The prairie is coming into bloom!

Two of my good friends from mixed-grass prairies, Tonya and Adrienne, got really excited last summer when they saw a tallgrass prairie garden in Sioux Falls while we were at a conference. They couldn't stop blubbering over the big bluestem that was growing there. Now I understand why...I've started to see big bluestem flowering, and it is a sight to see. I can just imagine what these prairies must have looked like 400 years ago, before European settlers started messing with the ecosystem that had been in place for a thousands of years.

Purple prairie clover with bumblebee pollinating.

Big bluestem flowering.

Great Blazing Star starting to bloom

My birds have all but gone quiet, but the plants and grasshoppers are making up for that. Not only is there big bluestem, but there are great blazingstars starting to bloom, the prairie clovers have been blooming, bouteloua (blue grama grass), and many more plants that are fun to look at. Also, I've noticed that there are grasshoppers of every color to match the vegetation that they are living on (think reds, sage greens, browns, spotted, etc.). I'm very much enjoying to tallgrass prairies, but I think it would be even better if I had an expert with me to tell me about all these cool things I am seeing.

Sunflowers blooming along the roadside.

Purple and white prairie clover, along with prairie sage, in one
of the restoration sites at Pigeon Point.

Tomorrow I am off to home for a week, I'm really excited to see my family, especially  my niece and nephew. When I get back, I am hoping to take a road trip out the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and stop at a bunch of sites along the way, like the Frontier Village in Jamestown, the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora, and the Enchanted Highway east of the park. And I'm still waiting for the best time to get up to Winnipeg! This past weekend instead of going up north, I went east to the Bagg Bonanza Farm, which is a National Historic Site. It was really interesting to hear about how these bonanza farms helped to open up the west to settlement, although I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing...

Mr. and Mrs. Bagg pictured in a wedding present made out of
old cigar boxes. Lots of artifacts (actually, more than I could
believe) were preserved, because no one had stolen things from
the house, which was run-down, and no one had decided to
burn the place down, which is the fate of many old buildings.
Even all of Mr. Bagg's office paperwork were still in the office.
It was quite an amazing place.

This is the door through which the workforce
entered and exited for all meals. The dining room
sat about 25 men, and there were 100 men to
feed in 45 minutes, so they moved through pretty
quickly. Women were not allowed in the room.

Old farm machinery. The one on the right is a thrasher, which is
what was used to collect grain before the combine came along.
The thrasher sat in one spot in the field, while men brought the
wheat to it. It took a lot of people to get the job done. This was one
reason that "bonanza" farms were required--the large workforce
needed to harvest the crop.

About 30 transient workers would have slept in this attic. Only
permanent or semi-permanent help had rooms, everyone was
given a pillow and blanket and told to find a spot to sleep. The
day I visited, this space was probably about 100 degrees!