Tallgrass Prairie Nature Preserve

 One of the places I enjoyed most on our quick vacation was the last place we visited, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve . The preserve is located near Strong City in the middle of the Flint Hills Region. 

Tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America. Within a generation the vast majority was developed and plowed under. Today less than 4% remains, mostly here in the Kansas Flint Hills. The preserve protects a nationally significant remnant of the once vast tallgrass prairie and its cultural resources. Here the tallgrass prairie takes its last stand. (borrowed Tallgrass Preserve Website)

Over the course of many years a ranch was built and ran by numerous different families until 1996 when it was turned into a national preserve. In the early 1880's a huge 3 story stone barn and mansion was built on the ranch. 

Inside the barn was dark and empty though there were a few farming artifacts; a buggy, barbed wire, old tools, etc. It was just huge and still in wonderful condition. I always enjoy going to see old buildings that someone has had the foresight to preserve. 

I can't imagine building a stone barn on the Flint Hills but they sure did a fabulous job. The barn and mansion stand on a hill. Down the hill, across a modern road, is a bottom land where there were orchards, gardens and vineyards. It's been so very dry these last few years that the prairie flowers and grasses have had a tough time coming up. Though, the prairie has a natural way of dealing with drought that I'm sure when the rains come (I have faith that they will) Tallgrass will be a breathtaking place to visit. 

The mansion is huge. It's built into a hill and has two basement levels and two above ground levels. It really must have been something to see in it's heyday. 

It's kind of hard to see but there are three terraced levels in front of the house and I was standing on a fourth taking the photo. Each level was surrounded by a stone wall roughly three feet high. The walls weren't just for show at the front of the house, rather they wrapped around the mansion until they naturally ended in the hill. Wow! 

Inside there were many more rooms than I was expecting and nothing had been added to the original design. At the very top of the house there were six bedrooms, I believe, but all locked. On the ground floor there were a total of 5 rooms. The basement was the kitchen area along with a cold storage area and there weren't as many large rooms since it was built into the hill. 

The kids thought this was an extravagant building. 

A three seater outhouse!! Pretty fancy! 

About a quarter mile down the way was a one room schoolhouse that was used up until the 1930's. It was locked up but my was it a pretty view! 

There are roughly two miles of hiking trails through the preserve, though we didn't go on many of them. We were pretty tuckered out from our trip by the time we hit the preserve and it was mighty cold and windy the day we visited. 

DR thought this outhouse must have been the work of the WPA because it was a concrete floor. Any input on that? 

It was pretty much a self guided tour when we were there but the preserve gets pretty busy in the spring/summer. We were told that if we came back in the summer we could take the bus tour through an area where a herd of 20 buffalo were kept. 

• From the last Saturday in April through the last Sunday in October, 90-minute prairie bus tours offered 1 time daily at 11 a.m. and more as staffing and budgets allow. Other tour times may include 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. (as staffing allows). Call ahead for availability.
• From Memorial Day through the last Sunday in October, special interpretive natural resource and cultural history programs on alternating weekends as staffing allows. Ask the rangers for the location of the scheduled interpretive activity.
• One-room Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse open weekends (Saturday and Sunday) from 12 p.m. - 4 p.m. in May, June, September, and October.

Here's a YouTube video about Tallgrass and another with Lyle Lovett in case you want to know more. 

I'd sure love to see that schoolhouse open too! It sure looked like a gorgeous building from peeping into the windows. I think we'll have to see about taking another trip to Tallgrass in the future! 

Buffalo

If you travel on Highway 83 north from Scott City, KS 

....and if you are very lucky you may just get to see a herd of buffalo

 that roam on their own 200ish acres. 

I love buffalo. 

I carved all kinds of buffalo for my Masters of Fine Art Thesis Project back in 2001. 

The carving was fun...that huge paper I had to write was a bit of a pain. 

 I drove all the way to Wisconsin once just to see one particular buffalo. 

But up til last week I'd never seen so many at one time. 

What a lovely landscape! I could have stayed there all day taking photos. 

Some of the younger buffalo were curious and were coming up to check me out at the fence but one of the older buffalo kept trying to chase them away from me. 

Aren't they fabulous? 

One buffalo in particular caught my attention but never came close enough for a good picture. She (I guess it's a she) had white on the tip of her tail, a white blaze on her forehead and various other white spots on her body. She wasn't a cross with a beef nor an albino. Buffalo can changed colors; shades of brown, red and black mostly but I never thought they'd be spotted like this one. 

