The Field

Aftermath of the prairie dog kill

A few weeks later, the field still looks pretty much the same from my house. Out the window, you wouldn't know that the prairie dogs are gone. The weeds in the former colony are still short and the prairie dog mounds still prominent. Based on other ghost colonies I've seen, the mounds can last for at least a few years. Closer up, there have been a few subtle vegetation changes since the prairie dogs were killed. There's a small patch of snow on the mountain blooming, and another of curly cup gumweed, both of which I think are native and I don't remember seeing them there before. I suppose it's small comfort that the new lack of herbivores might allow more native plants to thrive, but I know that the more likely scenario is that the weeds will thrive instead, as they already do elsewhere in the field. It's foolishness and an empty promise to say that the city is going to do more weed management here and restore it to native plants. It won't happen. There's just too many weeds, and too many vectors for new weeds, and really, this little neighborhood open space shouldn't be the city's biggest priority for weed management anyway. I'm still bitter that they did this, that they slipped it in under the radar, and that they gave such flimsy reasoning for it. It's disenfranchising to say the least. At first, there were bodies. Last weekend was rainy, and the mud preserved some of the aftermath -- lots of canine prints and some digging around the mounds; some domestic dogs probably, but probably also some transient coyotes or foxes attracted by the smell and come to scavenge the dead. But there's also a paltry number of excavated holes, with fresh noseprints packing down the mud. It appears there was a scattered handful of survivors. Whitney and I actually heard one shortly after the poisoning, but I haven't seen or heard any since. They're either lying low, or they've already been picked off by predators, or succumbed to the poison after all. Even if a few still live, there's winter ahead. The chances of the colony recovering are essentially nil.

It's amazing how fast the decomposition has happened. Just a few weeks ago, fresh bodies. Now, the mounds are already littered with bleached bones. I gathered a few that were near the trail and made a shallow grave for them atop one of the more prominent mounds. I think the best I can hope for the few survivors is that they'll be able to live out their days in a natural way, and that the city won't come back to finish the job. This colony's dead.

Still moping over dead rodents

It's a little over a week since it happened, and I've been feeling pretty morose ever since.  It's not just the prairie dogs, it's also my birthday, and I'm not excited about getting older.  Whitney gave me a wonderful birthday yesterday and today, but still it was hard to be happy; it feels like there's so many things wrong.  Maybe it's past -- she really did a terrific job of cheering me up today, yet I still need to get it out.  I keep wanting to email the city again, and even daydream about marching up to the city council to speak my peace, but if I'm honest with myself I know I won't do that.  I'm long on thoughts and feelings but short on action.  Emails seem to be about the extent of my activism when it comes to things that require more than just private action. 

I think if I did say something at this point it would be more about the way that the city went about killing the prairie dogs rather than the fact that they did, since there's nothing that can be changed about that.  What really makes me feel tired and old is the way they just slipped it in under the radar.  I came home from work, and it was already too late.  Forget creating a dialog on the subject, there wasn't even notice given, to me or anyone else of what they had planned.  Of course I think that management decisions should be based more on science than mere opinion -- and their habitat assessment concluded that there shouldn't be prairie dogs in this area -- but the way they did this seems designed to side-step the controversy that prairie dogs are prone too.  A lot of people would have agreed with the action, but there would also have been dissenters like me.  The point is that we should have been allowed to say something, even if it didn't change the final outcome.  I think I would feel better right now if I had at least said something on their behalf.  Yet without a prompt from the city the only way I could have would have been through my own initiative.  I've thought about it many times before, but never said anything, either because the danger didn't seem immediate or because I was too lazy or intimidated by authority.  Maybe I would have found the courage if I knew the prairie dogs were to be poisoned in a month or a week.  I don't know, and never will. 

The fact that they didn't tell me shows that they don't consider a volunteer who's been doing backbreaking work on a property for six years to be a resource worth getting in touch with when they're planning a major management activity on that property; they fact that they didn't tell anyone seems to say that they don't care much what the community thinks either, and the sudden finality with which it happened is enough to make one feel helpless against the anonymous forces of powers that be, who make decisions and carry them out regardless of little people like me.  It's disenfranchising and depressing, to say nothing of the act of killing all the prairie dogs itself. 

