Two Weeks Later....

Two weeks later...and spring feels barely farther along that it was.   Oh, there are subtle signs; an early daffodil or two, lilac buds swelling green from their previous hard brown shell, a glimmer of action in the sprouting of daylilies.   But here we are March 27th, a week past the equinox, and the best that my Star Magnolia can conjure up is this single bud at the top of the bush, partially open and singed from the last frost.  That magnolia scent though, that sweet musky odor, was already present as long as I was willing to chance my nose into the bud.  And I was (willing). 

Dressing later to go to a movie, I splashed on a little aftershave and later, smelling it on my hand, I realized for the first time that the Brut® that I've used all my life has a strong aromatic resemblance to magnolia musk.  Musky, earthy, heavy, the scent of magnolia reaches deep into my id and presumably that of others.  Not stupid those aromacologists, those noses that know the attraction of certain fragrances.  Males of my generation shy away from sweet flowery scents, but throw a little musky magnolia scent my way and they have a customer for life.  Well, that, and that's what my father always used.  Shades of Oedipus, is that heritage from a generation ago the reason for the long survival of that brand in a crowded market?  Is America and civilization-as-we've-known-it safe as long as Brut® sells well at Christmas?

This French Pussy Willow 'Curly Locks' (Salix caprea) is also ready to open up and have its early way with the gardeners affections, but it, too, is late and slow to reach the climax of its bloom period.  As I search my records, there was only one year in the last 10 that Magnolia stellata first bloomed this late.  Most years, on March 26th it reaches peak bloom and it has bloomed as early as March 6th.  Similarly, in most years, forsythia is already blooming well and this year it shows no signs of breaking dormancy.  I wish I could tell you the normal initial bloom date of the Pussy Willow, but sadly, I've seldom noticed or written it down.  Please do as I say and not as I do and be consistent in the plants you keep notes on annually.   For me, the only consistency is the Scilla and the Star Magnolia, both because of their timing and their annual show.

There are other signs of spring life on the prairie, however, and most notably the spring burns have started.  I took this picture yesterday as I arrived home from errands standing on the garage pad looking west.   Many times, I see these tall clouds of smoke billowing when I'm leaving work or on the east side of town and I'm calculating where these clouds lie in relation to my own house, praying that the neighbors haven't gotten out of hand.  This one, however is far away, on the hills to the southwest of town, near the airport, 4 or 5 miles away as a crow would fly.  Prairie fires always strike a little fear in my heart, but they provide comfort too, comfort that the world is normal and spring approaches once again.

Burn Casualties

ProfessionRoush had a fine spring day for a nice neighborhood burn yesterday.   My neighbors and I marshalled our energy and the considerable mobile fire-fighting forces arrayed amongst them and set off on a dew-covered morning to clear the prairies of weeds and invading alien plants through the ritual spring burn.   With almost no wind, the dampness from the recent rains, and a beautiful sunny day awaiting us, we were blissfully at ease to hold a nice burn.

And then, everything changed.  I believe the first mistake was that the fires were going so well, ProfessorRoush's neighbor opened his first beer before we were on the downside of the day.   Early alcohol is always a bad harbinger of things to come.   And fairly early on, after all the tasks were assigned and the backfires started to protect the distant neighbors and greater Manhattan from our exuberance, we received a call from the county that burning had been banned for the day (after we earlier had permission for the burn).  A little too late for us, the forecasts had changed to show brisk winds later in the day.   

We had completely burned the perimeters and I had safely burned around my garden and moved on to help a neighbor by 11:00 a.m.   The last neighbor's 20 acres took us almost as long as the other 140, with extra care taken as the winds were rising and we had a horse barn and arena to protect.  And then I looked up about 2:00 p.m. to see smoke coming from my back yard.

Unbeknownst to me, a little fire had made it into the grass mulch near my grapevine lines earlier and a helpful neighbor had put it out.   But, a little prairie-burning tip here from an old guy here, if fire gets to your mulch, whether hay, grass or bark, there's no putting it out.  You have to isolate the area to bare ground and let it burn itself out.  Hidden beneath a dampened cover of mulch, that little spark festered and bided time until the wind rose.

And then it scooted across the mown back yard and made it across the close-mown grass into one of my rose beds mulched with straw.  It's the bed on the right in the picture at the top.  Thank Heaven's grace, it was only one because I told Mrs. ProfessorRoush that if it was all of them, I'd have bulldozed the backyard and been out of the gardening business.  I'm not ready or spiritually willing to start completely over again at this stage.

