Just remember, proof is required to prosecute...don't leave any evidence if you were EVER thinking of potentially breaking the law..which I'm sure no one is.

Then again, if the illegal aliens are tresspassing, I'm not sure it's against the law. Especially as you are 'defending' your property from invasion. It's not illegal to kill mice and rats, and such unwanted vermin...it's not a long stretch to assume destructive former pet species, should be treated the same.

TR, I'm not sure cholla would do too well up here in a regular garden bed with the rich soil and humidity. My hellstrip in particular has grown very dense this spring, starting to think about digging out some of the prairie dropseed so that things like the Baptisia bracteata can get air and light.

I rarely see any cats around here anymore, quite a change from a few years back. Not sure why that is. I did see a coyote late one night, quite a surprise this far into the city.

Don't know the laws where you folks are, but in CA, while feral cats are considered nuisances and can be killed at will, inhumane methods of doing so, whether on your property or not, can be (and have been) charged as animal cruelty, which carries both large fines and jail time. Killing someone else's domestic pet, humanely or not, potentially exposes a person to civil liability (again, own property or not), with the express exception of killing predators of livestock, in which case proper notices posted along the property line protect the property (or livestock) owner from civil liability.

While I have no problems with euthanasia, if that is what is necessary, I do have problems with people going about killing animals in stupid and cruel ways, even when it comes to killing mice and such. Those glue traps, for example, are a testament to an innate nastiness in some human beings (or gutlessness perhaps; if you are going to do it, do it in a quick, direct way -- I always use snap traps).

WoodsTea, correlation is not causation, but that coyote you saw might well be connected to a recent absence of roaming cats (and would fulfill s8's top predator fantasy ;-) ). The other thing that can happen is a wave of disease. This I know, again, from personal experience of about 40 years ago. My sister and brother-in-law (young, clueless, and lax about proper management of life in those days, as well as mostly broke) let their cats go un-neutered, with the number of cats quickly building up, past a dozen at least (much like texasranger's neighbor situation, sad to say, though all their cats were socialized). One cat brought some disease into the group (can't remember now what it was), all of which were unvaccinated against anything. Nearly all their cats were dead within months. It was very traumatic and they never let it happen again. Even when broke (their usual situation), they would find a vet who would do the neutering at a discount rate.

Catspa, just to be clear, I completely agree with your words regarding the cruelty of some animal control techniques, those glue traps being near the top of the list.

+oM

Around here, as it is in most cities, the ordinances concerning dogs is very strict. A loose dog is not allowed and several running around would bring Animal Control in immediately. Loose cats are OK. If you even consider seriously the idea presented by s8, you might as well suggest we allow dog packs to serve as predators, after all, they are already here and we could simply unlatch fences and let nature take its course.

It seems obvious to me that in a densely populated place like a city a different set of methods for population control must be established for many obvious reasons. Humans by necessity must become the natural predators whether we like the idea or not and which results in places like Animal control and practices like euthanasia. No one likes to think of it but there are many violent things that go on in the wild that are not pleasant either. In urban situations we employ (or at least should) many human assisted methods of planting, eliminating and controlling plants whether we go native or not or admit it or not.

I don't think in terms of contests such as: score one for nature 1 -- humans 0. A little boy got killed in the naturally occurring flood day before yesterday and I find such notions repulsive.

If people make decisions based on soft heartedness, emotions or simply a fondness for their own personal pets we will end up in a situation of being controlled by policies that allow pests to coexist with us just so we can convince ourselves how humane we are. Special interest groups and many of the ideas about individual rights have gotten out of hand these days IMO. The suggestions made, one out of humane thinking, another that came across as flippant, that I pay for spaying and neutering a lot of peoples stray cats is absurd to me. I absolutely refuse to even entertain it or feel guilty about trying to eliminate a problem caused by irresponsible pet lovers.

Hopefully so I don't come off as inhumane, when I donate money toward saving animals it is for preventing or changing policy on such things as this. There have been a few incomprehensible policies posted on this thread and I think this one is as crazy making as those are. This is legal around here and considered a popular sport based almost solely on misunderstanding and unfounded fears and ideas. Don't watch it if you are easily upset but preventing this is a cause I do think its worthy of spending my own hard earned money on.

I don't mind hunting, in fact I do it myself many times a year. The wanton waste and destruction of life that is present in your video is atrocious. The idea of "killing for fun" is tragic and the behavior of people who need to be examined.

Around here we don't have p-dog shoots, they live too close to peoples houses. Instead the County uses our tax dollars to plug up all the holes with news paper and gas them.

Keystone species like wolves are celebrated and worshiped with a cult like reverence but keystone species like p-dogs are blasted and gassed like vermin and their numbers continue to plummet as more of their habitat is gobbled up by urban sprawl. It wasn't long ago that wolves were treated the same way, maybe someday the attitude will change and we will be reintroducing "dog towns", but not in my lifetime.

