Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, Okla. Photo by Sophia Dembling
I’ve been prairie obsessed since visiting the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Pawhuska, Okla., a year ago. Several months later, an hour tagging barbed wire fencing (as a favor to prairie chickens) in the Oklahoma panhandle convinced me that tromping across a prairie is a thousand times more glorious than even the most glorious photograph.
I wish I’d planned ahead to participate in one of the prairie restoration volunteer projects in Iowa for National Public Lands Day, Sept. 26. Or in activities the following weekend for Prairie Appreciation Week at Homestead National Monument (also Iowa). That sort of thing would be worth traveling for, if I were free to travel those weekends. Maybe next year.
Instead, I’ll celebrate National Public Lands Day 2009 (woohoo!) by searching the website for a volunteer project closer to home, maybe planting aquatic plants. (I’m sure there won’t be many mosquitoes.) There’s probably a project near your home, too. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to spend an autumn Saturday?
National Public Lands Day? I’m dorky enough to find the idea pretty exciting! Hopefully, there’s a project near me. Thanks for the info.
I feel the same, Sarah! I’m trying to find a friend to go be dorky with me.
Ditto.
Thanks for sharing this! I’ve got three sites nearby, so now I have to choose one…
Y’all are great. I’m verklempt.
Not many people can pull off “y’all” and “verklempt” in the same comment.
Haha! Thanks for noticing! I didn’t even think about it! I’m a Tex Yorker, through and through.
Beautiful photo of the daytime moon!
[...] Prairie Love « flyoveramerica.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/prairie-love – view page – cached Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, Okla. Photo by Sophia Dembling No such thing as a bad photograph of the prairie. No, really. — From the page [...]
I had to laugh when I saw the title of this entry – “Prairie Love”. It sounds like a horrible reality tv show set somewhere in the middle of the country or perhaps a show that follows the turbulent, messy love in a prairie dog colony, kinda’ like Meerkat Manor! Too funny!
In all seriousness though, the prairie is one part of the country that I haven’t really seen much of, but I hope to eventually one day!!
Kinda like Muskrat Love, eh?
I definitely share your love for the prairie. How ’bout an LPC Festival reunion with Kaspari!
Oh, we should, Tim! I would love to see Debby’s show at the Noble museum, too.