Bonnots Mill; Fall Supper Time Is Here!

It’s that time again—when all the local parishes are having their fall suppers. To find out what’s when, you can either look at the gigantic Coke Building sign on Jefferson Street and the Expressway, or you can look at the schedule on the Catholic Missourian’s website.



Sunday was Bonnots Mill. St. Louis of France parish always gets the award (in my opinion) for most scenic parish hall space. It’s up on a bluff overlooking the Osage River, with only oaks and ash trees between you and the deep blue sky. (For more pictures of this, see one of my earlier posts about Bonnots Mill.)



We got there in midafternoon, so we missed the lunchtime and dinnertime rushes. It was ham cooked with pineapple, and German pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sauerkraut, coleslaw, homemade pickled beets and bread-and-butter pickles, applesauce, a platter of sliced yellow and red heirloom tomatoes, and homemade bread.

Plus, as always, your choice of desserts from the glorious dessert table.



The “country market” had a nice selection of bake sale items, canned salsa and preserves, as well as some great-looking garden-fresh vegetables, including sweet corn, some beautiful eggplants, and tremendous, puckery, deep pinkish-red heirloom tomatoes and yellow tomatoes. (Oh, we will miss them in January!)



Someone at the parish has created a bunch of nice postcards of the St. Louis of France church (with its distinctive “Star of David” on the steeple) and of the town of Bonnots Mill—several of the postcards were reprints of historic photos—and all these were for sale. (Ten cents a piece!)

Our m.o. is to go for a walk after the picnic—it helps after such a great meal! So we drove to the town of Bonnots Mill (as opposed to hiking straight down the side of the bluff between parish hall and church). Sue likes to take pictures of antique buildings and the railway. (And so do I—but I don’t do nearly as well as her!)



There’s some really cool stuff in Bonnots Mill. Here’s the historic Dauphine Hotel, which opened for business in 1875. Now it’s a bed and breakfast. (Oh, and that’s the post office, to the right.)



While we were walking around, a fellow in a pickup stopped and told Sue that the church was open this afternoon, if we wanted to go up there and take pictures of the inside.

Oh, boy! We love seeing the interiors of these churches, and we’d never seen the inside of this one before. What a treat!



But even more of a treat: There were people inside! We met a friendly lady named Jeanne Knollmeyer, who chatted with us about the history of the church. Much of our discussion revolved around music, since the church had a guest organist that day, a talented fellow from Clinton, Missouri, named Sam. (Is it Sam Lucas? I can’t recall his last name, but the Internet reveals that a fellow with that name is the organist at the Clinton United Methodist Church.) Anyway—he was up in the choir loft playing, beautifully, the church’s hundred-year-old organ.



It sounded great—the acoustics in the church are superior, and the organ had a nice sound and seemed perfectly in tune. Beautiful music, the first time we’d been in that beautiful, historic church. What a treat!



Next Sunday (Sept. 22) is Frankenstein—Our Lady Help of Christians parish is having its supper. This is a special year for them, as the church is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. It’s definitely going to be a party there this year! And they always have such good homemade whole-hog sausage . . .

Neoscona crucifera, Our Little Friend in the Doorway

Yes, it’s “another one of our little friends,” a Neoscona crucifera. Allow me to introduce you. This sturdy, fuzzy, orb-weaving spider constructs her bug-snaring traps (a.k.a. “webs”) around dusk. Then she takes down the whole shebang each morning—consuming her threads, so as not to waste material.

Therefore, it’s too dark for me to get a picture of her in her web at night!



She’s almost certainly a descendant, or at least a relative, of the neosconas we’ve had around the house as long as we’ve lived here. I’m glad for this species’ habit of recycling webs every morning, since otherwise I’d be walking through them all the time. One year, a neoscona built her web each night across our back porch steps.

But this year, this neoscona habitually builds her web right in the way of our front door each night. Yes, I have to keep in mind she does, in case I ever have to dash outdoors some evening!

