Ole Olsen Park Native Prairie Garden

If I ever look back on this particular blog I will remember it as a day when I felt I was in danger of losing my optimism about the world and this country in particular.  We've had a number of bad things happen.  There's the string of hurricanes (Harvey in Houston, Irma in Florida and the Caribbean, and Maria in Puerto Rico).  And then yesterday we had the mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas.  What's a person to do when you feel like things are crumbling around us.  Well, not to make light of it, but I did take a piece of chocolate cake out of the freezer.  Second, look for some positive stories in the areas that interest you.  Lastly, take a walk and don't give up on the idea that whatever small things we do in our community do make a difference.  So I walked about 2 miles upstream north of downtown Minneapolis to see what progress has been made on the prairie garden in Ole Olsen Park.

Folks volunteering with Friends of the Mississippi have been working the river banks in this area to create a native prairie garden.  The flowers and grasses provide bee, butterfly and bird habitat and reduce the amount of pollution going into the river.  It has been awhile since I've been up here and it seems like the project is pretty much finished.

So what did this area look like a couple of years ago and why is this better.  Most likely this area had quite a bit of crown vetch, an invasive pea family plant that has a pretty little pink flower on it.  The bees probably like it just fine. So why is that bad.  Well, apparently it crowds everything else out and has a short root system that does nothing to filter out pollutants heading for the river.  The Department of  Transportation brought it over from the other side of the world years ago thinking it was a good thing.  The variety of newly planted native species have deep root systems which are much better at helping to filter the pollutants in the water that head to the river from all our streets and non porous surfaces.  You know that river there is our drinking water.  I didn't bring a bag with me on this walk to pick up trash.  But on the way home I pulled some crown vetch and that made me feel more optimistic.