The Living Seed Bank

This is a term that I have bandied about the past couple years, one I wrote a bit about in a recent post, “The 2024 Plan”, and I think its time I more rigorously define what I mean by the phrase. To phrase it differently: What the hell is a living seed bank? And why am I trying to create one? I am far from the first person to come up with the idea of a seed bank, including a seed bank for prairie plants. Last year I received some seed from the USDA Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). At the time I had plans to engage in a small research project with my friends at South Dakota State University (SDSU) to compare different sources of several milkvetches (Astragalus sp.) that grow in my native prairies. While I found that, on the one hand, I am unsuited to planning, creating an experimental design and following through on a field research project, I still learned something. The seeds, which came from Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Alberta grew into seedlings very different from those grown from my seed. While they may have been the same species they were not the same plants. Their phenotypes, the visible representation of their genetics, were distinct enough to make me wonder if they really were the same species. This is no revelation, many species get divided into several or many subspecies to reflect distinct populations. It drove home for me, however, that I needed to wrap my head around the concept of local adaptation. And then to take that realization further to realize that there might be a place in the world for multiple, complementary seed banks.

I have written before about my travails in receiving ill adapted seed from purchases I have made that established populations in the restorations and then disappeared over several years as the hard winters or other factors took their toll. The blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata), which turned out to be from Colorado, that I planted had a very different phenotype than my natives; it was larger, bloomed earlier and had a gaudier flower. By the second year of the restoration I had carpets of beautiful blossoms, but by the third and fourth years most had died and there were only scattered survivors, likely complaining to each other about the horrible cold they had just lived through. Surviving plants may have been from purchased seed that had tougher genetics or they may have grown from seed that I gathered from my surrounding relict prairies which had the required genetics. Less dramatically I have had the same experience with alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii) and purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) other wildflowers common in my hills for which I planted both purchased and gathered seed.

It gets worse. Of the approximately 100 species of wildflowers that inhabit my rolling hills, I can purchase seed for about half from regional vendors. Very simple math reveals that about 50 species are totally unavailable from any source except gathered seed. When you add the opaque nature of the source of purchased seed it means that most prairie restorations created from that purchased seed are “dumbed down” versions of what a prairie could be. Some organizations, notably The Nature Conservancy (TNC) have tried to go down a different path starting from gathered, local seed, But a lot of seedings done by nonprofits and public agencies alike are assemblages of 30 or 40 easily accessible species, picked for a combination of availability, cost and perhaps the showiness of their flowers. What are we missing? In the largest context, what are we missing?

For one thing, we are missing plants that may have obligate partnerships with insects, fungi and other life. If the proper nectar sources aren’t available (think monarchs and milkweed) we will be missing their partners. Suzanne Simard has become famous documenting the commensual relationships between mychorrizal fungi and trees, coining the term “the wood-wide web”, showing that the whole is more than a sum of its parts. One plus one plus one, metaphorically, might equal four. or sometimes eight. Life is obviously a lot more complicated that our poor limited imaginations realize, Another thing we miss is redundancy; perhaps there are several species that do a particular job, who can fill a certain niche. However, if we only planted one of those species, and it fails to establish a population, we will miss out on that particular ecosystem service. If we only have a couple species of legumes planted, and they don’t establish good populations, the entire prairie will be short of nitrogen. If we lose our early blooming flowers the native bees have no food. If we don’t have violets we don’t have food for regal frittilary larvae. Some types of mycorhizzal fungi are likely specific to certain species. You get the idea.

It gets worse. I live in an area with native pastures. Because of hills and rocks and potholes, some areas have a lot of native pasture. There is a ridge just west of me that has perhaps 100-200,000 acres of almost contiguous native grass, but between overgrazing, herbicides and invasive brome competition there is a paucity of native wildflowers. The mostly native pasture that housed our little herd of dairy cows has less than 10% of the wildflower population it had while I was growing up. That large block of native grass I referred to is mostly a large block of invasive non-native grasses and a few weedy forbs, some native and some not. It is not prairie, just as the 50 acre pasture that I gathered pasqueflowers and dug breadroots on is not really prairie anymore. This means that resupply of prairies from nearby native sources is often unlikely. While few of these species are endangered, or even threatened, they are not easy to get ones hands on when looking for a source to plant in a restoration.

My response is documented in this blog, 230 acres put back to grass, 140 acres of which have 100-175 species planted. I feel there’s more that can come from this little hill farm, however. If a significant barrier to prairie restorations is a source of adapted seed, it could be a repository of possibilities, not just for myself, but for others. If my seed, the genetic answers residing on our farm, are adapted to a 100-150 mile circle, a fairly conservative number, that gives an area of 31,400-80,000 square miles for which it could confidently be used. How many acres of restoration can this supply every year? Not that many. However as a supplement to purchased seed, as a source for others to begin new populations, as a touchstone for others engaging in restorations and as an example of particular genotypic answers that evolution has devised to the question of “Who gets to live in the prairie hills in northeast South Dakota?” I think the value can be magnified, it can scale.

That leads to the obvious next question. How can I help it to be magnified, to scale, to enlarge beyond a couple hundred acres? I cannot build it into the GRIN network and database, which is nationwide. However, perhaps I can network with others in this backwater of the world to cooperate in the development of a true seed bank, or seed exchange. Pursuant to the connections that are yet to be established I have already begun work to continue to strengthen and diversify the forb component in my prairies, hoping to progress from it being “neat” that I have twenty or thirty plants of, say, slender milkvetch (Astragalus flexuosus) to having two or three hundred plants that can accomplish two related tasks. First, they can be a robust, self sustaining population which can develop in an evolutionary sense along with the plants in my native prairies. And then it can be a source of seed for other who wish to use it in a restoration or to enhance an existing prairie. That population can also be gathered to be part of a stored seed bank, which can be housed separately from me, and be available for further increase, or use in research. All seed banks need periodic grow out to renew the seed vigor of their collections. My prairies can be that source for what I hope becomes 100 or more species without the need to grow in a dedicated plot. In effect, it can be the seed bank, living and growing in the world to help, supplement and augment a traditional seed bank.

Thus, my choices of where to use my time and resources will be guided not just by the general ecosystem services that a diverse prairie as a whole can contribute, but by the sometimes unknown benefits of all the individual species. Though I may not know the benefits of humble plants like yellow sundrops (Calylophus serrulatus) or bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata), I will attempt to gather, spread, increase and have them available as a seed source. I choose those two species specifically because I have not yet been able to increase them in my restorations, but I hope to. Because all resources, whether time, financial, energy or even space to plant everything, are by nature finite, I will still target my efforts to those species that are more difficult to get, and less likely to have a source within 150-200 miles from here. While those plants grow I can continue to explore how to take this show on the road.

Beginning Spring Seeding

It is only about 10 days since the seeding documented in the last post, but it is now spring, as evidenced by the iconic harbinger of the coming growing season in the northern prairies, the pasqueflower (Anemone patens).

Other than the pasques (only a few are just peeking out) it doesn’t look very spring-like, but there is some small, humble growth beginning to venture forth from the crowns where the growing points have hidden for the past several months. First, below are a couple crowns of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), of which I found a great many small crowns sending out leaves. If May is kind there will be hundreds of these blooming in the restoration. If you look near the glasses there is another wildflower, perhaps a penstemon, which is also peeking out, and a little green at the base of some of the grass crowns, probably prairie junegrass (Koeleria macrantha) which grows early.

We have three or four species here: below the right lens of the glasses (left side) is field sage/sand sage (Artemisia campestris), a biennial which made this growth last October, fringed sage ( Artemisia frigida) to its right, and below that what I think are two different penstemons. To the left is probably white beardtongue (Penstemon albidus) and to the right is probably foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis). What messes with a poor biologist like me is that the basal leaves which grow directly from the crown (which the penstemon leaves are) are often quite different from the leaves that grow out of the stems as they develop. One needs to learn and remember twice as many leaf shapes to identify the plants. And to challenge my abilities even further in this photo are a couple small shoots in the bottom center just below the larger penstemon which will remain unidentified for now.

After that digression we can move on to the title topic, spring seeding. The snow which fell 8-9 days ago is almost all gone, with remnants in the draws. This means that all the seed that I spread 10 days ago were nicely soaked. There is now a 90% chance of gentle rain the next two days, so I decided to use a couple hours on a nice day to toss out a little more seed. I had a gallon or two of false boneset (Brickellia eupatorioides) seedheads that I had kept separate because it is too fluffy to blend well with other seed and just raised handfuls high to let it blow and wander as it would in the wind over the dry mesic area on the south side of the restoration. Then I took out an envelope of stratified textile onion seed I had gotten out of the refrigerator and did my best to plant all 250 seeds individually on the droughty sites where it is able to compete and grow. My clumsy fingers were unable to grasp and plant all the tiny seeds, but perhaps half were pushed gently into the ground while others might fall nearby, and I flung some over the autumn burned areas of gravel, areas very much like the soils in the pictures above.

This wasn’t a grand accomplishment, certainly. Between the wandering photography and the seeding less than two hours was spent, most of that trying to give each onion seed an opportunity to make its special contribution to the greater good. Yet I rarely lament a short stay or a modest addition to the prairie canvas. One never knows the best day, or the critical effort when it is made, just as one never knows what piece of advice or words of kindness will make the most impact on a child, spouse or friend. It is the cumulative effect, the weight, of all the gestures and the mindful attempts that one makes that can carry the day towards our goals. If some of my onions germinate this spring they will be hard to find, but if I do see some this year, or perhaps next, that will be another small piece of colored glass in the mosaic of this prairie and this life, and another reason to rejoice.

When I began this process I certainly didn’t anticipate adding significant amounts of seed five years after it was established. Intuitively it seems it should be fine, taking care of itself down the road by the seed it produces, allowing Mother Nature to heal herself. After reflection and observing restoration practices done by other entities I have a completely different opinion which is informing my present activities. First, this is not a natural environment comparable to prairies in the far past. Those prairies developed, and the characteristics of the different plants were evolutionarily honed by the disturbances of the bison, other native grazers, the pollinator populations of the time, the soil biota which had developed over time and overlaid by the “management” of the native peoples who inhabited the area. As there is no way to replicate that, I cannot replicate the environment which allowed natural regeneration. The best we can do is to make our clumsy attempts at grazing, fire and invasive species control and hope it recreates a facsimile of those shaping factors. Restorations, especially in mesic sites, tend to simplify to a small suite of wildflowers which can compete with the tall warm season grasses such as big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), or the inexorable spread of smooth brome (Bromus inermis). They become pretty fields of reddish browns or expanses of grey brome stems every fall that provide only part of the ecosystem services we desire. They aren’t even great cattle pasture without diversity.

To make things worse, we are often not even sure which species are best adapted to site, We tend to blend a mix to be used over large areas, and we purchase seed which may have its origin hundreds of miles away. Then, to top it off, restoration sites are often isolated, so there is no additional source of genetic bench strength, whether through seed or pollen transport to keep each species meta-genome diverse and strong. Thus, many of the original species, especially wildflowers, wink out. If I want to provide the ecosystem services that come from a larger suite of plants I need to attempt to provide and nurture those plants.

I’m certainly not alone in these concerns. As I’ve gotten to know more conservation land managers it is a theme of concern. My daughter, Diane works for an engineering firm that does work in restoration, and told me their restoration manager assumes periodic topdressing of wildflower seed is needed to maintain populations. And in my perusal of a myriad of conservation websites I see many examples of continuing introduction of new plants and seed, both to introduce missing species and to buttress populations of existing species. Below is a blurry picture (it was very windy while I took the picture) showing both problem and opportunity inherent in a restoration. It shows the path of the drill six years ago when this was seeded. To the left one can make out faint lines from the drill dropping very small amounts of seed, while the strip through the middle is where the drill operator opened the drill wide open to get the seed to fall out and empty the drill. There is much of this over the restoration. Where the burned grass crowns are thick there is little besides grass, and the seed I just spread is wasted as it will have no biotic space to grow. To each side, however, there are more wildflower crowns and hopes for many more. This area received the seed mix I spread 10 days ago as well as the false boneset seed I spread yesterday. I am eager to see is my efforts have results, and hope to come back to this spot for continued documentation.

There’s so much to learn, and there’s so much to do. It provides a sense of urgency to Linda’s and my attempts to provide a structure for future management of both my restorations and Linda’s grazing system. The idea that we can “protect” land and then get out of the way to let nature take it the rest of the way to its best and most beautiful ends is not workable, at least not in prairie restoration. I have work to do on several fronts. I look forward to an eventful and productive year.

Winter Seeding

To keep with the plan of enhancing wildflower populations, with the goal of creating an area for others to use as a seed bank to collect from for their own use, I have used the open winter to spread more seed.

With apologies to Hemingway I call this picture “The Old Man and the Seed” as behind me is 20 bags of seed. A couple are from my gathering days last year, but most were purchased from Milborn Seed, the local purveyor. Jason Tronbak, my contact there, had given me a list of all their native species with a South Dakota, North Dakota or Minnesota origin, and I purchased a group that fit my needs as presumably locally adapted seed. Though I had spread a lot of seed over much of 30 acres that were burned by my friend, Ben Lardy, last fall, mostly seed gathered by me and by Levi Waddell. a neighbor, I haven’t wanted to miss the opportunity that the excellent burn would give me to get seed down to black soil. Thus I purchased more seed, and yesterday I mixed up batches of 7-12 species mixtures for different areas that I had a particular desire to enhance. Here’s what the area looked like yesterday.

As you can see, there’s a little snow, only showing some of the burned ground, but nothing that impacted my getting around the site. Seeding in March is an ideal situation: the winter birds have very little time to eat the seed you fling out, you have the opportunity to access seeds from vendors that was harvested in 2023, rather than 2022 (which is what you get if you purchase seed in October), and best of all, the seeds have the opportunity to be stratified, immersed in the cold, damp period they need to overcome dormancy so they are prepared to burst forth as the weather warms. The above pictures were taken late afternoon yesterday. Here is what it looks like outside our house today at 1:00 PM.

We are 3″ into what is supposed to be 12-18″ of snow today and tomorrow. This means the seed spread yesterday, and earlier this month will be well moistened and stratified by the time the weather and soils warm up sufficiently six weeks from now. My daughter, Diane, texted how exciting it will be to see what comes up in May. That sounds pretty optimistic to me, but it should be possible to know if plants we find are from this winter’s seeding as I spread almost all the seed in areas which don’t have those species, and concentrated some of the seed along the edges of the burn where it will be easy to survey and identify anything new.

Here’s a map of the quarter section that has 120 acres restored prairie.

Though my hands are too shaky (as well as my editing and drawing skills) to make an exact representation of the seeding that I did, here’s an approximate representation. Zone 1, the blue oblong in the lower left, is an area of quite xeric, gravelly soil south and east of our old gravel pit. It has good diversity, but lacks some of the wildflowers in similar soils to the north and east. Thus, I put together a mix adapted to those soils with a few missing species as well as a couple others it already had.

1. Standing milkvetch (Astragalus adsurgens)
2. Pasqueflower (Anemone patens)
3. Hoary vervain (Verbena stricta)
4. Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea)
5. Textile onion (Allium textile)
6. Alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii)
7. Western wallflower (Erysimum asperum)
8. White penstemon (Penstemon albidus)

The blue area with the 2 in it is an area of slightly better soil, a dry mesic environment, which is one of the areas that got the full complement of seed from the original seeding by the Day County Conservation District, and has had much less gathered seed spread the last few years. This is an area that I particularly wish to enhance, so much of it received additional gathered seed last November, and was spread yesterday with:

1. Rough blazingstar (Liatris aspera)
2. Prairie onion (Allium stellatum)
3. Hoary vervain (Verbena stricta)
4. Maximillian sunflower (Helianthus maximillianii)
5. Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea)
6. Wild rose (Rosa arkansana)
7. Thimbleweed (Anemone cylindrica)
8. Leadplant (Amorpha canescens)

Later this spring this is also an area where I hope to transplant perhaps 100 of the seedling plugs being grown for me at SDSU.

The blue zone with the 3 is around the base of a highly diverse hill, plus a draw extending uphill to the south. The combination of competition from the grasses originally planted and herbicide treatments for some very dense thistle patches has caused less diversity in these richer soils. Thus, I am hitting this area pretty hard with seed. In addition to last fall’s seeding I have spread the following this March:

1. Canada milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis)
2. Mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum)
3. Rough blazing star (Liatris aspera)
4. Meadow blazing star (Liatris ligustylis)
5. Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis)
6. Rattlesnake root (Prenanthes racemosa)
7. New England aster (Symphyotricum novae-anglia)
8. Wild Rose (Rosa arkansana)
9. Maximilllian sunflower (Helianthus maximillianii)
10. Purple meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum)
11. False sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides)
12. Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)
13. Porcupine grass (Heterostipa spartea)

Finally, there is a small area circled in blue with a 4 inside on the map on the south side of the pasture that was not burned last fall. If fortune is kind this year it will be burned in April and be overseeded with a mix approximating the mesic mix above, probably including a few more species. Over the next two days while we are kept inside by the weather I plan to get my remaining seed that I have saved for that area in a large container with a soil medium to stratify for a month so that there is a better chance of immediate germination should the burn occur. If we are unable to accomplish a burn I will likely spread it over more of the mesic areas which were burned. And if the forecast is correct that will likely be the end of the March seeding and the rest will have to wait until spring returns. If we are fortunate some of these areas will go from 15-20 species of forbs to 30-40 species from the various seed additions of last fall and this winter.

Returning to the topic of the restoration as a seed bank, I have a bit of an existential dilemma. What if no one is interested in using the property to gather seed? While I believe that Ben and Levi will be interested, whether governmental employees and nonprofit types are or not, and that really is good enough for me, I feel it worthwhile to consider this. What is the downside?

What I am trying to do is to build a restoration which is endowed with what might seem an unnaturally high population of a large number of forbs, of wildflowers. Is there really a downside??? Actually, I can think of a couple things. First, these fields, at least 140 acres, and perhaps 200 acres eventually, will also be grazed. Grazing will be integral to their management. The grazing, however, will be subservient to the seed bank. On the one hand, not all wildflowers are loved by cattle. Even diehard prairie loving grazers might balk at the group of plants that are poisonous, such as larkspur and locoweed, and other plants such as the sages, the Ratibida coneflowers and the goldenrods which are not loved by cattle. Grazing will also be limited by plants on the other end of the spectrum. Many wildflowers are cow candy, and I will have to limit grazing to allow those plants to make seed for us to gather. The other disadvantage is all mine: it will take a lot of money and a lot of work to achieve what I envision. It already has, and I am far from done.

But what a glorious journey to be on! How can a physically limited, boring old farmer like me have any more fun than this? Grandkids, I answer myself. But I will not neglect my grandchildren, and am not neglecting them even as I spread seed in the snow. This is a legacy for them and their children as well. I have visions of them coming 30-50 years from now with their children to learn and be amazed by the life that can grow in those hills. For me this is a path to transcendence. I can transcend my physical limitations. I can transcend the challenges of my damaged body. Hell, I can transcend this lifetime, with this project being the gift I give to the future. Yesterday I was out there in my parka flinging bits of life over those barren hills, snot dripping out of my nose in the cold air, putting my shoulder into the frigid wind as I turned my head away – and my heart was singing.

The 2024 Plan, Part 2

As I promised in the last post, an update is necessary to bring this plan up to date, and much has happened. First, Ben Lardy and I were unable to get the SARE grant for which we had applied, primarily because it didn’t really fit the criteria of what the review board saw as agriculture. Though we sincerely hope that we will be growing marketable seed, my overarching goal has little to do with making money, and a lot to do with maximizing ecosystem services provided by the restoration and the farm that it fits in. My honest evaluation that this would be a very difficult project to evaluate as a business case kicked it to the rear of the queque. Any money spent on this project will be mine, not from Uncle Sam.

Second, the winter that wasn’t has returned to a perpetual April, and I have been out to the restoration more times to spread seed, primarily on the area that was burned. Below are a couple pictures from a few days ago showing a couple things that the burn revealed. I will digress a bit in explaining the pictures before I come back to the 2024 plan.

This first picture shows one of many “mystery mounds” that were revealed. At first I wondered whether they were spots where the burned clumps had caught blowing soil, but I have abandoned the erosion explanation as not every clump of residue has a mound of soil around it. If erosion was the culprit the forb residue in the foreground would also have soil. No, it seems obvious we have a biotic explanation, perhaps a burrowing rodent (though certainly not a pocket gopher mound, of which there are many examples in the restoration). These mounds were obviously there before the burn, protecting the plant tissue within them from the fire. We likely have a species of vole or mouse who has excavated a small den or tunnel, pushing the sand to the surface. My wife is betting on ants, who make mounds in the prairies. I hope to look further into these in the future.

Above is a fun observation from a wider angle look at the burn. To the left are obvious rows with clumps of bunchgrasses that have burned lined up, while to the right there is no pattern. This goes all the way back to the original seeding, in which seed only flowed down the tubes to the ground intermittently, and large areas received little or no seed. Before the burn this pattern is far less obvious because Ben and I repeatedly spread seed to get coverage of all the soil accomplished. Thus, this summer all the area had similar grass cover, but the area which had originally been bereft of seed had an extra year of opportunity for my gathered wildflower seed to establish. The flip side of the equation is that the operator obviously looked in the drill box occasionally to find the seed had bridged and responded by enlarging the opening. This meant that where seed came out, a lot of seed was dropped, and stands filled in immediately, leaving little room for the locally gathered seed I spread to get a foothold. Much of that area is along the south side of the restoration, near the road, meaning the challenges I was facing were not obvious to passers by, a happy accident. By July one will have to look closely to see this pattern as the vegetation regrows and fills in. One of the main goals for the next couple years is to get some of the forbs from my locally gathered seed established in the area on the left side of the picture to increase the diversity. The nice winter weather has allowed me to spread a lot of seed over the burn, so we will see if we have any luck establishing new plants. The goal is to increase the forb diversity in the area depicted in the left side of the picture from the 12-15 species that were put in by the conservation district with their drill up to 30-50 species of wildflower, though I’m afraid the competition from the thick existing stand will mean I may waste a lot of seed.

However, this addresses a big question that many people are wrestling with. Prairie restorations often become dominated by two or three aggressive grass species and fail to provide all the benefits that were hoped for. How best does one manage holding on to or reclaiming the diversity that is desired? Many people are trying different methods; Chris Helzer and staff at the Platte River prairies managed by The Nature Conservancy have been using a mixture of burning, overseeding and grazing, and I am trying to model my attempts and experiments on their ideas.

Returning to the 2024 plan, I have been talking to a few of my friends in the conservation community about becoming part of an advisory board to help develop strategies to manage our restorations in the future. At one point we were even considering establishing a nonprofit geared towards prairie restoration, but right now we are thinking of just putting the land into a trust and managing it a lot like a nonprofit, putting income from the land back into its management to continue to achieve our goals for the land. We have an appointment with a local attorney who has experience in estate work next week to begin the process. The advisory board, which could segue into a board of directors, accomplishes several things. It provides a variety of perspectives which can help broaden my view of possibilities; it broadens the group of people who can use the restorations as an example for others; and it provides support for my daughters when Linda and I are gone, or not able to actively manage our land.

It seems a bit grandiose, a stretch perhaps, to bring in a board to advise and eventually make decisions on one little farm; on my interpretation of what a prairie restoration can be and can do and can represent, and then to expect that to radiate out to the greater world. There’s a little bit of hubris here, perhaps. I don’t shy away from it, however. If not here, where? And if not me, who? And if there’s a better spot, a better manager and a better example elsewhere, that is wonderful! I will gladly support that example. I will attempt to milk as many ideas, as much energy and as much education for others out of this little project on this little farm as I possibly can. I would be betraying my responsibilities to the world if I did any less.

I went to a field day near New London in central Minnesota last weekend. The owner, Ann Gustafson, who has become a good friend through my work with the Minnesota Land Trust, hosted staff from a couple nonprofits who are doing conservation work on their property under a grant from the state of Minnesota and the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). These organizations invited their members, and about 25 people ended up viewing, talking about and even helping a bit on restoration work on an oak savanna. Perhaps six or seven potential or ongoing restoration projects were represented and were both edified and inspired by the work being done by my friends. Those people may inspire their friends and neighbors, and the work on 300 acres may influence thousands more. How cool is that?! Their 350 acre property/ranch deserves a board of advisors to help them navigate the possibilities and the pitfalls, which can then inform and inspire others. Ann and her son Frank are doing pretty well on their own, but maybe I can help discuss how and why to put such a group together, and in turn learn some things to help me in my endeavors.

That’s what I’m doing and where I’m going this year. The previous post discussed my goal to use my property as a seed bank where other practitioners of prairie restoration could gather seed adapted to this area, and perhaps to contribute to a more formal seed bank, storing locally adapted seed, and growing out those selections as needed for those who might do this 20 or 50 or even 200 years down the road. And now I’m hoping to gather a group of interested people to help my daughters manage this into the future, and to amplify and spread the lessons and the possibilities we discover. This is turning into one hell of a retirement project.

And here is the goal, of course. This is from some of my relict prairie which adjoins the restoration, a hill of flax (Linum sulcatum) and black samson (Echinacea angustifolia) blooming after some good July rain.

The 2024 Plan

I’m not sure I’m ready for a 2024 plan. With our lack of winter so far (I am writing this on January 5th) I was actually out spreading some seed on New Year’s Day, still tangled up in 2023. Here was what it looked like just before Christmas when I was putting out a large amount of seed, and it’s not much different now.

Supposedly it will finally get cold with some snow in a week or so, but this may have been both the warmest and least snowy December of my life, if not on record. While it may be natural variation caused by a strong El Nino, it reminds me of one of the goals from last year, which was diversifying the genetics of my restoration by bringing in materials from outside of the farm’s immediate area, preparing for a warmer climate. For some species that is easier than it might seem, as I have access to some prairies just 15-30 miles east of here which are 600-800 feet less in elevation. Those seeds genetic history was developed in a climate 3-4 degrees warmer than my restoration. Here is where I spread some of that seed recently.

Obviously, a burn finally occurred on about 30 acres of the restoration, allowing seed to soil contact and hopefully better germination and establishment. The first picture is a closer view of the gravelly hill in the middle where I have some of the best diversity on the restoration. The black clumps are where grass crowns are, and the fire makes this look very bare. While most of the 30 acres burned very completely, aided by a 15-20 mile per hour wind, the second picture shows an area that was not as charred, and the wildflower crowns are very visible. It was a very satisfying experience. The picture below shows what this area looked like a couple years before. While this spot was cherry picked for the diversity in a small area, it still lacks some of the wildflowers that are common on these hills. Thus, I am topdressing some seed, and hope to transplant some seedling plugs next spring. There are about 4-5 acres that I use as my area to show off, or hopefully to inspire others, and though it could be argued that my time is better spent on less diverse areas, I am trying to help this spot become a real showpiece. This picture is an unburned view of a spot on that hill from about August 1, 2022.

With that as the introduction, something I will return to, I will begin the grand 2024 plan.

Part 1. Business as Usual

Depending upon the day and my mood, I have considered 15-25 acres in the center of Zone 1 (in the picture below) which includes the hill which was burned, the core of my restoration. Begun by the accident of the inept seeding job that was done in 2018 by the Conservation District, which caused me to repeatedly broadcast more seed, and continued by the desire to have an area of spectacular diversity, much of my time the past 5 years has been spent upon this area. This has included spreading seed, planting seedling plugs, spot treating thistles and wormwood sage with herbicide, documenting its progress, and now getting a burn completed. Again, I hope this area can become an exemplary showpiece of what a landowner could do with a restoration. As the old saying goes, however, one damn thing leads to another. Surrounding this area, the rest of Zone 1, is another 20-25 acres, slightly less diverse, that also has received a fair amount of gathered seed (I recently identified 45 different wildflower species found here) and I have begun to spend more time aiding wildflower populations here. Below is a map of the quarter section, which shows a 40 acre native pasture with a pond in the northwest quarter, a 20 acre new seeding in the northeast corner and the original 100 acre restoration filling the rest. Zone 1 is the combination of the two areas just mentioned, 40-45 acres which have the most diversity and the greatest amount of species and total plants that come from my gathered seed.

Thus, in a sense, this part of the 2024 plan is simply to build upon the past couple years by continuing to enlarge the circle, so to speak, hoping to continue out from Zone 1 to create 80-90 acres of very high diversity prairie. This will include most of Zone 2 as well as the new seeding in the upper right, but not Zone 3, which had such a bad thistle infestation in 2019 that I had it broadcast sprayed with herbicide to start over. The broadleaf herbicide which was used to kill the thistles also killed the few forbs which had made it through the drill, but left the grass untouched. I’m afraid that turning Zone 3 into a real prairie may await another manager. Still, even without Zone 3, turning 40 acres of high diversity prairie into 90 acres is a huge task, probably the work of the next several years. As always, I need to make plans that this work doesn’t fall completely on my flimsy shoulders, which leads to:

Part 2. The Next Step

Yes, one damn thing leads to another. The vision for what this land can contribute has grown over the past five years, It started with the traditional litany of ecosystem services (water quality, erosion control. wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration and recreation/hunting); progressed to the idea of it’s being a spot for the greater conservation community for research and education; and came to the goal I stated last year of its being a reservoir of native seed for others engaged in prairie restoration. Already, two years ago, some of my friends in the conservation community had come to my restoration to gather small amounts of seed to use on personal projects. That idea turned into my planting (with significant help) about 1500 seedling plugs of 20-25 species over the past two years (unfortunately, with two consecutive hot, dry Junes the survival is likely only 25-30%, still 350-500 new plants). The original thought had been primarily to help build populations of many of the wildflowers native to my remnant prairies to numbers that allowed more opportunities for continued cross pollination and their long term survival, but grew into the realization these enhanced populations could then be a seed source for others. I even attempted to begin a study of various seed sources of several species in conjunction with friends at South Dakota State University (SDSU) which foundered on the shoals of my poor ability to manage the project and the poor survival caused by the weather. Still, I expect that in 2-3 years there will be many more groundplum milkvetch, prairie turnips, green milkweed and a cohort of other wildflowers adapted to these stony, difficult hills up on the Prairie Coteau because of the transplants.

The next step needed resources. Thus, my friend Ben Lardy and I have applied for a USDA Sustainable Ag Research and Education (SARE) grant which would be used to purchase more seed and plants, hire help (mostly Ben and his wife, Kelli) and enlarge the geography by doing some planting on Ben and Kelli’s small farm 30 miles northwest of me. We will find out in February if we receive $25,000 to spend on growing the seed project. Ben would like the grant to help towards establishing a small business of growing and selling native seed, but my goal in the project is to keep expanding the populations of plants of the species I have targeted, and perhaps add 10-20 more. Already there is more demand for restoration seed than is available. Seed houses are in the perpetual quandary of all businesses of how to build inventory of a product for which the market is uncertain. Do you start with the chicken or the egg, so to speak. This quandary is greatly exacerbated by the difficulty of “gardening/farming” many of these wildflowers. In the end, a large proportion of restorations get planted to a group selected from 20 or 30 wildflowers that are comparatively cheap and easy to grow, mostly from sources far to the south or east of here, and ignore the 200 other species that lived in the prairies. My contribution would be to provide some of those species to those looking to create a richer, better adapted restoration.

Our grant would allow us to plant another 1500 seedling plugs grown for us by our friends at SDSU this spring, and do a business case comparing seed production from the surviving transplants to areas which are burned and then topdressed with new locally sourced seed. The hope is that we can turn this into both an edifying comparison and several thousand new wildflower plants of perhaps 50 species out in the restoration. I was really not sure I wanted to commit to such an endeavor, which will include much more documenting and record keeping, but I will be relying upon Ben once again (though I fear documentation and record keeping may also be a weak spot for him). I want to support him in his hope to build a business from this, which I believe would be good for the restoration community, as well as for Ben and Kelli.

I feel this, along with the tasks of general care of the restoration, will completely fill my year, but again, as I keep repeating, one damn thing leads to another, and there is a further step I am beginning to explore.`

Part 3 The Dream

I have already referred to this idea of a “living seed bank”, though so far it is mostly cheap talk. All seed banks, even those in a well secured vault in Svalbard (the home of a famous one), have to renew their seeds regularly. No seed will stay alive forever, no matter the quality of storage, so some have to be periodically removed from storage, grown carefully to guarantee purity, and their progeny put back in the vault. Within USDA there is an entity with the acronym GRIN which stores accessions on an enormous quantity of native seeds. The facilities are connected to small farms that are dedicated to periodically growing the samples to renew the vigor of the seed of that particular genotype. I use that term genotype rather than species because, realizing the variability within species, they have accumulated multiple samples of most species to reflect those differences. I received small amount of several samples of two species from GRIN that I was trying to increase last year, with the dual purposes of investigating differences between those samples and my gathered seed, and of providing some new genetic material for crossing for my local genetics. Though there were several different selections of each species, none was from within 500 miles of me. It slapped me across the face with the not-so-novel idea that the world is an enormous place, and each plant, much as we always say about each person, is a unique assemblage of genetics shaped by its environment. Each is a response to a labyrinth of pathways that produces a new miracle. Some of the seedlings that grew didn’t even look like the same species that I was used to.

So, how should I respond to that? This wasn’t a new concept, even to me, yet I was still amazed by the visual evidence of variation within a species there in front of me. I’ve gone on several times about “locally adapted seed” and how I want to secure a foothold for my humble prairie plants of the gravel hills. But past planting a few extra plants and tossing around a few more seeds, what the hell can I really do about it? I’m just an old, health challenged Don Quixote, tilting at my own windmill. This year is for trying to come up with an answer to that question. Essentially I want to learn how important the seed, that probably fits an area of 20-40,000 square miles, is considered by the conservation community. With that information I hope to decide whether to formalize the idea of the seed bank and to help build a business structure, whether as a non-profit organization or perhaps as a for profit business. While my set of botanical answers to this environment is likely no more important than others, it is still a discrete collection of those answers, and as such, can be a significant contribution to conservation. The world is an enormous place, but I will only be concerned with one corner of it, and perhaps only with the subset of species which grow in well drained and droughty sites. This could still mean 100 species. Perhaps that will necessitate a bit of triage which will whittle it down to 30-40 key wildflowers, those which both characterize these dry prairies and are difficult or impossible to access. Seeds would be harvested from my prairies, both native and restored, most used immediately, but some saved and put into some secure, controlled storage. Those seeds could then be doled out to entities or individuals for increase, and to use as they see fit. There would always be more seed to re-supply the seed bank from the periodic harvest of the “growing” portion of the seed bank on my farm. Various organizations have done the first part of this plan over the years, increasing selections from relict native prairies in restorations that they then gather for use in new restorations; I have not heard of any that also have a facility for longer term storage of some of that seed.

A big project indeed, even for 30-40 species. Yet you could say that I have made a start on it, a start that will grow should Ben and I get the grant. Partners would be needed of course, and one of my jobs this winter is to try to determine the true interest of others in the field. We need to find out if this fits into the category of neat, but not truly necessary ideas, that wither and blow away, or whether it strikes such a chord that I am inundated with offers to help develop the concept and use the seed. I may know more after some conversations with key players in the various organizations that do prairie restorations. In the meantime, I am happy just to continue to spread new seed and plant seedling plugs to make my restorations even better. Perhaps I will have a more complete perspective by this spring, and if I do I will post an update then. My first visit with an interested party/potential partner is tomorrow. I close with a picture of one of the wildflowers of interest, hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens). It is not a rare plant and has a range covering much of the central United States, and includes many plants in my relict prairies. It blooms early, when little else is blooming, likely making it important to insects in early summer. However, it seems it is difficult to propagate, the seeds are very difficult to gather, and I have yet to see anywhere it is sold. I could not even find it on the GRIN website. This is not something that I would consider trying to grow for sale at scale. However, it would be very nice to get enough seed to work with, and to have some seed from my geography in a seed bank that others could use. Its ubiquity implies that it takes care of its own propagation very well once it enters an area. Yet one more goal for the year.

Postscript: This was written several days ago, and I need to update it after my visit to Dr. Lora Palmer at SDSU, the potential cooperator I referred to earlier. She told me about a group she leads, composed of representatives from conservation organizations from several states, whose purpose is to evaluate sufficiency of native prairie seed, and to answer the dual questions of what constitutes “locally adapted seed”, and how much interest there is in taking steps to increase amounts of that seed. It seems that much of the research I was planning to do this winter is already in progress, and that I will have an early look at those results. The second part to the postscript is that temperatures have dropped about 40 degrees during the last 3-4 days, and some snow has fallen to be pushed around by the accompanying wind. My seed collection and spreading days are likely over until spring.

The view out my window this morning, January 14, at -20 degrees.

A 2023 Summary

After the emotional heights of the last two posts discussing my health history and issues, we return to more prosaic matters. How is my restoration going at the end of the fifth year after the original seeding? How has it changed over the past year; what do I think it can become, and what have I done this year to help it reach its potential?

First, the view from above, the big picture evaluation: The restoration continues to improve and become more diverse. The majority of the plants one sees are clearly from the original seeding in June of 2019, the seeding that was very disappointing in its distribution of seed across the 100 acres. Obviously, seeds from that seeding continued to germinate and many more plants became established in the second and third and even the fourth year. Areas that appeared barren in the summer of 2020 now have many plants obviously attributable to the original planting. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t benefitted from all the seed that I subsequently spread the next two years, responding to the disappointment of the terrible stand I saw in 2019 and 2020. There are only about 35 species that were in the mixes that went into the drill in 2019. I have now found about 130 native species on the 100 acres, and while a few are opportunistic travelers that have come from nearby pastures and roadsides, most are due to seed that I spread in several passes from the fall of 2018 to the fall of 2021. And, as I have written in the past, now that there will be a permanent easement on the restoration there will be an opportunity for competition and natural selection to decide what the composition will become. My job, which is clearly ongoing, is simply to provide the materials and management which allows these processes the latitude to work; for example: if porcupine grass is to become the dominant grass of the mesic swales (something I see in the relict prairies) I damn well need to get a beginning population of porcupine grass in those environments. Only then can it start to compete and increase; that potential has to come from somewhere.

Thus, I spend a lot of time wandering the restoration, both on my ATV and on foot, looking closely to see what species are growing in the different environments out there, and basically trying to visualize what is missing. Not everything is visible, at least not obvious enough for me to notice every year. In 2022, a year with good summer rain, it seemed new species were popping up everywhere. Many plants which likely had established in 2020 or 2021, finally bloomed in 2022 and became large enough to see. I identified many new species that I had not yet seen in the restoration. 2023 was a hot dry year, and many types of wildflowers failed to flower, or had a greatly reduced number of flowers, though there might have been just as many plants. While I have become proficient at identifying vegetative growth of many plants, I will overlook much if there are no blooms. This means that I don’t want to overreact to one year’s observations. I will, however now list a few of those observations, and then do some speculation. The observations:

1. I identified 10 new species in the restoration, which will be added to the original list I did a couple years ago, several of which are natural expansions from the nearby prairie, weedy species, if you will.
2. I saw many more examples of a number of species, notably leadplant, pasqueflower, meadow rue, mountain mint, prairie dropseed, silky aster and prairie smoke.
3. Conversely, I saw less of some species, notably blue lobelia, alumroot and early figwort. This might be real, or it could easily be a response to a prolonged period of hot, dry weather from late spring into early August.
4. Once more I transplanted about 750 seedlings of 12-15 species and once more I had poor survival, likely due to the stressful weather of early and mid-summer.
5. A significant portion of the transplanting was supposed to turn into a study comparing different sources of some of the milkvetches I am trying to increase. Neither the situation nor my ability to follow through with notes and documentation were up to the task and I have dropped the idea, though I continue to want to add plants of several species of milkvetch.
6. I am, however, applying for a Small Farmer/Rancher Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grant with Ben Lardy, where the bar measuring research results is much lower than academia, and hope to use it to jump start my new plan to use the restoration as a “living seed bank”.
7. Returning to the drought theme, I was unable to gather seed from the restoration, even of species which I had gathered in the past, because the amount of seed produced was very low. Good fall rain, however, has set up much brighter prospects for next year.
8. Good fall rain has also started a large crop of new wildflower seedlings, likely from seed that was produced on site last year. Survival into next year is not assured, but I am very optimistic that I will be gratified by what I see on the ground in the future.
9. Canada thistle is still the bane of my work, but I was very happy with the results of both the spot treating with herbicide, and with the simple competitive effect of the native plants, some mowing and the summer drought. The fall rain clearly rejuvenated the thistles, however, and I am still facing almost existential questions on management on the two newer restorations, where less native plant competition has allowed the thistles free play to thicken and spread. Similar observations hold on wormwood sage, but it is a less serious matter as wormwood doesn’t form the competitive patches that the thistles do.
10. These observations will inform future management, especially on the two 20 acre patches seeded in 2020 and 2022. I have been gratified by the amount of native forbs which have withstood the herbicide treatments applied in the past on the original restoration, which means that I can consider treating the worst patches with Milestone herbicide on the later restorations, those patches where I doubt that the thistles will allow establishment of the desired natives, It may necessitate some future re-seeding of sensitive native forbs, but I don’t have to feel I am engaging in scorched earth warfare if I spray some areas.
11. And I am definitely going to continue adding new seed, especially to areas that get burned to allow seed to get to the soil, this fall and next spring. This will likely continue as long as I am able.

If all this seems like micro-managing a large complicated system for which I have few guidelines, all I can say is that I agree. The Hippocratic Oath says, “First, do no harm,” and I am running the risk of making additions and modifications that are counterproductive, or at least unnecessary. Yet I keep coming back to the permanent easement, and what that demands of me. How can natural selection cause the landscape to develop richness and depth, or do the best job feeding birds, bees and microbes, or sequester the most carbon, and build the most resilient interconnected plant community if I haven’t supplied the entire spectrum of colors on the palette? How can meadow rue or slender milkvetch or silky aster fill their slots and do their jobs if there are none to begin the task? There are remnant prairies nearby to give me an idea of what some of the possible answers are, but as the climate changes the right answers to problems will change too. A beautiful, productive restoration that provides many ecological services with 30 species now might be woefully insufficient to the challenges of 20 or 50 or 100 years from now. To provide 130 species might not even be enough, but it’s a damn sight better than 30 species. And I am 68, not 28, so if I am going to be doing something I better get to it. Even though I may not know what is best I think I can figure out what is better than what I now have. And if I have success on this 100 acres I have plenty more land to work on, starting with the two 20 acre patches seeded in 2020 and 2022. The business author Tom Peters says, “Ready! Fire! Aim!” It is better to do something you can evaluate and modify than to wait until you know what you should do. That day may never come.

Thus, I hope to get some seed spread this fall. I have already given Dr. Lora Perkins, my friend with the greenhouse space at SDSU, batches of seed of about 20 species from which she will start seedlings in early 2024 for transplanting into the restoration. I also just received a summary of species in seed batches gathered by a new collaborator, Levi Waddell, which includes many species that I do not yet have. I will spread some on the fall burn now, and if I am lucky we will get more spread next spring and I will see results in the future. Ben has gotten a start on burning about 40 acres this fall, and perhaps 20 more next spring. Though this year’s work is not yet complete I am developing plans for next year. If not now, when? Or as we would say to each other in college on a Friday night, “Lets do something, even if it’s wrong.” And maybe there will be wonderful new things to report at the end of 2024.

Finally, what do I think it can become? That is a loaded question. My hopes and expectations seem to change every year as I think of new possibilities. The hope is that it can exemplify what is possible, of what some planning, management, persistence and yes, some cash, can do to tease out the maximum ecosystem services possible from an unproductive piece of farmground. My expectations aren’t quantifiable, at least not yet. However, I think it can become more; I think it can become better; I passionately believe it can become spectacular! What fun it is to chase those goals!

P.S. Earlier in this post I referenced porcupine grass as an example of a species I needed to become more common and more generally established on the restoration. This afternoon, after finishing the first draft of this post this morning, I spent an hour flinging the little spears around the 2-3 acres that Ben has burned so far, an appropriate site for porcupine grass as it turned out, and not an area where I have yet seen any. A small step, but it will be great fun to come back to that area in the future to see if I accomplished my goal.

Auditioning for the Second Act

My cancer treatments began soon after my 51st birthday in early November, 2006 and ended in late February, 2007. A hospital bed had been moved into our house and I spent my days watching cooking and travel shows on television (a useless exercise because I was feeding myself canned food through a tube in my stomach and had no idea if I would ever eat again, and I certainly wasn’t planning any vacation trips), and going through mountains of towels as I coughed up the gunk that continually formed in and clogged my throat. Life progresses and things change, however, and within a few weeks I was venturing outside for short walks and drove myself to town to get groceries. One goal was to present myself as healing and improving to my 86 year old mother, who had undoubtedly suffered greatly worrying about me. I began to eat a few things after a couple months, and, being a good Polish woman, she was thrilled when she was able to feed me some potato soup. My wife, Linda, had been on crutches for a bad knee since the late stages of my treatments, and after a few weeks I was able to drive her to her arthroscopic surgery and return a small amount of the care she had shown me the past few months.