A word about the name. As you know, I prefer to use scientific names, when I can determine them, because they’re far more precise. And respectful, I think. The common name for this remarkable animal is “barn spider,” and it’s problematic, because other spiders are called “barn spider,” too. (Plus, I resent any comparison of our house to a dusty, cavernous structure for holding horses, tractors, cows, and chickens!)

Anyway, we call other organisms by their genus names (such as iris and asparagus)—what’s to keep me from continuing the trend?

Besides—it’s kind of a cute name. Although “crucifera” must refer to some cross-shaped something on her body (her spinnerets, maybe?), I haven’t been able to learn what “Neoscona” means. The “neo-” surely means “new”; but I don’t know what “scona” means. Meanwhile, I’ll think of those sweet little biscuits the British have with tea: “Neoscona”? . . . Newbiscuit. (Hey, it works for me!)

By day, Ms. Neoscona hides like this in the upper corner of our doorway, making herself as little as possible. Surely you won’t notice me here. She’s almost covering up her little eyes.



At night, she builds her magnificently detailed, wheel-shaped web and makes a fine living off the many insects that flutter toward our dusk-to-dawn porch light.

There was a time when I would have squished her unceremoniously with a broom or sprayed her mercilessly with a garden hose. Thankfully, those days are long past, because I realize that each time I kill a creature, some part of me suffers, as well. So despite my distaste for occasionally stepping into their webs, I give spiders a break. They are fellow Earthlings; they do us vastly more good than harm; and when all’s said and done, they just want to spend their brief lives eating insects, quietly fulfilling their humble destinies. It’s our choice to fear them or to marvel at them. Trust me, it’s much more fun to do the latter!

So Many Miscellaneous Mushrooms

Hi, folks! With our nice, moist spring and this coolish summer, it has been a great year for mushrooms!

As you might remember, Sue and I enjoy going "mushroom-watching." We like to take picture of them on our hikes, even though we're not very careful about getting identifications "just right." As I explained in a previous post, we usually aren't looking for mushrooms to eat.

Nope, we're not into picking them at all, really--well, except for morels (which we can't resist)--since mushrooms are the fungus's spore-bearing structures, picking them represents a dent in their ability to reproduce. If you don't pick wildflowers because you understand wildflowers create seed, then why pick mushrooms willy-nilly? And so we photograph them.

Sue, with her nice camera, takes excellent photos at various angles, while I concentrate on getting ground-level shots and photos of the undersides, which her big camera can't do (remember, my little camera swivels so I can hold it on the ground, beneath the cap, to photograph gills and pores without disturbing the mushroom).



We recently went hiking on some of the nature trails at Columbia's Cosmos Park--near the Bear Creek Trail. I haven't been hiking out there in ages, though I used to hang out at the beaver pond there a lot during college . . .

Anyway, we decided it'd be fun to check out the place again. My, how it's changed!

And yes, there were a lot of mushrooms popping out--various species--what fun!

Here's some type of bolete we saw.



Here's a more artsy picture of the cap of another type of bolete. (If I do say so myself.) I think it might be a two-colored bolete (Boletus bicolor), but again: I'm not too anal about getting them id'd "just so." I'm content to exclaim, "Wow, look at this beautiful bolete!"



Maybe, when it comes to mushrooms, I'm just easily amused.

Here's one I'm fairly confident about identifying: It's an "old man of the woods" (Strobilomyces floccopus). There was a patch of them at one place along the trail. They were kind of camouflaged against the dirt and leaf litter, but once we saw a few of them, they seemed to be all over (in that area).



This was the first time I'd ever seen this type of mushroom "in person." I've seen pictures of them and thought, "That's a cool-looking thing. Wonder if I'll ever seen one." And there they were!

Since they are usually out in July, August, September, and October, I guess it's not surprising I haven't seen them--midsummer, with the skeeters, other bugs, and humidity, isn't my favorite time for hiking in Missouri. But with the unusual cool weather, we got outside and made discoveries!