Ironically, the federal, state, and local governments here have teamed up to save the black footed ferret from almost certain extinction, it's dependence on the p-dog colonies they regularly exterminate apparently notwithstanding.

texasranger, just to be clear, my top two suggestions to you were to look to see if there was a group in your area that does trap/neuter/return, not to personally pay for spaying or neutering. Around the SF Bay Area, we have numerous feral-cat groups that will do all the funding and all the work, plus we even have some county programs that will pay for spaying/neutering to mitigate feral cat problems. My last suggestion, do-it-yourself, would depend on how you felt about the overall situation and how motivated you were to follow that route.

Now knowing that you are not all that into cats, I wouldn't recommend it at all. I did it myself, in lieu of tying up resources of local rescue groups, because I could do it, could do it well, and, in the end, it only cost me the fees for three females, which solved the problem (much to my relief and overall improvement of life and local conditions).

Trap/neuter/return is NOT a way of showing "how humane we are" or being soft-hearted. It is actually a cold-hearted, calculating method based on ecological principles. The cats, once "fixed", are pretty much uncatchable for any other treatments and so usually die of treatable conditions, relatively young, and sometimes in prolonged and agonizing ways (personally and painfully witnessed by myself too many times; three times I was fortunate enough to catch the feral and shorten its suffering by taking it to be euthanized). Nature can, and will, take its course, using this method, and, as you note, it is often not pretty. What differentiates this method from "capture and kill" is that you don't leave a vacuum for new cats to fill (thus stabilizing the situation in your own neighborhood), plus the side-benefit of not killing a neighbor's pet (and maybe some little kid's beloved pet) by mistake. In other words, it is pragmatic and not particularly kind to the ferals.

Despite being a hard-hearted ecologist (who can appreciate the value of top predators while knowing they don't mesh well with modern human populations), I also loathe avoidable cruelty on the part of humans, whether deliberate or arising from stupidity and/or ignorance, because, unlike the other animals, we have no excuse for that.

It is unfortunate that your city or town seems to have few quality-of-life codes, texasranger. Here, that neighbor could be issued citations that would get him motivated, or else, on everything from the cats to the deteriorating house (an inspector in our town would likely soon be knocking on his door for what you described) and trashy yard.

I agree with you both, texasranger and Zach; it's both ironic and incomprehensible, and tragic, what is happening to the prairie dog -- and straight under the eyes of U.S. Fish and Wildlife, too (who, in their defense, have been so badly defunded over the past 15 years that they can barely function). I also hunted, when young, but the mindless morons in this video seem to have no clue of the ethics I was taught about hunting.

I learned some things and I thank you for what you wrote catspa, it was well thought out, backed up with personal experience & intelligent data by someone who obviously knows what they are talking about and I took it to be about suggesting choices out there, nothing else. I'm starting to suspect the choices differ from place to place but I imagine similar attitudes exist across the country.

I have a very bad habit. When I say 'you' I am usually speaking in the general 'you' , not the you specifically on the other end of the phone or internet. I was sharing some conflicting thoughts and paradoxical observations I have on the subject and it is a very difficult subject. I am personally neutral to cats, I don't love them, I don't hate them but I don't want a yard full of them either. I don't keep any pets but I did have a dog I loved several years ago.

I grew up in a family of responsible hunters and fishermen. I have no problem with hunting either. I have trouble with extreme close-minded attitudes toward guns like the NRA -gads! -I'm afraid to even go there THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL STATEMENT but I am more balanced and open to suggestions than they seem to be. I'm not a zealot in any direction no matter what the issue-- political, ecological or religious etc.

I am all for common sense however and think its lacking is many areas of policy making.

I have a great amount of respect for the USFWS, but, as you said, lack of funding prevents any meaningful gains. Unfortunately, too, their hands are often tied by states who fight tooth and nail to prevent anyone from protecting the land, lest it negatively effect business. My own state is currently embroiled over the listing of the sage grouse as T&E because, in a state that uses it's natural beauty as it's chief selling point, we value the interest of the oil and gas industry over that of the ecology. I understand the need for a healthy economy, but does that give us a carte blanche for destructiveness? I tend to believe not.

The attitude is not limited to big business or politicians either.

In a discussion about the sage grouse, I was told by someone "it's my land, I'll do whatever I damn well please with it!" I wonder if anyone told the sage grouse it's not their land they're living on? Last weekend, a hiker in the State Park smashed a pregnant rattlesnake with a rock, and presumably felt as though they were doing us all a favor by destroying it. On Wednesday, A man approached me to ask "are mountain lions really a big problem here?" I wanted to tell him "no, the lions are perfectly fine, it's attitudes like your's that are the problem." I held my tongue....

To be honest, the amount of disconnect between human beings and nature is astonishing and maddening. The longer I work in the field of conservation and ecology the more I feel like chicken little. You tell people that the sky is falling, but the can't be bothered with your inconvenience. The county will approve any and all development, when is the last time a burrowing owl paid it's "fair share" anyways?And I don't know if you've heard, but rattle snakes are deadly, viscous attack animals that murder our children in cold blood. If I knew how much faith I would lose in humanity I might have considered a different career.

