Future

When I began the thought train that led to the decision to do a big prairie restoration, my goals were fairly well defined, and definitely prompted by my daughter’s master’s thesis characterizing prairies where Dakota skipper butterflies, a federally threatened species, had been found. I had a friend come out and a few skippers have been found on my prairies, and that cemented the idea that a legacy I would leave the world was enhanced and enlarged Dakota skipper habitat. As I have written before, in a post titled, “The Ten Year Plan”, the more comprehensive list of goals would include:

1. Pollinator Habitat. Much of this was planted as pollinator habitat under the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) with emphasis from me on species used by Dakota skipper butterflies
2. Water Quality Protection. The 100 acre restoration is part of a closed drainage which ends up in Bitter Lake, a large (approximately 10000 acre) lake about two miles from the restoration. Because of the nature of the soils, though, most of the water which doesn’t leave through evapotranspiration or runoff actually ends up in the aquifer, so we are protecting both the aquifer and Bitter Lake with the project.
3. Erosion Control. This can obviously be a water quality issue, but the rolling sandy hills covering most of the site are clearly at risk from both water and wind erosion and productivity of those hills is predicated upon keeping and rebuilding the soil.
4. Wildlife Habitat. Grassland dependent birds including bobolinks, dickcissels, grasshopper sparrows, upland sandpipers, sharptail grouse (all of which I have already seen in the restoration) and others are a category that has been documented as generally declining, and the hope is to provide a boost to local populations.
5. Carbon Sequestration. The low tillage rotation used by the renter of my farmground is almost certainly already sequestering some carbon, but the use of the full growing season, the lack of disturbance, the absence of the use of fertilizer, tillage and other crop inputs and the buildup of perennial root growth will certainly create a more stable pool of organic matter to sequester carbon. Prairies provide climate change resilient carbon sequestration.
6. A place to wander and enjoy, perhaps to achieve peace.

This was all very salutory and a good story, but as time has gone by I have realized that I haven’t been thinking big enough, and there was more to gain from the restoration, and from other work that I was doing on the farm. Once more, some of this has gone into past posts, but I think it worthwhile to list and summarize my thoughts here. My goals have expanded to:

1. Extend the reach of local xeric-adapted biotypes of plants, especially forbs, and thus their attendant pollinators, seed predators, and perhaps microbial partners. A big revelation to me in the last ten years, and thus a big emphasis for my plans, has been the realization that forb diversity in most native prairies in my area is very low. This is true because of overgrazing, but even more true because of the resultant broadcasting of herbicides and the ultra-competitive nature of two introduced grasses, smooth brome and Kentucky bluegrass. Smooth brome, in particular, has the ability in mesic soils to form thick stands that approach monocultures. This is less true, however, in the xeric, gravel hills of my prairies. Even overgrazing, if not combined with flying on broadleaf herbicides, tends to leave a large amount of native forbs, though often in very subdued growth habit. I rather like my tough forbs, and like to think they have value out of proportion to their often humble size and appearance, and so I have been gathering significant amounts of native seed from both my prairies and a few others that I have access to and am attempting to give them some spiffy new “digs” in my restorations. A larger gene pool in proximity allows more possibilities for favorable mutations and crosses; it can in effect enhance the evolutionary capability of my local genotypes. And I am trying to be careful not to be too parochial in my approach, by bringing in seed gathered from other prairies which might provide valuable genetics.

2. To take this idea a step farther, I am looking to establish “Foundation Seed” plots of some of seed that I gather from some of these species to grow out and give the opportunity to harvest larger amounts of seed, potentially for use by other restorers of prairie. I have begun discussions with my young partner Ben to begin a business (though not a business I have any expectations of profit from) to accomplish this goal.

3. Develop an evolving plan to integrate this restoration with some other restoration work I am doing on my farm and with the native prairies and the crop ground. With a neighbor we can then add livestock (the neighbor is already grazing several pastures on my farm) and create a whole farm plan to maximize the various ecosystem services provided by the land. As confidence hopefully builds that we are on the right track we may be able to add some of the neighbor’s acres to the plan.

4. Use my 587acres, the entire farm, as a research/demonstration/educational site. This could be for conservation professionals; it could be for other farmers; it could be used for school groups; it could be a site for someone’s masters thesis research. I know that I am not going to be the person able to manage this aspect down the road; not having a voice anymore makes some of these tasks awkward, However, I can work toward presenting the work and the opportunity to interested parties, and some possibilities might come clear.