I'm not worried at all about the grass between the house and my lower beds.  I had been contemplating burning it anyway because it had been 4 or 5 years since the area last burnt.  In 2 weeks this area will be beautifully green and I'll post another picture then to show you.  The daylilies and perennials of the burnt bed will regenerate.  And a couple of roses in this bed had already died or were ill from Rose Rosette and needed cleaning up.    There is enough Puritan in ProfessorRoush's soul to place considerable faith in fighting evil by burning.  But I'll mourn a little bit for 'Banshee' and Marianne' and "Chateau de Napoleon' until and if they regenerate.   Time will tell and life goes on.   Maybe I'll learn a new cure for Rose Rosette disease if one of the sick roses regenerates in fine shape.

Behold the Lamb

Easter arrived at last, a rebirth of spirit and earth that is long overdue this year.  March came in like a lion, went out like one, and winter continued into April here in Kansas, more overnight freezes in the forecast and a chance for snow predicted tonight.   The closest thing to a Lamb evident in my garden this week was the small, peaceful concrete fawn that graces my viburnum bed.  I found it last week, half-buried under a year of debris, and laid it on this nice new bed of straw for comfort.  There perhaps, watched over and aided by the last daffodils of the season, it can tempt the weather to act more like springtime before the furnaces of summer fire up.

We began to at least pretend it was spring here this week by burning the prairie, our annual ritual here of welcoming warmer weather and clearing the fields for growth.  My neighbors and I got together Friday and burned in mass, teams spread out on the periphery to protect the town from our exuberance and teams within to protect our homes from ourselves.  This year's burn started out on a cold morning at 35ºF but rose to 60º temperatures by midday and it was a fine burn, windless when we were burning the edges and a mild breeze when we wanted the fire to sweep across the barren grasses.  You can see the result here, a few piles of donkey dung continuing to smolder long after the fire was out elsewhere.  Donkeys repeatedly pile their digested offerings in discrete places rather than sprinkling it over the area like bovines, so theses piles often burn slowly into the night, appearing as stars glowing on the dark prairie during windy times.  Sometimes we combine the prairie burning ritual with a sacrifice, usually of a random shrub, fruit tree, or 4-wheeler caught in the fires, but this year we got away almost clean, with the only casualty a late-afternoon singeing of a bridge at the neighboring golf course.

I was pleased, during my rounds of the grounds after the fires, to see that my secret small grove of redbuds in the bottom had not suffered the late freezes of the ones adjacent to my hilly home.  This little group sprang up volunteer a few years ago in a low area protected by the upwards slope to the south and the temperature-moderating pond just to the north.  I encourage them yearly by mowing down the grasses to limit competition and very controlled burning of the area to eliminate the cedar invaders.  Despite their precarious exposure to the elements, the deer, and rodents, they've done well, and I appreciate their kindness by blooming here in this little hidden world of my heart.



Within the house, spring is at least trying to overcome winter.  Appropriate for Easter, this white orchid began to bloom in our sunroom this week.  I apologize for the reminder of winter in the still-blooming Christmas Cactus behind it, but the purity and beauty of the orchid embraced by the warmth captured by the south-facing windows tells me that Easter, as always, foretells rebirth and the arrival of more tranquil days to come.

Burned the Cold Away

Sunday morning, bright, sunny, and my Iris tectorum variegata is a standout in the garden.  I just love the way these green and yellow leaves catch and amplify the sunlight in the early spring.  Every year, I divide and spread this iris across my garden, now 10 clumps from the original one.  It's one of the few plants that I grow specifically for the joy of the foliage rather than the flowers.  Although the flowers of I. tectorum are nothing to sneeze at since they are plenty fragrant as well!



My neighbors and I burned our little spot of prairie yesterday.  The burn went well, a decent wind for headfires but under control when we were careful, and there were no mishaps like last year when my neighbor burned out one of my small apple trees.   It was the second really cold morning (approximately 32ºF) of the week and as there are no other mornings in the immediate forecast that cold, I think we can truthfully say we burned away the last of winter, in many, many ways.   The ground, now black and foreboding, will quickly warm and in two weeks it will be a carpeted vision of Eden. Thankfully, no more frost is in the immediate forecast because I had three gallon-size roses come in last week for planting and I've got several more coming this week.  Yesterday, I planted "La Ville de Bruxelles', 'Park Wilhelmshone', and 'Rosalina', a damask, modern gallica, and Hybrid Rugosa respectively, and then covered all three plants with glass cloches which I will remove in the mornings of next week when we have 80º highs predicted.

