Blue bus with tallgrass in foreground

Podcast

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Podcast Library

Tallgrass Prairie

A collection of podcasts about the nature, history, and culture of Tallgrass Prairie NPres and the surrounding region.

Episodes

Spring Hill Ranch HQ Tour Stop 9: The Outhouse

Transcript

Tour Stop 9: The Outhouse

Lovingly called "The Little Privy on the Prairie" how fitting this little outhouse is to the Spring Hill Farm and Stock Ranch complex. Stephen Jones did not cut corners on this building. The exterior walls are built with block limestone and the keystones have a hammered face, with tooled stone edges. The cornerstones also have tooled edges.

The interior walls are rough cut ashlar stone which are dressed at the windows. There is evidence that the interior was meant to be enclosed with either wood or wood lath and plaster. The outhouse even has curtains in the windows for that added element of privacy.

Inside you will find that it is a three-seater. The purpose is for biodegradability. Lime was used to break down solids while the other opening could be utilized until the waste was dissolved.

An outhouse was necessary as this was before indoor plumbing. The only thing that saved someone from a trip to the outhouse on a cold, snowy night, was the chamber-pot. There are many names for these little helpers, such as thunderbucket or rumblepot.

Another reason for this structure's three seats may have been to accommodate each individual member of the household at the time. Mr. and Mrs. Jones and little daughter Loutie. To answer a common question, Victorian modesty and culture only allowed the outhouse to be utilized by one member of the household at a single time. It was never occupied by all three at the same time.

Continue your self-guided tour of the grounds by following the steps up the hill to the Icehouse.

History and description of the Outhouse at Tallgrass Prairie NPres

Spring Hill Ranch HQ Tour Stop 10: The Icehouse

Transcript

Tour Stop 10: The Icehouse

The Icehouse and cistern were built of native limestone in 1882. Originally, the doorway was located on the north face of the building. Placing the entrance here denies sunlight from reaching the ice. Some icehouses place the entrance several feet off the ground, because cold air flows downward. An entrance reaching the bottom would allow this cold air to escape. Eventually, this icehouse's doorway was moved to the south side to support the changing needs of the ranch and was converted to a garage.

The winters were colder in the 1800s and the Cottonwood River would freeze. There was an ice cutting factory on the river and large blocks of ice were sold. They were then carried by a wagon to the icehouse for storage and place in sawdust and prairie hay for insulation. Try to imagine the blocks of ice that could be stored in this icehouse.

This gave the Jones family access to ice the year round, a luxury for the time. The old saying, "The rich man gets his ice in the summer, and the poor man gets his ice in the winter" may very well ring true in this case.

The icehouse also supported an 11,000 gallon cistern on its east side. It collected both the natural spring water on the hill, but also any runoff from ice being melted from the icehouse, by evidence shown along the east floor of the building. Today, it is being utilized for storage.

Feel free to continue your journey along the Southwind Nature Trail to the Prairie Overlook and onward to the Schoolhouse.

History and description of the icehouse at Tallgrass Prairie NPres

Spring Hill Ranch HQ Tour Stop 11: Prairie Overlook

Transcript

The large and imposing stone structures of the ranch are dwarfed by the vastness of the landscape. For centuries, the interplay of climate, fire, and grazing have combined to produce and sustain the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Throughout most of the tour, you have observed the influence of people on the prairie. Now consider the influence of the prairie on the people. What you are feeling as you step from the shade and comfort of the trees into the exposed openness of the overlook, is exactly what the settlers were experiencing over a century ago, when they stepped from the forests into the openness of the prairie beyond the Mississippi River.

Many people judged this almost treeless land to be worthless. The pioneers soon realized the value of the prairie's rich soil. Today, less than 4% of North America's tallgrass prairie remains. Although the Flint Hills were too rocky to plow, settlers discovered its many resources, something long known by American Indians. The Flint Hills have furnished people with edible and medicinal plants, year-round spring water, stone for tools, weapons, fences, and buildings, wind for power, rich bottomlands for farming, and lush grasses for grazing, both on which bison and, more recently, cattle could fatten.

History and description at the Prairie Overlook on the Southwind Nature Trail at Tallgrass Prairie NPres

Spring Hill Ranch HQ Tour Stop 12: Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse

Transcript

Tour Stop 12: The Lower Fox Creek School

The Lower Fox Creek School was built in 1882 on land donated by school's first superintendent, Stephen F. Jones. Mr. and Mrs. Jones' daughter, Loutie, attended school in this very building, going through all eight grades. This one-room school provides a setting for educating local area students until 1930 when it was abandoned and it reverted back to the ranch owner. Feel free to peek through the windows as you imagine children studying their lessons and learning the three "R"s, Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic.

History and description of Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse at Tallgrass Prairie NPres

Tallgrass Bus Tour, Scenic Overlook to Visitor Center

Transcript

Alright, so here we go. So here's one quiz question for you on the way back, "How big is the park?" Has everybody been doing the math there? Yes? No? Maybe? Well, 10,894 acres, 17 square miles, or 44 square kilometers if you're a metric-minded person. And if that winds up being the only tallgrass prairie we can say we preserved and protected and defended, I would say that we probably failed in that overall mission, because again it's going to fall to those folks who live outside of the park who try to make a living on this landscape, the land owners, the land users, what have you, to find a way to make a living out here and do it in such a way that others who come later can make a living, because they probably more than most understand that there cannot be a functioning economy without a functioning ecology.

