Bridges of Western Kansas

Combine past information with storytelling and you get history, which both entertains and provides examples of actions that improve lives. Kansas has had thousands of years of learning how to set up functional communities. At least 155 years of those include practice establishing permanent towns operated by local and state governments.

During post-settlement years, The Great Depression delivered hard lessons as well as some of the greatest infrastructure progress our citizens have experienced. As people directly involved during those years pass and families lose sight of their personal involvement, I worry about disappearing knowledge and landmarks that told us how the Works Progress Administration improved Kansans’ lives. For those interested in this subject, a drive down local roads uncovers cleverly engineered monuments to a program designed to stimulate the economy and create beautiful yet functional structures utilizing native resources. During that Sunday cruise, explore city parks, blue highways, and rural lanes to look for old WPA bridges.

In many regions, locally quarried limestone adds decorative elements that building crews don’t achieve using traditional concrete and rebar construction. For those who enjoy connecting the past to the present, it’s interesting to visit these sites and examine them closely. Those who investigate these historical constructions find imbedded markers establishing the year WPA funds and local labor produced them.

One of the greatest strengths of this federal program was that it depended on local resources, natural and human. Those who know their regional geology can identify the origin of stones used to build the bridges. Marci Penner’s The Guidebook for Kansas Explorers helps to identify the types of limestone construction travelers view as they explore different counties in our state.

Even sightseers without that resource or another like it will recognize that different quarries supplied material used during construction. Ellis County’s light colored Fort Hays limestone clearly differs from grayish toned material found Phillips County. A short trip to view Graham WPA sites frequently reveals the use of green rock.

In theory, history should make us wiser. If that’s true, why hasn’t our state taken advantage of lessons provided during one of the most difficult times Kansans faced? Those hard years proved we could build a skilled workforce that used native material to create functional and beautiful bridges across creeks, rivers, and draws that drain our watersheds. Such efforts stimulated local economies then. Why wouldn’t they do the same today?

When I hear people complaining about a lack of jobs, I wonder why elected officials don’t steal a page from history books. They could train and hire native-born engineers and construction crews to use resources at hand to build necessary infrastructure. To retain jobs, locals could maintain those structures.

Make a point of visiting these monuments to hard work and initiative before it’s too late to see them. Contact legislators to ask what it would take to reinstate such programs. With foresight, Kansans could better utilize resources and support local companies willing to specialize in building and preserving functional bridgework. We’d be taking care of our own in more ways than one, a trait our ancestors would recognize.

Enjoying Somebody Else’s Garden

I know people who insist on creating original landscapes in their yards. They either begin with a clean palette and scrape their property down to bare earth or they buy homes in brand new subdivisions where all the dirt is recently backhoed and then leveled by earthmoving mega-machines. Once these individuals draw up their plans and plant accordingly, they have designer yards that draw the eye to appealing areas throughout their lot. This is one way to create beauty around a home. Another is to enjoy what previous occupants have planted and work around the property’s history.

Since I was a little girl, I’ve enjoyed investigating other people’s gardening talents. My great grandmother lived near Buckner Creek in Southwest Kansas where she cultivated irises, peonies, and black berry canes someone had tucked around her house before she moved in. As a toddler, I examined her bearded irises and thorny berry plants from a nose to petal point of view. Somehow, I understood these mature plants had lived in this place longer than Grandma had. I also got the idea that they connected her and me as well to whoever optimistically planted them in a land of little rain.

Because of those early experiences, I’ve always loved moving into homes with already established plantings. Lovely wild rose bushes with once a year yellow blooms, peonies, poppies, purple and bronze iris, naked ladies, and lilac borders graced our first bungalow built in the early 1900s. Their cycles of scented blossoms brightened that yard for decades and continue to do so two owners later.

We were only the second residents of our next home, but the couple who built that house transplanted iris tubers and lilac starts from their family’s original homestead into their new yard. In addition, they’d added rose bushes, purple phlox, and blue flax to enhance the native prairie flowers that surrounded them.

