The Changing Landscape

Isaac's Pinnacle Hill

There was high ground on Isaac's homestead claim that he called "pinnacle hill."  Several years on the 4th of July, Isaac climbed his pinnacle hill to view the fireworks from towns as far away as Macksville, St. John, Iuka, and Stafford.

The photograph at right was taken of me standing on what I believe to be what is left of Isaac's pinnacle hill.  According to the current land owner, this was once the highest point on that quarter section of land, but over the years its elevation has been reduced, perhaps by as much as 40 feet.

It cannot be assumed that just because the land someone owned in the 1880s is still under cultivation, and has not been covered by buildings or roads, that it is still the same as it was more than a century ago.  The photograph at left shows the southeast corner of Isaac's homestead.  An older elevation can still be seen, but dirt removal has cut away around that elevation.  I avoid describing the higher elevation in the photograph as "original," since it is adjacent to the road and power line posts have been set, both of which might have altered the original terrain.

The photograph at right was taken from Isaac's pinnacle hill looking toward the north, and what is now an open field was in the late 1800s Isaac's timber claim.  His journal records how he planted thousands of trees from cuttings and seeds, growing not only cottonwoods but also catalpa, Osage orange, and maple trees.  (See "Isaac's Catalpa Trees," 5-30-2012; "Planting Osage orange Trees," 3-15-2012; and "Isaac Plants Cottonwood Trees," 12-2-2011, in the Blog Archives.

Generations come and go, and not even the land remains the same.  Very little undisturbed prairie remains in the community where Isaac homesteaded, and many acres are under circle irrigation.  The flat prairie land has been leveled even further, and the trees planted by homesteaders, and more planted in the "Dirty 30s" to reduce soil erosion, have died or been removed to enlarge the acreage devoted to crops.

Once Isaac knew the land so well that he could set out across the prairie on foot to walk to St. John.  Many of the landmarks he must have relied upon to find his way have changed.  I wonder if he would recognize his own claims today.

Do You Like Isaac?

Isaac loved Shakespeare

There are a few writers' blogs that I follow occasionally, and one of them is "Live, Write, Thrive."  Recently a post there was titled, "Make Me Like Your Protagonist or I'll Stop Reading."  The advice was directed more toward novels, but I had fun applying some of the advice to my history of Isaac and the Populist Movement.

First, the suggestion was that the character has to grow and change, perhaps learn a life lesson by the end of the book, a technique sometimes called a Character Arc.  I'm going to give Isaac points for his constant belief in the importance of learning.  While he did most of his learning from books, he also learned how to work within his community, directing his attention toward helping others as much as he sought to help himself.  At the end of his life, the lesson that he learned was that even an independent, solitary man must sometimes accept help from others.

Catalpa blooms like Isaac's

Second, the character must have a clear goal.  Double points to Isaac on that one.  His personal goal was to make a success of his farm, and he created a farm described as one of the best in the community.  His social goal was to work with his community through the Farmer's Alliance and the People's Party to make better lives for working people, and while he and the People's Party declined at about the same time, they left accomplished goals behind.

Isaac's friend "Doc" Dix

Third, don't make me wait to like your character.  That's a little tricky, since I start the book with Isaac's funeral.  Yet, the friends gathered at his grave are those who cared about him, who knew the good things he had done for the community, and who would miss him and his thoughtfulness.  Readers won't meet Isaac until the next chapter, but they will get to know him in the Preface through the eyes of his friends.

Isaac's Gravestone

Last, make your character sympathetic by showing his passion, needs, and vulnerabilities.  None of you has read the manuscript, but as you follow this blog, I have showed many sides of Isaac, and I hope by now you are invested in his life and find him a sympathetic man.  You cannot answer whether I have done a good job in the manuscript of meeting these suggestions for developing the main character, but from reading the blog, I hope you can answer the question at the top of the blog!  Do You Like Isaac?

Isaac was not a character that I created in a novel.  He was a real man, with his talents and his flaws, his intellect and his idiosyncrasies.  But, in the end, I've enjoyed spending the last few years in his company.  I definitely like Isaac and I hope you do too!

Isaac & the Sunflowers--Part 1

Isaac loved the beauty of wild flowers spreading color across the prairie each spring.  He loved the fragrance of the catalpa blossoms and looked forward to the blooming sand hill plums.  (See blog archives for "Isaac's Catalpa Trees," May 30, 2012, and "Sandhill Plums," March 1, 2012.)  As for sunflowers, however, his feelings were directed toward their tendency to rob soil moisture from his crops, and he devoted his time to hoeing and plowing them rather than admiring their beauty. 