At last, Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite tree is blooming, the redbud outside the kitchen and laundry room.  I always think of redbuds as the real start of the garden year, this major landscape tree associated in my mind with so many other garden chores (the start of asparagus, the timing of crabgrass preventer, etc).  Pictured here with 'Annabelle' lilac, also just beginning to bloom, the redbud is as late as I've noted before, on a par with 2005 and 2006 for bloom time.  Our late spring continues on the Kansas prairie. 

Night Burn

In the midst of a night burn I stand; enchanted, enraptured, and elated at the sinewy and fluid life of a prairie fire; spellbound by the fleeting, floating fear that comes in waves with the billowing smoke.  As flame flickers over the ground, former life morphs to black dust, light flares out from darkness and then retreats, over and over again, up and down the hillsides to leave behind black earth and burned stems, reminders of days once lived.  The fire moans and hisses, secrets of past lusts and whispered goodbyes left to the silent stars.   I stand mesmerized, fire so close my feet grow hot, oblivious while I freeze the scene to memory.  Would I burn for the right photo, the photo that preserves the moment perfect?

You cannot stand before a fire on the prairie and feel not the life held within it.  It breathes, it grows, it moves and sighs, it eats and flickers and withers and dies.  Wind at its back, nothing resists it, the relentless hunger for fuel and air stops for nothing and no-one.  Behind it lies the ashes of victims and the curiosity of those safe, a clean slate for regrowth and fertile ground for life.  You cannot control a fire; you coax it, tease it, guide it or turn it.  Properly lured and fattened, it will follow a docile trail but turns at the slightest distraction, always at the sharp edge from lamb to lion.  Disloyalty is the inherent nature of a prairie burn, ready at any moment to turn on master and home, caring not if its fingers chase and wrap friend or foe in grasp.

With each burn, one wonders; have I started renewor or destructor? Will this be the demon burn that makes tomorrow's headlines and villains, or the meek and orderly angelic means of resurrection?  Fire responds wildly to touch, the touch of wind and radiant heat at its back arousing the response of a sailor on shore leave.  It runs quickly across dry ripened brome, fed on clean air and stored passion.  Fronted with younger and damper fuel, it turns again contemplative, licking gingerly at the margins, slowly drawing the next blade or clump of grass to its pleasure.  It hurries or waits, dependent on the eagerness of the fare, the endless fuel of the prairie, to submit to its desire of consumption.

Near fire, one moves or else is cornered, a reluctant beau captured in the arms of a lover.  A stumble here, a fall there, and I would know the fire closer, beyond warmed face and feet, joining blackened prairie in the next rebirth.  A philosopher might contemplate the choice and hesitate but I place a diligent foot, concentrating on the present path.  Each step through the darkness and haze offers the choice of tomorrow or forever and I feel it as I tread lightly amid the pyre of old life.   Through smoke, cross ash, lies safety and home.  I move there through the embers, joining clear cool air, a single step from peril to possibility; like the prairie, a single line of fire separating yesterday from tomorrow.      

Early Visitation Rights

As foretold by Br. Placidus of Atchison Kansas, commenting on my last post, my garden has paid little heed to my keenings against its early appearance, and the sequential progression of spring blooms has begun against my sage advise and consent.  Thankfully, it has not yet stormed enough to damage the blooms of Magnolia stellata, which reigns beautiful and fragrant in my garden only four days after I saw the first bud break.  Therefore, despite the insubordination of my garden, I have to admit that I am nonetheless pleased that it has forced me to abandon my seclusion within the house and drawn me outside into activity, fresh air, and ultraviolet radiation.


I hope to see further exuberance from this mature Star Magnolia before the rain predicted for Saturday stains its petals with brown rot and moots the warm scent.  Right now I'm thankful that, as the good Brother suggested, I've already enjoyed more uninterrupted days of M. stellata than I can expect in a typical Kansas spring.  This shrub/tree never seems to get to full display before another cold spell or snow or freezing rain front strikes here.  This year, however, spring is early but shows no sign of backsliding in any long range forecast.  I'll be content as long as the hard freezes stay away.

The reign of the Star Magnolia, however, is quickly being overrun by the peasants of my spring garden.  You can see, below, the backdrop to the magnolia of three forsythia in full bloom, in this case Forsythia hybrid 'Meadowlark', a 1986 introduction of Arnold Arboretum in cooperation with North Dakota State and South Dakota State Universities.   I have several other forsythia in bloom here and there, and they are accompanied and accented by early blooming daffodils hither and yon.  Yellow is most definitely the main theme of my early spring garden, with a splash of blue added by diminutive Scilla siberica.  