So if we can be of any benefit to the wider community, perhaps it is to be a place to demonstrate and educate into different methods of regenerative and restorative types of agriculture. Ways of growing and grazing that would return nutrients and resources to the soil rather than just continually extracting them.

And to pull that off out here, is mainly just to change up the fire cycle out here. The role of fire is well known and fundamental, but maybe we can change it up a little bit, the timing, the placement, the frequency of fire. Because in a natural setting, fire would happen every three to five years, when lightning would hit the ground or some other random act that would ignite a fire and burn across the landscape.

But these days, fire is far more frequent. It's generally kind of hemmed in at the beginning of the growing season, mid-March to mid-April. And then that is quickly followed up by about three to four months of cattle grazing, 90 to 100 days of intense cattle grazing. And that in the short term, that grows a lot of grass which ends up growing a lot of cattle, but when that pattern is repeated over and over and over again, it starts to have some long-term effects, very similar to say sharpening a knife blade over and over again.

I mean, you have to sharpen it to get it to cut well, and you use the knife, you go sharpen it, you use it again, you sharpen it up some more, you go bang some nails with it, open some paint cans, pry up some 2x4s, and then all of a sudden, many, many years later, you realize, "Wow, my knife doesn't cut as well as it once did. I have to work harder at it to get the same effect. I need a new one." Toss the old one and buy yourself a new one.

But it's a little hard to toss away and entire landscape, so maybe we can rebuild the edge on these pastures by just changing up when you burn. Maybe burn a little bit in the fall, burn a little bit in the spring, or move that burning around, burn one side of a road one year, the other side of the road the next year, the other side of a creek the third year, and just rotate it around.

Because that has a nice little side effect, the grazing animals are also inspired, they move, too. They follow the green grass, just like they always did. And cattle, for all of their domestication, still have that habit, they still seek out the fresh grass growth.

And another benefit of that rotational burning, is that the landscape that doesn't get burned or grazed as heavily, well that gets to simply rest. It's just as beneficial for plants as it is for people, because it has a very similar effect as going to the gym over and over again. The first few trips you're getting stronger, faster, healthier. But on and on, you start to get a bit beat up, a little weak, a little worn out. And many of these pastures are exactly that. They're still fairly healthy, but they're feeling a little stressed out and a little worn out by always being forced or challenged to grow up, to grow the green part of the plant, the stem, the leaf, the blade of grass that gathers the sunshine and the energy.

And then if the grass is always growing up, it's not growing down as much. And as the roots weaken, it cannot absorb as much resources and other plants will go after those resources. I mean, checks and balances aren't just for government class anymore. It's a very ecological idea. Ecologies that are balanced are kept in check. It can't even be described without saying the words.

But when some plants dominate over the others, when disturbances begin to take hold, well that's when ecosystems get weak and other plants begin to fill in the gaps. Like that yellow plant back there. That is what is often derided as a "weed." It's called broomweed, but it responds to disturbance quite well. So by moving the disturbances, that encourages other plants to grow. Cattle will not eat that. So, that's one reason why it grows so well.

But by moving the disturbance around, grazing can become a benefit, by moving the fire around, that spreads out the impact a little bit, let's other plants rest some. So, it strengthens the community of plant life as a whole, especially when considering invasive plants and any plant, any life form, can be invasive given the opportunity, especially if they have no natural competitors. And there is a particular legume, a forb out here, called Serecia Lespedeza, or East Asian Bush-clover. And that's a plant that has no real competitors in North America but had plenty back in East Asia.

So, it was a Depression-era experiment in animal forage and soil conservation. But it had the unintended effect of just becoming a real hazard to grazing, because it squeezes out many plants that grazing animals will eat. So it is a Public Enemy Number One out here in the plant world.

But, again, another benefit of all this rotational burning and grazing…I'll slow down for you to get a good look at the buffalo there...is that the habitat that gets left over becomes the home for the vast majority of tallgrass prairie animals, who are not the "charismatic megafauna." That's the name of my garage band, by the way. The buffalo, the elk, the pronghorn, the gray wolf, the grizzly bear, the animals that get all the magazine covers. The big, highly visible animals. They have the additional benefit of being able to make it in other parts of North America, which they do, much to their credit.

But other animals, the vast majority of these tallgrass animals, are specialists. They have adapted their entire lives and livelihoods to living in the tallgrass. And when the grass disappears, so do they. And a good example of that is the Greater Prairie-chicken. It's about as big as my hat, minus the brim, of course. About 3 pounds of bird that lives most of its time on the ground, hiding in the grass, laying its eggs, going after seeds and insects, roosting and raising the next generation.

But it cannot do that out in the wide-open spaces. That's just asking for trouble, it's only a matter of time before a red-tailed hawk or some other predator animal comes and nicks it away for dinner as the main course. So, as tallgrass has disappeared, so have their numbers. They've declined quite a bit. And they share the fate of ground-dwelling birds across North America, the sage grouse of Wyoming and the Dakota oil patches, the Lesser Prairie-chicken of the panhandle region of Texas and Oklahoma, southwestern Kansas.

