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Suicide Hill, Wautoma (April 11, 2004)

I go there every year in the spring when it warms to see my first butterfly of spring, usually a Morning Cloak, sunning itself on a hilltop. The first Mourning Cloak I ever saw was found here near the end of November under a softball sized rock that I picked up because it looked unusual. It certainly was! I have yet to pick up another rock that had a butterfly attached. Have you?

One of the reasons I choose to move to Waushara County was because it is one of the central Wisconsin sand counties, and many of the things that inspired Aldo Leopold to write about were also present here. Anyone who has read Leopold’s Sand County Almanac has his or her own favorite quote or story from that book and mine is from his essay about Draba.

I found a small colony of Draba growing precariously at the edge of the hill where gravel and sand have been mined. Not the best habitat for most plants, but it is evidently great for Draba and I make a trip there each April to see these tiny plants. I have not seen this plant growing elsewhere in the area, but it is so small that it is easily overlooked. This is part of Leopold’s essay that keeps me annually coming back to see this tiny plant.

“Draba plucks no heartstrings. Its perfume, if there is any, is lost in the gusty winds. Its color is plain white. Its leaves wear a sensible woolly coat. Nothing eats it; it is too small. No poets sing of it. Some botanists once gave it a Latin name, and then forgot it. Altogether it is of no importance-just a small creature that does a small job quickly and well.”