If you look very closely at the last photo, you'll see my raison du jour for being in the garden at the time of the photo.  Behind the garden beds, in the distant blue sky, you can see the plume of smoke from a distant prairie burn, which was also exactly what was happening 10 feet behind me as this picture was taken.  I spent yesterday dragging hoses around my property and, in cooperation with my neighbors, burning the prairie clean of debris and invasive plants.  A long and tiring day, but I was rejuvenated by my moments spent visiting with this Magnolia, buried nose deep in its creamy-white petals.

Charred Satisfaction

Yesterday was Prairie Burn Day for my neighbors and I.  We waited till very late to burn the prairie this year compared with previous years, all the better to suppress invasive sumacs and other brush plants which are now fully leafed out and more susceptible to fire.  In fact, the burn went slowly because of a lack of wind and all the green grass underneath last winter's detritus.  There were no casualties this year, not even to any of our electrical boxes or minor outbuildings.  Most of my prairie is presently characterized by blackened earth punctuated by smoldering piles of donkey poo.

Burn Day's are communal and family events.  My wife and daughter both participated, tolerating my constant direction about water stream and fire spreading technique as they complained incessantly about spider webs and the possibility of giant female-eating ticks.  Burning Day also allows me to burn my garden debris piles in relative safety (surreptitiously photographed by my wife in the upper right picture) and they are a chance to burn out pack rat nests which accumulate in the woods around the pond.

This year, I took advantage of the occasion to check on the health of my son's Scotch Pine, shown here next to my daughter.  It was a gift from some well-meaning foresters at his elementary school some 17 or 18 years ago, a tiny seeding that I planted near the pond in hopes that it would be isolated and escape the rampant Scotch Pine disease in the area.  Its stands now almost 20 feet tall and healthy as an evergreen ox.

During every burn, I learn more about the prairie and my little portion of it.  This year my daughter found and rescued this little turtle crawling in the grass about 50 feet from the pond and wanted to keep it.  She was less excited when I told her it wasn't a box turtle but a snapping turtle searching for water.  We left it down by the pond, safe from the prairie fire sweeping in its direction.  I can't count all the rabbit and pack rat sightings of the week.

I rest now, content to let the passage of a few days clothe these burnt hills in emerald green.  In the picture below, you can see the blackened prairie to the north of my house, and the green hills of K-States Beef Unit, burned three weeks ago, beyond.  Soon the entire horizon will look like those hills, a sea of green grass ready once again for the summer passage of ghostly prairie schooners.    

Sensory Saturation

Newcomers to the Kansas Flint Hills, during their first March or April in residence here, are often surprised to see seemingly mentally-stable new neighbors and friends turn into enthusiastic arsonists that happily participate in the wanton torching of the surrounding countryside.   This annual ritual, a Spring rite of passage in the Flint Hills, is a necessary part of proper range and ranch management.  Carefully timed burns suppress invasive shrubs and trees and keep them from out-competing the prairie grasses and forbs.   Burns also improve the pasture quality and increase the weight gain of grazing animals the summer after a burn.

Prairie burns also have a number of opponents for various and sundry reasons.  Burns from the prairies increase the daily ozone levels in nearby overpopulated cities; this serves to distract the affected public from directly facing their own contribution to the perpetually marginal ozone levels in these regions.  Lately,widespread annual burns have even been blamed for contributing to the endangered status of the Lesser Prairie Chicken by destroying habitat, as if these beautiful and elusive birds did not evolve in the midst of frequent natural prairie fires.

Setting all of that aside for a moment, however, I always enjoy the majestic beauty of the Spring burns and savor my participation in the age-old cycle of burn and renewal that anchors the existence of the prairie ecosystem.  Columns of smoke from these burns provide grand and epic visions when the burns are controlled, and can terrify and panic the greater region when they are not.  The massive fire pictured above occurred recently on a beautiful spring Saturday and was on the horizon directly to the north of my house.  At such times, one prays for an southerly breeze and good fortune to keep the flames at bay.