One of the attractions of our most recent real estate purchase was the pretty yard surrounding the house. That owner landscaped with new plantings to increase the curb of appeal of her property, but she also incorporated old-fashioned poppies, peonies, daisies, butter and eggs, day lilies, and violets that add a nostalgic touch to the yard. While I love the roses and shrubbery this gifted gardener chose to border the house, I most enjoy the plants she transferred from her farm and other people’s flowerbeds.

What I like best about plantings passed down from the generations who first turned these prairies into homes is that they connect us to real people who longed for reminders of where they came from. They were dead tired from just surviving, yet they made time to turn up flowerbeds around their homes. Even more telling, they shared precious water with rootstock or seeds they either ordered or carried from more settled regions of America and Europe.

Drive by any dying community or abandoned farmstead and you’ll see remnants of lilac borders, iris or peony beds, and poppies that now escape confinement. The humans who planted them are long gone. Equipment they left behind rusts in weedy yards that come to life each spring with improbable lavender, pink, and bright orange blooms that fleetingly tell stories of those who came before.

People of the South Wind in the Land of Extremes

My brain collects trivia the way a magnet attracts iron filings, so just hearing the word Kansas means I immediately associate it with the tribe that gave the state its name. Anthropologists and historians would call them the Kansa, Quapaw, or Kaw people—otherwise known as the South Wind People. When this Siouan language-speaking group migrated from the Ohio Valley, they first settled in Arkansas and later crossed into what is now Kansas.

In 1724, a French explorer first documented a Kaw village near what is now the site of Doniphan in the eastern part of the state. In 1804, Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery traveled up the Missouri and recorded the presence of this now abandoned village, whose occupants relocated on the Kansas River. While few citizens of the Kaw Nation remain in Kansas today, the state’s name serves to honor generations of native people whose families once farmed and hunted the place we call home. These People of the South Wind had to be a sturdy bunch to make their lives in this place.

You don’t have to be here long before you realize that the term South Wind People is apt. A single drive across a landscape punctuated by bent and twisted vegetation tells anyone paying attention that the prevailing wind and master sculptor of these cottonwood, elm, locust, and hackberry trees comes from the south. 

If you stay long enough to watch local news channels or read papers, you find headlines detailing massive fires roaring out of Oklahoma onto central Kansas prairies. Prevailing southerly gusts whip grass fires into monstrous tidal waves of flame devouring everything in their path. We know these infernos existed long before scholars documented these events. Such  blazes explain why this landscape was essentially treeless. Wind-driven conflagrations contained tree growth except along waterways until humans controlled most of these burns. The recent Medicine Lodge fire reminds us that south wind extremes aren’t always manageable.

Just a few weeks after reporting about out-of-region firefighters who loaded their gear and headed away from home to help control the fires in Southern Kansas, newsfeeds were busy again. This time, the Weather Channel lit up like a Christmas tree as analysts predicted massive rains driven by what else--gulf moisture pushed north by southerly winds. Forecasters stayed busy updating audiences with reports of up to 9 inches of rain in just over 24 hours. Overnight, dusty waterways turned to raging torrents while homeowners hurried to seal leaking roofs and basements.

Kansas demographics change over decades and centuries, but one truth remains. This is a land of extremes that often blow in on a south wind. That same breeze that twists and bends our trees shapes those of us who grow to love this place. It makes us tough souls who slap our hats on a bit more tightly and roll up our sleeves to clean up whatever messes those gales deliver. We too are people of the South Wind.

A Sea of Purple

Spring is upon us in all her splendor, including this particular season’s signature sea of purple washing across people’s yards, over city park acres, through roadside ditches, and even spilling into farm fields and pastures. These tiny blooms set among frilly leaves welcome warming temperatures every year, but conditions this season seem especially suited to its growth. Commonly called henbit, this vegetation sporting tiny orchid-like flowers blends cheerfully with dandelions that brighten green lawns and irritate those who hate weeds. For some reason, this North African/Eurasian immigrant has outdone itself in the last few weeks.

