she / her || telling stories about people, plants, and prairie through drawing || phd student writing her dissertation on prairie, the history of prairie science, restoration ecology, and settler colonialism || big on pawpaws and goldenrods || #envhist
471 posts
Chase-prairie - Chase - Tumblr Blog
Shout-out to the guy who took in four women 25-40 years old with a big formal display table that I introduced as "Hello! We are all scientists here at the [institution] who do research on improving lawns with native plants!"
Guy said: "Oh. [long pause] This is not what I thought 'Science at [institution]' would look like."
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, SIR? [increasingly manic polite smile]
Late Summer field and forest edge flora:
Pawpaw, hawthorn, black gum, sassafras
Goldenrods, ironweed, white snakeroot, bottle gentian
a current problem in my life is I can’t read my phone in bed at night anymore. My cat Pierogi YELLS at me until I let him cuddle in the circle of my arms by my pillow. It’s a little overbearing but very sweet.
What this means is I read my phone before bed… in the bathroom. This usually works because I take night showers and Pie hates being in the room when the shower is on.
…tonight I took too long before starting the shower. Pie broke into the bathroom and YELLED and YELLED until I gave up and turned the shower on.
It is now post-shower and I am hiding in the bathroom in the hopes of finishing my tumblr catch-up before a cat comes to yell at me again.
GET YELLED AT
photos by carl bergstrom
Update from the Sapphire Coast
Today I saw a bunch of these fucked up deer, some opossums without the O, and some things called potoroos
still haven’t met a kookaburra yet, tho
It actually bums me out that astrology has persisted through the years as the standard BS divinatory practice that people really buy into, when it so easily could have been ornithomancy instead.
We could’ve had hipster girls trying to predict the minutiae of your life using an intricate chart that details how many herons or crows you’ve seen in the past year. Instead of asking what’s your sign on dating apps people would be like how many birds did you see on your way to work today. I cannot stop thinking about what could have been.
unrelated, i just realized the guy i (very mildly, on 1/3rd of one page) mocked in my book just ordered a copy and i shipped it to him this morning
lol whoops
baby's first NSF PI success 🥲
HUGE NEWS!!! The Rethinking Lawns project of @chicagobotanic @ChicagoParks @UMFlint just received the PACSP grant from @NSF & @PGAFamilyFdn to support our research into lawn enhancement & replacement with native plants. PIs:
@BeckSamBar @BeckyTonietto @lglyndal @chase_prairie (that's me!)
Turf lawns are omnipresent landscapes in urban settings. While they are more beneficial than impervious surfaces, our research project asks the question: what could our lawns become?
Coming from backgrounds in prairie restoration and urban native plants, we are proposing that incorporating short native plants into lawn greenspaces can produce concrete benefits for people and our more-than-human neighbors.
We are quantifying the benefits of our native plants in these settings, putting numbers to the theoretical benefits documented in the literature. We are measuring wildlife support, stormwater infiltration, cooling effect, and soil carbon storage.
To learn more, check out our website with official press releases and links and goodies!
One last talent show to save the rec center
Ok everybody here's the deal.
My science education nonprofit, Skype a Scientist (you might know her, creator of the squid facts hotline and matcher of classrooms + scientists) has secured absolutely no grants to support general operations for 2025. But! We're selling advent calendars to fund our program! They absolutely rule. They can save our nonprofit asses. If we sell 5000, which I realize, is so many, we can fund our program for 2025. Then I can offer a bunch of programming for free. Running a nonprofit is a weird job.
Every day, counting down to frankly whatever you want (it's usually Christmas, but man, maybe you want to count down to Halloween, that's fine by me) scratch off the sparkly sparkly iridescence and reveal a fact about frogs! We have 24 top-notch frog facts here.
You should get one for every kid in your life, then get one for all the adults who still let themselves access joy in critters.
Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/
a type of baltimore guys you see on certain special days is one in all ravens gear and one in all orioles gear and they’re doing their little game day things together like day drinking and yelling. i think they are in love
a type of baltimore guys you see on certain special days is one in all ravens gear and one in all orioles gear and they’re doing their little game day things together like day drinking and yelling. i think they are in love
Do you live in Illinois? Please read <3
The Kirtland's Snake (Clonophis kirtlandii) is a Midwestern snake that lives in wetlands and grasslands. It is threatened, endangered, or extirpated (locally extinct) throughout its range. The species was rejected from "endangered species" status but will be reconsidered in the next two years.
Photo credit x
The Kirtland's Snake has been found in a preserve in Will County, Illinois (just south of Chicago), but a permit filed by the County indicates they plan to pave a trail straight through its critical wetland habitat.
Figure 2 from here showing untouched habitat they will be paving through. This is from the Incidental Take permit.
The "Incidental Take" refers to the individuals that will die as a result of this plan. The "Incidental take" in this case is estimated to be 3 snakes because they found 3 in the planned construction zone, but this does not consider 1. the small gene pool/population size 2. the loss of prey from damage to the wetlands (from wetland pollution and soil compression) and 3. overall habitat decreasing and 4. direct injury from human persons ie being run over by bikes or stepped on.
Photo from IDNR fact sheet, source
If you are a nature lover please consider emailing DNR.ITACoordinator@Illinois.gov , the Department of Natural Resources Incidental Take Authorization coordinator, and ask them to reconsider and strengthen protections for threatened species like this!
Tove Jansson and lover and collaborator Tuulikki Pietilä on their tiny rocky island of Klovharu where they spent their summers over many decades, 1955.
humans evolved to identify plants and creatures, the world's first job was biologist
i don't want to be angry any more. let's look at prairie gardens and tapestry lawns :)
don't cry, future is beautiful
love plants. learn about plants. relax with plants. study plants. restore habitats with plants. improve human life using plants. solve hunger with plants. build community with plants. help climate change with plants. experience wonder because of plants. Plants 👍🌳
For all my people in the Persicaria / Smartweed / Knotweed fandom, a 14th century alternative word:
𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖊-𝖘𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖙
source
the beautiys of illinois
majestic waterfalls of the north fork of the chicago river
the perilous scraggly peaks of rockford
city state of chicago, viewed from the placid waters of lake michigan
illinois beach state park sand dunes
the joyously colorful rolling hills of terre haute
shawnee national forest
lower wacker drive
the state’s great capital, springfield
the rambling eastern border along the mississippi river
paul bunyan statue
GET YELLED AT
photos by carl bergstrom