The most beautiful burns, however, occur at night, such as the one above. I captured this image of the living flames near my neighbor's house last night.  He wanted to burn the pasture directly behind his house and I assisted, at times worried about the slightest gust of unanticipated wind and at other times bathing in the childlike joy of playing with the fire at my feet.  The sensory impact of a prairie fire is unique and spectacular.   Lines of fire grow from darkness, move forward, meet and blaze up, and then die back to charred earth.  The sight and smell of rising smoke and the crackle of flames in the dry grasses fills the immediate universe.  Smoldering piles of horse and donkey dung add earthy scents to join those of burning sage and prairie earth.  Heat licks at your face while damp night air slithers down your back.  Feet are sore from walking on the flint-strewn ground and muscles tired from spreading and monitoring the fire.  At times you're still, watching the fire creep forward with tentative fingers, and at other times breathless and running to check a worrisome and suspicious area of smoldering debris.  In the midst of a prairie fire, the Earth and the prairie and you are one, merged beneath the timeless gaze of distant stars in a black firmament, one entity enjoined in this single moment of today, in this cycle of cleansing renewal and rebirth.    

Burning Day

Last Saturday was "burning day" for myself and my neighbors, as we took advantage of cool temperatures and the recent rains to "safely" burn the prairie surrounding our homes.

Prairie burns, as I've discussed before, are an important factor in prairie maintenance.  Burns act to keep the prairie clear of invasive trees and non-native "weeds", and they increase the quality and protein levels of grassland intended for livestock pasture or hay.   As a consequence, of course, our intrusive government tries to regulate and prevent this useful and quite natural act, particularly during April when the burns are carefully monitored to limit their contribution to ozone pollution in overcrowded cities to the east. For untold millennia, prairie burns occurred as a result of lightning or the actions of Native Americans, but widespread burns today are unusual and it falls to the homeowners to nourish the prairie and to protect humans and human property. 

This year, we burned starting early in the morning.  Night burns can be spectacular, but our quiet morning burn was still beautiful and fretful and frightening, all at once.  Our primary goals are to keep the burns from escaping into town, and to burn our pastures thoroughly without burning our homes and outbuildings and my garden.  Hence, we usually "backburn" the perimeters of our landscaping into the wind, and then set fires to run with the wind to hotly and quickly finish the job.  In that final phase, sometimes it seems like the whole world is on fire.














Based on long experience together, none of my neighbors trust each other with a match in hand, and so burning is coordinated in person and by cell phone and burn tactics are chosen by consensus.  I view my neighbors as crazy arsonists hell bent on roasting my garden, but in their defense, the largest uncontrolled fire in this area occurred as a result of me trying to clear a bed for tulips a decade or so back.  Every year, somebody's pine trees get singed or a burn eats into someone's landscape mulch, but this year it was a perfect burn and there were almost no casualties, except for the accidental burning of four large hay bales owned by a neighbor (his own fault).  

I say almost no casualties, but at approximately 6:50 pm, several hours after the burns died down, our electricity died as well.  Pack rats often infiltrate the ground-hugging transformer boxes and nest there, and the nests will catch fire occasionally and smolder for hours in the boxes before finally taking our electricity with them.  Sure enough, on a neighbor's land, a blackened box was smoldering away and there was a large hole dug underneath one side.  Even in death, pack rats will get their revenge.   

I'll leave you teased with the view above, the blackened hills leading into town after the burn.  You can clearly see both the brush that gets burned and the rocks that litter what I call soil in this area. In about 2-3 weeks, I'll post this view and before's and after's of others, to show you the emerald paradise that burning creates on this Godforsaken land.

Burn, You Must

Somewhere in the midst of Winter, I've begun to think of Spring, and thoughts of Spring here on the prairie lead to plans for burning of the prairie, if not annually, at least on a periodic basis.  Around this same time, in preparation for the clouds of eastward-blown smoke, regional newspapers begin to spew forth various editorials for and against the prairie burning, with "pro" articles highlighting the benefits to the local environment (i.e. the immediate prairie) and "con" editorials bemoaning the detrimental effects for air quality in the eastern cities.  Take note here that both arguments are based on ecologically-principled arguments.  Particularly, in the last few years the EPA has begun to regulate the prairie burning with the excuse that it raises the ozone levels in Kansas City (already high from their human infestations) to unacceptable levels.

But, echoing Yoda, if prairie is to exist, burn you must.

