suggests, the River Birch usually grows near water, on sandbars and islands, stream banks, lake shores, swamps and floodplains. This 80-foot double-trunk specimen is growing in the rich, moist, alluvial floodplain of the Kaw River. 
          Although the soft wood is not useful for timber, the tree has many other uses. Many different birds eat the seeds, Whitetail Deer eat the leaves and twigs, Cottontail Rabbits eat the saplings, North American Beavers eat the bark, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, tree squirrels and insects drink the sap. Native Americans boiled the sap into a syrup and used the inner bark as a survival food. The River Birch does not live long, but it grows fast, up to 25 m (80 feet) tall, and its beautiful bark makes it a popular ornamental tree.  

two orange wheelbarrows

two orange wheelbarrows

a pair of old wagon wheels

maple leaves turning

The garden has been put to bed. Maple leaves, turning orange, are falling to the ground around twin wheelbarrows propped against the fence, their labor of hauling seedlings, mulch and harvest finished for the season. 
          A pair of antique wagon wheels lean against the trunk of the maple tree. Perhaps they once turned under a mid-nineteenth-century Prairie Schooner as part of a wagon train bringing pioneers west. Also known as a Conestoga wagon, the covered wagon was designed like a boat, to help it cross rivers and streams, with a white cover that resembled a sail as the wagon moved through waves of tall grass. 
          A yellow Caution sign on the shed next door warns: MINIMUM MAINTENANCE TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK. Certainly the emigrants traveled at their own risk as they followed the deeply rutted Santa Fe Trail from the Missouri River across the plains. The covered wagons, used for transporting household goods, farm equipment and food stores, had no suspension, so most people walked. The pioneers were challenged by lack of food and water, lack of shelter during lightning storms that might spook the livestock, wagons that leaked during river crossings or got stuck in the mud, fatal rattlesnake bites, and raids by Comanches and Apaches in their territories. 
          Now this pair of old wagon wheels, no longer turning along the trail, are slowly turning to rust, while the upturned wheelbarrows rest their black rubber tires for a long winter's break.