A big question mark was whether I would attain the stamina to work, and what sort of activities I would be able to engage in. I went to visit a consulting client out in a new wheat field in early May, when I still had need of a lot of healing and likely didn’t look very robust, and he told me, “Don’t worry about coming out to look at my crops. You need to rest and recuperate. I’ll still pay you and we can visit by phone.” I reassured him I planned to fulfill my duties, but had tears in my eyes from his generous offer. I found myself much more emotional than I had been in the past, greatly touched by everything I experienced. Another activity that I was able to undertake was to attend my older daughter Anna’s college graduation party. I was even able to be useful conversing with a socially inept Spanish professor that I entertained for over an hour so that Anna could have fun with other guests. This party, about ten weeks after treatments ended, was also the first time I ate a complete meal since early the first week of radiation four months before. I was able to fly out to the Front Range of Colorado to attend a board meeting of the farmer-owned commercial baking business that I served on, and renew my contributions, as well as re-join active participation on the board of directors of the local ethanol plant and the board of a prospective wind farm of which I was the president and leader. Of course, I also had two young, adult daughters to parent and a wife to try to be a good partner with. I had a busy life to return to and decided I would just see how jumping back into the various activities went.

One might reasonably ask why I didn’t cut back; why didn’t I engage in triage and kick some things to the roadside? To be honest, I’m not sure. I considered all the activities both important and enjoyable. I also am an incorrigible optimist, and while I was professing agnosticism regarding the remission of my cancer my subconscious was undoubtedly planning for a full, speedy recovery and a long life. In any case, I do remember having the thought that I would revisit the topic of my career after I was completely healed up and had gone through the next several months to learn my capabilities. Why can’t we have it all?

Here’s why. Mayo scheduled me for monthly visits, including various scans, for the next year, In June I asked for an extra visit because of a hard pimple on my neck that wasn’t going away. I was shoehorned in for an appointment immediately, and after first reassuring me that it was unlikely to be significant, Dr. Olsen zeroed in on the hard pimple with a look of concern. Being a dedicated surgeon he pulled a scalpel out of his pocket, sterilized it and excised a small piece of tissue on the spot. There was no need of numbing the area because surgery and radiation had killed all the nerves three months before and my neck was a block of unfeeling wood. He obviously didn’t like the look of the tissue and sent it off for biopsy. Linda and I went to a local park that evening and had a perfectly miserable time waiting to hear the results. Dr. Olsen was also an optimist, and a very confident surgeon, and his obvious concern was very worrying. A return visit the next day confirmed that the same cancer had returned, and Dr. Olsen scheduled a small surgery the next week to excise a larger area. When I left he clapped me on the shoulder and in a resigned tone said, “Good luck, sir.” I had been told many times that they were firing all their ammunition on the big combined treatment that I had completed, and would basically have no shells left to shoot if the cancer came back.

No shells except for cutting more pieces from my body, that is. Because we caught it so early, attributable to my self-exam, Linda’s immediate concurrence and Dr. Olsen’s quick, efficient work, the tiny tumor was cut out so quickly that there was no sign of spread or metastasis. My surgeon felt very confident that he had removed all the cancerous tissue, checking each slice immediately for cancer cells, an ability you have when you work at Mayo Clinic. We were likely less confident than Dr. Olsen, but we went home and delved deeply into life again.

One of the effects of the cancer treatments was the aforementioned secretions that my radiated throat tissue kept producing. During the day this was merely a bother, necessitating a constant stock of towels and tissues to cough into. My throat was restricted to the size of a pea, and the secretions would interfere with both eating and breathing. This was a much larger issue at night. For many months I would be up for 30-60 minutes coughing several times a night, hoping to get five or six hours of fragmented sleep over a nine or ten hour night. Humidity kept the secretions looser and easier to get out, so Linda built a plastic tent around my bed with a humidifier inside so I slept in a fog. Still, I regularly woke up because your brain will not allow you to sleep if you aren’t getting enough oxygen. I would have the most interesting dreams as my subconscious tried to wake me up by changing the trajectory of the dream that was already occurring, so that it could shake me from slumber. There were several recurring themes. One was fire, usually spontaneous combustion of parts of whatever building I was in. If I was in a vehicle in my dream either the road became very dangerous, or the vehicle would suddenly go out of my control and start flying sideways down embankments or trying to climb dangerous cliffs. Another theme was being lost; I would wander endless hallways and go through unmarked doors trying to get out of buildings that had seemed so familiar and easily managed when I entered. The overarching thread was that things were out of control and I needed to do something to regain control, like wake up and start breathing better. Unfortunately, not much upsets me, and I was never worried in these dreams, just confused and perhaps a little peeved that things were going so badly. My stoic Nordic personality runs very deep, it seems. Whether it was my house starting on fire, or my car spinning out of control as it accelerated or finding myself completely lost in a labyrinthine building, my dream self just kept trying to figure things out, until my brain said, “Enough! Wake up you silly SOB!” and I would awaken feeling ill and short of air.

The final story of that first year regards the feeding tube that stuck out of my stomach. By late summer my proficiency at eating was such that the decision was made to take out the feeding tube. When it was installed it was threaded down my throat and out through a hole cut in my stomach. Doing it in this manner allowed a very small incision in my stomach, as the trailing end of the tube had a “bumper” which kept it from coming out through the hole that had been cut. When I arrived for the procedure I was chatted up by the charming, pretty young nurse. She told me they could quickly set up for a minor surgery to enlarge the hole to take out the tube which would entail a partial anesthetic and an overnight stay for observation, or if I was willing to put up with some momentary discomfort they could just pull the tube out, causing the bumper to collapse and come through. I don’t remember exactly how she put it, but the gist was that a big, strong man like me could handle it easily and go home the same day. She was possibly battling her eyelashes a bit, though my memory fails me here. And isn’t every guy a sucker for that schtick? Well, this guy was, and I agreed.

She asked me to go in the next room where a no-nonsense middle aged nurse (the charming young woman was on to other scams) got me a gown and told me to sit in the recliner. I sat alone for a few minutes until a muscular young guy came in. He obviously worked out regularly, his biceps bulging out of the t-shirt he wore, but had little to say. He put on sterile gloves, the other people who had been around disappeared and he hovered above me. He wrapped the tube around his fingers, got a good grip, braced himself, and finally spoke, “I assume they told you this is really going to hurt.” Before I could reply he gave a big yank. Kaboom!!!! The world exploded in my head as I felt like I had been shot, or at least kicked in my stomach by an elephant. The world went black and I quit breathing. The tube (and probably some stomach fluids) came flying out, For the only time in my life I saw the proverbial stars, tried to resume breathing, and assumed there must be a gaping hole in my stomach now, like a cartoon image of a cannonball going through my body. After a couple minutes I could see again and had wiped the tears from my eyes to gingerly examine the damage. I looked down as the middle aged nurse, who had returned to the room, put a glorified band aid over a very small, unimpressive hole. She told me that healing was very quick and asked if I needed anything else in a matter of fact tone. I had to admit that the procedure was very quick, and the pain was already subsiding. She gave me a Tylenol, walked away, and left me to gather my wits, get dressed and leave, booted out so the staff could move on to more important issues.

There are many more stories, but I will leave them untold as I am suspicious they are only interesting to me. For the next several years I settled into a routine, which wasn’t necessarily an easy routine, working around issues with breathing, eating, anemia, stamina and muscle spasms and cramping. People are adaptable, though, and if issues and their “work-arounds” are predictable enough we build them into our schedules and develop that routine. Ten years in I had an episode where my tiny throat got plugged by the husk from a kernel of corn and ended up with a trachaeostomy. Food leakage into my lungs after the trach was put in eventually led to regular bouts of pneumonia caused by bacteria which were becoming drug resistant. A laryngectomy was performed (that story was told in an earlier post “And Then the World Changed”), which meant I lost the ability to speak, so that now I do all my communicating by writing notes, texting, email and a sort of quasi-game of charades I play with gestures and facial contortions. I have probably taken close to 20 trips to ER’s, the past few years, though I admit we pull the trigger on an ER visit pretty quickly now. My mind is always preoccupied with figuring out how to get through the day accomplishing something positive with my beat up body.

But the overarching theme here is NOT that I have a hard life. I have enumerated a few of my challenges not to be pitiful or even worse, to seem noble. The point, very simply, is that it can work. The point is that we can live a good and satisfying life while dealing with some distractions and barriers. It can be bloody difficult, and bloody wonderful at the same time. I have been able to do a spectacular amount of things during the past 17 years. I was able to be a husband, father, and now grandfather (very soon to a third grandchild). I was able to manage my business and continue a career so that we have some resources for our retirement. I was able to help bury two parents, who didn’t have to do that for me, and to be there for the decline and passing of my older sister, Earlene, and my niece, Katie. And now, though my work days are short and sporadic, I am able to engage in my grand retirement project of 200 acres of prairie restorations and hoping to be a vehicle for inducing others to consider my path.

I’ve been able to visit both my daughters while they studied in Europe. I was able to go to India to meet my son-in law’s family, and then to participate in a glorious Indian wedding. I was able to dance with my younger daughter at her wedding two years ago. I have held two newborn grandchildren in my arms, am now watching them grow into wonderful human beings, and am giddy with the hope of doing it again very soon with a third grandchild. And I have been able to hold my girlfriend of 43 years in my arms as well, so she can know how much she is loved.

