Guy (environmentalist and rancher and witty guy) and Mandy (brilliant artist, teacher, and editor) live on and manage several Queensland cattle ranches and have collaborated on a book. While visiting the University of Nebraska, we were able to take them to The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, a series of retired croplands which have been recently restored to prairie and managed with fire and patch grazing.
Chris Helzer, the program director at the Platte River Prairies, has a fantastic blog that I've followed for some time. He features stunning photography and keeps me current on prairie research, as well as helping with some of my more notable insect identification gaffes.
Joining us on the hike were Dr. Tom Lynch, who teaches Environmental Lit at UNL, one of his undergraduate students, Benjamin Vogt, a writer and native prairie gardener, and my trusty co-conspirator, Aubrey Streit-Krug, an instructor and ecocritic, also from UNL.
In spite of rainy and subdued skies on the trip out to Wood River, we enjoyed a lively discussion of American agriculture. Guy and Mandy were somewhat surprised to learn that most of the crops they saw growing and being harvested along the I-80 corridor--corn and soybeans, mainly--were not, in fact, going toward human consumption, but rather to feed animals or produce fuel. The fecundity of our Great Plains soil is quite different from the old soil of Australia, Guy says, and it does beg the question of priorities, when we use it to fuel our car culture.
By the time we arrived at The House (which serves as offices for the Platte River Prairies staff), the skies had cleared, a terrific wind was blowing, and we set off across the prairie.
How about this one??? After a year of tromping around 9 Mile in hopes of spotting an orchid, all it took was a two hour car ride and a prairie restoration (instead of a relict prairie) for me to see one :D
Chris showing us some Rough Rattlesnake Root -- I love this picture.
The Nature Conservancy is also working on a project adjacent to the prairies, restoring a stream that became a lake due to gravel mining. In only a few years, the birds are back, the fish are back, RIVER OTTERS are back! This is a gorgeous site, even still under construction. I can't wait to go back and see it when it's finished.