 

Sunflowers are native to the Americas and were used by many indigenous people long before Europeans arrived.  Not only were the flowers planted in their gardens, along with the traditional corn, beans, and squash, but sunflowers also served as the symbol for their solar deity.  The early Spanish explorers found sunflowers growing in the New World and took the seeds back to Europe.

 

Among the countless newspaper clippings saved by my mother-in-law (mostly weddings, births, and obituaries) were two news stories from 1977 about Kansas farmers experimenting with commercial fields of sunflowers.  The Kansas Farm Bureau News reported that Pratt County farmer, Verlin Killingsworth had tried his first field, hoping for 3,000 pounds per acre, anticipating 2,500, and actually harvesting between 900 and 950.  The crop suffered hail and head moth, but Killingsworth was "disappointed with the yield but not discouraged."  Under the headline, "Farmers hope state flower will turn into moneymaker," the Hutchinson News reported that farmers were turning to sunflowers because of "low wheat prices and a dry year."  The article quoted Professor Stegmeyer of Fort Hays State University as saying "about 50 percent of the sunflower crop grown in the United States is exported to Europe."  Nearly four decades later, the Kansas State University Research & Extension website reports that there are currently about 250,000 acres of commercial sunflowers grown in Kansas.

 

Today, commercial sunflowers are grown across the plains, from North Dakota and Minnesota to Texas, but they are also grown in Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, according to the Texas A&M University Research & Extension Center.  The seeds are marketed for human snacks and bird seed, and planted by hunters to provide a food plot for wild birds.  A high quality vegetable oil can be extracted, and the resulting meal can be utilized as a protein source in livestock feed.  Even the fibrous stems can be used in paper production.  Many of today's sunflowers are hybrid varieties, and yields on dryland fields range between 1000 to 1400 pounds per acre, increasing about 50% in irrigated fields.

 

Florets in the head of a Sunflower

 

By now you may be wondering why I used the mesmerizing graphic at the beginning of this blog.  The answer is that it illustrates the pattern of florets in the head of a sunflower.  What we call the flower is actually a "flower head," also called a "composite flower."  The circular head contains hundreds of the disc florets that mature into seeds, and these florets are always arranged in a spiral pattern.  The mathematical model for this pattern was proposed by H. Vogel in 1979 and the illustration is a computer graphic of his formula.  The spiral pattern can also be clearly seen in the close-up photograph of the sunflower at the left.

 

Isaac and the Sunflowers--Part 2 to be continued next week...

Isaac's Catalpa Trees

Perhaps it was the deep shade cast by the large, heart-shaped leaves of the catalpa trees that made Isaac love them as he did.  What he specifically mentioned in his Journal was the sweet perfume of their blossoms.  Blooming in late spring, the flowers resemble miniature orchids--delicate petals of white surrounding an open throat bordered with a tracery of burgundy accented with yellow.  Isaac found the fragrance of the catalpa blossoms sweet, but others find the scent overpoweringly strong, as I learned when a dinner guest once asked me to remove a catalpa bouquet from the room. 

The blossoms are followed by green seed pods 10" or longer, resembling elongated green beans.  These pods darken to brown by autumn, and their appearance gives the tree the common names of cigar tree, Indian cigar, and Indian bean tree.  A friend of mine understood that name literally as a youngster and tried to smoke one of the long brown seed pods.  It didn't work.

The name catalpa has an interesting history.  The Native American name for the tree was Catawba, but the botanist who wrote the first formal scientific description of the genus made a transcription error which resulted in the scientific name being Catalpa.  In some regions of the country, the Native American name of Catawba is still used. 

Catalpa leaves are the only food source for the caterpillars of the catalpa sphinx moth (Ceratomia catalpa).  The popularity of these caterpillars among anglers for use as live fishing bait has encouraged some fishermen to plant small catalpa groves to assure a ready source of what Southern anglers call "Catawba-worms."

One day, with the catalpa trees in full bloom and a new batch of chicks scratching around the chicken yard with the hens, Isaac had visitors.  The ladies who called were from the Antrim community a few miles to the east of Isaac, and like others sometimes did, they came to admire Isaac's farm, and especially, to enjoy his trees.  Isaac wrote in his Journal:  "[Misses] Gibbs & Mrs. Bushel called in buggy to see place & trees, got chick & catalpa bouquette, & well pleased," the bachelor homesteader offering a bit of prairie chivalry.