Tallgrass Prairie Quotes

And by experiencing prairie---over the four seasons, and at various times of day, in all weathers---you develop a heightened sense of awe and wonder that will spill over into every other area of your life.

ALMOST all of the original tallgrass prairie has vanished. Lost to the plow, to development, and to---perhaps---a lack of imagination.

She missed the illusion of grass and sky kissing at the end of the world. She missed standing amid a rustling chorus of wind-waving grasses, the four horsemen of the tallgrass prairie--little bluestem, big bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass. She missed May fields dotted with black-eyed Susans, Indian blanket, and coreopsis. She missed bursts of red clay topsoil along dirt roads.

Prairies are like people. Each one has similar characteristics, but each one is also as unique as a snowflake. When we spend time on different prairies, we discover they all have their own quirks, individuality, and charm.

By sharing it with others, you help ensure that the tallgrass prairie continues to delight future generations.

Although we think of restoration as a science, it's also about creativity. Prairie restoration begins with a vision. The dream of how the land might be healed, imagined in the mind of a steward or site manager.

But I need to remember that the grief is the settlers’ as well. They too will never walk in a tallgrass prairie where sunflowers dance with goldfinches. Their children have also lost the chance to sing at the Maple Dance. They can’t drink the water either.

We drove a couple of miles to a pasture near his parents’ house and met up with the other early risers. I rode along with one of the older cowboys in the feed truck while the rest of the crew followed the herd on horseback, all the while enjoying the perfect view of Marlboro Man out the passenger-side window. I watched as he darted and weaved in the herd, shifting his body weight and posture to nonverbally communicate to his loyal horse, Blue, how far to move from the left or to the right. I breathed in slowly, feeling a sudden burst of inexplicable pride. There was something about watching my husband--the man I was crazy in love with--riding his horse across the tallgrass prairie. It was more than the physical appeal, more than the sexiness of his chaps-cloaked body in the saddle. It was seeing him do something he loved, something he was so good at doing. I took a hundred photos in my mind. I never wanted to forget it as long as I lived.

Prairies take an investment of time.

An easy first step when you're trying to learn the name of a prairie plant is to discover what makes that plant unique or memorable for you.

The names Dodge City and Wichita conjure visions of cowboys on horseback moving herds of cattle long distances, but as we found ourselves in the Blue Stem flint hills and tallgrass prairies we stopped the car and got out to rest. And with what felt like a cyclone trying to rip our ears off all we could see was …… nothing; Big sky, big land, unceasing horizon and cold-blooded and ruthless prairie.

By sharing it with others, you help ensure that the tallgrass prairie continues to delight future generations. By growing in your knowledge of prairie, you develop a better understanding of the natural world. And by experiencing prairie---over the four seasons, and at various times of day, in all weathers---you develop a heightened sense of awe and wonder that will spill over into every other area of your life. Your adventure is only beginning.

Without imagination---without creativity---without courage---the best prairie restorations don't happen. The rewards don't always come in our lifetime... . We work, knowing we leave a legacy for those who will come after us. We think of them as we drip with sweat, freeze, or pull weeds...plant seeds.

When we commit to the easy way --- planting one kind of anything --- we gamble. It is simpler, isn't it, to know and promote only a few flowers or trees or grasses for our landscape? We know what they will look like, their requirements and habits. It's more comfortable. A no-brainer. But when we do, we lose the benefits of a vibrant, healthy landscape teeming with different trees, plants and their associated animals, birds, and insects. We lose diversity.

Marlboro Man picked me up the next evening, exactly one month before our wedding day. Our evening apart had made the heart grow fonder, and we greeted each other with a magnificently tight embrace. It filled my soul, the way his arms gripped me…how he almost always used his superior strength to lift me off the ground. A wannabe strong, independent woman, I was continually surprised by how much I loved being swept, quite literally, off my feet. We drove straight into the sunset, arriving on his ranch just as the sky was changing from salmon to crimson, and I gasped. I’d never seen anything so brilliant and beautiful. The inside of Marlboro Man’s pickup glowed with color, and the tallgrass prairie danced in the evening breeze. Things were just different in the country. The earth was no longer a mere place where I lived--it was alive. It had a heartbeat. The sight of the country absolutely took my breath away--the vast expanse of the flat pastures, the endless view of clouds. Being there was a spiritual experience.

Can settlers be trusted to follow Nanabozho, to walk so that “each step is a greeting to Mother Earth”? Grief and fear still sit in the shadows, behind the glimmer of hope. Together they try to hold my heart closed. But I need to remember that the grief is the settlers’ as well. They too will never walk in a tallgrass prairie where sunflowers dance with goldfinches. Their children have also lost the chance to sing at the Maple Dance. They can’t drink the water either.

Just like people and their names, part of getting to know the tallgrass prairie is learning the names of things. Most of us begin with the grasses and flowers.

Though by any reasonable definition Iowa is a rural state, it is more thoroughly developed than many cities: A mere 2 percent of the state’s land remains what it used to be (tall-grass prairie), every square foot of the rest having been completely remade by man. The only thing missing from this man-made landscape is…man.

The Flint Hills are the last remaining grand expanse of the tallgrass prairie in America.

Though Illinois is nicknamed the Prairie State, not much prairie actually remains. Today, only 2,500 acres of virgin tallgrass prairie still exist in Illinois, just 0.01 percent of its former 20-million acre range. It is an imperiled landscape.

Feeding the urban fleet of horses hay and grain supported many thousands of farmers. An idle riding horse in New York City required about 9,000 calories of oats and hay per day. A draft horse in the same city working in construction required almost 30,000 calories of the same feeds. Annually, each draft horse consumed about 3 tons of hay and 62.5 bushels (1 ton) of oats. It took roughly four acres of good farmland to supply a working city horse that year’s worth of feed.9 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when cities in America were limited largely to the East Coast, farmers seldom transported bulky loose hay more than twenty to thirty miles to city markets.10 The commercialization of the hay press in the 1850s, operated by hand or by horse-powered sweep, reduced the bulk and thus lowered the cost of shipping hay, while the opening of the Midwest’s tallgrass prairies to settlement and farming in the intervening years met the increasing demand for horse feed. By 1879, national hay production totaled 35 million tons, a figure that had nearly tripled to 97 million tons by 1909. More than half the land in New England was devoted to hay by 1909 as well, and at least twenty-two states harvested more than a million acres a year of hay and forage.11 The mechanization of American agriculture with horse-drawn or horse-powered machinery supported this vast expansion.