So here is the layout which I have to work with, which doesn’t include 62 acres of CRP and hayland in the section to the west which has been fenced in the last couple weeks and will be grazed very soon. There are management decisions large and small which I need to work through over the next few months. The actions I am taking this year are pretty well decided and in progress, but I am starting a discovery process which will hopefully include input from many other people to think through actions to be taken next year. The next post will be after a brainstorming meeting I am hosting at the site with several conservation professionals which may provide some insight into my future actions so I will end here and pick this up again in a couple weeks. Who knows what might be illuminated by the ferment of discussion and argument? A really crappy paraphrase of Socrates would be that “Wisdom is revealed in the dialectic,” which simply means that several minds working together in verbal give and take can sometimes do what individual minds can’t do. I end with the requisite pretty pictures of the goal. These were taken on a hill in my hayland which was burned this spring, just to the west of the restoration. I don’t know how long it might take to achieve this in my restorations, though I am confident that I will never see it. Still, it is a lovely image to dream about; a goal to aspire to.

Beginning of July

It has now been three years since the original seeding on the restoration and this will be an update and documentation of where we are now, July 1, 2021. I was heartbroken observing the seeding the first fall in October, 2018, as it was obvious that 80-90% of the seed had ended up on about half the seeding. Providentially, I had been gathering seed all that year, a year with good seed production, and mixed that with several thousand dollars worth of seed that I purchased to spread. Before I talk more about that, this is probably a good time to resurrect the map of the seeding I made that fall evaluating what had happened and what I hoped to do about it.

Zone 1 is the area where almost all the seed dropped during the original seeding. It’s an area of gently rolling, silt to sandy loam soils, fairly mesic, and most of it has a dense stand of the 30 species that went into the seed mix approved by the NRCS. It is literally jam packed with all the cheap, adaptable species which fill up pollinator plots all over the Dakotas and Minnesota. Maximillian sunflower, yellow coneflower, brown eyed susan, blanketflower, gray headed coneflower, horsemint, new england aster, yarrow, purple praire clover, false sunflower, golden alexander, hoary vervain, canada milkvetch, shell leaf penstemon and a few more forbs join with eight or ten grasses to make what looks like a wonderful restoration. And as packed with plants as it is I have spread very little additional seed on this area. Here’s a couple views of what it looks like right now, the last week of June.

There’s more Canada thistles than I would like to see, a few patches of which I am spraying with Milestone herbicide to allow at least the grasses to compete for the space. But this was basically beyond helping with additional seed by the first fall. Does this provide the ecological services I hope the restoration provides? Welllll, some of them. It certainly provides food for pollinators; its in a bit of a lull between the early bloomers and the mid summer blooms, but there is a lot of pollen and nectar produced here. It will sequester carbon like a bandit, and provides wonderful ground cover for a lot of life. What’s not to like? We will put that discussion off until we get to Zone 3.

But first to Zone 2. Generally Zone 2 is in more xeric soils than the silt loam of Zone 1. It got a reasonable seeding rate, probably about what it was supposed to get. Two years ago it looked a bit barren compared to Zone 1, but as more seed has germinated (and we have probably lost some of the excess plants from Zone 1) it has come to look just fine. Here’s a couple images.

Because there was much more room for additional seedlings fall of 2018, almost all of Zone 2 got the full component of gathered and purchased seed spread over the top as a second seeding, and we have a smattering of local genotypes in with the bulk of the purchased seed. I am pleased with most of this area, which will look a lot different in a couple years as the bunchgrasses expand their footprint and most of the ground surface gets cover. Species I see in this zone for which I gathered the seed include tall cinquefoil (Drymocallis arguta), downy painted cup (Castilleja sessiflora), black samson (Echinacea angustifolia), prairie onion (Allium stellatum) and alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii). Hopefully more to come as I continue watching.

We now skip to Zone 4, which was a fiasco from the beginning. Almost no seed was dropped on 20-25 acres, and the entire area was Canada thistle which blew over from the neighbor to the south. There was really no choice other than a total re-set, so I have eliminated the thistles with two broadcast herbicide treatments and have respread a mix of grasses to establish cover. Once more, a couple pictures.

I guess that I should be happy that this looks as good as it does. In the spring of 2019 after being in the ground for a year there were very widely spaced perennial grasses, perhaps one/10 square feet and almost no forbs from my seeding. There were, however Canadian thistles over almost every square inch of the 20-25 acres. It was terribly discouraging, but my experience as an agronomist kicked in, and I realized that the thistles would allow nothing else to establish, and almost certainly cause the seeding to be considered a failure by the NRCS, stopping CRP payments. The only choice was to start over, so another batch of seed, 95% grass, was spread in the fall of 2019, and the first of two herbicide treatments was applied. Canada thistle creates an enormous bud bank below the surface, and you have to win a war of attrition. So over three years this has been mowed five or six times, and sprayed twice with different herbicides, and it is turning into a diverse field of native grasses. Along with the big bluestem, Indiangrass, western wheatgrass, Canada wildrye and switchgrass, we have sideoats grama, slender wheatgrass, prairie junegrass and some porcupine grass which was hand spread from gathered seed. There are even a few hardy forbs, as seen above, notably golden alexanders which are remarkably tolerant to the herbicides I have used. Earlier this spring I experimented with spreading some new forb seed over part of Zone 4, and if it looks worthwhile I will likely do more this fall.