Well, these few pictures are just a small sample of what we saw, which was itself just a small sample of all that's out there right now. I mean . . . we weren't even looking for them.



If you're interested in mushrooms and want to get more regular updates on what fungi are popping out here in Central Missouri, check out Lisa K. Suits's blog, Mycologista. She takes lovely photos of mushrooms, and she goes the extra mile to identify them correctly. As she says, she's "crazy for wild mushrooms." But if you ever thought mushrooms were boring, you should scroll through her posts for an attitude adjustment.

It's funny how you can go into the woods, say, with binoculars and a bird guide, and plan on seeing a bunch of birds; or you bring old sneakers, a few nets, and containers and a magnifying lens for looking at aquatic invertebrates--but you end up having a "mushroom trip" instead. Or maybe it's the butterflies that are somehow everywhere that day, or daisies. Nature outings, "field trips," can be like that.

. . . And it's always fun!

Remembering Clair Kucera, His Grasses, His Gayfeathers

Sue and I drove to Tucker Prairie, just west of the Kingdom City exit off I-70 on Sunday, July 28, and spent the afternoon wandering around in that plot of never-broken prairie soil, examining plants, watching insects, and enjoying the abrupt, intense flights of an eastern kingbird. At one point, a covey of northern bobwhites erupted before us and flew away. Prairie cicadas droned . . .



I always find myself filled with wonder on a prairie. From a distance, it looks scruffy, and up close, you see that it’s a dizzying variety of plants that gives it that texture. The insects, birds, and other wildlife are similarly diverse.



Hardly any of it lives in forests, or subdivisions, or weedy roadsides. As you wade into the grasses, every few steps there is something to peer at, some new marvel.



I felt a different kind of wonder a few days later, when I learned that Dr. Clair Kucera, the ecologist credited for saving this spot of virgin prairie, had passed away the day before our visit. I felt sorrow of course, for I count him as a friend . . . but I felt wonder, too.



I heard Clair Kucera’s name a lot when I was growing up. Because I was young, I didn’t know who he was—someone my dad knew. He was a colleague of my dad’s at the University of Missouri, and they both were doing research on prairies; they were also both active in the Missouri Prairie Foundation. My dad, as I said in an earlier post, is a professional geographer who, using thousands of historical survey records as data points, mapped the presettlement prairie of Missouri.

Among Clair’s trailblazing contributions are his studies on the role of fire in maintaining prairie as prairie. He was an ecologist at a time when ecology was flowering as a discipline, and the ideas of biological succession and climax communities are core ecological concepts.

A vexing question about prairies was, What keeps them from being colonized by trees, and eventually turning into forest? We know that forests—oak-hickory being the predominant type around here—are the climax community, not tallgrass prairie.

As we know today, it was fire—started by random lightning strikes, or started by Native Americans—that kept the trees from taking over, maintaining the prairie as prairie.



Clair did much of his research at Tucker Prairie, using controlled burns, to figure out what frequencies of burning, in what times of year, are best for the prairie. How often, and when, should prairies burn, in order to keep out trees and shrubs, or kill off invasive plants like fescue, or invigorate the tallgrasses, or enhance the diversity of wildflowers and other forbs? As you can guess, these questions are critical for wise management of what few prairies remain in North America.

I don’t need to go into his life story or professional accomplishments. The Columbia Missourian did a nice job of describing those things in his obituary.

But I wanted to share a little about how I think about him. In 1995, I was living in Montana and looking for a new publishing job. When I learned of an opening here in my home state, at the University of Missouri Press, I applied for a number of reasons, but I wasn’t sure it would be a good “fit”—looking at their catalog, I noted that they published a lot of political philosophy and postmodern lit crit, which I didn’t think would interest me much. As an editor, I specialize in biology and natural history. During a phone interview, I asked if the press ever published much of that kind of stuff.



