Liberty's Birds #4: Old Orchards

 

Liberty's Birds #4: Old Orchards by Becky Collis

Sara was an optimist (and she edited her diary for the public) so she saw more in the Kansas landscape than is evident in Alexander Gardner's photographs taken about ten years after her arrival.

Mount Oread in 1867 with the university building starred.

Has someone started some trees in the foreground?

 Old Orchards by Denniele Bohannon

We have plenty of trees now but they were scarce in the early days of the territory. Trees require rain---more rain than eastern Kansas usually has--- or another water source, so in Sara's day groves tended to thrive only along a river or creek (see the blue areas in Kuchler's map below). 

The Native Americans often burned the prairie. Consistent fires, accidental or set to flush game, encouraged grasslands rather than forests. Lawrence was in a mixed Tallgrass/Oak Hickory Forest area with more trees along the waterways but oak and hickory rather scarce.

Sara may have seen those patches of trees as old orchards but the bluejays here are probably munching on a native berry tree like Coralberry or Hackberry.

 Old Orchards by Susannah Pangelinan

The Block

The applique inspiration is in a quilt in the collection of

Colonial Williamsburg.

OBJECT NUMBER1979.609.1

https://emuseum.history.org/objects/58914/quilt-appliqued-with-tree-and-birds;jsessionid=A14A30A6BC0869E45348AB33A8F6E4E3

  

Elsie Ridgley's version

Two Blue Jays/Three Coralberries

My block on a sort of a nine-patch of pastels. Applique

from an old William Morris repro line: