AT HOME ON THE PRAIRIE

Cottonwood, a tree with Attitude

Watches over the Great Plains, tall and shaggy

Thirsty tree, roots dig for water 

Musical tree, tough leaves jam when the wind blows 

A prairie beat, clack-clickity-click-clack-clack 

Bark as thick and tough as an iron rail

Shelter for the seldom-seen – beetles, ants, caterpillars, nesting birds, bats and squirrels

 Long-lived Grandfathers,100 years 

Champion tree, grows up to 6 feet per year

Bountiful tree, births green pearls in early spring – mid-June, pearls pop – multi-millions of cotton puffs toting a tiny seed, drift in the breeze, blow in the wind, float on the currents, and by chance find an amiable patch to settle

Planful tree, while in recovery from hard times, prepares billions of the seed parachutes, and pitches creamy rivers of cotton that flow across the sky; fuzzy cotton carpets float on lakes and ponds then drifts of cotton on grasslands and sticky cotton in gutters and drainage pipes

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” –Henry David Thoreau