When the managing editor, who was speaking with me, mentioned that Clair Kucera’s manual The Grasses of Missouri would be coming out in a revised edition in the next few years, and I might get to work on it, my opinion of the job prospect improved tremendously. The first edition had been published in 1961, and this would be not only a chance to work in my preferred area, but also an opportunity to work with someone I had long admired.

And it was a pleasure and an honor to work with him. Even after the book came out, he sometimes called me just to chat. One time, he brought me some Liatris pycnostachya corms—surplus gayfeathers from his farm—to plant at the apartment where I lived then. So naturally, whenever I see blazing stars, I think of him.



And, of course, I think of him whenever I see prairie grasses, too. He wrote the book on them.



One more thing. Next time you’re on I-70 heading east out of Columbia, not long before the Kingdom City exit, turn your head and look at the scrubby-looking green grassland to the south. There’s a sign that says “Tucker Prairie,” in case you’re not sure.



The humble green building there is the Clair Kucera Research Station. Since the last time I wrote about Tucker Prairie, it’s been repainted and the windows repaired. It may not look like much, but for ecologists, for lovers of the prairie, and for friends of Clair Kucera, this research station, and this 160 acres, is cherished ground.

Leftover Veggies: From Crudités to Veggie Sandwich

Here’s a clever and delicious way to use up leftover veggies from your raw veggie tray. And it’s healthy, too! A bit of jack cheese and walnuts add deliciousness, and soy sauce and Spike seasoning mix add the je ne sais quoi.

I made some recently, when Sue’s sister sent leftover veggies home with us after we’d been on a visit to Ohio. We were supposed to eat it in the car, but there was so much we still ended up with a bag of mixed-up miscellaneous crudités.

A variety of vegetables will do here, but the standard veggie-tray types work well: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery. For their texture and flavor, I’d be sure to include plenty of cauliflower, broccoli, or both.

Because this isn’t rocket science, I won’t give you rigid quantities. Just a list of ingredients with notes.


Veggie Salad Sandwich with Walnuts and Jack Cheese

First, schnittle up your veggies:

Broccoli and/or cauliflower, chopped into quarter- to half-inch pieces
Carrots, in large shreds or thin matchsticks
Celery, if you want, sliced thinly to reduce the effect of the strings

Do you want to use a food processor on the veggies? I’d use it with care—you won’t want it to become confetti, or mush. A sharp knife and a grater is what I use.

Then add the next three:

English walnuts, chopped into chunks in about the same size range as the broccoli
Monterey jack cheese, sliced and cut into little brick-shaped chunks about 1 inch long
Green onions, chopped

Then make a simple dressing from the following:

Mayonnaise (eggless is the vegan preference)
Soy sauce (or tamari), go easy on it; treat it like you would salt, because that’s its purpose here
Spike (ah, yes, our favorite spice blend/low-salt seasoning mix from way back! If yours is stale, time to get a new jar!)

Then mix it up; taste, and adjust however you want it.

This works well in a pita pocket sandwich, or as a filling for a wrap, or on a sandwich with bread stout enough to hold together. Today, I put it on ciabatta bread. You could also just put a mound of it onto a bed of lettuce, and serve with crackers.


I Give Credit for the Idea

Oh, so many years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I went with a friend to the National Women’s Music Festival, when it was held at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. For lunch a few of those days, I ventured to the nearby Bloomingfoods Coop—now it’s Bloomingfoods Market and Deli—at 419 E. Kirkwood. (Those wonderful old vegetarian coops and restaurants always used to be right next to university campuses. Anyone remember Columbia Community Grocery, next to the, Catalpa Tree Café, on Hitt and Locust?)

At Bloomingfoods in 1988, I remember picking through their cold case of premade sandwiches. Most of them, as I recall, were vegetarian pita pocket sandwiches—tofu salad and such-like. One day, I tried a “Samurai sandwich,” which had a chickpea-based, hummus-like filling with a Japanese twist (miso, sautéed onions, bell peppers), and (naturally . . .) alfalfa sprouts. (Maybe I’ll get around to sharing that one with you someday.) [Addendum, July 30, 2016: I did post my version of the samurai sandwich recipe! —You're welcome!]

But on this day—June 4, 1988—I selected something they called a “Bric-a-Broc Sandwich.” It was named for brick cheese and broccoli, two of the primary ingredients. As I sat in the grass eating it under a big old tree on the IU campus, I was a little let down—I thought the various ingredients would have kept their own identities a little better, but they were all chopped up so finely it seemed too homogenous. (Now I understand the logic of that: Crisp veggies like carrots need to be cut finely so they don’t tear through the pita bread, and so you don’t spend the rest of the afternoon chewing!)

But I’m glad I jotted down the ingredients in my journal, as they were printed on the little adhesive label sealing the plastic wrapping: broccoli, carrots, brick cheese, onions, Spike, walnuts, tamari, eggless mayo (and the pita bread—some whole-wheat healthy stuff).

I’ve made this salad mixture occasionally since then, and I’ve always been surprised at how tasty it is, and easy to make. In the Bloomingfoods version, broccoli was abundant, carrots less so (in matchsticks, as I recall—or thick shreds). I think the onions were chopped white or yellow, but I prefer the green onions I suggest above. Tamari, by the way, was a mystery to me at the time. Seriously, you can use soy sauce, which is its close cousin. Spike I did know about, because I had so many friends who were concocting recipes like “Tofu and Spike”! (We can laugh at that today!)

I actually miss the days when sandwiches at the health food store were simpler and cheaper (the health food now seems overstimulating, ostentatious, by comparison), and I’m glad I took notes on some of them (I already told you about the tofu salad sandwich recipe I got from one of Columbia’s venerable health-food stores). Today, I wish I had the recipes for the famous nutburgers of Gentle Strength Cooperative in Tempe, Arizona; though I think I could “wing” the cashew-tuna salad sandwich, which was another favorite from that store.

Columbia . . . Mizz-urr-ee . . .

Hi, kids! Long time, no see! And sure, it's all my fault. Do you want to hear the excuses? How I've been busy, workin', playin' my trumpet again (hallujah!), and travelin'?

No--you don't want to hear about that. But I haven't forgotten you. Plus, you can rejoice with me! Since I've been actually doing things, I have a huge backlog of stuff to tell you about. Yet it almost feels like--constipation. So many things on my Op Op "do list," it's starting to feel like a "doo list."

Goodness.

But I can't pass this up--this is a quickie post--mercifully--so that's why I'm posting it.

It came up in my Facebook feed, shared by that Facebook page called "You Know You're From Columbia MO When. . ." And I wanted to share it with all the poor, sad people who haven't "liked" that page yet--perhaps because they aren't actually from Columbia, Mo.

It's a little, nostalgic song about Columbia, with an emphasis on Hickman High School. (Yay! Class of '84!) Pretty sweet, I think. I hope you'll enjoy it, too. Chances are, no matter where you're from, some part of it will resonate with you . . .



(Psst! Anyone else notice that this singer, despite his rural accent, is saying "Missouree" instead of "Missourah"? Typical Columbian! A blend of the down-home and the citified!)

Day . . . Whatever

No, I know; it’s Day Five. Five days I’ve had this cold-flu-whatever. There’s not a lot to say about this experience, except that I suddenly realized that I no longer shudder when I swig down my shot glass of Nyquil, the way I used to when I was a college student. I’m long past that. In fact, the other night I was thinking (in that fuzzy manner of people with head colds), Why, if it weren’t for that nasty, cloying, sticky-sweet finish, you could maybe use this in a cocktail . . .

. . . Nahhhh.


For your enjoyment, here is something from Ogden Nash’s collection Bed Riddance: A Posy for the Indisposed. We have all been here.


The Common Cold

Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall no longer sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In never paying you for my visit.
I did not come here to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever’s hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne’er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympian laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare’s plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is rather coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!