When I was planning how to accomplish the best restoration possible on the Huggett land, a 20 acre parcel that was seeded last fall, I tried to incorporate the lessons that I had learned on past attempts. The base seeding was done with a Truax drill, a much improved choice over the John Deere no-till drill that had been used on the 100 acre seeding in 2018. I was able to be on site during the seeding, giving me some confidence that a good job was done. I used a higher seeding rate to hopefully achieve full cover in a shorter time. I obsessively patrolled for Canada thistle , hoping to keep it from getting a foothold, trying to eliminate individual plants. All this was at best only partly successful because of a hot, dry summer before our deluge began in mid-August. So, finally, a positive lesson I had learned was that until you have established plants, with the grasses beginning to create a sod, it is very worthwhile to add additional seed. Thus, a fall topdressing of the seed that I gathered this past year would be a valuable exercise. And so that was what I was doing last week as a cold front blew through.

It wasn’t horrible out there. It was right at 30 degrees, snowing lightly and the wind was bearable, not the howling banshee that it often is in early December. I had been out with a friend a couple weeks earlier and we had covered the whole site spreading seed by hand. Some of the seed I wanted to spread was unavailable, however, being stored at another friend’s, and I wanted to spread that as well. The restoration site is not accessible if we get much snow, being half a mile down a dirt trail from the nearest maintained road, and while it would have been fine to save some seed to spread next spring, I prefer to let nature do the work through the winter overcoming seed dormancy. Thus, last week, I went to get the rest of my seed, and when I finished the three hours of hand spreading I was cold, tired, hungry and very satisfied with my day. How much fun can an old guy have without being around grandkids? This pretty well maxes it out for me.

Tangentially, I found that one interesting thing was how easy it was to identify where soils changed from xeric to mesic. The light color on all the hills is from yellow foxtail residue. As you come to lower ground where moisture relations are kinder to plants and soil that has eroded from the hills accumulates, it becomes dark, which is the residue of tall waterhemp, both species being common weeds. Here’s another look at what I saw when I was out throwing seed around.

Another related tangent: a couple days ago I drove to South Dakota State University campus in Brookings to visit Professor Lora Perkins. She has developed a project growing many species of native wildflowers from seed, learning the best methods of handling and propagation. This is the second time I have contributed material to her project and I brought down about 10 containers of seed from different forb species, several of which would be new to her efforts. Much to my delight she traded me back two envelopes of seed derived from material I had originally contributed, as well as another species that I occasionally find in my prairies that I have been unable to gather, but can now spread next spring. As I hope to begin my own project of growing wildflower seed Lora is an extremely valuable source of information for me, as well as great fun to visit. Some of seed I gathered and that Lora grew has even become integrated into landscaping at SDSU by a young horticulturist I happen to know, Tanner, who was friends with my daughter when she was in graduate school at SDSU. South Dakota society is a small and cozy place and these sorts of connections are common, but still a source of fun and satisfaction. Next spring Lora said she will give my wife and me a tour of her plots and show us what is growing in her greenhouse, and maybe we will look up Tanner. and see where our contribution to beautifying the campus has been planted. It’s a good life if you don’t weaken, with rewards around every corner.