But at least in our neck of the woods, maybe we can demonstrate some different methods of burning and grazing, changing up the way we do things in order that all life forms can have a better shot at life, having their cake and eating it, too. Maybe just not all at once.

But then we come around to the buffalo, one of the big draws out here is an opportunity to see the buffalo. And it's really cool that the park is playing a big role in maintaining the lineage and the legacy of North America's largest native grazing animal, the bison. Because at the end of the 19th century, there were less than a thousand left, down from an estimated 40 million at the start of the 19th century, so roughly within a lifetime, they went from a literal force of nature to functional extinction.

And that decline was probably, tragic though it is, it may have, in fact, been the wakeup call that got the attention of the culture at that time. And it was a culture that pretty much assumed that nature was infinite, and humans would never alter it and it was just had to take what comes.

But by the 1870s, it was becoming pretty obvious that human activity was starting to have a measurable effect. And fortunately, there were individuals at the time willing to stake their reputations on the speculation that if there is a human element to the problem, maybe there's a human element to the solution.

And that was kind of a radical idea, but they were willing to put their money where their mouths were, and yes I'm talking about Theodore Roosevelt and others, who formed an organization specifically aimed acquiring bison where they could still be found, transported them to the Bronx Zoo in New York City to just basically wait, wait out the time until a new time came along, when the bison could be safely reintroduced back to their homeland.

And that opportunity arose in 1914 at the newly established Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave was established in 1903...1914, eleven years after that park was established it got its herd back. About a dozen bison were reintroduced up there, purebred stock living there in New York City.

And that population has been growing over time to the present number of about four to five hundred. But in order to keep that genetic lineage going, of course, you have to find good places to put the extras. And in 2009, after only 12 years of existence, this park had grown to such a mature state, that it could finally take on some bison of its own and be a part of that maintenance, restoration, rebuilding process. Probably not going to be 40 million anytime soon, but it beats zero any day of the week. Extinction is final, no matter what they say in Hollywood.

But it is nice to have the bison here. We have about a hundred these days, 87 adults, 13 newborns. And they'll probably be rounded up here in a couple of months to give everyone a good once-over, test who's related to whom, probably shuffle out about 20 or so to herds of similar genetics. Give this herd some more room to grow.

Which is good, because it's not every day that you get a chance to correct an error in your activity, even if it was an error born of sheer ignorance. They didn't know any better, perhaps. I mean, the word ecology didn't even exist until the 1870s. So, the whole idea of inter-relatedness of all life was still a bit of an alien idea in many circles.

But they're they are and a good portion of them there. Even when you stand 6 1/2 feet tall at the shoulder, these grasses can still do a good job at hiding you there, especially when you're sitting down there. Pretty cool!

But you've heard me call these animals both buffalo and bison and you might be wondering when I will make up my mind and fortunately that is a question that has two right answers, buffalo AND bison. I like the word buffalo; I like both words. But bison is the scientifically accurate term for that big brown animal back there.

But buffalo lives on. It's a nice remainder of this area's Hispanic lineage and legacy. Because again, it was Spanish speakers who came first and wrote down what they saw. And upon seeing that animal in the 15 to 1600s, to their understanding, they thought they were looking at a buffalo. It did not resemble "la vaca," the Spanish word for cow. It looked like "el bufalo," which, of course, becomes "buffalo" in English, two f's.

And that's the way it stayed for maybe 300 years, until the middle of the 19th century, when it became obvious that what we had been calling a buffalo had more in common with a European grazing animal, called a "wisent." And that translates to English as "bison."

And so "Bison bison," the scientific, Latinized name of North America's largest grazing animal. So how does the state song of Kansas go again? "Oh give me a home, where the bison roam, where the deer and the antelope play or deer and the pronghorn play?"

Well, you wouldn't be wrong if you wanted to sing "Home On The Range" that way, but maybe it's a little poetically clumsy, lyrically, maybe, a little boring? And I've been accused of a lot in my 24-year Federal career, but lyrically boring and poetically clumsy are accusations I do not want on my rap sheet. So I'm going to stick with buffalo and let the chips fall where they may.

But here we are about, wow! We're really getting our money's worth today. About five minutes from the ranch headquarters where I'll unload you all, which gives me one last chance to unload, ruminate upon the state of affairs here on planet Earth. It seems there's all sorts of wild and crazy things happening on our planet these days.

Oh, you wanted to drop off! Yes, my apologies. There you go there, right up the road there. Thanks for the reminder there.

Alright, where was I? Rumination! Deep thinking. And I still like to think of our planet as the living embodiment of a Latin phrase you might know, "E Pluribus Unum," from diversity comes unity.

But if that's not quite your cup of tea, and that's alright. Maybe your car is a more acceptable or appetizing an analogy. I mean your car has got a lot of parts that make it go. Like let's take your water pump, for example. It might leak. You might know about it. You might not know about it. You might be ignoring the problem. Or you might think your mechanic is just making it all up and you're just going to go about your business.

And your car will get you there for a short amount of time. It will get hotter and hotter along the way, until one day when you're really needing to get somewhere, your car will be too hot to do it for you anymore. And life as you knew it from that point forward, just got a lot more difficult.