But where are we sitting on the question of ecosystem services? Not great. Erosion control and water purification are covered, and it acts as a buffer from pesticide applications that are occasionally made on the cropped field to the east. Carbon sequestration is partially covered, though would be a lot better if there were still some legumes to feed nitrogen into the system. No pollinator habitat; and no habitat for lots of little critters that want a diverse herbaceous buffet and landscape to live in. And Zone 4 makes no contribution to the two specific overriding goals I want my restoration to accomplish: It provides little for the Dakota skipper butterfly and it does not contribute to the preservation and spread of the local plant genotypes. Which brings us to Zone 3.

What all these pictures have in common is their forb diversity. All this occurs on perhaps 20-25 acres of very xeric hillsides, some almost bereft of anything recognizable as soil. There would be very little overburden to remove should we wish to turn this into a gravel mine. The diversity is fairly evenly split between species which were either seeded in the original seeding or broadcast from purchased seed that fall, and species from which I gathered the seed in my adjoining native prairie. Several species that I gathered have become some of the dominant contributors to my restoration, notably slender penstemon (Penstemon gracilis), tall cinquefoil, downy painted cup (Castilleja sessiflora) and black samson, but there are many others. Most of this zone has been spread with seed 4 separate times. My hope had been to increase the range for local genotypes of my prairie species, and I have been able to do that for 20-25 species. This pleases me greatly. After three years I have seen three species for the first time this spring, slender milkvetch (Astragalus flexuosus), prairie turnip (Pediomelum escusenta) and leadplant (Amorpha canescens). This gives me hope of yet seeing some of the dozen or so species for which I gathered and spread seed with no visible results yet.

Pollinator activity in these areas is ubiquitous, and the number of black samson I have blooming out there gives me hope that we may even find a Dakota skipper butterfly out there someday slurping up some nectar. This still doesn’t look anything like the native prairies in the area, but there are solid bones to grow on. This is what I envisioned when I dreamed of my restoration, and on a few acres my dreams came true.

A Small Success

I had hoped to have some of my native prairie burned this year, but my management choices last year made it difficult. The farmer that rents my pastures was running out of grass in September, because of a long, hot summer, so I suggested they fence in 20 acres of prairie (that was burned 3 years ago) to graze with the adjacent pasture. This piece hadn’t been grazed for 50 years or so, and several acres were an impenetrable mass of brome that I hoped the cattle would graze down hard. As it turned out there was so much old dead in that area that they failed to make much of a dent in the thickest areas. They did , however graze enough on the rest of the pasture to remove burning as a management tool this spring. On the hayland that was burned four years ago, I decided to make hay for our horses because our forage was also short, so there was little left to burn there either. However, there were a couple hills too steep and short of forage to be worth haying, and these were left. Though they weren’t worth haying, there was plenty of dead forage from last year to carry a burn.

So in the end we burned three small areas, the largest about an acre. I had been disappointed in that particular hill the past couple years, as there was hardly enough forbs blooming and making seed to be worth walking over to gather. The lower slopes were brome and Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), and the top was more blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) with the bluegrass. There were a few black samson (Echinacea angustifolia) on the top, and a few roses (Rosa arkansana) and onions (Allium stellatum) towards the base of the hill. I thought that a couple more things would show up and was hoping to try an idea of spraying Roundup over the burn regrowth in a couple very small areas of the brome and then carpet bombing native seed over the top.

When I saw this, these pictures being representative of much of the hill, I figured I would come out in 2-3 weeks to try out my idea. Though the burned clumps indicate a native bunchgrass, likely needle and thread (Stipa comata), nothing that I saw indicated what I came back to two weeks later. Here is a smorgasbord of offerings of what the hill looked lie 3 weeks post-burn:

There’s more, but you get the idea. These pictures have two things in common: they are all about 5-10 square feet, the area I was going to kill with Roundup, and the fact that it would be very stupid to spray Roundup when this diversity is staring me in the face. The next step will be in another week to two, to see if grass diversity matches forb diversity, and to see how many new forbs I find. I have 20 so far.

