God Waters the Grass

One day about fifteen years ago, back when I still lived in Tucson, Arizona, I was in a chat room when I heard a knock on my door.

"Brb," I typed, "have to pay gardener." The response was electric. You'd think I'd announced that I had to go instruct the maid to serve afternoon tea on the east portico rather than the conservatory. One comment that has stayed in my mind this whole time, a chatter said to me, "Oh, LA!"

Reverse snob that I am, I told my on-line buddies that I lived in Tucson, and there are two things that the poor majority don't have: air conditioners and lawns. We have to make do with swamp coolers and sparse weeds. I never owned a lawn mower in Arizona, there was no point. We had a gardener come through our neighborhood every couple of weeks, and for just a few bucks, he'd run his weed whacker around the base of the prickly pears and along the walkways where the crabgrass struggled to live.

When we moved to Arizona, I had an extensive collection of bromiliads. Despite all my efforts, within six months, all my bromiliads were dead. There was a nice stand of oleanders in the back yard, but almost nothing actually thrived in that climate. We didn't have soil. Just dirt of the leanest, most unthrifty kind. I would sometimes look out at the scruffy, stunted trees, the terra cotta colored bare ground and the bleached, cloudless sky and wish.

I wanted to go somewhere where GOD would water the grass. Most of you, friends, grew up in the midwest, and you're familiar with the acres and acres of lush trees covering the rolling hills. You've seen the corn and soybean fields in Illinois, the cattle dotting the pastures in Missouri, and you know yourself, if you don't do something about your yard, everything will continue to grow, grow, grow. The default setting here is green life. God sends rain and sunshine enough to cover the ground with a rich variety of plants.

At long last, my wish is coming true. Since I was a young girl, I dreamed of a place in the country where I could have not just house pets, but farm animals, too. This past week, I signed papers on my new property in Louisburg, Missouri, (population 149 in 2000), and I will be moving onto my minifarm in August.

The area surrounding Louisburg is acres of temperate forest and pastures. The main crops are grass fed beef cattle and hay. God waters the grass indeed.

Camp Dubois, A Closer Look

Once we get out of school, and no longer take History classes, how much time do we spend thinking about the history all around us? I can only speak for myself, but until I got into reenacting, my way of thinking of the history of a place was to look at the Walgreens at Big Bend and Clayton, and remember that the Parkmoore was there. If you went to Lindbergh, you probably ate there as well.

And yet, that is just a blip on the timeline. We tend to think in terms of our own lives, even when we are surrounded by evidence that life went on long before we got here. I have a tree right down the street that is every bit of two hundred years old. We drive past rock faces all along the highways and there, a mute reminder that this land was once not land at all. Go back far enough, and Missouri sat right in the middle of an enormous sea. We are a blip on the timeline, ourselves.

If you read my "Confessions of a Camp Dog," you got a look at rendezvous life, but not the history behind it. Here, for your pleasure, is a look at the real Camp DuBois.

A replica of the fort at Camp DuBois. Four block houses for the enlisted men are at the corners. In the center of the fort is a long house for officers. The whole thing is enclosed by a stockade. The entrance is behind the flagpole.

A look at the officer's longhouse inside the fort. Notice the stockade in the background is taller than the men.

One of the enlisted men's quarters. They are standing in the "living room," where there is a long table, and a fireplace for cooking and heating the building. Behind them is the bunk room through the door. There are four bunks on each side, two up and two down, with a short ladder in the middle to allow access to the top bunks. I slept in that lower bunk you see.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set up camp here in December, 1803. The Spanish Governor of St. Louis, (yes, Spanish), would not let them stay in the St. Louis area, so the men backtracked to Wood River, (what DuBois translates to), and camped there, across from the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Lewis, Clark and the Corps of Discovery would spend nearly a year and a half here, more time at this one site than any other. Camp DuBois was where the recruits learned to work together as a military unit. Here, also, they got information from trappers who had already been west.

Meriwether Lewis went on ahead to St. Charles, and on May 14, 1804, William Clark and about 40 other men took three boats and sailed away from the camp to join Lewis. The Corps of Discovery left St. Charles on May 21, 1804, and began an adventure that would last 28 months and take the crew roughly 8,000 miles.

Flash forward two hundred years: We have a new fort, near where the old one was built, and looking like theirs did. Lewis and Clark's papers had drawings that were used to recreate the fort. Every May, reenactors from all over the area gather to portray the people then, and demonstrate everyday life for those who come to see.