And I like to imagine the grasses of the world as like that water pump. They're not so flashy most of the time. They're meek and humble, not out there "doin' it for the 'Gram" or for the Facebook likes, or whatever.

But if you ignore them in any significant way, they will clap you right back and remind you that they are, indeed, the meek that have inherited the Earth. And that ain't braggin'. Because, grasses can be found on the average, 30% of the planet's land surface, one-third of our land surface on Earth is a grassland. And you know these areas already, believe it or not.

I mean, you have the Prairie of North America, French word for meadow and all that, taken from the Latin word "pratum" for meadow. Then you move south to Argentina and you find your way onto the Pampas region of Argentina, Uruguay, down there in South America. Then you move across the Atlantic to Africa, and now you're standing on the Savannas of Africa, 2.7 billion acres of grassland in Africa. Then you move north to Europe, where they share a grassland with Asia called the Steppe, a 5,000-mile green highway connecting the cultural East with the cultural West, one of the oldest, most ancient human highways are the Steppe. Beginning in probably present-day Hungary and Romania on the European side, stretching eastward through the rest of Europe into central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria in northeast China. Then you leap to the south and you wind up on the Rangelands of Australia, also known, of course, as the Outback.

And all of the plants of these grasslands, grasses included, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, measured in the megatons. And they, of course, blend it with sunshine and water and other soil minerals and create a carbon compound for themselves called glucose, energy, sugar.

And then they emit the oxygen as a by-product, which is all very beneficial for us air breathers. And then what happens to the glucose, to the carbon in the glucose? Well, it becomes part of the plant, it's organic. That's the definition there, carbon-based life form.

And then whatever grows, eventually must decompose. So, remember, now, where most of a grass plant is found? Underground? In the roots? So, all of that carbon that was in the atmosphere has been sequestered, captured, recycled into the living soil, making it more fertile and more able to support future generations of plant growth.

And scientists are only just now realizing how big a piece of the puzzle grasslands really are and it's not a moment too soon. Because grasslands have been nursing and nurturing humanity upon the Earth for maybe as long as there has ever been a humanity on the Earth. And now they look to us, their children, for our help.

So thank you for your help today, for choosing to be here today, because life is for "We The People," we are what we choose to be. And you can either choose to be reactive individually and then you get to suffer the consequences, or you can choose to participate in existence together as a group, in a larger, more ecological, dare I say, fashion.

And by being here today in some small way you have done exactly that as individuals, you have come together, collectively, proving and bravely demonstrating what "E Pluribus Unum" could still be in America and around the world.

So, congratulations, you have made your Kindergarten teachers very proud today, but now is not the time to rest, of course. Far more existential challenges await us all in the next few decades, so definitely use today and every day to strengthen your inalienable ability to choose. Because, ultimately, Mother Nature always bats last and she never, EVER, strikes out.

So, "Terra Alta Prata Robustior!" Oh, no, he's really lost it. He's not even speaking English anymore. Well, that's Latin. I promised you a Latin phrase, remember, and so with you being here today, the tallgrass is definitely stronger and more resilient. But, of course, that's just for today, the only day we every really get.

Destiny comes for us all eventually, so with apologies to dead poets, past, present, and future, I give to you, let's see..."Gather ye rosebuds; enjoy their perfume. But pay heed to this omen-tide. Tomorrow lives not for us to bloom, but for our fruit's florescence to abide." In other words, "Carpe Diem Cordate." That's your assignment for today. Look that up. I think "Carpe Diem" we can all figure out already, but "Cordate" that's your challenge here. Thank you very much, you all. Thank you.

Tallgrass Bus Tour, Scenic Overlook to Visitor Center

Tallgrass Bus Tour, Scenic Overlook

Transcript

Alright, everybody. Welcome to the top of the park. You're the next contestants on the tallgrass prairie. I'll get to your questions in just a little bit. I might actually be able to answer a few of them along the way. So, feel free to mingle around, mix and mingle, as it were.

Welcome to the top of the park. We are standing roughly one thousand, five hundred feet above sea level, which is, of course, nowhere near the height of any mountain in the Himalayas or even the height of Mt. Sunflower over in western Kansas, about 4,000 feet high, 2500 feet over our heads here.

But we can certainly pretend and imagine that we're standing atop a high mountain, by looking around this landscape. Looking to the south, especially, you're looking at probably a 20-mile horizon and probably a 10-mile horizon to the north. And within that whole panorama you're seeing in excess of 75,000 acres of intact tallgrass prairie. Which might not sound like all that exciting a factoid, but it is more tallgrass than you would see in the states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa combined, plus another half a dozen American states.

I think I just described the American farm belt, a whole lot of cropland nowadays, a whole lot of food gets produced on those lands, especially in Iowa, the buckle of the Farm Belt, the state that probably had the most tallgrass prairie in it at one time, now has virtually no native tallgrass prairie. It's been entirely plowed to grow corn and hogs and put a lot of food on the table for millions of us.

So, you can look out over this landscape and understand why we don't have a lot of cornfields out here. These rolling hills, so full of rocks, thin soil, not very well suited for crop cultivation, except in very specific areas along rivers and streams. But it is ideal for the growth of grass. Grass loves this kind of environment and cattle of course come and graze upon it. Again, the economic engine of these parts.