I'm going to try again tomorrow to organize my thoughts in an email to the parks services manager, who last time responded with a defensive and condescending form letter about how Westminster is a leader in open space, with two sentences tacked on the end about Countryside Creek.  "I realize these explanations may not satisfy your desire to protect prairie dogs at all cost," he said in identical emails to Whitney and myself, assuming us to be extremists.  Who said anything about protecting prairie dogs at all costs?  I just wanted to get a word in about the wildlife in the open space that I consider to be part of my home.  The volunteer coordinator was very respectful to me and sincerely apologized for my sorrow -- she's cool and I expected she would -- but the rest of the city government doesn't get it, and doesn't seem to care enough to try.

July cleanup

So I cleaned up today -- it seemed pretty bad.  I filled two bags with trash, and I also cut back some re-sprouting Russian olives I cut last year and cut a few new ones as well.  I also identified a single tall tamarisk/salt cedar plant near the road, alone in a patch of dirt that is sometimes wet -- the perfect habitat for these things.  I cut it down, too.  I only wish I had some transline... or some telar... or some rodeo... or garlon would do.  It's pretty sad that you have to poison the stumps in order to really kill them off.  Otherwise, the tamarisks and Russian olives just keep coming back.  Still, I think cutting what I can is better than nothing.  Also, I can't believe I just said I wish I were doing chemical application... after trudging through miles of mostly dried creek bed last week in big, uncomfortable rubber boots, plastic pants, long sleeves, and rubber gloves -- in 95 degree heat, no less -- I'm not a big fan of herbicides.  But I have to admit their necessity in this age of rampant invasive species introduced all over the place from more vectors than I care to think about.  It was a nice day, not as cool as I hoped, but not too hot to work.  There were a lot of beer bottles and such, probably left over from revelry around the 4th.  It was mostly depressing in that way, except for one woman walking her dog who thanked me for picking up and said she often thinks of doing the same.  I think that, given the number of people who walk there, if everyone would just pick up one piece of trash during their walks, the field would be scoured clean in no time.

Fishing for cell phones

It feels a little post-apocalyptic, being surrounded by heavily altered nature, fishing a piece of broken and toxic technology out of a small body of polluted water. On my walk today, breaking in my new Garmont Kiowa Vegan hiking shoes, I weeded the sprouting Russian olives some and then noticed pieces of a cell phone in the pool under the little old bridge. As more important people have noted, computers, cell phones, tv's, and other modern conveniences contain an array of heavy metals and chemicals that are fine while contained in their technological form, but horrendous if released into the environment (to say nothing of the fact that they also contain small amounts of gold and other things worth recovering.) That's why responsible recycling of old technology is so important. It's unfortunate, then, that it's so darn fun to break stuff and throw it in bodies of water. I managed to fish out the face plate, and the circuit board with antenna attached, but unfortunately I didn't find the battery, whose acids are probably still leaking into the water. There was a medium sized crawdad dead in the middle of the pool. Not an encouraging sign. Other than that, it was a very nice day.

A hawk, goth kids, and plastic bags

So last Monday (January 28) I cleaned up in the field for the first time since September.  The necessary elements came together – mild weather, not too much snow on the ground, not having to work, and being able to muster the will to do it – so I hit the trails.  I couldn’t find my big heavy-duty trash bags, so I made due with our smaller, flimsy kitchen bags.  It was breezy, so I knew whatever trash I picked up would probably be replaced in short order, but it still needed to be done.  I made my usual circuit, starting on the hill and turning past the Countryside rec center park and down toward the baseball fields, which I’m now informed the hoa is adopting, so hopefully that area won’t be as trashy in the future.  It tends to be pretty bad, with drink cans and bottles, sunflower seed bags and the like.  I ended up spending some time in the copse of Russian Olive saplings behind one of the ball fields, where there was an annoying amount of cardboard boxes and plastic bags wrapped around the trees.  So many plastic shopping bags.  I lost count of how many I picked up and pulled out of trees and bushes – several dozen at least, this day.  If you still use these, you need to stop.  They are a scourge on the environment that must be wiped out at the source – don’t get them in the first place.  Refuse bags if you’re purchasing few enough items that you can carry everything with your hands, and otherwise purchase some of the cheap reusable canvas shopping bags that are now readily available at most retailers and grocery stores.  Otherwise, your bags will end up here, in the creek, or there, wrapped around a tree, or there, floating in the lake or the ocean.  They’re ugly, overly durable, and they kill animals that mistakenly try to eat them.  They need to be outlawed, but until then, refuse to use them.  And then there are the plastic bags that newspapers come in.  I get a lot of those, too.  As much as I enjoy reading the paper, I’ve recently decided to agree with my fiancé they’re just too wasteful.  A new plastic bag and a new tree every day of the year… maybe we should just get our news online and on TV.

