Chuck Lura

Most everyone in our region knows that the Red River forms a border between North Dakota and Minnesota. However, it might surprise you that the Red River does not delineate the entire eastern border.

A couple miles east of Bottineau, North Dakota, on the curve of Highway 5, there’s a sign in the ditch that says “quicksand.” It has been there for decades. I assume it’s a warning not to put your car in the ditch there. But if you do, particularly if you have been watching some old westerns on TV, don’t wait for the Lone Ranger to save you from quickly sinking into eternity. Actually, you probably wouldn’t need him anyway.

“What was that?!” That was my first thought many years ago when, walking through some low prairie, something that I could only describe as a mouse-sized kangaroo took three big leaps out of the grass in front of me. I was to learn later that it was a jumping mouse!

I used to occasionally hear one of my college professors call out the names of some plants as he drove down the highway at 60 miles per hour. “That is a 60 mile-an-hour plant,” he would declare. One of those plants was curly dock, also known as curled dock, sour dock, or yellow dock.

I recently ran across this item on the news feed: Here’s How to Experience North America’s Most Endangered (and Underrated) Ecosystem. That ecosystem was the North American prairie.

Have you noticed a few falling stars lately? It might surprise you, but there are two meteor showers going on now: the Delta Aquarids and the Perseids.

Looking out over the grasslands there are several species of sunflowers, goldenrods, and asters putting on their annual flower show. They are announcing that school is about to start, the harvest has begun, and fall will soon take center stage. There is more going on during August than we may realize.

Many North Dakotans make a point to visit Medora each summer. The town, the Medora musical, and of course Theodore Roosevelt National Park attract lots of visitors. But if you go, make a point to get off the beaten path a bit. The area has lots to offer, including the petrified forest, burning coal vein, ponderosa pines, and the Maah Daah Hey Trail.

I suspect that most people have seen a small hawk-like bird perched on a utility pole or line that is a little larger than a mourning dove but smaller than a pigeon. If so, that is likely a sparrow hawk, also known as a kestrel.

There are a dozen species of sage that may be found in North Dakota. Among the more common are a couple species that most people would just call sagebrush, wormwood (an introduced noxious weed), and fringed sage or prairie sagewort (Artemisia frigida).