So, but you have come from a long way to see the Flint Hills. Well, congratulations, you're standing on one. This is how you get flint in the Flint Hills. You find a hilltop that's been laid bare by erosion and other natural effects. The limestone that surrounds the flint dissolves away. It's calcium carbonate, pretty common material in these parts. And then in the presence of a weak acid, like water, it dissolves away. Then the elemental components, calcium, carbon, and oxygen, become part of the soil, which then gets picked up by the plant life, especially the calcium, which makes these grasses very fertile and nutritious for a wide range of grazing animals.

And then you get the flint showing up on the surface, flint or chert. And I've got a couple of pieces here in my hands here. Now you're probably looking at this and saying, "That one in his left hand might be something, but that one in his right hand, nah, that's glass. That's a piece of glass. He's trying to pull one over on us."

And I'm like, "Nope, not exactly." This is just a nice example that shows that just because you look different on the outside, doesn't mean you're not the same on the inside. And basically, these are two identical pieces of silicon dioxide. And you would be correct in observing that this is glass, and this is not, but they are the same elemental components.

And they do behave in a very similar way, if you want to look up close, and the prairie challenges you to look up close, you can see they each have the same kind of a dent/crack/fracture pattern going on, which ends up forming a remarkably sharp edge on these pieces. Some of the sharpest knives ever created have been made of chert or flint.

But, of course, the native population of these parts were not performing microsurgery with their flint tools, but they were utilizing that property, to form very sharp-edged knives and scrapers and arrowheads and spear points, which made life a whole lot easier for them along rivers and streams.

Because at the time of contact with Europeans and for many decades previous to that, they were already beginning to grow their own crops. They had made the revolutionary discovery, on their own, that has led to all others on Earth over the last several thousands of years. And that would be agriculture, itself. We would not be here chatting here today were it not for agriculture, because otherwise, if we existed at all, we'd be hunting and gathering from nature and probably from each other, for what we'd be eating just a few hours later. Hunting and gathering really fills the hours, but it doesn't leave much time for anything else. So, agriculture has tremendous impacts upon the planet, impacts that we are having to reckon with today.

But, again, at the time of contact, both cultures had things to share with each other. The incoming Spaniards had technology that had never been seen out here before, like firearms, other trade goods, metal goods, in addition to horses and cattle, which are two big icons in America's imagery of itself. But it often gets lost in the mix, that these major icons have Hispanic roots, something that should not ever be forgotten.

And then the native peoples, the indigenous peoples, had something even more important than material goods. They had the knowledge. they knew that fire and grazing go together out here, observing early on that when natural fires occurred, you would get green grasses that would be attractive to migrating grazing animals, like elk and pronghorn and buffalo and the like.

So they began to alter the environment to suit their own specific needs, basically burning the grasses in order to create hunting grounds that would alter the migrating patterns of these large grazing herds that would make hunting a little bit easier, because pre-1492, probably deep into the 1500s, there were no large horse populations in the Western Hemisphere. So it took some time before horses became part of many of these native cultures.

But, unfortunately, though, as it often happens in the clash of cultures, the similarities were overshadowed by their differences, which must, of course, be acknowledged lest myself, I will acknowledge them, I won't speak for you all, lest I be branded a hypocrite, and since I'm trying to be a good parent at home, I need all the hypocrisy I can get my hands on, because he's just entered middle school and there's going to be a lot of "do as I ask, not as I have done" type stuff, regardless, keeps you out of jail, let me tell you.

But the name of our state, Kansas, is a good reflection of that to keep in mind. The name of our state is Kansas, for People of the Southwind, we're having a nice little breeze from the south today. They, too, like much of us, are migrants to this neighborhood. The Kansa, themselves, came out of the Great Lakes region, probably 16-ish hundreds. They migrated into this area, establishing themselves along the present-day Kansas River near Manhattan and Topeka, Kansas.

But their numbers were small compared with the dominant cultures of the region, the Osage Nation and, later on, the United States, the American nation. And as a result, their numbers got smaller and smaller and smaller, until 1872, which is a date that doesn't exactly live in infamy for most of us, but maybe it does for the Kansa, because that is the date that the Kansa Nation, the lands in and around present-day Council Grove, were opened to full settlement.

So the Kansa, as of 1872, no longer had a home in the state that still today bears their name. So, they were moved, many, many native peoples suffered that fate. They were moved, not by their choice. They still exist today as a sovereign tribal nation about 3 hours south. They're called the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma these days.

So, about 3 hours south, but if that doesn't fit into your afternoon plans, maybe 30 minutes might, to the north. That's where Council Grove is, that's where the Kaw Mission State Historic Site is. Kansas making up for lost time, I hope. And then the Kansa themselves in one of the richer ironies of these parts, are actually purchasing lands that their ancestors may have at one time called their own, in order to form memorial parks and heritage areas and interpretive trails that all seek to keep the name "Kansas" from being just another name on a map.

So, here we are. I'm plenty drunk with power now, so now it's time to sober up with some questions from you all. We'll be bugging out here shortly.

