Author: Shannon Rhodes

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Mourning Cloaks and Witchy Skies

Nora's embellished May Swenson poem: "Unconscious Came a Beauty," as a butterfly-A means to emphasize the butterfly poem subject. Poem copyright acknowledged-Photo Courtesy Shannon Rhodes
Nora’s embellished May Swenson poem: “Unconscious Came a Beauty,” as a butterfly
A means to emphasize the butterfly poem subject.
Poem copyright acknowledged
Photo Courtesy Shannon Rhodes
I’m sitting here today with first grader Nora Baggaley and USU student teacher Ashlyn Prince. Just steps away from where we spend our days at Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the campus of Utah State University, we find Swenson Park, built on the lot where May’s childhood home once stood. She spent her elementary school days here, she was a student at Utah State Agricultural College, and she moved east to become a writer. During her lifetime May Swenson wrote her way into fame by recording memories riding her willow horse, enjoying strawberry juice dripping down her chin, and describing the relationships that develop when a baseball bat, ball, and mitt meet. Eventually she became Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. I love that she wrote shape poems about simple things like insects.

Insects? Did you say bugs? Coming into student teaching, I wasn’t too thrilled when I heard about the focus we have on bugs. From the beginning of the school year, we were already in the Logan River, digging out stonefly larva. By the second week, I was already writing a book for my students about why I do not like bugs. Here’s some of my book “Definitely NOT the Bug Girl.” I loved butterflies; they had beautiful wings. That was until I saw them closer. They looked an awful lot like grasshoppers with wings, and if you were paying attention, I hate grasshoppers! Why did I never think they were big, sticky, scary insects too? They did come from caterpillars…I should’ve known!”

Throughout the semester, from katydids flying at my head to being chased at recess with grasshoppers, I’ve grown to love the stories and discoveries the children have with bugs. Now today, I see a bug and instantly start to wonder: How did it get here? Where is it going? What would my students think about this? I could almost say I love bugs…

Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned), Courtesy & Copyright Don Rolfs 2010
Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned)
Courtesy & Copyright Don Rolfs 2010 https://wildaboututah.org/springs-earliest-butterflies/
Well, I love bugs.

Swenson’s “Unconscious Came a Beauty” captures an encounter with a butterfly. She isn’t certain about which kind of butterfly, so she offers two choices based on her descriptors. She must have been outside writing when one landed on her hand long enough for her to notice it, know it well enough to describe it.

I like how her words are in the shape of a butterfly and the wiggly way she typed the title.

When I wrote “Definitely NOT the Bug Girl,” Nora and her classmates encouraged me to include even more chapters about different kinds of insects. They wanted chapters of how I felt about roly polys, katydids, and ladybugs. I never really had an opinion about ladybugs. They were cute but a little frightening when they would fly. Finding them at recess became not so scary to me. Did you know they start their life as black and orange larvae?

How’s this for a poem inspired by May’s shape poem?
Hungry crawls a lady bug larva
To our recess rock riddled with yellow aphids dots
And stopped our games
Orange-striped black
Alligator-wiggling on its six legs
We sat wondering, and Asher brought one to class
Where it crept out overnight as a familiar friend.

Aurora Borealis from Logan Utah Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Aurora Borealis from Logan Utah
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Besides bugs, did you know May also wrote about space topics we know, like astronaut landings, gibbous moons, shadows, and her ghost moon? She called it, “the albino bowl on cloth of jet.”

In November, every student, and teacher, was given a nature journal paper to observe the full moon that night. Sadly, the sky was full of clouds and only a faint glow was visible. Amazingly enough though, we could see the northern lights a few days later! It was a beautiful sight, and made up for missing the November Beaver Moon.

 

 

 

Night Sky Nature Journal Entries by Ashlyn and Nora Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Night Sky Nature Journal Entries by Ashlyn and Nora
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

This is a two-voice poem we call “Witchy Sky.”
The beaver moon reminds me of cotton candy in the dark.
         It reminds me of a flashlight shining through my finger.
The northern lights are Glinda and Elphaba.
         I notice a lot of thick clouds.
I can’t really see the shape of the moon in the clouds but still it glows through them.
I wonder what does the moon feel like?
         How bright would the sky have been if there were no clouds tonight?

May Swenson remembered classmates folding paper airplanes and releasing them in the classroom when their teachers’ backs were turned. In a clip from a 1969 recording “Poetry Is Alive and Well and Living in America,” she says, “My poems sail away like that, I don’t know who picks them up, who may be reading them. It’s lovely to think that people are reading my things, especially that they are being stimulated to write their own poems.”

Don’t worry, May. We are inspired by your Mourning Cloak, Ashlyn’s aphid-eaters, Nora’s night sky auroras, and students, young adult and age 6, immersed in words every day.