As the days grow longer and more greenery unfurls in our area, a pinkish-purple carpet has overtaken what should be verdant lawns in every town I drive through. I know there are people like my mom who hate this invasion into their well-tended grass, but I’m inclined to forgive these tiny buds their trespasses and welcome them to town. Once I researched this relative newcomer to the plains, I found it had practical uses to match its eye-catching appearance.

Henbit or Lamium amplexicaule L. is member of the mint family. Although a member of Lamiaceae or mint clan, henbit doesn’t smell or taste like some of its more refreshing relatives. It comes by its common name because chickens love to eat it. Apparently, cranes and storks enjoy it as well because people in some regions of the country identify it as cranesbill, heronsbill, and storksbill. In addition to hens enjoying this gourmet treat, hummingbirds love to sip its nectar.

 For humans with exotic tastes, this plant is a perfect fit. Homo sapiens can dine on cleaned stems, flowers, and leaves harvested from unsprayed fields, raw in salads and smoothies, sautéed like kale or spinach, or brewed into teas. The plant said to taste either like kale or mushrooms is rich in iron, vitamins, and fiber, all positives for health enthusiasts. With such recommendations going for it, it’s surprising grocery stores don’t stock it every spring.

The explanation why these nutritious greens aren’t available right next to the kale at the local market might have something to do with the species ability to reproduce. A single plant can produce 2000 seeds a season, which makes me wish I had a savings account that offered such returns. Those who have planted one or two mint plants in the garden soon discover that these reproduce themselves much as cottontail bunnies do. Begin with two and after a couple of seasons, hundreds inhabit an area. This particular cousin to wintergreen, catnip, and spearmint apparently excels in this department. A drive through town confirms this.

The failure of this plant to thrive in the open market may have something to do with its negative qualities. I’ve already mentioned how easily it spreads. It has even more downsides. According to one source, field infestation results in diminished yields in small grain crops. In addition, authorities explain that it hosts disease-causing nematodes and fungi in soybeans and other cultivated plantings. Just reading this makes my skin crawl. Those aren’t advertisements to encourage this little plant to make itself at home on the prairie.

While henbit’s pretty flowers might capture a winter-dulled eye, and a gourmet diner may thrill at the idea of eating something picked from the wild, I’m thinking my mother may be right again. Perhaps this non-native species requires less tolerance. I’m sure chickens can find something to eat that doesn’t encourage nematodes and fungi.

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

Due to medical appointments and grandkid visits, I’ve spent several days driving across central and western Kansas over the last few weeks. During that travel time, gusting north winds have shaken and tossed my silver Toyota like a terrier shaking a rat, leaving me to hope that spring weather lore is more than a wishful thought. Now that the end of the month is in view and I have a few more journeys to make, that old saying about March, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” appeals to me.

Unfortunately, after this persistent ditty popped into my brain, it stalked through grey matter like the king of the jungle mentioned in the verse. Since I couldn’t shut down the repeats ringing through my head, I decided to banish it by finding its adage’s origin. After cruising from one site to another to discover it source, I’m more confused than when I began.  

One author explained that the phrase’s birthplace might have begun with the Biblical reference to Jesus coming as a sacrificial lamb and returning as the Lion of Judah. To clarify himself, the writer shared that this comparison meant that March is a false spring. I’m still scratching my head at this metaphor. Hmmm. That one seems backward to me, so I might need instruction to see this relationship.

Another writer explored several 16^th through 18^th century references that revealed possible first uses of the adage. These include a line in little known playwright John Fletcher’s work A Wife for a month, early naturalist John Ray’s insertion of the phrase in his Catalogue of English Proverbs, and its appearance in the British American colonial text Ames Almanack in 1740. It’s clear this axiom’s been around a while.