The point, again, to beat it into the ground, is that LIFE IS WONDERFUL!!! Life is enormous! Life has more possibilities than we can comprehend! A person’s life can be a path to love, to heroism, to peace, and ultimately to transcendence. The cancer aftermath could have gone so much worse, as I might not have beaten the cancer, or I could have become an invalid in constant pain. I certainly considered those outcomes, and I accepted them as part of the Faustian deal I was making. Except my deal wasn’t for ultimate wisdom and riches as in the story of Faustus, but for just what I have gotten, seventeen very good years. What have I had to give in return for this second act? My strength, my patience, my stamina and my mindful attention to my body; I simply give everything that I have. But what a deal!!! What a fucking spectacular deal!!! And if I am both lucky and good, after these seventeen years, maybe a few more. We humans are a greedy bunch and I admit that as great as seventeen years has been, I hope to be able to write a follow-up to this post ten years from now. But first, there’s today, and then tomorrow. What an amazing thing it is to be able to look forward to the next morning! I can already taste the first sip of coffee and I can hardly wait.

Seventeen Years, Seventeen Good Years

In various blog posts I often end with a reference to my dodgy health and physical condition. Aging is clearly a part of this, but much of what I refer to goes back to the cancer that was found 17 years ago, and particularly to the effects of the cancer treatments which have given me these last 17 years. Life is full of yin and yang, and there are a thousand sayings referring to the idea that there are inevitably both positives and negatives inherent in any action or event. Here’s how this all fits into the tale of my health since 2006.

I was visiting some friends in late summer of 2006 when Gail mentioned I was swollen at the top of my neck on both sides, and that I might want to have it checked by a doctor. I had been feeling run down and agreed, assuming swollen lymph glands might be a sign of an infection or illness. Several visits to a couple different doctors over a couple months led to a thoughtful reference to an infectious disease specialist in Fargo, North Dakota, a couple hours drive north of me. The doctor took one look, made no recommendation or diagnosis, but told me he was making an immediate appointment that afternoon with an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist for me. A very short exam led to a preliminary diagnosis of throat cancer and a further appointment for a tonsillectomy which would be used for a biopsy. It was a very long and dreary ride home with phone calls to make to my daughters and other family. To say that Linda and I were subdued or thoughtful is to grossly underestimate the impact of a diagnosis of a spreading cancer.

The return visit to the ENT was no better. The removed tonsils were filled with a tumor of squamous cell cancer, a CT scan showed probable spread to lymph tissue, and I had at least stage 3, and very possibly stage 4 metastatic cancer. In response to my inquiry, he even made the comment that I had less than a 50-50 chance to survive five more years. At my first visit he had talked up the cancer treatment facility that resided in the same building, but after looking at the scans and the biopsy, he told us that I should go to Mayo Clinic which would be better able to deal with my case. When we got home I did my own research reading various medical journal articles on treatments for my cancer, and it looked even more grim, as the articles made it look like a successful treatment meant that I might live for two years rather than one. None of the articles mentioned full remission of the cancer. I didn’t lose hope, however, because of two things: medical trials are done on volunteers whose cancer is quite advanced, and were likely to be older and less healthy than I was, and published articles are often referring to research done several years before. There might be new ideas that I didn’t see.

Two weeks later we made the first of what would become dozens of visits to Rochester, Minnesota, where the original, and largest Mayo Clinic facility resides. Linda and I went into the office of Dr. Kerry Olsen, an ENT specializing in cancer surgery and treatments. In contrast to the gloom of the visit in Fargo, he was upbeat, confident and straight forward. He had seen many situations like mine and had recently been part of a team which had developed a new treatment for my cancer. Was this a recently developed chemo drug or an innovation in gene therapy? Or perhaps an implant of a radioactive treatment that promised to be my salvation? No, it was simply using the same coarse tools that had been used for years: 1) surgery to remove cancerous tissue, 2) radiation to kill growing cells, and 3) chemotherapy, with an old drug, also to kill growing cells (Much of cancer therapy revolves around the fact that cancer tumors are growing faster and using more resources than other tissues. If you engage in an action that harms growing tissue it will disproportionately harm the tumor. Collateral damage to other growing or metabolically active tissue is the yang to the yin of killing the cancer.). The trick was simply to do it all at once, and with maximum intensity, getting a synergistic effect, so that the cancer cells not removed by surgery would get a double or triple whammy and their demise enhanced. In effect it was the “bigger hammer” option, as in “When all else fails, get a bigger hammer.” Treatments would not last for months, as they often do for other cancers, but only six weeks, once I had recovered enough from surgery to get radiation and chemotherapy.

After my visit with Dr. Olsen I was sent to the radiation oncologist and the medical oncologist (who prescribes chemo and monitors your health to make sure you can keep receiving treatments). All three echoed the same story. I would have a very serious, extensive surgery that might lead to more surgeries to fix the damage done by the first surgery, that they would beat the living daylights out of me with a lifetime dose of radiation and high dose chemotherapy, and that they would cure the cancer. I might never work again. I might never eat again. I would likely lose my saliva and my teeth. People even died occasionally from the treatments. Did I want to go forward and allow them to do this? The answer was easy. Of course I did. Even diminished I could be a husband and a father. I doubt anyone says “no” to their presentation. What else can a person do?

Thus, two weeks later I returned to have my radiation mask created and more scans done to pinpoint cancerous areas. Mayo had just installed new machines that were able to pinpoint radiation treatments to very specific points in my neck, but that would only be helpful if tumors were correctly located and if I were severely restricted in my movement so that the narrow beam of radioactive particles hit the cancer tumors and missed as much healthy tissue as possible. So my head and neck were draped with strips of a soft pliable plastic that would harden as they cooled and dried to become a stiff mask conforming perfectly to my head, neck and shoulders. I just had to lay very still while it hardened. Of course they left my nostrils open, but as I remember even my eyes had strips that meant it was almost impossible to open my eyelids when I was clamped in. My head and neck were not to move.

I received the big surgery, ended up in an emergency room back home from complications, lost a lot of weight, found out that I have an allergic reaction to opiates that made accepting the post surgical pain preferable to the meds, and generally felt that I likely had seen the worst of it, a mistaken illusion. After a month of healing I went back to Mayo to live for six weeks while I received radiation and chemo. The chemotherapy occurred the first day of treatment, three weeks later, and on my last day of treatment, two liters of Cisplatin each time. And every weekday for six weeks I would give one of my blues cd’s to the technician to play as distracting music and lay on the table to get clamped in to receive radiation for half an hour. The radiation gun moved around in a pattern that had been programmed by my radiation oncologist and shot radioactive particles into 17 different locations in my throat, neck and the lower part of my head. I was lucky that I had no problem with claustrophobia as many people needed sedatives to remain calm and motionless in the mask while the treatments occurred. Radiation is a funny thing in that you feel nothing while it occurs, but the cumulative effect of over a month of high dose radiation is massive. By the second week I was basically unable to eat anything. Food was not just lacking taste, but was indescribably offensive. It was an evil substance that my body and spirit just refused. One would think that I could just suck down a few nutrition drinks, but by the end of the second week I was struggling to get 500 calories a day, and by the end of the third week even that was impossible. Had I been able to force myself to eat, it would not have helped as I could no longer swallow, my damaged throat tissues making so much mucus that it was choking me, coughing gobs of mucus into towels every few minutes 24/7.

I lost so much weight that my space age mask could no longer hold me in a perfect position for the fancy radiation machine, and the technicians basically “shimmed me up” putting cloths below my now skinny neck to try to keep me properly positioned and immobile. During the fourth week the most painful aspect of the treatment began. The skin on my neck and shoulders deteriorated and sloughed off, until raw meat was showing through the cracks. Linda would apply the ointments and compresses while I cried out, so that once I was protected I could go out to face the next radiation treatment or visit to a caregiver. I had also just received the second big dose of chemo, so my general physical state and my energy were at rock bottom the fourth and fifth weeks. I was the walking dead. During the fourth week my medical oncologist decided that I had lost too much weight and was in danger of not finishing the treatments, and a tube was inserted directly into my stomach so that I could receive liquid nutrition, bypassing both my damaged throat and my even more damaged appetite. That, however, was a real turning point. I would sit in the recliner with the bag of food mounted on an IV stand dripping into my stomach. I could just as well say a bag of strength, or a bag of energy, or even a bag of determined optimism. The difference in mind and body when you are receiving 1500 calories each day in comparison to when you are getting 150 calories per day is incredible. Even amid the pain and lack of sleep the world became bright and desirable again. I think the food even helped my radiation burns heal, as they seemed less painful the sixth, and last, week of treatments.

I walked to get my last dose of chemo on a bright late winter day with what felt like a bounce in my step. Something I had doggedly tried to do, even through the worst of the treatments was to acknowledge those around me; to say please and thank you and to look people in the eye and smile so that the words seemed genuine. I’m not sure that I was able to always do that in my zombie state, but without the ability to do anything else, it was a minute by minute goal, starting with always being polite to my wife, Linda. Still, I am sure there was rarely much conviction behind the words. One becomes totally divorced from what we usually think of as the real world in the throes of such medical treatments, and focusing upon the people I came in contact with was a way to keep a tenuous relationship with the world. I lacked the strength, though, to project my feelings, until the last day of treatments. My smile was very genuine that last day.