A final interesting picture:

Our hills have always had some of the easternmost examples of this cactus. It is only found on extremely xeric, south facing slopes, and growing up I would have bet that I could count all the cactus we had on my fingers and toes. Four years ago I accidentally started a fire in early April that denuded 30 acres of prairie, and showed me that I had many more cactus than I assumed. Here is another example. All together there are probably 10 cactus carcasses on the south facing crest of the one acre hill. Four years ago I thought that I had probably killed my cactus, and instead found that I had stimulated a burst of new growth. This burn was over a month later, about the 15th of May. We will see what the effect on cactus is this year. All in all, the burn was a success, a small success in size, but a success nonetheless. Every year is so different; there is always so much to learn.

A Ten Year Plan

Last fall while I was writing about the planning and execution of planting 20 more acres of prairie I was also planning and the surgeons were executing a laryngectomy. A laryngectomy is a serious operation (mine turned into three operations) that removes the larynx (voicebox), rebuilds the esophagus and, as a result, separates the air (going in the tracheostomy tube in my throat to the lungs) from the food (mouth to stomach). There is no longer a connection between the two paths. This leads to some interesting effects such as a greatly diminished sense of smell (since air no longer goes through my nose while breathing) and difficulty spitting (since I can’t summon up air to provide force). More importantly, it means that I should no longer be prone to the chronic lung infections and pneumonia which were fed by the leakage of food and secretions into my lungs. Big stuff, because to paraphrase my surgeon, “If you think you’re going to live a long life getting pneumonia regularly, you are mistaken.

In other works, a long range plan was a pointless exercise. While I may not have been in imminent peril, it was unlikely that I would be around to execute a ten year plan. The surgeries that I had four months ago appear to have accomplished their purpose. I no longer suffer from a chronic bacterial infection in my lungs; I am breathing better than I have for a very long time. This means that even through my healing and rehabilitation, which was significant, I usually had more energy than before the surgery. The reconstructed esophagus is even allowing me to eat again. And I now feel that I have a future. I can begin the work on a long range plan for my farm, what I am calling “the ten year plan”.

Any plan is simply a road map of actions to achieve goals, so first I need to define my goals. I’ve discussed this in the past, but I feel that my good fortune in having control of a substantial block of land, almost 590 acres on my “home farm”, meaning the farm where I grew up, creates both the opportunity and the obligation to try to do something grand. Maybe I should capitalize that to emphasize the idea; to Do Something Grand! The goal is nothing less than to produce food, improve the productivity of both the farmed acres and the rangeland, store carbon, filter water, provide habitat for native plants and animals; and to provide recreation, pleasure and peace for my family and others who may visit. If I can tie this in with any neighbors and neighboring land then those benefits can hopefully accrue in a widening circle, amplifying the effects of actions taken on my farm. How does one accomplish all this on 590 acres? “Aye, there’s the rub!” to quote Shakespeare. There lies the need for a carefully thought out and flexible plan. This post is an introduction to that and will begin once more with a map.

Not a fancy map, one with a few scribbled notes, and one I hope to edit and update with more specific planning information in the future. We own three quarters and a 40 in Section 12, and a 65 acre chunk of grass in Section 11 to the west, on the southeast side of Anderson Lake. At this time there is about 150 acres of native grass in four parcels, 210 acres of restored prairie of various qualities and 220 acres of cropped ground. This surrounds 120 acres of cropped ground owned and farmed by a neighbor, who also rents my pastures (though not my cropped acres). This is the canvas, so to speak, though the metaphor falls flat when one thinks about it. We are not creating a painting, an image that pleases us. We are trying to engage in a dance with the natural environment to modify the biotic community on this 590 acres to provide the various services I listed earlier. The idea of control, or the idea that we can create something is dangerous and counterproductive. What can be done is to create conditions, a starting point; and then let time, weather and the seasons develop what they will, and dance with the results.

So what are the tools that can be used to initiate and engage in this metaphor of the dance? I have already seeded down 210 acres to varying complexities of native species, and that may be all that I seed of the farm. There will probably be topdressing of additional seed on the most recent restoration, and perhaps on some of the less diverse restoration acres (about half has 100-150 species seeded and the other half 20-40). We will probably use fire as a tool on some acres on occasion, including on 15-20 acres this spring. On the cropped acres we will be incorporating cover crops, and hoping to move from reduced tillage to a pure no-till system. The big tool to tie everything together, and hopefully to make the dance really swing, will be creative use of cattle to achieve management goals.