Tallgrass Bus Tour, Scenic Overlook

Tallgrass Bus Tour, Visitor Center to Scenic Overlook

Transcript

Alright there we go...so everybody...that will do it. Welcome one and all to our week-daily hike without the hike. Normally this 10-kilometer trip or thereabouts roughly speaking would take in the neighborhood of over two hours to do on foot, depending on how the weather conditions and your own physical abilities, but we will do it in about half that...a little over one hour. So, it should include everything you'd normally get on such an adventure except for all of the sweating and exertion that comes from such physical activity. So that should help keep us all minty fresh for the rest of the day, which is always a good thing. But while we're together, again, for something in the neighborhood of sixty minutes, we'll discover for ourselves what makes the tallgrass prairie unique and special and therefore worthy of our collective efforts to preserve, protect, and defend it.

Because there is nothing in the American Constitution that requires there to be a National Park Service or a Tallgrass Prairie. Nothing except for a vague four-word phrase in the Preamble, "Promote the General Welfare." So it does, indeed, fall to us, "We The People," which does also fall in the Preamble, to "Promote the General Welfare" to the best of our individual abilities. So, well done thus far, just showing up today, that's pretty good.

But before we dive into the park's story, let's kind of drop in on its backstory here a little bit. The park itself was established by an Act of Congress as the 370th unit of the National Park Service on November 12, 1996 and it stands out like all national parks do for what it does and how it does it. Number one, this is the first national park area set up specifically to protect and preserve and defend grass for its own sake. There ought to be a catchy Latin phrase to commemorate that. I'll get to work on that. Give me a few minutes. But it is also unique in how it goes about this mission. And that will become very obvious here in about three and two and one. Right there with that last little rumble, that lets us know that we have left public land behind us.

Currently, "We the People" own 33 acres roughly of this national park, one-third of one percent. So, the remaining 10,861 acres or 99.7% of the park is own by a non-profit group. Currently, that is The Nature Conservancy. But in 1994, it was a group called the National Park Trust, who at the request of US Senator from Kansas, Nancy Landon Kassebaum-Baker, purchased this ranch, in the hopes of one day establishing a national park up on it as a "model for the nation," as the senator put it when the park was dedicated. And that mission was accomplished again in 1996 and the two groups worked side by side establishing many of the activities we know and love today, like this bus ride, among many others.

And then in 2005 the National Park Trust pretty much said, "Well folks, it's been real, but our mission is accomplished. We've done what we've set out here to do at the park. Other parks need our help, so another group needs to step up long-term alongside the National Park Service.

And that's when The Nature Conservancy enters the picture. They are no strangers to this line of work. They've been active worldwide since 1951 doing this very land, water, animal, nature preservation thing. And then in 2005 again, that's when they took on this property from the National Park Trust. So, they've been very active in Kansas, most notably about an hour's drive to the north at a place called Konza Prairie Biological Research Station and that mouthful of a name gives you an idea what they do up there with Kansas State University, and it is not bus rides. They fill the hours up there deep in the evidence-based world, gathering raw, empirical data about the inner mechanisms of the tallgrass prairie. And in order to do that effectively, people are kept to the outside, with only a few areas that have any real public access. But that's not really the M.O. up there anyway. It's an outdoor, living laboratory up there near Manhattan, KS.

But that, in turn, gives places like this a niche to thrive in. Because, not only do we do a fair amount of our own research and restoration and demonstration and the like, we pile on top of that a whole lot of public access and public educational opportunities. Perhaps, more one-on-one, do-it-yourself contact with the tallgrass prairie than you'd get anywhere in Kansas. I mean, if you want to walk around in the grass, this is where you go. And that puts us right up there with some of the top tallgrass destinations on the continent. So, not bad for flyover country.

And now that we're on top of the hill here, you can see what we're attempting to achieve here together and that is the continued protection and preservation of a small portion of a vanishing ecosystem. Now tallgrass in North America shares the fate of grasslands around the world, in that they are perhaps the most humanly altered of ecosystems on the planet.

Just to underscore this fact, more of the Florida Everglades remain intact, as a percentage of the whole, that what you'll find remaining today of North America's tallgrass prairies. And that's astonishing, really, when you think about how much tallgrass covered North America at one time, something like 170 million acres, which is roughly the size of Texas, covering a good chunk of the Great Plains. But it's been whittled down over time to something like 4% of it's original size. So roughly the size of Hawaii, the Hawaiian Islands.

So, what happened? What happened to that other 96%? Did we lose it or misplace it or is there a Deep State conspiracy out there going on that I should be aware of? I'm like, no, sorry to disappoint you. I wish there were, actually. That would be a far more interesting story. But the truth is, as it often is, far more mundane. We are, basically, eating the tallgrass prairie. Transforming it. Converting it to suit human needs. So, because basically if you like to eat and that's kind of a thing that most life forms have in common, they consume resources. But as far as humans go, if you like to eat, you've got a connection to grass already. Because, if you eat it, there's probably a grass connection in there somewhere. So it's not necessarily a right or wrong, up or down, kind of question. It's more a question of conscience, one that has to be reckoned with from generation to generation.

