Pursuing Prairie

It is cold, raw outside and the wind is coming off the prairie at 20 - 30 knots, whistling into the small town where we are parked with our camper. It is a dark, raw day, so we keep mostly inside except to walk our dog PeeVee. For the last few days we have been in pursuit of prairie.

I don't understand it myself, but there is something about prairie the seems to draw me, to stir my imagination. I suspect it has something to do with orderliness; coming away from the country of precise rows of crops and the almost manicured appearance of improved, permanent pastures. Here in the prairie there is none of that, just miles of rolling green grass stretching to the horizon. There are trees, yes, but they are mostly confined to the draws where small creeks and rivers support massive cottonwoods.

We started in Missouri a few days ago and made a brisk march to one of our favorite spots in the state, Prairie State Park, located nearly astride the Kansas line. There, a herd of some 150 buffalo roam a space of roughly 4,000 acres. There is a space for dry camping in a grove of tree surrounding a small creek. There are few people, little regimentation as is normal in state parks. I am free to be in the prairie -- to imagine I am on the way west in the sea of prairie. Or, perhaps I might just want to find a spot on a knoll and become "Pa", resting from building a soddy for Ma, Mary and Laura.

Presently we reside smack in the middle of the Kansas Flint Hills, a geological formation that runs the north/south length of the state. Prairie exists here because of the thin soils that reject plowing. The result is a carpet of native blue stem prairie grass sweeping over the rolling countryside, that provides perhaps the best cattle grazing in the nation.

We have days ahead for prairie, so to spend today in what the missus calls a "jammy day" is not an extravagance. And, I have time today to muse about prairie. Friends will likely find us here in the next day or two and we'll add some "catching up" to our prairie experience.

Tomorrow's to be a bright day and we intend to use it.

From Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, the Hired Man and Missus
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