This is Nora Baggaley, Ashlyn Prince, and Shannon Rhodes, and we are Wild About Utah, May Swenson, night sky poetry, and of course, bugs.
Well, maybe bugs.

Nora, Shannon & Ashlyn in the Studio Courtesy & Copyright Stu Baggaley, Photographer
Nora, Shannon & Ashlyn in the Studio
Courtesy & Copyright Stu Baggaley, Photographer

Credits:

Images: Classroom art Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
         Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned), Courtesy & Copyright Don Rolfs
         Nora, Shannon and Ashley in the UPR Studio, Courtesy & Copyright Stu Baggaley
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text & Voice:     Shannon Rhodes, Nora Baggaley, and Ashlyn Prince, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

BEETLES Project, The Regents of the University of California, https://beetlesproject.org/resources/for-field-instructors/notice-wonder-reminds/

Hellstern, Ron. June Fireflies, Wild About Utah, June 19, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/june-fireflies/

Ross, Fran, 1969. Poetry is Alive and Well and Living in America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKRjiqGizQ&t=1s

Spencer, Sophia with Margaret McNamara. Bug Girl: A True Story. https://www.amazon.com/Bug-Girl-True-Story/dp/0525645934

Strand, Holly. May Swenson, Wild About Utah, April 14, 2009, https://wildaboututah.org/may-swenson-a-utah-poet-and-observer-of-nature/

Swenson, May. Unconscious Came a Beauty. Poets Speak, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6LSVzBTKs&t=6s

Tevela, Irina. May Swenson in Space, Washington University in St. Louis, July 19, 2019, https://library.washu.edu/news/may-swenson-in-space/

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Migration Maps

Migration Maps: Watercolor maps of Utah and Damitz Exhibition Catalog Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Watercolor maps of Utah and Damitz Exhibition Catalog
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Lisa demonstrating sunprint map making techniques Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Lisa demonstrating sunprint map making techniques
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Lisa exposing sunprints with UV light Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Lisa exposing sunprints with UV light
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Processed sunprints hanging to dry, Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer Processed sunprints hanging to dry,
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer

Author Yuyi Morales describes exploring how she and her son discovered their new home in the United States in her picture book “Dreamers.” “We are stories,” she writes, and it reminds me of a catalog of painted stories from my mother’s ancestry. My great-great-great-grandfather Ernst Otto Wilhelm Franz von Damitz emigrated from Prussia and settled in Illinois by 1848. The Art Institute of Chicago exhibited his paintings almost 50 years ago. In sharing my migration family history through his art with my friend Lisa Saunderson, we note his depiction of beautiful architecture, placement, order, and glorious castle views. Lisa unfolds the magic of visual art daily with students at Utah State University and Edith Bowen Laboratory School.

His paintings capture the essence of place, preserving his memory of home, both the home he left and his new one.

Lisa has taught me along with our students over the years to capture place in Utah’s deserts, wetlands, and mountains through artistic mapping. As we draw the Delicate Arch in oil pastels and trace with watercolor the bird migration pathways on the shape of Utah, she shares her wonder of place as one who migrated here herself.

My roots are very coastal, Canadian, both East and West, and I married a South African, we moved here from Cape Town. In the first year living in Cache Valley, I walked all over it with my little baby daughter. I pondered the landscape and the feeling of expectation I had whenever I heard a seagull. The sound triggered a visceral sense that there must be an ocean around here somewhere. The landscape held quiet, waiting to be understood. When I finally learned about Lake Bonneville, it all made sense.

Lisa, share a little about the cyanotype Utah maps you make with your artists.

In fourth grade we look at creating a map of Utah and consider animals, plants, even people. Heritage is tied to migrations, human and animal, recent and ancient. I teach that to the children so they understand the story of the place we are in. For example, our map of Utah is illustrative of landscape. The lines we use in our legend are descriptive. The state boundary is one kind of line. The indigenous territories are defined by a different line that continues beyond the state line.

The map is meant to be educational, a visual reference to help us remember all the people of the place. When we create our cyanotype prints, we use native Utah plants that have cultural significance and consider how animal and plant migrations don’t see ANY lines.

These sunprints developed by ultraviolet light help the artists imagine Lake Bonneville landscape, people living in this place, and yield evidence of the passage of time. Looking, then wondering.

Leaving and coming back to Utah, you find profound beauty and abundance. I’ve seen it over and over through a different lens as I find myself in new geography, and I see how the children identify places they recognize and have been. It is enchanting how you can watch and document layers of history at this place at this time. Consider how you might capture your experience of place through art the next time you are out in it.

I’m Lisa Saunderson and I’m Shannon Rhodes, and we are wild about Utah.

Note: Cyanotypes that Edith Bowen Laboratory School’s fourth grade students make are gifted to the Utah State Legislature and to the donors of the College of Education at Utah State University.