I continued on the main path, at the base of the hill, and filled the first bag and half of the second before coming to the trail junction.  A hawk flew over the field, over the prairie dog town, the place you’re most likely to see a raptor or other predator here.  I dropped off the first bag at my sign and continued around on the main trail.  School was out, and I passed a cute couple of goth kids.  There was a boy and a girl, possibly high school freshmen but more likely sixth graders (the clothes and the makeup made it kind of hard to tell).  They both wore mostly black, the boy had a dog collar and the girl wore some interesting black makeup designs and a fluffy, fox-like tail that hung down to her knees.  The boy was attempting to impress her by trying to climb a tree.  If it were any more precious, I would have had to stop and declare with rising intonation, “Ahhh!”

A utility/telecom crew of some sort did some work on the side of the hill above Mayfair park last year, and in addition to flattening all the vegetation there they also left behind a twenty foot long section of PVC pipe, along with a smaller six-foot section and another small enough to put in my bag.  Several years ago when they repaved 106 Avenue and installed one of those black plastic construction fences along the border of the field, they left it behind in a similar manner.  This is city owned Open Space… why are they allowed to do that?  I dragged the shorter section of pipe down to Mayfair park and then continued, and filled up the third bag from the creek near the little bridge, where I retrieved another section of plastic piping.  This one was, about six inches in diameter, four or five feet long and made of corrugated black plastic, was apparently intended as part of a storm drain into the creek, but it eroded out and was loose in the creek bed.  I found what appeared to be a still functional micro RC plane lost in the bushes.  I deposited it on the sign that tells you to clean up after your dog and dragged the pipe and the third bag up to the drop spot.

It started to cool off around 4 when the sun went behind the clouds and the hawk went hunting.  Perched in a sapling near the prairie dog town, it swooped down and hit the ground in the field.  I watched while it secured its prize, and then took off, mouse in talon, for a dead standing cottonwood in the center of the field that hawks favor.  I finished dragging the smaller PVC pipe over to the drop point and, surprised at how much I can get done when I get started at midday rather than near sundown, I hit the 106^th trail and sidewalk.  My strategy for cleaning the creek here is to walk all the way down to the end and then clean up as I walk back toward the drop point, rather than cleaning up on the way and having to haul a full bag all the way back (the entire pattern of my cleaning route is designed to minimize the amount of time I spend with heavy, full bags of trash slung over my shoulder).  But it didn’t avail me this time, since all the trash was waiting for me at the far end, at the mouth of the creek.  The combination of wind, flowing water, and cattails here has obviously been piling up the trash for some time.  It was apparent that there was too much to fit in my final bag (I only brought 4, since I usually only use 1-3).  Luckily an entire trash can was in the creek, so I stuffed some of the larger items in there and set it on the curb.  It probably belonged to one of the residents on the other side of the street and had blown away in recent winds.  I hoped they would claim it and not mind the new trash content.  There were still boxes with ripped Christmas wrapping paper lying about.  I had to pick only the most unsightly items because of the limited space in my bag, and that end of the creek still looked in a shambles when I left. 

Volunteer litter clean up is an interesting job in that it both combats and feeds cynicism.  It’s a rule that when you bend down to pick up one piece of trash, you’ll notice another nearby, and another and another.  You can break your back cleaning up a small area, and almost feel like you’ve accomplished something, only to look up and see a sea of litter stretching before you.  Is this a park or a public landfill?  It’s easy to lose hope for humanity when you see its detritus cluttering the landscape and when you realize that a large part of what you’re picking up – pop cans, Sunny D bottles, Capri Sun pouches, pop and water bottles, candy wrappers, and so on – are being dropped on the ground by kids, kids who don’t care and whose parents don’t care enough to teach them any ethics on the subject.  I grumble and think misanthropic thoughts as I shift a heavy bag from one tired arm to the other.  There’s always more.  I’ll never win this battle. 

On the other hand, uncovering a pretty spot feels good, and lots of passersby openly admire your effort, and that feels good, and the work itself is good, and there’s plants and raptors and cute goth kids, and you know that most of the trash isn’t being maliciously littered, but rather collects here passively, in the low point of the neighborhood, by the action of wind and water on an imperfect system of resource use and waste collection – too many trash cans left outside without lids, not enough recycling.  These things, and even people’s level of consciousness about their own actions, can be changed and improved, and I hope they will be.  Maybe I can’t win, but I think some battles are only lost if you stop fighting.  It was still light when I headed for home, which is a better way to end it than in the dark.  I’ll have to try to get more early starts in the future.

So last Monday (January 28) I cleaned up in the field for the first time since September.  The necessary elements came together – mild weather, not too much snow on the ground, not having to work, and being able to muster the will to do it – so I hit the trails.  I couldn’t find my big heavy-duty trash bags, so I made due with our smaller, flimsy kitchen bags.  It was breezy, so I knew whatever trash I picked up would probably be replaced in short order, but it still needed to be done.  I made my usual circuit, starting on the hill and turning past the Countryside rec center park and down toward the baseball fields, which I’m now informed the hoa is adopting, so hopefully that area won’t be as trashy in the future.  It tends to be pretty bad, with drink cans and bottles, sunflower seed bags and the like.  I ended up spending some time in the copse of Russian Olive saplings behind one of the ball fields, where there was an annoying amount of cardboard boxes and plastic bags wrapped around the trees.  So many plastic shopping bags.  I lost count of how many I picked up and pulled out of trees and bushes – several dozen at least, this day.  If you still use these, you need to stop.  They are a scourge on the environment that must be wiped out at the source – don’t get them in the first place.  Refuse bags if you’re purchasing few enough items that you can carry everything with your hands, and otherwise purchase some of the cheap reusable canvas shopping bags that are now readily available at most retailers and grocery stores.  Otherwise, your bags will end up here, in the creek, or there, wrapped around a tree, or there, floating in the lake or the ocean.  They’re ugly, overly durable, and they kill animals that mistakenly try to eat them.  They need to be outlawed, but until then, refuse to use them.  And then there are the plastic bags that newspapers come in.  I get a lot of those, too.  As much as I enjoy reading the paper, I’ve recently decided to agree with my fiancé they’re just too wasteful.  A new plastic bag and a new tree every day of the year… maybe we should just get our news online and on TV.

I continued on the main path, at the base of the hill, and filled the first bag and half of the second before coming to the trail junction.  A hawk flew over the field, over the prairie dog town, the place you’re most likely to see a raptor or other predator here.  I dropped off the first bag at my sign and continued around on the main trail.  School was out, and I passed a cute couple of goth kids.  There was a boy and a girl, possibly high school freshmen but more likely sixth graders (the clothes and the makeup made it kind of hard to tell).  They both wore mostly black, the boy had a dog collar and the girl wore some interesting black makeup designs and a fluffy, fox-like tail that hung down to her knees.  The boy was attempting to impress her by trying to climb a tree.  If it were any more precious, I would have had to stop and declare with rising intonation, “Ahhh!”

A utility/telecom crew of some sort did some work on the side of the hill above Mayfair park last year, and in addition to flattening all the vegetation there they also left behind a twenty foot long section of PVC pipe, along with a smaller six-foot section and another small enough to put in my bag.  Several years ago when they repaved 106 Avenue and installed one of those black plastic construction fences along the border of the field, they left it behind in a similar manner.  This is city owned Open Space… why are they allowed to do that?  I dragged the shorter section of pipe down to Mayfair park and then continued, and filled up the third bag from the creek near the little bridge, where I retrieved another section of plastic piping.  This one was, about six inches in diameter, four or five feet long and made of corrugated black plastic, was apparently intended as part of a storm drain into the creek, but it eroded out and was loose in the creek bed.  I found what appeared to be a still functional micro RC plane lost in the bushes.  I deposited it on the sign that tells you to clean up after your dog and dragged the pipe and the third bag up to the drop spot.