Ultimately it’s all about the fate of the biomass that grown on the farm. Perhaps 4-5,000,000 pounds of dry matter biomass will be created on the 587 acres every year, and the fate of that biomass will determine whether we achieve the ecosystem services we desire. Biomass as wheat or corn or soybeans will be removed, providing food and fuel. Cattle will remove biomass to create beef, as will other grazing animals from deer to rabbits to grasshoppers. The stabilization of biomass as organic matter will sequester carbon in the soil. The soil will be physically protected both by the covering of biomass, and chemically protected by the “glue” effect of the microbial byproducts as they eat and modify the residues of the year. Those stabilized soil clumps (peds) allow water infiltration and thus reduce runoff and cleanse the water as it percolates through the soil profile. This is obviously dependent upon a robust microbiology in my soils, and the biomass is the home of the microbes, as well as the feedstock used by the microbial community, including the symbionts that will support lush, efficient plant growth. It is the structure, both above and below ground, which provides a home for animal life. In the prairies it’s density (or lack thereof) will favor different suites of plants, and thus other life. Managing land is then, to a large extent, managing the fate, distribution, height, density and type of biomass left after a year of growth and use. As every year gives a different symphony of rain, temperatures, wind and sunlight, the dance needs to be a little different every year.

The tools are cows, combines, mowers, tillage implements, seeding, and the lighted match, though not always in that order. I emphasize that cattle are integral to the plan, and that is a complicating factor, as they are unlikely to be our cattle. I will need to have a partner who understands my goals and has some flexibility, even as I will need to understand the constraints that he is working under. That is a challenge I welcome, as I feel it will sharpen my thought and reasoning. We all get into mental ruts, but that won’t cut it if I am challenged by a sharp young farmer. Our goals will not be the same, but I am optimistic that collaboration will lead to the results we both desire.

So that is the big picture. The next post will delve into the specifics of actions I plan to take this year and how they advance the greater goals. Every action needs to advance the capability to provide those ecosystem services, if only indirectly. Every action needs to enhance the ability of the land to grow food, store carbon, filter water, support pollinators, enhance the biodiversity of the neighborhood and to provide pleasure and peace to those who go there. Those goals need to be taped up where I will see and remember them, at least metaphorically, in the conversations I have with myself and others. So today I am putting up the bulletin board in my brain and writing my goals in capital letters. And then we will begin with a slow, simple waltz, but more intricate routines may lie ahead.

Progress Part 2

Last spring I wrote a post with lots of pretty photos showing a group of early blooming forbs I was seeing in my restoration and called it “Progress”. Soon after that I took a series of pictures which I meant to be reflective of density of seedling establishment specifically in an area where I had seen almost no perennial seedlings the year before. Before I get to the pictures I will once again show my map of seeding zones on the restoration.

Zones 1 and 2 got enough seed from the original seeding to have little need or room for the additional seed I have since spread. Zone 4, on the other hand received almost no seed in the original seeding, grew up to Canada thistle, and is being managed to control thistles. Which brings us to Zone 3, a gravelly, very xeric soil which got almost no seed from the original seeding. It has been topdressed repeatedly with supplemental seed and is where the most interesting things are happening (and is where I spend most of my time when I am out at the restoration).

So what was I seeing last summer? What I was seeing on most of Zone 3 was wonderful progress in establishment of seedlings from the many times I spread supplemental seed. Here’s several pictures from June. They show many crowns of perennial grass and seedling forbs. When I closely examined the areas I estimated 25-30 species in a 5′ diameter circle.

Not everything that is green in these pictures was planted by me of course. There are plenty of opportunistic weed species to go with the native plants, and the fact that these hills were barren for almost two years allowed many weeds to establish. Much of the area was a jungle by the time it was mowed in mid-July. Still, I don’t want to diminish the excitement that I felt when I realized that all the money and work was turning into something with potential. During the year the restoration raised a family of sharptail grouse, was used by upland sandpipers, various grassland sparrows and dickcissels; and was visited by countless bees of many species.

I think I have one more year of hard work spot treating thistles and then we will see what this becomes. I will be watching particularly for reproduction of the forbs. Many grasses are almost immortal because of clonal reproduction by root and crown, and that can allow them to “choke out” or at least outlive the forbs. I don’t think that this will happen on most of the restoration for a variety of reasons, but am hoping to learn the management techniques to combat this, foremost of which will be the use of fire and grazing. The gravelly soils will benefit the xeric adapted forbs as there is less chance of an impenetrable sod forming, allowing seedlings to establish. There is likely always going to be room for a new generation of seedlings, especially with grazing.

Something similar was seen in the wet area of the northeast patch on Zone 2. The aster is from a mesic area above the wetland in the northeast part of the restoration, and was one of several blooming this fall. The revelation was down in the wetland itself shown in the first picture. This is a particularly robust specimen of sawtooth sunflower growing on some subirrigated soil, close to 10 feet tall. This picture was taken in mid-September, not June, so it’s hard to pick out all the different species in the riotous growth, but I was thrilled to see not just what I planted, but rushes and sedges that were either already there or traveled in from nearby wetlands. This is an area where farming was commonly delayed or was left fallow because of excess moisture the past 20 years. How heartening it is to see the rich site producing biomass and using some of the nutrients that were potentially being leached or transported downstream. This is reflective of several acres of the restoration, and a similar site to the wetter area on the 20 acres of new restoration that I seeded last fall where I hope to see the same results.