Credits:

Images: Watercolor with Damitz catalog, Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer, Lisa teaching the cyanotype map process, exposing the cyanotypes, and drying maps on the line, Courtesy and copyright by Dr. Eric J. Newell.
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text: Shannon Rhodes and Lisa Saunderson, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Pieces by Shannon Rhodes, https://wildaboututah.org/author/shannon-rhodes/

Bagnall, Laura. Cyanotypes: The Origins of Photography. Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. 28 February, 2023. https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/cyanotype-photography

Hellstern, Ron. Journey North. Wild About Utah, March 19, 2018. https://wildaboututah.org/journey-north/

Hurren, Dick/Bingham, Lyle, A Moment to Think About Our State Bird. Wild About Utah, July 13, 2021. https://www.upr.org/environment/2021-07-13/a-moment-to-think-about-our-state-bird

Morales. Yuyi. Dreamers. Neal Porter Books/Holiday House. 2018. https://holidayhouse.com/book/dreamers/

Rankin, Jeff. Art Institute of Chicago Recognized Early Warren County Folk Artists. March 30, 2022. Daily Review Atlas. https://www.reviewatlas.com/story/news/history/2022/03/30/art-institute-chicago-recognized-early-warren-county-folk-artist/7202831001/

Strand, Holly. Last Blank Spots on the Map. Wild About Utah, Oct. 29, 2009. https://wildaboututah.org/last-blank-spots-on-the-map/

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Squirrel Tales

Evergreen Cone Scales, Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes
Evergreen Cone Scales
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes

Nature Rings, Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes Nature Rings
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes

The recent snows have made the sledding hill at Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the campus of Utah State University a popular place, but without snow, children flock at recess to the wild area under the oak trees to harvest acorns. I’ve invited one of these students, a seven-year-old first grader named Lila, to explain this phenomenon:

“You get an acorn and you rub the pointy bottom part and keep doing it for a bit and then you can put it on whatever finger it fits on and it turns into a nature ring.”

They trade them and then squirrel the rings away in their lockers. Sometimes they stop to notice the squirrels scolding above them in the trees, and one day I sat with them to appreciate a noisy one. Nibbling away, its eight black claws rotated the little nugget it was holding. Standing erect so I could see the whitish belly fur and bushy tail, it kept me in its sights as I sketched its silhouette and details in my nature journal.

The Natural History Museum of Utah sponsored another Squirrel Fest during the first week of December, and I should have been better prepared to identify it so I could participate in that project during the same month as the Christmas Bird Count. The NHMU website reports that more than 900 Utah citizen scientists watched for and collected data on fox squirrels and other squirrels in 2023. I know now that my squirrel wasn’t a fox squirrel native to the eastern U.S. Those critters are moving in. Actually, they have been spreading throughout northern Utah since 2011. I know mine was probably not that target species because the fox squirrel is larger and has a bright yellow or orange belly and a long, very bushy tail.

Here’s another story. One June afternoon last summer in the Cache National Forest, I stumbled upon a massive pile of evidence that squirrels had been busy, having stashed their food finds and then unpacking them. The pile of evergreen cone scale leftovers was over three feet tall. I had seen middens at the base of trees before, but never had I seen a pile this incredible. Even though it was a snow pile that the cone scales covered, the insulation slowing the melt, it was still monstrous.

As most of the students on the first day launching my first ever university writing class described themselves as writers with words like decent, ok, alright, unpolished, and mediocre, I thought about that pile of potential. They have stories, piles of stories to tell and teach, squirreled away maybe, but ready to thaw.

Just like Kate DiCamillo’s superpowered squirrel Ulysses in her children’s novel Flora and Ulysses, we all have stories to write. DiCamillo wrote, “He would write and write. He would make wonderful things happen. Some of it would be true. All of it would be true. Well….Most of it would be true.”

This year on January 21 we celebrate Squirrel Appreciation Day. But whether you watch and write about squirrels or anything else, we think it is time for you to get writing stories just as magical as nature rings made of acorns at recess.

For Wild About Utah, I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I am Lila Hoggan.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes and Lila Hoggan, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Pieces by Shannon Rhodes, https://wildaboututah.org/author/shannon-rhodes/

DiCamillo, Kate. Flora and Ulysses. 2013. Candlewick Press. https://www.candlewick.com/cat.asp?mode=book&isbn=0763687642

Greene, Jack. Intelligent Tree Squirrels. Wild About Utah, Oct. 17, 2022. https://wildaboututah.org/intelligent-tree-squirrels/

Larese-Casanova, Mark. Nutcrackers and Squirrels: Farmers of the Forest. Wild About Utah, Aug. 26, 2013. https://wildaboututah.org/nutcrackers-squirrels-farmers-forests/

