Prairie Dreams

I am a 63 year old businessman/farmer who decided to create a 100 acre prairie restoration in 2017. It was seeded last year, and has prompted a great deal of reflection and conversation which has culminated in the decision to start a blog to document the process and results, and to reflect on many things related to the restoration, and to prairies and the natural world. I do this primarily as an exercise to clarify my own thoughts and feelings, but if it is of interest to anyone I welcome your own thoughts, observations and ideas. And so we begin.

Prairie Dreams

When I was a teenager out picking rock or digging summer fallow there was a lot of time to daydream. A teenager lives so deep inside his own head that he needs a ladder to enter the world. Then, put that teenager in a job that takes no thought or intention and leave him alone for hours. Flights of fancy swirl and cycle, multiple iterations of whatever scenario has gotten stuck in his mind circle till an appropriate ending appears, and the successful/heroic/tragic scenario is perfect.

One of those recurring fantasies I had was imagining what heaven would be like. I must have had full confidence in my personal sanctity as it was obvious to me that heaven was my eventual destination. And to my 15 year old self, heaven would manifest itself in whatever form I wished, so the daydreaming task was to decide what manifestation best satisfied my desires. There were different answers on different days, but the one I remember the best was to be wandering the pre-European settlement prairie. There was nothing but five foot tall big bluestem to the horizon. I still can see the image of myself in a sea of grass.

Now I wonder if that memory has risen from my subconscious to inform my conscious brain’s desire to do a prairie restoration. I hadn’t remembered that daydream until recently, but I don’t think a memory or desire has to be conscious to drive thoughts and decisions. Our brains all have multiple drivers working simultaneously.

However, we still need to create a conscious narrative as well, if only to tell our friends and family. My younger daughter, Diane had surveyed and characterized prairies in northeast South Dakota for an MS thesis project, with special emphasis on prairies with a record of harboring Dakota skipper (Hesperae dacotae) butterflies. Though my land was outside of her study area I had a friend, Dennis Skadsen, scout my prairies and he found a Dakota skipper butterfly. The Dakota skipper has recently been listed as a threatened species, so I was thrilled. Restoring a prairie adjacent to one harboring a threatened prairie species might provide an extension of habitat that would allow a larger, more stable population to develop. Though no skippers have ever been found in a restored prairie, I doubt the sampling population of restored prairies next to skipper occupied habitat is very large, and a man can dream. And even if they cannot be tempted to feed on the black samson (Echinacea angustifolia) that I plant, there will at least be a buffer created between the occupied habitat and farmed ground. Few insecticides are used in my area, but infestations of grasshoppers, soybean aphids and other crop pests occur occasionally and a buffer from potential insecticide drift seems prudent.

To extend the reasoning, I am close to retirement with health problems related to collateral damage from cancer treatment. Increasing retirement income to supplement Social Security is a goal. The restoration is occurring on poor farm ground with below average rental income. I was able to enroll the field in the continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) signup, primarily as pollinator habitat, at a rental rate above what I was receiving for it as farm ground. The CRP program also provides cost share for seeding, providing some help towards the substantial cost.

If I haven’t tied this up in a tight enough package there is a fourth benefit to me from the project. As I slow down in the career that I have been working at for almost 40 years I need something new to be moving towards. I have spent my entire life working outside. To retire to an east chair sounds more like the third circle of Hell in Dante’s “Inferno” than a goal to aspire to. Every week during the growing season for 38 years I have visited 25 farmer clients who are also some of my best friends. I need to have a chance to continue to interact with interesting people, talking about important things. I am rich in having a great many people to consult with on the restoration project; people I can ask questions of and hopefully brag to with pictures of my successes in its development. This will be a wonderful excuse to visit with them.

So the plan brings forth the subconscious memory of the wandering mind of a fifteen year old boy. It develops from the experiences chasing cattle, fixing fence and making hay in our prairies while growing up. The subconscious melds with the conscious desire to create a project to share with my daughter, something to look forward to working in and enjoying with her. It draws in the desire to support a threatened species and to still be a vital, contributing member of the human race. And I am doing it in such a way that it will support my and my wife’s retirement financially as well as spiritually. Art and commerce, science and industry, yin and yang. The circle may not be complete, but it begs the question, “How can I not do this?”

So I did. And I still am.

And this blog will follow the story.