Restoration ecologists and conservationists often speak in dry tones about ecosystem services, and I have written about the services I hope my prairie provides in past posts. There is something more we need to feed the soul, though, even the soul of a boring old Norwegian farm boy. With all my health problems it can be difficult for me to feel joy these days. On most days a sense of quiet satisfaction would be the high point of my emotional day. Yet I can find joy in my prairies, and in my restoration. And there is great satisfaction now, after three years, to feel there is something developing that can be a legacy.

A reasonable question to ask is: A legacy recognized by who? My daughters, certainly, but the circle is steadily widening. There is Ben, who has helped on the project from the start, of course, but there are perhaps 8-10 other people who have helped gather or spread seed now who have a vested interest in the success of the restoration. A young woman interning with the Nature Conservancy used my land as a site in a research project. I am now cooperating with another young woman who works for Ducks Unlimited. And then, much to my surprise, I had a couple other visitors last summer. My advisor from my MS program, Paul, and an private crop consultant, Kim, who lives 90 miles west of here, were guests at a barbeque I sponsor every year for a group of agronomists to allow a time to brainstorm or just let off steam, and both really wanted to see the restoration. Paul’s son, Leif, who now works for the Nature Conservancy, came along to the gathering, and was certainly interested in what I was doing. But I was very surprised at the interest of Paul and Kim. One would assume that both would feel that the highest use for land is farming, as that is where both spent their careers, but they took a short tour of my restoration and agreed that it was a project of great worth. So if it can also be a vehicle to allow old farmer/agronomists to dream and ponder, then the reach of my prairie widens, and there is another sort of ecosystem service provided.

My dream, for several years, has been to have a retirement business of putting together a group of like minded people to buy, restore and monetize awkward pieces of land. I might elaborate on what I mean by an awkward piece of land another time, but in short it would include marginal farm ground. It’s a valid concept if you accept that you are doing it for fun and societal benefit rather than to actually make money. The trouble is that ten years ago when I started to dream on the possibilities I didn’t take into account the health issues we have as we get older, and the physical and sometimes existential fatigue that envelops us. There is a reason that people retire rather than work until they are 80. My dream business is a pipe dream, no more, and my own farm is more than I can probably handle. But there are many people like me who have a farm they grew up on and still cherish, often from afar. And perhaps I can inspire one to go down the road that I walked, and restore some prairie where they grew up. I have never seen myself as evangelical, but I now have the example to preach about. At least I will try to be a good example.

My New Restoration

I’ve alluded in the past to a new 20 acre restoration that I had planned to do. The planning is over now, as I was able to get it seeded the first week of November, right before I had my life changing surgery. You might say that this is the third iteration of a restoration that I have done, my third try at doing something great with the crappy soils on the west end of the farm where I grew up. My first attempt was a nine species planting made on 36 acres on the southeast side of Anderson Lake, a botched attempt if the goal was a prairie restoration. I just didn’t think big enough because I was mostly concerned with getting some cover over some unproductive, erodible farm ground. That was accomplished, but so much more could have been done. I have regretted my lack of vision ever since it was seeded and vowed to do better if I got another chance.

The second iteration was the 100 acres that most of this blog has been about. It’s still hard to evaluate its success after three years, as so much has been reseeded over the top of the original seeding. Actions that I take next summer, particularly on Canada thistle control, could mean the difference between something I am proud of and a project I have deep ambivalence about.

Still, much has gone right there. I have seen almost 100 of the 147 species that were seeded, including many that were gathered from my adjacent prairies. Many forbs that I really wanted to see are already common, such as slender penstemon, tall cinquefoil, black samson, alumroot and prairie onion. Others, such as pasqueflower, groundplum milkvetch and prairie smoke are more widely scattered, though I hope to find more in the future. It was a big undertaking though, and there were painful lessons learned.

And so we went forward with the third iteration . The Day County Conservation District brought up a drill and a base mix of 20-25 species was drilled over the entire site, and then the real fun began. I had purchased and gathered another 70 species, and spent two days spreading them over appropriate environments across the 20 acres. Some were combined in large enough quantities that my compatriot Ben Lardy and I were able to put them in a broadcast spreader and pull it around to appropriate areas. Much was spread by hand, which allowed us to get very specific as to where they went. At the end of the two days I was very satisfied that I had done my very best and was able to go to the hospital at peace with a project I had been working on for a year. Though parts of this have been written in past blog posts, it seems worthwhile to summarize the year’s work leading up to the seeding.