Natural History Museum of Utah. Utah Fox Squirrels. https://nhmu.utah.edu/citizen-science/utah-fox-squirrels

Strand, Holly. Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Wild About Utah, Nov. 26, 2009. https://wildaboututah.org/rocky-the-flying-squirrel/

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Gratitude for Naturalists

"Paralyzing Berries" Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
“Paralyzing Berries”
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Janet Ross & Shannon Rhodes on the San Juan River, 2022 Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer Janet Ross & Shannon Rhodes on the San Juan River, 2022
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Once upon a time my family met what we now call ‘paralyzing berries’ on a hillside hike. I still don’t know the common name, let alone the scientific one. I sure could’ve used Naturalist Jack’s plant identification and probable warning not to taste those tart wild berries that day. I’ve had the good fortune though to spend time with Wild About Utah’s Jack Green discussing the Wilderness Act walking among the Mt. Naomi wildflowers and along the Lake Bonneville Shoreline. It reminds me of a scene Kenneth Grahame wrote in “The Wind in the Willows” that captures the relationship between a naturalist and a naturalist’s companion: “Absorbed in the new life, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight…it was so very beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both paws and gasp, “O my! O my! O my!” Water Rat was paddling and chattering on as one extremely familiar with, yet not desensitized to, the magic of the place. Sometimes now I find myself a Rat because I was once a Mole.

Let me explain. Three years ago I wrote a page in my nature journal and a related Wild About Utah piece titled “I Notice, I Wonder” as I sat soaking up the smells and the sights sitting alone in the Cache National Forest. Although I was able to in solitude concentrate on wellness amid the pandemic, I wonder how much more rich my experience might have been with a knowledgeable naturalist guide at my side. The third part of this beloved “I Notice, I Wonder” awareness activity outdoors is “It Reminds Me Of…”

Passing some wild berries just this week reminded me of the afternoon 30 years ago my friend Allan Stevens, biology professor at Snow College, taught me about dwarf mistletoe and led me to research the difference between it and witches broom rust in conifers. I’ve never enrolled in one of Allan’s courses, but that’s the best part of having connections to naturalists. They teach you even when you are just out for a drive in the canyon. They have invested time to know how to read nature, they know the names and relationships in an ecosystem, and they usually have the answer to any question you could ask. Dozens of times since then I’ve answered that same question about the thick-growing growth in the trees as others have looked to me for clarity.

Similarly, looking at the berries reminded me of the day Utah Master Naturalist’s Mark Larese-Casanova taught me the term krummholz effect, from the German words “crooked wood,” that describes trees deformed from fierce winds. He did this as we stood atop Big Cottonwood Canyon, gazing at lopsided trees’ persistence in adapting to harsh conditions. That memory reminded me of cruising along a lazy stretch of the San Juan River on a raft with another legendary naturalist named Janet Ross. Just before the Eight Foot Rapid, she taught me to notice the holes we were passing. She said that besides the usual stick lodges, a beaver will build a den in the sandy river bank. Fascinating facts from fascinating people. I’m grateful for these and other naturalist mentors in my life.

So, who unlocked the mysteries of nature for you? Was it a relative, a summer camp leader, maybe a teacher? In this season of gratitude you might consider how to better be Rat for the Moles in your influence as you notice, wonder, and remember other illuminations in the wild. Boldly share as a growing naturalist what you know about plants, animals, and wild relationships with others as you encounter them together.

For Wild About Utah, I’m Shannon Rhodes.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Additional Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/
    Courtesy & © Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio
    Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe, Wakeman
Text: Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

BEETLES and The Regents of the University of California. I Notice, I Wonder, It reminds me of. 2020.
http://beetlesproject.org/resources/for-field-instructors/notice-wonder-reminds/
and ​​http://beetlesproject.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/I-Notice-I-Wonder-It-Reminds-Me-Of.pdf

Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. 1908. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/289/pg289-images.html#chap01

Rhodes, Shannon. I Notice, I Wonder. Wild About Utah, August 31, 2020. https://wildaboututah.org/i-notice-i-wonder/

Ross, Janet. A Place Called Home: Quilting a Life of Joy on the Colorado Plateau. September 13, 2023. Colorado: Lost Souls Press. https://www.amazon.com/Place-Called-Home-Quilting-Colorado/dp/B0CJ41XFWH

Strand, Holly. Kissing Under the Dung Twig. Wild About Utah, December 20, 2012. https://wildaboututah.org/kissing-under-the-dung-twig/

Schwandt, John. Fir broom rust. 2005. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5187433.pdf

U.S. Forest Service. Broom rusts of spruce and fir. 2011. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5336985.pdf

U.S. Forest Service. Mistletoes. https://www.fs.usda.gov/r3/resources/health/field-guide/pages/Mistletoes.shtml