Sun Prairie Montage :: Image :: Screen Captures–American Prairie Webcam
The scent of sweet grass and sage was carried by a breeze that swirled around me. A slow-moving creek ran through the cottonwood trees, and I hiked along it for hours pausing and sitting once in a while to explore the shady banks, pools, and watch the long shore grass get swept by the current. I remembered other streams too—cold ones with rapids fed by snow and others with green pools where I floated during the nineteen seventies. Here the cottonwood trees were long free of their cotton because it was mid-summer, so the days when it looks like a snow flurry were over. My mothers voice echoed too—her displeasure with the flying cotton from the three cottonwoods on our side yard every year. It left a mess for her to manage, and I also think she admired the spectacle.
Swallows appeared and disappeared all afternoon where they circled above the trees. Geese floated, a heron and other water birds walked in the eddies, edges, and quiet inlets adjacent to the main flow. Occasionally I heard a meadowlark in the distance, crickets, frogs, and a cicada hum much closer. I didn’t know what cicadas were until thirty years ago. I was in our backyard with my wife and a neighbor and mentioned the loud buzz of the overhead power lines in the alley. They both looked at me puzzled then mentioned the sound of cicadas. “What?” “Cicadas. That buzz.” “What are cicadas?” What you’re hearing.” “Those are power lines.” “No, they’re cicadas. They’re bugs.” I was stunned. I don’t recall ever learning about cicadas. I’m aware of them now and even found the shell from one of them years ago. It looked prehistoric. I’m still as suspicious as I ever was though, because power lines buzz too.
After I arrived at the bridge where I lefty my bike, I sat, snacked and rode back to the beginning where I left the car. It was an early evening in August and the northern and western wildfires brought an increasing orange haze into the air. This has always been peak season for raging fires, but they’re getting bigger and more frequent now.
Songs :: Walkin’ Down the Road by The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Green Grass and High Tides by The Outlaws, Voices Inside My Head by The Police, Perfect World by John Mellencamp, and Ramble On by Led Zeppelin
© C. Davidson