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Summary
Summary
Catbirds and pocket gophers, bur oaks and bull snakes, bluestem grass and leopard frogs have populated the gently rolling prairies around Sue Leaf's midwestern farming community for centuries. A hundred years ago her town, located forty-five miles from the nearest city, shipped thousands of tons of potato starch across the country, stiffening the collars of working men. Today it has become one of America's fast-growing suburbs. As naturalist and biologist Sue Leaf watched her rural surroundings become a magnet for developers, she became curious about the history of the land. Before the freeway and the housing developments, before the farmers cultivated the fertile soil, what plants and animals called this place home? To her delight, Leaf discovered the oak savanna, a park-like ecosystem that supports abundant wildlife and soothes the human psyche with its quiet, open spaces. As she looked more closely, she found remnants of the savanna in her own yard, in the trees lining her quiet street, and in nearby preserved patches of prairie. In lyrical essays, Leaf traces the natural history of her community, offering rich details about the people who built this area, about its once prosperous farms, and about the oak trees and wildflowers and prairie animals native to this part of the country. By examining remnants of the past still visible in a place deeply affected by sprawl, Leaf reveals how to slow down, look carefully, and untangle the jumble of unnoticed clues that can enrich our daily lives."Leaf advises us all to discover our own communities' natural treasures before, through ignorance, we lose them."--Boston Sunday Globe"Leaf writes about the pace of sprawl, the loss of farmland and a way of life that seems like a dream or a place buried somewhere in our collective memory."--Los Angeles Times
Author Notes
Sue Leaf taught biology and environmental science at Cambridge Community College in Minnesota and she is currently president of the Wild River chapter of the Audubon Society.
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this collection of essays, scientific writer Leaf focuses on the history, present and future of her hometown, North Branch, Minnesota. The result is an engrossing look at the web of life encircling a Midwestern farming community. Leaf considers the town from multiple perspectives, among them those of her own house, the local library archives, an elderly resident and the town cemetery, where hunting for the headstones of past residents provokes her to wonder ?what remained after one raised children, worked hard, was a good neighbor and poured one?s lifeblood into a community.? For Leaf, the answer clearly lies in nature, ?in the soil, [?] earth and oak trees.? Some readers will favor those essays devoted to the human history of North Branch. Others will prefer Leaf?s essays on bird-watching and the rehabilitation of an oak savanna. And though the book contains a few annoying repetitions of town facts, Leaf has a deft hand for nature prose: toads are ?odd amphibian incarnations of Winston Churchill? and caring for ailing giant oak trees is ?a little like nursing elephants.? It?s unfortunate, however, that Leaf concludes with a series of well-meant but pessimistic essays on environmental ills and that she doesn?t offer any suggestions on how to deal with these threats. Instead, Leaf merely embraces the natural history of her hometown; readers may be inspired to do the same after perusing these well-written essays. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Excerpts
Excerpts
"On walks about town, I'd pause at the point where the road rose gently toward the tracks. Tilting my head, I would see if I could make the savanna appear. I?d lift up my chin until the paved surface of Oak Street dropped from view and squint my eyes to blur the house behind the trees. Then, every time, the savanna would spring before my eyes: the silhouette of the oaks, the golden gawkiness of the bluestem. I could see how it must have been, before the town, before the railroad. For a moment, the savanna would be right there, and I would travel back in time to when the bur oaks--these same bur oaks that tower over Oak Street now--grew amidst miles and miles of grass." From Potato City by Sue Leaf Excerpted from Potato City: Nature, History, and Community in the Age of Sprawl by Sue Leaf All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Preface | p. vii |
1 Into the Garden | p. 5 |
Potato City | p. 11 |
Reconstructing the Past | p. 21 |
Pete Swanson's Potatoes | p. 33 |
The End of an Era | p. 45 |
Oak Hill Cemetery | p. 57 |
2 Oak Savanna | p. 69 |
Bur Oak | p. 81 |
Bull Snake! | p. 89 |
Pocket Gophers | p. 93 |
For the Birds | p. 99 |
A Legacy of Water | p. 107 |
Earth Day Lessons | p. 115 |
3 Righting the Right of Way | p. 123 |
Destruction | p. 133 |
Warmer | p. 143 |
The King of North Branch | p. 153 |
Growing Houses | p. 167 |
Flooding, Forgetting, and Remembering | p. 177 |
4 The Sunrise River | p. 185 |
One Seed at a Time | p. 193 |
Bringing It Back | p. 201 |
Acknowledgments | p. 209 |