Despite that researcher’s examples of when the term first came into use and another writer’s obscure metaphor to explain its meaning, I hoped to find a better answer for the origin of this saying about unpredictable March weather conditions. Since the references began centuries ago, it’s clear that I’m not the only person who finds this month filled with extreme weather noteworthy.

Eventually, I investigated long enough to find a couple of sites that explained the term has astronomical connections. From early times, stargazers observed that at the beginning of this particular calendar cycle, the lionly constellation Leo is rising. By April, Leo has descended and Aries the ram has taken over this heavenly role. While I don’t think of male sheep as gentle creatures, their lambs are certainly cuddly and sweet. This explanation satisfied the logical part of me until another old saying trips me up and sends me searching for more answers.

That said, I’m back to dealing with schizophrenic weather that is balmy and peaceful for a day or two. Then it roars enough to blow loose objects and tumbleweeds all the way to Oklahoma. Within a few days, it changes direction so that Kansans get to see the same items returning and heading for Nebraska.

I’m ready for that lion to exit and the lamb to rise.

Unexpected Mystery

Recently, our normally agreeable pooches squabbled loudly enough on the back porch that I hurried to see what triggered the ruckus. Before I opened the door, I could hear our little terrier giving his Shitzu/sheepdog companion a high-pitched lecture. Peeking out, I scoped the situation to find a snarling Jack Russell holding the high ground from his armchair vantage point. The larger white fur ball edged close to his cohort’s perch, taunting Buster with dancing feints toward his highness’s throne. Once I announced my presence and called them inside, they called a truce long enough to eat together.

Once the meal ended, Buster hurried to reclaim his perch. His hackles rose, and he growled any time fuzzy Dudley came close. Once my husband returned, I told him about their earlier brouhaha and the small dog’s continuing threats. To prevent a catastrophe, we stayed nearby to supervise our feuding four-leggeds and puzzled about how the younger dog had gotten on Grandpa Buster’s last nerve.

This low-grade rumble continued until bedtime, when the two yahoos managed bedded together in the house as usual. I figured our older dog’s arthritis was acting up and hoped changing weather would improve his mood.

Imagine my surprise when I awoke the morning and wandered into the kitchen to hear my husband say, “We have a mystery, and I think it’s why the dogs got into it yesterday.” I hadn’t had a drop of coffee so my brain wasn’t processing his words well.

“What are you talking about?” I mumbled and headed for my mug.

“I think I know why the dogs were fighting yesterday.”

“Okay, why?” I took the bait.

Holding out two hands containing a wadded towel, he signaled me to peek. Oh, man, that’s a scary invite at our house, which can mean anything from a snake to a giant spider. 

Steadying my yet-to-sip-a- drop-of-coffee nerves, I gingerly peeled back a terrycloth corner. Inside was a tiny bunny! Buster had found it in our yard and carried it to his overstuffed armchair where he nudged it under a blanket. This blew the theory that moving to town meant we’d never again deal with wild critters dogs brought home.

My next thought was that Buster was getting senile because at one time anything looking remotely like a packrat got the full-blown terrier treatment. For whatever reason, maybe because Dudley was trying to steal his treasure, this rabbit escaped that fate. Now, I understood the unexpected surliness I’d observed the previous day.

Once I saw this critter, my mind immediately recalled baby cottontails our young daughters bottle-fed. We quickly learned these little ones require bunny mommies. Despite our best efforts, we never kept one alive long enough to release it into the wild.

This recent discovery caused my husband to comb our yard, searching for this little guy’s fur-lined nursery all while hiding his activity from two vigilant dogs. Buster watched intently out the window, whining as if to say, “He’s mine. Finders keepers.”

To our surprise, mama had her babies directly under our noses in the flowerbed next to the house. She had four additional babes tucked into downy fur and grass. Here we thought we’d never have bunny troubles again when we moved to town, and now wascally wabbits live closer to us than they ever have.