But we are fortunate in Kansas to have more intact tallgrass prairie than you'll find anywhere else in North America. At least two-thirds of the remaining 4%. Which is pretty nice, because we are certainly lacking for Grand Tetons and Grand Canyons here in Kansas. But the one thing we are not lacking is grand prairie on a horizon-to-horizon landscape level, making this one of the few areas on the continent where you can get this kind of impression. And a lot of things go into that to making that a reality, and we'll encounter them while we're together. But they all, basically, boil down to a single word. That word is "ecology," which is a new word in the English language, coined in the 1870s from Greek roots. The Greek word for home and surroundings, that would be "oikos" matched up with the Greek suffix for study, that would be "ology." You put the two together, "oikos" and "ology" and you get the word ecology in English, the study of your home and surroundings and that's exactly what ecology seeks to do, get to know our homes a little bit better and all of the many, myriad interconnections that go on to weave the web of life here on Earth.

And the first of these relationships I like to bring out is one we don't see very easily, but it just goes to show that just because you're small and seemingly insignificant or content to do your best work behind the scenes, doesn't mean you're not also very, very important.

And this particular relationship is the geologic one, which is, quite literally, the foundation of the Flint Hills themselves, which are ironically enough, made not of flint, but limestone and shale, laid down long ago, no matter how you want to measure the passage of time, because Einstein is correct in that time is a variable, passing at different rates depending on your relative frame of reference and point of view.

But scientists go back to a period they call the Permian period, when this area was covered by water at various times and as the water would recede, you would get organic material building up on the surface which eventually became shale when the waters returned and started depositing the calcium and silica-bearing remnants of marine plants and animals and algae and the like and that eventually layered up into the limestone with flint kind of spicing up the limestone. So we get this layered effect, limestone/shale/limestone/shale with flint, again, spicing up the limestone.

And as you look around at the panorama in front of us, you can already, hopefully, begin to detect some of that layering going on. I mean we've definitely got down this eroded valley, you can probably pick out some of the layers just beneath the soil's surface. You might begin to pick up some of the differential erosion over here on the left side.

But you'll also notice as you scan the horizon a lack of trees, except in very specific areas where there is more moisture to work with. That's one of the many things playing against tree growth. But those very conditions make this area ideal for tallgrass and wildflower growth, which has been nursing and nurturing life in the Flint Hills, including human life, for hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years.

So why after all that exposition and description, do we still insist on calling this area the "Flint Hills?" Well, even though this area was known to Europeans, thanks to Spanish-speaking colonial explorers as early as the middle 1500s, it wasn't until the early 1800s, almost three centuries later, before the area got the name "Flint Hills" from an English-speaking American, of course, Zebulon Pike, in 1806, documenting in his journals that for several days, he and his party were traveling through "rough hills of flint."

And that's been the name on this area ever since. It effects about a quarter of the state and starts about 100 miles north near the Nebraska border. It extends southwards, soaking up most of the space between Salina and Topeka, Kansas. It narrows down to the west of Emporia and to the east of Wichita, Kansas and then juts into the Osage Native Nation within the American state of Oklahoma, where they are called the Osage Hills.

But you throw them all together and you have an area of intact tallgrass prairie that is over three times the size of Yellowstone National Park. And that's a wonderful comparison, I think, because number one, it highlights the unassailable fact that most of the intact tallgrass prairie that remains in North America falls outside of any sort of public, protected boundary.

And so when you do leave the public, protected boundaries here at the park and go out exploring elsewhere in the Flint Hills, you'll discover that what's outside the park is remarkably similar to what's inside the park. It's a nice little setup we have going on here, ecologically-speaking, a four-legged relationship I like to call the Legs or the Pillars of the Tallgrass Prairie. And they come to us in the form of moisture, fire, grazing and then the human element, the wild card, the fourth leg, which we can no longer afford to ignore.

Now moisture we get in the neighborhood of 35 maybe 38 inches of collected precipitation a year, but you never know what you're going to get. It's measured out over a 50-year average, so you can have periods of drought and flood and everything in between. So what that means, since there is such fundamental variability in that fundamental force, it ends up having fundamental effects on the ecosystem. Basically, cleansing away the plants and the animals and, yes, the people, who are unable to cope with that kind of situation, leaving behind those who can, who then go on to strengthen the ecosystem.

So, it's all very academic from our relatively comfy circumstances here, but it is all too real when it is your life and livelihood being cleansed away. Again, just another thing to reckon with, not a yes or no answer to a question like that. And there is a buffalo there, about 9 o'clock on the horizon there.

And then you throw fire and grazing on top of that. Now fire is of tremendous benefit out here, although at first glance it generally doesn't sound beneficial. In most places it is an agent of destruction, but out here it is an agent of rebirth, because it literally rakes away the previous year's growth, which will soon be shed by all of these plants. They will shed away what's on the surface, very similar to how a tree will shed its leaves shortly. And then all of that thatch eventually builds up and forms a pretty solid roof upon the landscape. And so, once all of that gets burned away, sunshine and moisture can penetrate deep into the ground and that's where the real action is, in the roots.

Now, three quarters of most prairie plants are underground where you will never see them. So we're only seeing the top quarter of the plant and one cubic yard of big bluestem sod can have twenty miles of root material within it, binding the soil together like steel in concrete, forming a sponge that absorbs moisture, especially in the spring. Generally, that's the high time for fire. Moisture soaks into the ground, kick starts the growing process, and then the grazers show up.