So, ProfessorRoush, surely you exaggerate?  No, I'm afraid I don't.  While driving down the road this weekend, I took just a few pictures to illustrate the point.  In anticipation of the gnashing of teeth and wails about air quality loss, I'd like to make sure all my readers understand what will result from a complete ban on burning of the prairies.   If you don't burn the prairie, after three years or so, you get a view that looks like this:

 I've referred before to the colonization of the unburned prairie by Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana).  Red Cedars are dense, slow-growing evergreens that are native to the MidWest and they are quite simply fatal for the prairie grasses and forbs who cannot exist at their dry, sunless feet.  Underneath a stand of cedar trees in the Flint Hills is a barren ecosystem; bare, arid dirt without the slightest hint of herbaceous plant or moss.  Perhaps there will be a scattering of needles, which themselves raise the pH of the soil, making it more alkaline and the nutrients less available for plants.  The Red Cedar has been found to reduce the nitrogen available in prairie soils and, more importantly for those who hope to store excess CO2 from industrialization as soil-bound carbon, have also been found to reduce the carbon content of the soil, in contrast to the deep-rooted grasses that they outcompete.

In ten years without burning, it looks like this, an impenetrable thicket of stiff, worthless weed trees.

 

If these were California Redwoods, beautiful and pristine, or some useful tree species to man or animals, I might feel differently.  But even when they're allowed to grow with plenty of space around them, Red Cedars often aren't very pretty or useful.  The lower branches get singed by burns or die off one by one, and sometimes you're just left with a naked trunk and branches, bleached white by the sun, which stand alone for decades before the rot-resistant wood succumbs to wind or weather.  And then it lies on the ground for another decade unless removed by man.   

So please remember, when you're complaining that the air is a little hazy or smells a little burnt this April, there really is no alternative to burning if we want to keep a prairie.

Burn the Prairie!

A recent post on the Flint Hills of Kansas Blog refocused my attention on the geology and ecology of the Flint Hills and reminded me again just how unique the environment really is in which I put forth my sad attempts at a garden. The post linked to a National Park Service pamphlet located at   (http://www.nps.gov/tapr/upload/Geology%20brochureFinal.pdf%20) that focuses on the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve and describes in simple terms how my thin prairie soils evolved and why any plant that I place into the soil has to find a way to grow roots around and through the layer of loose flint that underlays the black soil between the one and three foot deep levels.  The topography and barely-covered sedimentary limestones and shales of the hillsides make the whole region practically impossible to crop farm and it barely allows an attempt to garden as my occasional despondent weeping will testify.  Often, my only consolation at the end of a long, hot day is the sunset, when the blue sky turns to glorious color and far-off clouds on the horizon look like the buildings of a city beyond this world.

We grow only grasses well here on the prairie, both the crop farmers and I, and we grow them because our plough eventually breaks on this unforgiving ground.  Trees fight to gain a hold and to obtain enough water on the exposed terraces and then they grow short and thick under assaults from the constant prairie winds.  Shrubs hasten to put on growth with the abundant spring moisture but the colors of Fall are often blunted with the loss of summer's leaves and energy during the July and August droughts.  Herbaceous perennials suffer in the hot summer sun and pull reserves back into their roots for another try next year.  Deep roots are needed to preserve and protect life from the sub-zero January days. 

The native prairie is dependent on all these things; sun, heat, moisture, drought, cold, wind and crappy soil.  Yet, it's also dependent on one other unique feature under attack from the greater world; Fire.  Sweeping Fire is the creator  and the destroyer of the prairie ecosystem, clearing the land of the ubiquitious junipers and foreign invaders that seek to transform the prairie into ecogarbage, and preserving the unobstructed beauty for the deeply-rooted survivors that have adapted here.  Fire is cleansing for the prairie and also sometimes cleansing for the time-worn souls of the people who live here, particularly as the lines of controlled fires sweep across the prairie nightscape. 

All this, though, is under threat from the bureaucratic slugs who work for the Eastern cities beyond our horizon.  There are recent suggestions and discussions seeking to place bans on the annual spring prairie burns because they temporarily raise the ozone levels of the populated scars on the earth downwind of us.  Burning the prairie is bad, they say, because you push our already polluted cities over the brink; it's your fault, prairie-dwellers, that we're in such bad shape!  These same thoughtless dweebs that push us towards an economy based on carbon credits and whale preservation forget that cessation of burning on the prairie would cause a final loss of the sweeping vistas, the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid, the Prairie Chicken, and an ancient way of life.  How deficient, the vision of Man!

Let the wind turbines populate the prairies, if you must, to help decrease the impact of the human blight on the planet, but leave the prairie burning alone, I say.  The prairie will survive beneath the artifical towers, but it won't survive our ignorance of the natural processes of fire and season.