Ugh! Hot...

 

"Showy Tick Trefoil (Desmodium canadense)" - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

 

Showy Tick Trefoil (Desmodium canadense) is a very attractive plant here in our two small native pastures in SE O'Brien County. A fairly tall plant at times and very attractive leaf structure and flowers.

Many years back in the late 80's or early 90's, I found Steele Prairie in Cherokee County, completely inundated with it - a virtual pink sea of Showy Tick Trefoil!

I find this plant a very easy one to collect seed each fall...just put on a cotton sweatshirt and walk through it! Next thing you know you've got their velcro-like seed stuck all over you! When I'm finished, I take the sweatshirt off and go inside and sit down to a good TV show or movie and just pick seed off for the next hour or so! Easy Peasy!!!

For a quick, closer look at Showy Tick Trefoil, go to the following link -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9FST8oV-Cg

"Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum)" - photograph - ©Bruce A. Morrison

I've fallen well behind what is happening in our pasture here in SE O'Brien County. If there's anything that is taking over mid summer here as usual, it has to be the Cup Plants (Silphium perfoliatum). 

I actually carry a "saw" for these. Yes you heard me right...I have to saw down troublesome clumps that are encroaching or smothering out plants that are needing help "staying and thriving". They clump with many plants per stand, and this steals a LOT of real estate in a small pasture! 

I was once advised by my original prairie mentor, to resist the siren call of Cup Plant...'don't give it a new home", was his advice to me. I'm sometimes a poor listener.

 

The first plant I was foolish to grow became "THE" Goldfinch magnet of it's surroundings...it was like crack cocaine to our little state bird...they just could not get enough of it!

 

The summer morning dew and infrequent rain showers (here in SE O'Brien County anyway), collect in the leaves that clasp completely around the stems, giving the Goldfinches, Dickcissels, Sedge Wrens, etc. a good drink during the summer heat. And unfortunately the mosquitos like the many choices of pools for their larvae! 

 

The Cup Plant's leaf structure is amazing; the flowers quite numerous and showy; the height - impressive! 

 

For a closer look at Cup Plants you can visit a short "A Prairie Moment" video on my channel at this link - 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO0WpFWV3f4

Thank You for visiting!  Please remember to be good to one another - we're all in this together!

 

Too Fast!

 "Anvil Across the Valley" 

oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison

Too Fast!  Time...that's what.  It just turned summer and we're already into August!  Frustrating isn't it.  I'm blaming deadlines, appointments and other inevitable things that make time blow by like it didn't even happen.

I've been trying very hard to balance time in the studio with everything else and although it hasn't been easy, have managed to finish a couple things.

The top image was something with some years behind it...first as a panoramic photograph about 6-7 years ago - then a small oil pastel "study" 2 or 3 years back...now, finally I've done a larger completed oil painting version of the scene!  This is looking due east from our acreage and across the valley in front of us.  A late May/early June evening  with the light casting long shadows and the stubble out front still showing through a new emerging crop.  The anvil of a distant late spring thunderstorm dramatically lit by the late sun...a beautiful sight!

I had a beautiful dark expresso stained plein air style frame custom made and handcarved for it - it's perfect!

"Showy Tick-trefoil (Desmodium canadense)"

color pencil drawing - © Bruce A. Morrison

The color pencil drawing of the Showy Tick-trefoil was inspired this spring when I was out in our pasture photographing new plants coming up - these guys are always a treat to see new and I couldn't resist trying to depict one arching back and supporting new blossoms...the leaf structure teamed with the budding flowers was very attractive!  These flowers are easy to procure seed from later in the summer - just walk through a stand of them with a sweatshirt on and the seeds stick tight to the clothing...then sit and watch TV while you pull them off and save in a paper bag for fall planting!  They are very easy germinators as well and the plants can be very beautiful in mass!  

So much more to get done this summer - but its flying by, literally.  If something doesn't change around here, I'll be staring at the late summer and fall asters soon! 

Hang on before its gone!

 

Summer Rambling

"Summer Memories"

(12X16" - oil on mounted canvas)

click image for larger view

I've been waffling from the studio to the prairie to "on the road to nearby prairies", the past couple weeks.  I'm being tugged where ever I look.  I'm convinced I had an attention deficit way back in the 1950's and 60's before there was a name for it!  But I'm trying hard to keep up with it all...finally finished a "farm/summer" landscape.  I'm throwing the word "memories" in the piece title because it was not all painted from life and also because the more I worked on the piece the more I remembered the summer weeks my brother and I would spend together on my grand parent's (my mother's folks) farm in central Iowa way back in the 50's and early 60's.  I have to stop thinking so much about these things as I'm getting way too melancholy for my own good!

"Jack's Bales"
(2 1/2"X3 1/2"color pencil)

click image for larger view

I was also toying with just something fun...something to do with my idle hands when I had no "great" idea boiling in my brain :)  I did this small 2.5X3.5" color pencil rendering from a photograph I took across the road from us about 3 years back.  Just to have a little more fun with it I've put it onto a miniature easel for displaying...no great fodder for thought but ya gotta keep things less serious sometimes.

 

Out in our native pasture, the succession of forbs (wildflowers) is moving right along.  We've experienced quite a bit of rain in June here. 14.35" here at our Prairie Hill farm...I don't believe we even had 1 inch here last year during the same period...it was extremely dry then.  Feast or famine!  The mosquitoes have now arrived with all this standing water and a walk through the prairie brings other logistical problems...I've taken to wearing my bug hat and a cotton sweatshirt!  Like a mini sauna...great for a weight loss aid!

Showy tick trefoil

(Desmodium canadense)

click image for larger view

One forb I like collecting seed from is the Showy tick trefoil...I used to collect it's seed when I was a kid - but never knew it...well, I knew it but didn't know what it was and didn't appreciate it!  The seed, sometimes called "beggars tick", sticks to anything...kinda like a predecessor to velcro!  I love it now because you don't need a bag or sack to collect it...just walk through it and it sticks to your clothes!  Then pick it off when you get home...in front of the TV works for me  :)

Hope you can get out, avoid the skeeters, and enjoy the prairie!