It started to cool off around 4 when the sun went behind the clouds and the hawk went hunting.  Perched in a sapling near the prairie dog town, it swooped down and hit the ground in the field.  I watched while it secured its prize, and then took off, mouse in talon, for a dead standing cottonwood in the center of the field that hawks favor.  I finished dragging the smaller PVC pipe over to the drop point and, surprised at how much I can get done when I get started at midday rather than near sundown, I hit the 106^th trail and sidewalk.  My strategy for cleaning the creek here is to walk all the way down to the end and then clean up as I walk back toward the drop point, rather than cleaning up on the way and having to haul a full bag all the way back (the entire pattern of my cleaning route is designed to minimize the amount of time I spend with heavy, full bags of trash slung over my shoulder).  But it didn’t avail me this time, since all the trash was waiting for me at the far end, at the mouth of the creek.  The combination of wind, flowing water, and cattails here has obviously been piling up the trash for some time.  It was apparent that there was too much to fit in my final bag (I only brought 4, since I usually only use 1-3).  Luckily an entire trash can was in the creek, so I stuffed some of the larger items in there and set it on the curb.  It probably belonged to one of the residents on the other side of the street and had blown away in recent winds.  I hoped they would claim it and not mind the new trash content.  There were still boxes with ripped Christmas wrapping paper lying about.  I had to pick only the most unsightly items because of the limited space in my bag, and that end of the creek still looked in a shambles when I left. 

Volunteer litter clean up is an interesting job in that it both combats and feeds cynicism.  It’s a rule that when you bend down to pick up one piece of trash, you’ll notice another nearby, and another and another.  You can break your back cleaning up a small area, and almost feel like you’ve accomplished something, only to look up and see a sea of litter stretching before you.  Is this a park or a public landfill?  It’s easy to lose hope for humanity when you see its detritus cluttering the landscape and when you realize that a large part of what you’re picking up – pop cans, Sunny D bottles, Capri Sun pouches, pop and water bottles, candy wrappers, and so on – are being dropped on the ground by kids, kids who don’t care and whose parents don’t care enough to teach them any ethics on the subject.  I grumble and think misanthropic thoughts as I shift a heavy bag from one tired arm to the other.  There’s always more.  I’ll never win this battle. 

On the other hand, uncovering a pretty spot feels good, and lots of passersby openly admire your effort, and that feels good, and the work itself is good, and there’s plants and raptors and cute goth kids, and you know that most of the trash isn’t being maliciously littered, but rather collects here passively, in the low point of the neighborhood, by the action of wind and water on an imperfect system of resource use and waste collection – too many trash cans left outside without lids, not enough recycling.  These things, and even people’s level of consciousness about their own actions, can be changed and improved, and I hope they will be.  Maybe I can’t win, but I think some battles are only lost if you stop fighting.  It was still light when I headed for home, which is a better way to end it than in the dark.  I’ll have to try to get more early starts in the future.

Changes?

My love has gone home again, but this time she will return soon, and permanently.  We've found an apartment (probably) and are preparing to leave our old lives behind in order to be together.  Hers is the bigger transition, since she's moving 800 miles while I'm going about one and a half, but still I'm feeling contemplative about the enormity of us finally striking out on our own.  So I went for a walk today around sunset.  Earlier I spied a couple of teenage boys taking potshots, probably at the prairie dogs, with a bb gun.  As it happens, there was an article in the Denver Post today about increasing poaching of urban wildlife.  Otherwise it was peaceful -- it rained earlier today but then warmed up and dried out.  The work crew is finished repaving the path near Mayfair park and has gone (the old bridge remains, incidentally).  Their biggest contribution in my mind is all the Russian olives they removed from around the creek there, opening up the landscape and giving the cottonwood stand some breathing room.  But those Russian olives, weeds that they are, are already sprouting little bushes of new shoots from the roots, so I raced nightfall to weed them.  Clearing some from around a cottonwood sapling, I felt I was giving it a better chance.  I also provided a blood meal to a few needy mosquitoes (I'm such a saint).  Hopefully they were promptly eaten by one of the many bats I saw wheeling about the darkening sky on my way home.

If we do move to the Walnut creek area, I may be compelled to adopt a new "the field" -- the Walnut Creek open space area.  We'll see!

Late July cleanup/Russian olive kill

So I hastily cleaned up on Tuesday, trying to beat the setting sun, which hung over the mountains as a big orange disk that you could almost look at directly for some reason.  I've seen the sun in that muted orange "wow, so that's what the sun looks like when it's not blinding as long as you just glance at it for a second" color when rising, and when setting over the ocean, but I don't recall seeing it that way over the mountains before.  I picked up a bag of trash and cut down a few Russian olive saplings.  Today (the 2nd) I went out to finish the job, hauling the Russian olives I didn't haul before to the drop point because I was too tired/it was too dark.  It took quite a while, since they were over at the far end of the hill near the baseball fields, and I had to make about four trips.  I have decided not to cut any more Russian olives until winter, when they are not heavy with seed and leaves, and will be easier to cut and carry without the leaves in my face.  I've also been having the disturbing thought that the seeds might be dropping off as I carry the trees I've cut, which could result in multiple new RO's popping up to replace the one cut down in an ironic twist of my good intentions.  Best to remove them during times of year when they don't have seeds.

