Kaw Valley Almanac
Note from the Times: The Kaw Valley Almanac is a contributed piece that runs each week. Find more information and older editions at kawvalleyalmanac.com, and follow @KVAlmanac on Twitter.
this week’s Almanac
Kaw Valley Almanac for May 6-12, 2024
The blues and pinks of the spiderwort are a welcome sight in prairies this time of year, something well worth finding. While you’re there, look for starry eyed grass, wild hyacinth and the beginning of oxeye daisies and more.
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Kaw Valley Almanac for Sept. 27 – Oct. 3, 2021
The purple silky asters and the yellow blossoms of the Great Plains goldenrod await you at the Prairie Park Nature Center prairie, located southeast of 27th and Harper in Lawrence.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Sept. 20-26, 2021
It’s a great time of year to take walks in nature and see its abundant beauty.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Sept. 13-19, 2021
Insects continue to be prolific, with lots of monarchs and other butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas, grasshoppers, mantids and walking sticks, and katydids and moths after dark. Help tag monarchs from 8 a.m. to noon this Saturday at the Baker Wetlands Discovery Center.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Sept. 6-12, 2021
With morning lows dropping into the 60s and even 50s this week, it’s the season for fog. If there is no wind, you can sometimes see steam devils, which like dust devils are caused by warming air rising in a vortex that is made visible in this case by fog.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Aug. 30-Sept. 5, 2021
As the Dog Days of summer slip away, here is a picture of a Sun Dog Day, taken on Sunday, with mini-rainbow bright spots to the right and left of the setting sun. Sun Dogs are caused by sunlight reflecting off ice crystals in cirrus clouds formed by an isolated thunderstorm that injected moisture into the stratosphere.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Aug. 23-29, 2021
Monarch butterflies have benefitted from enough moisture and not too much heat to recolonize well in this region.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Aug. 16-22, 2021
Showy partridge pea, a native annual, yellow-flowered legume, has begun to bloom in area prairies. Ragweed will be pollinating soon.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Aug. 9-15, 2021
The Perseid meteor shower will be peaking Wednesday evening/Thursday morning after midnight, and with moonless skies, if the clouds don’t interfere, you could see more than 100 meteors per hour.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Aug. 2-8, 2021
When it gets too hot and dry, some animals aestivate, a type of summer hibernation where they typically hole up in the ground and wait for cooler, moister conditions.
Kaw Valley Almanac for July 26 – Aug. 1, 2021
Now is the time to enjoy the purple wildflower called gayfeather or blazing star.
Kaw Valley Almanac for July 19-25, 2021
Katydids fill the night with their song and lightning bugs and crickets continue. With cicadas droning in the daytime heat and the full moon, the evening is full of wildlife activity – look for treefrogs on your window, ready to catch a moth or two.
Kaw Valley Almanac for July 12–18, 2021
There are still wild raspberries and blackberries for the picking, check currants, wild plums and gooseberries, while elderberries are beginning to form and will be ripening in a few weeks.
Kaw Valley Almanac for July 5–11, 2021
Recent rains have caused many mushrooms to emerge, including fairy rings, which are caused by the fungus spreading out in an ever expanding circle from where it started, living on dead plant material that it breaks down.
Kaw Valley Almanac for June 28 – July 4, 2021
Wildflower fireworks continue, including yellow black-eyed susans, red butter-fly milkweed and purple prairie clover. This Independence Day, celebrate by visiting a prairie near you to appreciate how everything is really delightfully interdependent!
Kaw Valley Almanac for June 21 – 27, 2021
As fireworks season approaches, now is the perfect time to enjoy the pink bursts of color on sensitive brier, with each pink filament tipped with a bright yellow anther like a spark.