Finding the Harvest

Well, we survived!  The first few weeks of school, that is.  Catch your breath, look around.  Wow!  It's gorgeous out there.  The harvest is coming in, isn't it?

My afternoon class just took a hike across the prairie.  The Indian Grass and Bluestem are simply magnificent right now.  Imagine being not even three feet tall and walking through two walls of ten foot tall grasses with a blazing blue sky overhead.  It is an awe-inspiring experience, even for those of us over three feet.  As we stood there on the hilltop, I caught my breath.  I turned to my colleague, Amanda, "Remember standing here last spring?"  Her smile widened and she laughed.  Last spring, we did stand on the very same spot, but it was a blackened, smoldering moonscape.



We watched the prairie burn, you see.  It was a controlled burn, and it was very complete.  Our class roasted bagels on a campfire and watched as a small crew set the dry, yellow prairie on fire.

Kids stood slack-jawed as a wall of orange flame licked the prairie clean.  It was over before we finished our bagels.  First there was something--so much biomass--and then there was nothing.  We were assured that we could safely stroll across the black fields.  We discovered long sticks, a few logs and rocks.  When we rolled them away, or turned them over, they left a perfect shadow of life in the old grass outline.  The fire burned so fast and so hot, that it just cleared away the spent plant matter, releasing seeds to the soil as it went and killing a few of the less resilient and undesirable weeds that creep into the prairie.  It was an amazing day.  A powerful image.  Just days later the black expanse was green with the first tender new shoots of life.  And now, a summer gone, the prairie is more robust than ever.  It is a harvest of flowers and seeds, teeming with life.

Everywhere you look in these last few days, during the last big push of the nature production, animals are on the move and plants are reaching the peak of their life cycles.  If you can take just a few moments to stop and see it, you will be reminded of just how amazing this cycle of life thing is.

Asters, Goldenrod, bees and wasps of all stripes.  Apples are getting rosey-- I understand that one of the best apple harvests in state history is on the way, a little late, but terrific.  Tomatoes are bursting, sunflowers are nodding.  Even potatoes and onions are poking their way up and out of the earth.  Right now, out there, it is a vibrant wonderland for young children (and their older friends).  Foliage is still lush, intertwined with wild cucumber vine or grape.  Cattails around our ponds are at least twelve feet tall.  Flowers are hallooing for attention from bees.  Birds are flocking, startling, flying up from fields of seed, arrowing overhead or gorging at feeders.  Deer are becoming frisky, bulking up on the harvest, anticipating the rut.  I was just thinking, if everyone planted just ten square feet of prairie in their yard--grasses, Goldenrod, some Asters, Rattlesnake Master, Cupplant--they could enjoy the same late summer and early fall feast for the senses.  Just that much prairie could give you an idea of the grandeur and invite birds and bees to the feast.  But most of us don't have this feast, this reminder right out the front or back door, so we've got to seek it out.

Asters:  a bee's delight

Preschoolers visit the Dodge Community Gardens

Picking in the Raspberry Patch with teacher, Dani

Dodge Apples

Giant sunflower head, more than 15 inches across!

Harvesting grapes for jam

Pollination in action

More grapes with teacher, Joey (the brains behind the jelly) 

Zinnia mania

I urge you to find the harvest.  I know, I know.  It's such a busy time of year, but you can do it, just for a few minutes.  It'll make you feel great.  And if you watch a kid discover the pleasures of fall, you'll feel even better.  I still remember the first time we took our twins to our favorite apple orchard.  I just couldn't wait for them to share one of my greatest joys.  They had very little hair, couldn't walk all that well and certainly couldn't pick their own apples yet.  They had eight teeth between them, but they made quick work of a half a dozen apples as they sat and gnawed/gummed them under a gnarled old tree.  The apples were fragrant and so tart, they made even the grown-ups drool.  Nearby, a trio of jet black Percherons loitered at the fence line, snorting and flicking their tails.  The farmer's fat old spotted dog sidled up and nuzzled one of the kids.  They weren't really my trees or my horses, that wasn't my dog, but in my memory I own it as one of the finest afternoons on earth.

Minnesota Grown's website and its publication are a great resource for finding the fruits of nature's labors, and the list below includes some of my favorite picks for finding and enjoying the local harvest in a variety of ways, beyond Dodge Nature Center.

Afton State Park
amazing prairie, nice ride to get there, orchards along St. Croix Trail

Carpenter Nature Center
more amazing prairie, and a great apple orchard (apples are produced with Integrated Pest Management and no pesticides)

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
super beautiful and they usually have lovely fall displays in the building too

University of Minnesota Apple House
up the road from the Arb, selling the U's good goods

Deardorff Orchards & Vineyards
hands-down favorite orchard

Applewood Orchard
this one is almost in my backyard in Lakeville, and for the last couple of years they've done a corn maze

Minnesota Harvest
off of 169, this is sort of a classic MN thing-- oompah music and brats and apples and tractor rides

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park
the Maples near the fire tower are stunning, a canoe ride on the Rum on a sunny late September day is worth the ride & their Archeology Day is Sept. 28th

Minnehaha Creek
so much fall beauty and right in the city, lots of fun stops and fun kid-friendly eats in neighborhoods along the way

Lyndale Park, Japanese Garden, Rose Garden, Harriet Streetcar & Lakewood Cemetery
Every year, my kids and I do this as a day (I've got a post about this).  But these spots are all within walking, all with parking, all great for picnicking (even the Cemetery, but not the Streetcar), and, come late September, early October they are heartbreakingly beautiful.  You'll find this area very quiet if you can visit on a weekday.  And Lakewood is quiet all the time, but it really is a cool place to stroll in the fall-- the trees are terrific and the monuments are pretty interesting.

Murphy-Hanrehan Park Preserve
I'm a broken record on this park, but I just love it in the fall.  And you can ride a horse there, if you have one that is.  It's fun to watch them ride across the prairie even if you don't have your own and Murphy Hanrehan has the third best picnic table vista in the state (Split Rock State Park cart-in campsite #16 is #1, and, to my mind, Temperance River State Park has the #2 best picnic table vista if you sit at the big one overlooking the beach).

And, of course, anywhere along the North Shore before the leaves blow away is guaranteed to knock your socks off.  But most of the stuff above can easily be accessed with young kids in an afternoon.

Forget about everything else and just enjoy the harvest for an afternoon...

P.S.:
Send me a favorite fall harvest recipe and I'll post it, and probably try to to eat it!