And then it was over. All through the treatments I had been unable to entertain a thought that seems innocuous now: the number of radiation treatments remaining. I could keep track of how many I had received, but not how many were left; it was just too daunting – until the next to last day. Suddenly my brain allowed me to go into the radiation waiting room and think, “After today there’s only one more.” I went in for the last one with what I believed to be a big smile, and walked out into the sunshine as if I was leaving prison, even though I still had the last chemo treatment to endure. I was weak as a kitten, having lost 65# over the four months since the tonsillectomy, and would not be able to sleep for more than 15-20 minutes at a stretch for months, but I felt the scales falling from my eyes, allowing me to see the world again. I truly felt reborn, but as a newborn I had to figure out how to live in the world. Unlike many people less fortunate I had a second act to develop. That will be the topic of the next post.

Springtime fun

Earlier this year I posted a couple short essays on some of the things that I hoped to accomplish this year. The overarching theme was a narrowing of focus to developing the restoration into a source of material for other restorations of “hard to access” species found in my prairies. That will mean choosing species to focus on, finding alternative seed sources to broaden the genetic base available for the future and to increase populations in order to both allow evolution to wield its ratchet and to provide a significant seed source for others. Thus, my goals in order of emphasis are: 1.) Creating a living seed bank of a group of species adapted to this area, 2.) Use my restorations as a site for encouragement, experimentation, education and a hub for building a community of restoration practitioners, and 3.) Integrate the restoration with the larger neighborhood and cattle grazing to maximize ecosystem services. Here’s one of the experiments.

The opening picture is a typical prairie hillside in my pasture. It’s bookended by a couple Nuttall’s violets (Viola nuttallii), with several bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata) and several other small forbs just starting to peek through. The grassy types are Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), needleleaf sedge (Carex diuruscula), prairie junegrass (Koeleria macrantha) and lots of blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis). The area is mostly brown because the blue grama is a warm season species just beginning to send out a few leaves. This is an assemblage that I am hoping to recreate in my restoration because it is so obviously well adapted to my gravelly hills, but most of the forbs/wildflowers are almost impossible to get as purchased seed, and damn hard to gather. Thus, one of my experiments this year is to try a few transplants. Below is one attempt.

As you can see the attempt wasn’t very successful. It’s not as bad as it looks, though, as the violet wasn’t the primary target. the bastard toadflax was. Underneath the soil is perhaps 10 inches of toadflax rhizome which will likely put up a shoot after a while. Rhizomes are much more resilient than a flowering plant is, and I expect it is just fine. In a couple other transplant sites I combined a clump of the needleleaf sedge to see how well that transplants. In all these cases some soil from the relict prairie came along, but the plants were basically bare root transplants. Realizing that my work was a bit shoddy, the next day I replaced my trowel with a tiling spade as my tool of choice and took the time to dig out a larger clump of plants and soil. In the clump below, in addition to the little violet and the toadflax I have a bit of stiff sunflower (also a rhizomatous species), a needleleaf sedge (which is most of the grassy material) and an invisible blanketflower. The sedge is very densely rooted, which meant that digging the clump was difficult, but that once I had it out the 9″ by 6″ by 2.5″ deep island held together and planted easily. I have high hopes for this and flagged it so that it will be easy to observe later. I also cut out a similar sized clump of northern bedstraw (Galium boreale) and split it in half to plant in a couple appropriate spots. The magic of these rhizomatous plants is that they often spread very quickly. A few transplants can make a significant impact after some years. That’s the hope anyway. The ubiquity of these plants across the gravel hills argues for their evolutionary fitness in those sites. They will compete and likely spread. Given the opportunity, they could prosper. Assuming that at least some of the transplants live, I think that takes me pretty close to 130 species in the restoration now.

It’s hard to do very much of this, though. I have limited time and energy, and need to segue into the big project of transplanting several hundred milkvetch seedlings soon. With some help I hope to do a few more relocations, however, and who knows about the future.? If all goes well I have several more targets for some local redistribution. Below is a pussytoes (likely Antennaria neglecta), another rhizomatous plant that makes clonal colonies. And below that is textile onion (Allium textile), which is not rhizomatous, but with the onion bulb for food storage and shallow roots, should be a good candidate for transplanting. Onions are extremely hardy to store and transplant in a garden, and I’m hoping their wild brethren are as well.

It all makes me wonder what the next goals will be. While the changes are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, several turns of the wheel have created a very different plan, with outcomes needing different actions, than what I envisioned four or five years ago. In effect, I keep creating new iterations of a business plan to maximize the benefits (analogous to profits) possible with the resources available to me. Hovering over all of it are my physical infirmities, which could preclude the implementation of the plan, and practically insure a new iteration in another year or two. For now, this is the path for 2023. As the poet Dylan Thomas wrote:

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

That may seem a bit dramatic for the circumstances, and I may have used the line in an earlier post. No matter. It fits how I feel about my life and the task I have set for myself. What I hope becomes an epic field season has begun.

Progress on the 2023 Plan

I’m stuck inside on the last day of March waiting for the latest blizzard of our interminable winter and thought I’d update the status of my spring plans given in a post written after the first of the year. Are the series of actions mentioned in that post on track to be completed?

Considering that my health and the relentlessly crappy weather shown above (we have more yet to come), has limited my activities this winter, I think that I have made good progress on multiple fronts. The components, again, are threefold. First, I need to find and prepare locally adapted seed that can be spread over the two latest 20 acre restorations, especially the piece that was seeded last fall. The preparation includes scarifying (abrading the seed coats) of legumes that I will be seeding and stratification (trying to mimic the effect of winter to overcome the natural dormancy of many species by putting them in a moist, cold environment for a period of time). As I type this I have a couple containers in our entry ready to use for that and a big bag of vermiculite to use as the soil substitute. And what of the seed? I have some seed unwittingly saved back from the fall seeding by the unorganized way in which it was labeled and stored. I have also bought about 12 species from our local supplier that were ostensibly purchased from locally gathered seed. I don’t mean to impugn the integrity of the supplier; however, I am not confident they were all gathered from native stands. Rather, they may have been purchased from people gathering from local pollinator plots of unknown provenance. Locally sourced doesn’t have to mean local genetics. My goals will never be furthered by my being overly suspicious, however, and thus I spent a fair amount of money to get some of the “local” seed. Out of twelve species, eleven are from within 70-80 miles of here. The one exception is heath aster (Symphyotricum ericoides) which I could obtain only if I accepted Iowa sourced seed. This will lead to perhaps 15 gallons of seed and vermiculite mix which can be spread over appropriate areas.

One of those appropriate areas, in addition to the 20 acres that were seeded last fall, is a portion of the older restoration which will be burned this spring, the second task I hope to complete. The burn can stand on its own as a management technique, but I hope to achieve even more by taking the opportunity to spread stratified seed over several of the burned acres as an experiment in augmenting diversity. The 60 acres which will be burned includes most of the area with the greatest diversity on the restoration, but there are several acres of mesic soil which are less diverse, primarily filled with the forbs which were purchased for the original CRP seeding. Thus, there are about 15 species of wildflower which at first glance give the appearance of a kick-ass pollinator plot. And so it may be, but I am going to see if I can make it something more. One of my tubs will include the 11-12 species, plus some of my leftover gathered seed. Very few of what is probably 20 species of wildflower are found in the area to be seeded after the fire. My hope is that the the combination of the fire, stratified seed, and perhaps a roller to get the seed down to the ground, will give the seedlings enough of a start to compete with the regrowth, and I will double the number of wildflowers there.

Linda and I recently drove to Nebraska to see the sandhill crane migration and had the opportunity to visit with Chris Helzer of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) at their Platte River Prairies. TNC has restored several thousand acres along the Platte under Chris’ leadership and we had a very enlightening visit with Chris on how to keep the prairies vibrant with grazing, fire and topdressing additional seed. Chris thought my plan reasonable, except that I wouldn’t be able to use the best tool to keep the burn regrowth from outcompeting the new seedlings – cattle – which would graze the grass regrowth. Though it will likely be less effective than grazing, I am afraid I will just line up mowing for the site and accept the results that I get.

The third project, and the one which will get the most attention this spring is the planting of several hundred seedling plugs into areas of existing restoration. I will concentrate on the new seeding where competition will be minimal, but plan to attempt to get new plants into a total of 40-50 acres, including 20-30 acres of restored prairie seeded four years ago. The first step in that process is already occurring in Brookings where Dr. Lora Perkins’ project has started the seeds. I hope to get down there next week to see what has germinated and whether I will have enough seedlings. If not, there is still time to ask if her crew can start more. I am ready to take on more not because I am looking for more work, but because I have some help lined up. My prairie partner Ben’s wife, Kelli, gave up a job to take care of their new baby, but would be willing to be hired to come help on the planting project (and on gathering seed later in the summer). If we assume that she can plant 60 seedlings in a day, which might be optimistic because all the crouching can be hard on one’s knees and ankles, then 6-8 days of work will take care of most of the seedlings. If my young friend Bri can also give me some help we might get to where I only have 200-300 to put in myself, about what I did last spring. The task is starting to look less like a mountain to summit and more like a reasonable hill to climb. Once again, to go all Beatles on you, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

The picture above shows my task for the rest of the day, with the white bags containing various wildflower seeds. It will be nice to feel that I can accomplish something today.