The first step was getting the land. The 20 acres is part of a 120 acre inholding in my home section that an uncle and aunt of mine originally owned, the north half of the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter. Shown on the maps above, it had been prairie when I was growing up. There was a trail across it to our 40 to the west, and I have clear memories of riding across native grass as we went to work on the west pasture. It was broken out of grass in the early 80’s, but there was a reason it had been left in prairie until then. It is a truly crappy piece of farmland, outwash gravel hills surrounding a waterway that seeps and makes the only decent soils unfarmable. It clearly should never have been broken. Thus, a big reason to do this is to right an old wrong, and while I can’t make it what it was I can still do the right thing, which is to do the best that I can.

The next step was to plan out the seeding and to gather as much native seed as possible to use in the restoration. I wrote a blog post in mid-summer lamenting the lack of seedheads this past year because of a warm, dry summer. Unfortunately, that didn’t change as summer turned to fall. In comparison to the previous wet year, there was perhaps 25-30% as much seed to gather. I supplemented that by gathering at some other prairies which weren’t as droughty, but in the end had to give in and buy more seed than I had originally planned. I did my best, though, repeatedly wandering over the hills on my farm, trying not to take every seed out there. Some species, such as porcupine grass, groundplum and blanketflower, I did well on. Others, like leadplant, prairie onion, silky aster, pasqueflower and whorled milkweed were almost total washouts. And, of course, that leaves many species in the middle, providing a significant amount of seed, but necessitating some purchases I hadn’t planned. Something that helped was that I had the pleasure of gathering three or four species on my 100 acre restoration that had grown from seed I had gathered in my prairies and spread there two or three years ago.

The field was in wheat last summer, but the wheat was so thin in a dry year that the straw was no problem. Here’s what we were seeding into.

And so we got to have our fun as early November gave us several sunny, beautiful days for work. That was two months ago, and very little precipitation has yet fallen , but the magic of a fall seeding is that we really don’t need much precipitation to begin the stratification process that most seeds need to overcome a natural dormancy. It wouldn’t make much evolutionary sense for seeds to germinate in October in the northern plains, so most seeds need a period of refrigeration, preferably with just a little moisture, to change their inherent reluctance to germinate and face the world. It is happening now.

Again one could say that this is my third try at a prairie restoration, so it is time to discuss what I have learned to make this better than the first two attempts. The first attempt was eight years ago on 36 acres on the section to the west. On the map above it would be just to the left, with only a small strip showing on the map. I seeded nine species, of which seven are still in the field. At the time, I was too cheap and had an inadequate vision of what could be realized. Then I went a little crazy on Iteration Two, the 100 acre restoration that was seeded three years ago. There are 147 species that were seeded there, but many species were seeded at such miniscule rates that I may never see them in the restoration, or the few scattered plants will fail to find pollination partners and die unloved. For that iteration, I gathered as much seed as I could locally, but I also purchased small packets of species that don’t occur in my prairies but have been found in my neighborhood.

As you may have already guessed, this is a Goldilocks situation, and I am searching for the answer that is “just right”. I don’t know if I found that, but I decided that I would try to seed significant quantities of every species that I was able to. And with a few exceptions I would only seed species that were already found in one of the adjacent native prairies. If only a few plants of a particular species are able to establish they will have compatriots nearby. This allows cross pollination to occur and will mean that those few plants may be able to make a contribution to the greater gene pool and to evolutionary development of the species locally.

This is also much easier to do on a 20 acre piece than on a 100 acre piece. When we were hand spreading seeds of individual species in November we could feel that we had covered the appropriate environments on the entire field. I took on too much when I tried to do a 100 acre restoration. There were practical reasons that drove that decision, but if the goal was to create a restoration which would have an intuitive connection to the native prairies nearby, it was too big. In the end what I have now in that field is a 40 acre restoration, along with a 40 acre diverse prairie seeding and a 20 acre grass planting that may be turned back into farmland eventually.

Going back to the idea of a lesson learned, what I learned meant that I didn’t try to do a second 20 acres. I will manage this 20 acres for a year or two, along with putting time into the 100 acre restoration, and then I can decide if the next 20 acres gets restored.

The third lesson was that more care needed to be taken with the seeding itself. The sloppiness of the manner in which the 100 acres was seeded will haunt me for the rest of my days. It necessitated multiple fixes which will never truly fix it. I hope to have the time, opportunity and physical stamina to spot treat the Canada thistles across the 100 acres this summer. It will be a Sisyphean task, perpetually rolling the boulder up the hill, but I will try. There will always be thistles in any perennial seeding in my area, but I hope to help the establishing forbs get the opportunity to get roots down. Much of the area is xeric enough that the thistles should be at a disadvantage once more drought tolerant species get a foothold.

