just standing there
There are no mentions of lemon verbena in the "Little House" books. And there are also no prairie dogs. Just so you know.

Laura Ingalls Wilder does, however, mention gophers. While there might have been true gophers (pocket gophers, which are of the family Geomyidae) on the prairies known to the Ingallses, what appears in Little House on the Prairie and On the Banks of Plum Creek were actually ground squirrels (family Sciuridaes). In the manuscripts for both books, Wilder mentions both picket-pin gophers and striped gophers, yet the generic gopher appears in the published versions. The two are quite different.

In the BPC manuscript, there are no picket pins - the metal rods used to tether a grazing animal in a land with no fences - but there are picket-pin gophers: Laura and Mary ran over the edge of the creek bank and into the dugout door disappearing for all the world like a couple of picket-pin gophers dodging into their holes. (page 35) The picket-pin gopher is Richardson's Ground Squirrel, a burrowing rodent that stands at the entrance of its tunnel and whistles to warn other gophers of danger.

Most of the gophers of the LH books are striped: Mary and Laura were tired of playing. They had tried to catch the little picket pin gophers, but always they dodged down their holes in the ground. Laura cried a little, she wanted one so badly, their striped bodies with their bushy tails and bright eyes were so pretty. (LHP manuscript) The striped gopher is the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel, and yes, they also stand up like picket pins - or pieces of wood.

This striped gopher (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus) is a brownish red ground squirrel with alternating stripes and spots on its back. They are from 6 to 12 inches in length, not including their tail, which is 2 to 5 inches long. They hibernate in the winter and are quite active on warm summer days. The name "gopher" was given by early French settlers to many different burrowing animals (from the French gaufre, meaning to waffle or honeycomb) based on the way they tunnel in the earth. The striped gopher collects seeds and grain and can carry off large amounts in cheek pouches, storing it away in their burrows.

In Little Town on the Prairie, Wilder tells us that the striped gophers had carried away half of Pa's newly-planted cornfield, kernel by kernel. The typical striped gopher can steal a pint of grain per day. With an average of 40 gophers per acre in a light infestation, it's easy to see how Pa's field might have been stripped so easily, especially when you consider that these forty gophers might naturally increase to 100 or more by fall. So while the pesky blackbirds were nibbling corn from above, just think what the gophers were doing below!
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:00 PM