Essays

Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero

Natural Calendars, Live Snakes of West Texas, and the Sibley Kids Club
September 5, 2007

The Sibley Nature Center will change your life! Have you signed up for any of the 28 classes of the Sibley Academy? Have you signed your child up for the Sibley Kid’s Club? Have you ever seen a Mojave Rattlesnake – on September 15th the one and only Mojave Rattlesnake east of the Pecos River will be at the Sibley Nature Center! Do you know the Natural Calendar of the Llano Estacado? (And for that matter, just what is the Natural Calendar of the Llano Estacado?)

Avocets and stilts leave
As warblers pass through.
Windscorpions bury eggs
When sugar ants swarm
And preying mantids foam egg cases.

Orioles leave
As ducks and harriers arrive.
The fall horde of miller moths
Flitter from the dusty grasses at sundown.

Painted buntings leave
As prairie falcons return.
Paper wasp reproductives lounge at their nest
When stillwater mayflies live for a day.

Next year’s wildflowers begin to sprout
And mesquite twig girdlers invade
While pronghorn males frantically gather harems.

Every month is poetry. September is a month of vast change. The Natural Calendar is poetry that happens every year, year after year. May it always be so! September brings a million travelers passing by, winging south. September brings the first companions of winter. September also brings promises that the next year will flourish.

Every place has a Natural Calendar. Do you know ours? Children should be taught the cycle of the seasons of their home. “Primitive” hunters and gatherers relied on sophisticated memories to know where and when to find plant and animal food at its prime. Farmers worldwide added the belief that the phases of the moon contributed to subtle changes to the Natural Calendar. As global techno-citizens we have lost the interface with the world that touches us – the world that surrounds us.

The “virtual” world of computers, high-speed Internet, cable television, cell phones, and Gameboys separates us from what is closest (physically) to us – that world that we can not only see, but enter. We can become integrated with what shares our immediate space – truly integrated, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The world of indigenous plants and animals is a constant, a stabilizing influence upon the psyche of humankind. The wondrous adaptations of God”s creations to each unique locale are story lessons divinely prepared for us, if we take the time to learn and understand.

The organisms of the arid lands teach us the lessons of symbiosis, endurance, and patience. We learn how supremely valuable water is. The joy that surrounds us when rain comes is palpable. Nothing is more glorious than a wildflower show after a drought! Events of the Natural Calendar are signposts for us. For example, when the first harrier of the fall returns to the southern Llano Estacado, a Llanero knows summer’s heat has been banished. Male harriers are silver hawks, and when they begin hovering among the top of mesquite bushes, they do so on the first crisply brisk northerly breeze of the fall.

For over fifty years members of the Midland Naturalists published the local nature newsletter, “The Phalarope.” Sibley staff perused the 4000 pages of the collected volumes and found dozens of events that happen every year at the same time (or within a week of the same time), year after year. For a year a printed version of the Natural Calendar has been available on our “handouts” section, but earlier this year we found a wonderful artist that has created charming interpretations of the events of each month.

Long-time Midlanders may remember Ronna Porter as one of Lee High School’s first bat girls in 1971. After raising two talented children, she has returned to Midland as a professional artist. She has created a panel for each month. For a children’s coloring book she produced black and white line drawings. By adding color, the images are used on calendars, placemats, and notecards.

On September 15th, at 2 p.m., at the Sibley Nature Center (1307 E. Wadley) Mike Price of the San Angelo Nature Center will present a program on the snakes of West Texas (with many live specimens.) The featured animal will be a Mojave Rattlesnake, a creature many people believe to have invaded West Texas (but has not been scientifically recorded east of the Davis Mountains.) The event will cost $1 a person for the general public (but members of the Sibley Nature Center will be admitted free.) We will also be featuring Ronna’s artwork and taking orders for the various products displaying her interpretation of the Natural Calendar of the Llano Estacado. The Natural Calendar is a perfect Christmas gift for people of any age.

The Natural Calendar was once common knowledge among the citizens of a particular bioregion. It is the goal of the Sibley Nature Center to make the Natural Calendar of the Llano Estacado common knowledge among all West Texans. Your child’s teacher should have the images on the classroom walls. Help us bring this basic tool of patriotism to everyone’s home! Yes, a Natural Calendar instills love of one’s home, and love of the landscape and its flora and fauna of home is the first building block of patriotism. Public and private education has ignored teaching our children about their immediate surroundings – help us change education for the better!

Earlier this year Kim Carlson came to the Sibley Nature Center with the suggestion that she start the Sibley Kid’s Club. Once a month, children between the age of 4 and 9 have come to adventure along the trails at the Sibley Nature Center. Volunteer teacher Andrew Franks (who is a superb naturalist and an incredible teacher) has led the children to discover creepy crawlies and sweet wildflowers and colorful birds. This weekend, at 9 a.m. Saturday September 8th, your child and you are welcome to visit to learn more. (At least one parent is required to be with a child – for it is a family program, not a “place to dump the kids.”) The Sibley Kid’s Club introduces children to our home, the Llano Estacado, and its unique animals and plants.

See you at the Sibley Nature Center!