And so I was able to set up a preferred fall seeding, rather than the late spring seeding date I was stuck with on the 100 acre restoration. A Truax drill was used, rather than the John Deere grain drill that caused the problems in seed distribution on the 100 acre restoration, and I was able to be there during the process, watching to see how everything went. It is still possible there will be bare areas because of drill malfunction, but not likely. This will hopefully make it less likely that the thistles get the same foothold on this seeding, as well facilitate erosion control. I have high expectations that I will be seeing some results by mid to late summer.

Finally, I think that I learned what I really want to accomplish with the restoration. More than anything else I want the restoration to be an extension of habitat for the plants and the attendant fauna that are adapted to the gravelly outwash hills of the area. Bigger picture ecosystem services such as water quality improvement and carbon sequestration come along for the ride. I really want to see more groundplum and maybe some prairie turnips. I want to see grasshopper sparrows and upland sandpipers. I want to see, God willing, a Dakota skipper butterfly nectaring on a black samson flower from seed that I gathered and spread. I want the 80 acres of existing prairie to grow and develop into 200 acres of prairie under the protective umbrella of the perpetual easement that I hope to put on the restorations. Much depends upon what I accomplish in the next few years to put things on the right track. And after that, forever is a long time that I humbly bow before.

And then the World Changed

I haven’t written a post for a long time, though it’s not because nothing has happened. Quite the opposite, as the Buddhists say, “Life is on fire.”

So what has changed for me? The big change is that I had a big surgery, a laryngectomy, about seven weeks ago. A laryngectomy removes the voice box, the larynx, which allows total separation of the two pathways that normally are conjoined in the mouth, food and air. Now my lungs are only connected to a hole, a stoma, in my throat. Nothing that goes in my mouth can get to my trachea or lungs. Similarly, my mouth (and my nose) are only connected to my esophagus and stomach. I am unable to blow my nose because there is no source of air to push. Coughing only concerns my lungs, not my mouth or nose, though old reflexes mean there are still complementary spasms in my throat, but they are “all dressed up with no place to go”. The core reason to do this was to eliminate aspiration, the leakage of material from my mouth and throat into my lungs, which was causing me to have repeated lung infections leading sometimes to pneumonia. As my surgeon told me when suggesting the procedure: “If you think you can continue to regularly get pneumonia and live a long life you are mistaken.”

So this is my love song to my family. I would undergo a difficult surgery (which actually ended up as three surgeries over the course of a week because of difficulties), go through a tough recovery with various complications, and lose my voice; and the trade-off will hopefully be that I will be there for them for a long time. No promises, no surety, nothing that provides a warm blanket of comfort around the process. Simply put, “Do I want to take a shot?” Big risks and big rewards. I decided to roll the dice.

That was seven weeks ago. So how has it gone?

To start with, my radiation damaged tissues didn’t want to cooperate so, as I said, one surgery turned into three, the last surgery yanking my right pectoral muscle up from my chest to put it around my neck to stabilize and cover the other work. With three surgeries, three areas of skin were borrowed from my legs to put the seal over the top, leaving me with what looks like the worst sunburn you have ever seen. A chunk was taken out of my right arm, borrowed to form a new esophagus to replace my old radiation damaged esophagus that was basically causing all my problems. And now Frankenstein lives.

As difficult as this has been, and I have purposely left out many gory details and anecdotes, I would be remiss not to mention a couple side benefits of the surgery. First, it should allow me to breathe better. This is not yet true, as I work through healing and management of my new paraphenalia. If I can work through a couple issues my breathing should not be as limited as it was through the tiny opening of my trachaeostomy tube. We will see. The second benefit is the ability to eat now that I don’t have to worry about aspirating food into my lungs. The reformed esophagus is significantly wider than my throat used to be and I am getting about half of my calories orally now, learning what foods I can manage and what foods my stomach and gut can manage. It’s not easily predictable, but more of a trial and error process. Two nights ago was an error and I was up most of the night with a protesting digestive system. It is pretty interesting to eat again though. My somewhat phlegmatic personality is overwhelmed by my subconscious saying, “Hell, yes, I’ll have some of that!”

So the winter is for healing and therapy, probably into February. What therapy can accomplish will be interesting. I am late to start therapy, primarily because I have been occupied with some serious challenges to healing. Hopefully I can make some progress this winter and be ready for a fun and productive spring. And if the Covid vaccine truly becomes widely available then an expansive life can begin anew. The world has changed and I need to respond appropriately to learn how to live an abundant life in this new world.

oo