Historically, it would have been elk and buffalo and pronghorn migrating their way to the rich green grasses. These days cattle are shipped by truck into these areas to not only carry the grazing responsibilities, but also form the economic backbone of the region. And so both of these life forms, grazers and grasses, live together. The grazers, of course, have the stomach for this sort of thing, being ruminants and all that.

And then the grasses, far from being burdened by all of these challenges, are strengthened by them, very much like we humans, we are only as strong as the challenges we face on a daily basis. And as long as all of the challenges are checked and balanced with each other, everything tends to remain evenly balanced. But if one force begins to dominate and dictate over the others, well that is when imbalances emerge in an ecosystem. And ecosystems don't like that.

There's a very specific reason why it's not called an "egosystem." That would be very easy for us if it were called an "egosystem," that's what got us in the situation that we're in. It's called an "ecosystem," for a very specific reason. Ecosystems are not concerned with the specifics of life or its expression, only with maintaining the balance of that expression. And whether or not we human beings will be able to make a living, as a species, in the new balance of life forming around the planet is a wide open question that many are finally now beginning to reckon with, and it's not a moment too soon, either.

Now here we are about five minutes’ worth of moments away from the geographic high point of the park, one of the highest points in the Flint Hills is just in front of us and it's a good place to ruminate and for deep thinking, if you're of a mind. And a suggestion I like to throw out is one that's big in ecological circles or really anywhere relationships are found. You may have heard the phrase "strength is found in diversity"? You can never go wrong with that kind of thinking. That's a very good phrase, but I like to rephrase it slightly into "surviving adversity through diversity." Because, that helps to elevate the phrase out of the cliche, cat poster kind of world and puts it right into the "what's in it for me" real world, which is as much as we like to tell ourselves otherwise, that's where we live day to day, "What's in it for me/What am I going to get out of this/How is this going to benefit my life."

Well, in this case, it's very similar to having a good set of tools at home, in your car, or in your head (knowledge and experience), that means you can improvise, you can adapt, you can overcome a great many unknown unknowns that might be coming your way. Emergencies rarely announce themselves beforehand. But if you get a little too comfy and complacent or prideful in what you've accomplished, when the real crisis comes along you wind up realizing all you have at your fingertips is a hammer, and then everything and everyone looks like a nail. So not a good solution, especially in ecological situations.

But never fear, we have a good set of tools in terms of plant and animal life. Grasslands are some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, in terms of plant and animal life. We have 70 species of grasses alone out here; big bluestem, little bluestem, indiangrass, and switchgrass being the dominant four. And then probably 400 to 500 or more species of non-grass, non-woody, flowering plants called "forbs." You can call them "wildflowers." And then feeding on that are at least 300 to 400 species of animals, like reptiles, amphibians, mammals, birds, fish, that sort of thing. And then over 1000 species of insects and then literally, probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of individual life forms, bacterial, microbial, in the living soil itself. And they all remarkably enough, get along with one another, by taking only what they need and giving back only what they can, they wind up creating the self-sustaining community of life we have all around us here.

And that leads to perhaps the big question, right up there with "Where's the buffalo"? It's "Where is the tallgrass"? I've been very patient with your efforts to educate me, but you can knock it off now and just show me the tallgrass. Well, number one, you've always been there, you've always been in the tallgrass, but fortunately the where and the when are one and the same. So, you can see some big bluestem out there right now, giving you the Vulcan salute or Rock 'n Roll Forever, whatever floats your boat. And the indiangrass is that wispy, golden seed head there.

But if you're still insistent on writing a letter to someone, feel free, just include in that letter, "Change the name of that park, why don't you, to 'Tall in the Fall' Grass National Park and Preserve," because that answers that question right now and gives you good insight into the ecology of the situation out here. The grasses, they do not even wake up until mid-May and they start their slow, steady pattern of growth, topping out in autumn-time, September and October.

And that is a very good thing, because that then encourages the vast majority of plant life, most of which do not mature at 4 or 5 feet high. Many of them are far shorter, probably less than 12 inches. And if you look beyond the tallgrass, look beyond the beautiful stems and look about a foot below, you'll see a lot of growth of just the grass itself, the blades and the leaves of grass gathering sunshine energy, a dense forest of grass there. And if you were trying to gather sunshine as a short, stubby plant in the midst of all that, well good luck, because you're not going to get much sun.

So, instead, they wind up separating from each other. They live in the same space by not competing head to head with one another, embodying an idea you might find in many indigenous cultures and Eastern philosophies, that the most noble and honorable of victories are found in the battles that never have to be fought. I like that idea, I try to embody that, especially when I'm trying to find a parking space at Walmart.

But it does kind of aim a little back toward the cliché, but it's not a cliché, just like bragging, it ain't a cliché, if you can back it up. And we back it up here on a daily basis, the vast majority of the plant and animal relationships are intact, with each life form doing what it does best when it can do it best and in doing so, they wind up sharing what would otherwise be a limited amount of resources. So here we are at the top of the hill. If you want to stick around by the side of the bus, I've got a few more things I can throw at you here. Otherwise, feel free to explore around the bus. I'll get to your questions momentarily.

Tallgrass Bus Tour, Visitor Center to the Scenic Overlook

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