And it used to be buffalo roamed these plains by the millions....what a sight that must have been! 

What On Earth Was I Thinking Moving to SW Kansas?

It's hot. Very hot. And dry...very dry.

I just checked the temperature today; 2:30 pm and it's 104 F. That's hot. And the thing is our long term forecast, along with many other states, doesn't show that it's going to be cooler anytime soon.

I have learned to love Kansas and all but sometimes this heat really gets to me. There are days when the temps are at 100 before noon and by afternoon there are only two options; be cooped up in air conditioning or go to the pool. We go to the pool alot. The heat feels like an open oven door radiating on all sides of you all the time. Sometimes the heat doesn't dissipate until after 9 pm.

I often wonder whether God intended people to live in Southwest Kansas. I'm reading a book called The Worst Hard Time. This book gives the history of the first ranchers, the homesteaders or "nesters", the wheat boom of the early 1900's but mostly the book discusses the Dust Bowl of the 1930's. The Dust Bowl and drought lasted for, I believe, about 7 years. Accounts of what residents of SW Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles lived through are unbelievable. Years after years without seeing any living green thing. Dust storms, dusters, that blocked out the sun for days. So much dust in a home after a duster that it had to be shoveled out. Food so scarce that some people resorted to canning and eating tumbleweeds. Animals died and when their stomachs were cut open they were packed full of dirt. Numerous days where temperatures reached over 110. The dirt drove farmwives crazy after battling it year after year. To read about the devastation this area went through during the Dirty Thirties can bring a tear to the eye.

I haven't finished reading the book yet but obviously things changed and eventually SW Kansas was put to farming again, largely by tapping into the Ogalala Aquifer and heavily irrigating fields. A great conservation effort went into changing farming techniques to preserve soil. President Roosevelt had millions of trees planted in an effort to block the prairie wind. As if the wind could be stopped, ha! This area was never meant to be farmed. It was meant to be a grassland with buffalo and pronghorns roaming it. With such a serious drought occurring here this year I often wonder if this area will ever return to it's original state. I wish it would. I wish that all the corn and wheat fields could be returned to buffalo grass. I wish that thousands of buffalo could once again roam hundreds of miles north and south. What a sight it would be to see what Lewis and Clark saw. The original prairie, the perfect ecosystem for this area. The perfect combination of plants and animals that would return after years of drought.

"I ascended to the top of the cutt bluff this morning, for whence I had the most delighfull view of the country, the whole of which except the valley formed by the Missouri is void of timber or underbrush, exposing to the first glance of the spectator immense herds of Buffaloe, Elk, deer, & Antelopes feeding in one common and boundless pasture."

– Meriwether Lewis, April 22, 1805

June and July have both been overwhelmingly hot and dry, there have been 10, 100+ degree days in the month of June, July is starting off very hot and we still August and September to go. That's kind of a depressing thought. I pray for rain alot, if only enough to be able to stand outside and cool off in it for few minutes. Kansas summer is tough. I've found myself yearning for the green of Indiana lately. Somedays I don't believe mankind was meant to live in a place like this. ThoughI think we are all too stubborn to realize it .

Photo Thursday - Kansas Weeds

Kansas....

...can even make weeds....

...look beautiful...to me anyway!

Photo of the Day - Old and New

For Miles in Every Direction....Corn

Remember last winter when I was complaining about the emptiness and lack of trees?

Well, things have changed. Now there is nothing but corn, all about 4 1/2 ft. high. I can still see over it but that won't last long. In another month, or less, it will be above my head and we'll be boxed in. It's an eerie feeling to be boxed in by nothing but corn for three months of more until harvest comes in the fall. Of course, my kids can all run naked and no one will ever see!

North

East

South

West

I had better enjoy it while it lasts. I doubt the Kansas landscape will look much like this but, you never know!

Photo Thursday - Spring on the Prairie

Just a few of the things I love about spring in the country.

Dandelions....

Sunsets....

...and a full clothesline!

my first time...

...blogging that is. I'm new to the blogging world here. This blog is a test drive as I stumble around here. Let's see if I can get a picture on here...can't be too hard right?

Nothing special about this photo. Just one I found on the internet and it reminded me of where I live...in the middle of nowhere :)