The big news from down in the Mayfair park area is that a crew is down there repaving the paved portion of the trail, and it looks like they may replace the bridge over the creek as well.  I actually like the old, ugly bridge and will be sad to see it go.  However, they've also removed the whole stand of Russian olives from the bridge area!  Those trees were bigger than I probably could have handled, and there were probably several dozen in all.  It's really opened up the landscape there, making it more airy and giving a better view of the little cottonwood stand that was buried in them.  I hope they remove many more of them while they're at it.  It would be even better if they'd replant with natives, like cottonwood trees.

Last month saw two more expeditions to Mt. Audubon, the last of which was finally successful despite rather dreadful weather, and an educational wildflower hike.  I haven't posted anything, probably because I need to upload appropriate photos to go along with those entries, and who has the time, really?

Yet another aluminum artifact, and a new toy

Cleaned up 2 bags of trash, 1 large item, and removed 5 Russian olive saplings today.  The field didn't seem too dirty, unless the tall grass and weeds are just covering it all.  I found a 23 year old coke can, dated by the writing "Treasure Tops '84" it had in a few places, apparently referring to some such contest.  It hardly surprises me anymore to find trash that's been lying on the ground for greater than 20 years -- the stuff just doesn't go away on its own. 

I also serendipitously found a nearly new 10" folding saw, which proved to be deadly effective against Russian olive saplings.  I cut down one that would have been too big to take by my trusty bend-and-snap method, and it was so much easier that I cut down two more little saplings while I was at it, and it was tempting to stay out and cut the darn things down all night.  But one's arms get tired, hauling trash and cutting tree-weeds, and it was getting dark. 

But I now have the weapon I've been looking for.  So don't fear the reaper, Russian olives.  Just fear me.  Bwa ha ha!

Yucca flowers and beetle sex part 2

Small correction to my previous post... the yucca flowers aren't entirely the same yellow-white cream color -- the stigma is green and the sepals have a faded red color. 

Some of them are horribly infested with aphids, but they're also covered in ladybugs, doing their best to eat them up.  They're also doing their best to make some more troops for the cause!

Along with the adults are (for reasons made obvious by the above pictures) many larval ladybugs, who are also hungry for aphids.

Yucca flowers, cottonwood seeds

The yuccas are blooming.  A little past their prime by now, maybe, but still in bloom.  They normally blend in with all the grassy plants and weeds, but now each individual yucca plant is clearly visible.  In the field they only grow in any numbers on the hill, and in the area of the prairie dog town, which is a little higher than the rest of the field.  Maybe it has something to do with the soil -- could it be too moist in the center of the field? -- or maybe the rest of the field is too weed dominated for them to grow.  They're interesting plants pretty common in this region.  They appear as a rosette of long, stiff leaves with very pointy ends that grow upward and outward, forming a protective hemisphere surrounding a central, woody stalk.  Right now that stalk is covered in flowers, which, like the rest of the plant, are a little unusual.  They're large, succulent flowers that tend to hang downward from the stalk and whose every feature -- petals, pistil, and stamens -- shares a creamy, off-white color.  And a close look reveals that they're ecosystems.  Many are covered in aphids (or some kind of little sap sucking bug anyway) and with these primary consumers I also saw secondary consumers in the form of lady bugs, some of whom were mating.  Come to think of it, I saw a little moth escape from one of the flowers when I held it up for a look -- I wonder if it was one of those moths mentioned in the article!  Later in the summer they'll harden in to brown seed pods, which will split open in the fall, spilling little dark disk-shaped seeds on the ground.

The cottonwoods are already releasing their seeds, and have been for a week or two.  Cottony tufts carry their tiny seeds through the air, and when the wind blows the air is filled with them.  I drove under a tree the other day that was dropping so many sees that it almost looked like it was snowing.  This has always been a whimsical feature of early summer to me.