So, I told you that story to tell you this one: Common sense and policy will always be mutually exclusive as long as the prevailing culture of this country echoes that of the man who told me "it's my land, I'll do whatever I damn well please with it!" After all, burrowing owls and sage grouse don't vote any more than they pay taxes.

This is a great conversation. Texas Ranger, relax and smile. It only gets better. :)

"Relax and smile" about what, s8? You seem to be regarding this as some sort of easy intellectual entertainment, which to me it is not. I'm certainly not "relaxing and smiling" about topics as serious and complicated as the ones being discussed here. Your "recommendations" about what to do about the cats have shown, at several levels, a failure to grasp the depths and realities of these problems, while texasranger's responses and discussions have been both a serious and deep exploration of these issues which I have much appreciated.

Simply gathering up cats en masse, without fully understanding the cats or their situations (something which will take a while to sort out), and then passing the hat hoping to get donations from "guilted" neighbors after doing it (good luck with that!) is pretty much NOT a reasonable way to go about it. Going the TNR route also requires a willingness to have a colony still essentially living (and dying) in your vicinity for some years. (And I don't know about where you are, but spay/neuter fees are about double, minimum, here, compared to what you cite.) Texasranger's options are clearly more limited by available resources and recourses in that locale than where I live, making the problem even more difficult and needful of careful thought.

Zach, I hear you, on all points! I mostly deal with clients and contractors and, mercifully, not the general public, but still run into the same stuff. The client and/or contractor is "all in" for the environment and "doing it right", until it costs $$$, or they can't do what they want, then suddenly that's not such a priority. The general public would be astounded, around here, if they knew how many rattlesnakes and lion signs and such that field biologists actually see, often within stone throws of their housing developments. Even so, snake bites are not common and lion attacks virtually non-existant -- fancy that. On the other hand, those "cute", benign-looking bisons (just like cows, right?) have recently been doing a number on tourists who thought nothing of standing a few feet away from them for a photo...

catspa, The more I check the more I am convinced that what we have here is not a feral colony. I think it is a litter that is grown up which is adding #'s to the other strays or peoples pets that they let run about which wander into my sandy yard as they always have. The sand attracts them as I mentioned. It wasn't something I would have thought of before we hauled it in, otherwise its been a great boon to my plants. Cats also seem to really like grasses. I see them eating out the tops from my upstairs window which answered the question "What the heck is this?" and they also like placing their little fannies on top dead center to leave a smelly surprise. Makes me livid when I see that because it looks so desecrated and targeted and its a regular occurrence. Like I said earlier, cholla sections are my solution, it works every time.

The Humane Society here has a program of TNR and accepts donations. You can take cats there and they then release them back into the area.

I guess what I am trying to get at is whether a situation of some strays is in the same category? From what I am reading it doesn't sound like what the Humane Society TNR program is aiming at. Someone is obviously feeding these cats because they have sleek fur and appear relatively tame. There is one very pretty longhair that I feel very sure is someone's pet which likes to nap in my yard. Stuff like that has never bothered me and its gone on for quite some time.

Update. I have not seen them going in and out of the neighbors garage for a few days. Not sure whats going on but there it is. Also I've seen a stray or two but not the onslaught of numbers I was seeing about three weeks ago every time I looked out the window. Of course that spot under my large shrub still smells to high heaven but with the sand the cats are gonna do what they are gonna do and they seem to like that spot. Are there any solutions for that? I'm doubting there are.

Remember, I did see that sign on that car..... Maybe???? Someone did....something?? I haven't seen Dishrag Cat in several days (fingers crossed)

There is also a clinic I found devoted to spaying and neutering pets. (pets, does it make a difference?) Anyway it is called Pet Angels Rescue. The price for a dog is $40-75 and $30 for a cat. There is a low income qualification that must be met however.

Zach, working with the public is always an exercise in patience. I am the type who needs a big roll of duct tape handy at all times. I am always too tempted with dead pan targeted answers. Snakes always get reactions that are out of proportion.

Please, let's none of us critique one another's suspected personal motivations for being involved in this discussion or levels of knowledge about any particular issues. That's out-of-bounds, in my opinion. This is a public gardening forum, free to all to participate, for any reason they want. Let's keep our discussions on topic and keep things friendly and positive for the sake of our fellow intelligent, knowledgeable, well-meaning gardeners.

And for the record, coyotes actually used to live in my community and were known to attack outdoor house cats when wild food became scarce. Unfortunately, with increased development, coyote sightings have diminished and I fear they're gone from my area.

Have a great weekend everyone. Enjoy what is hopefully nice weather in your area!

I've personally seen a coyote tree a cat, sit till the cat comes down, grab cat and run away in the field with it. It does happen....and while I have had many pet cats mourned with mysterious disappearances in my boyhood, I see what the numbers are doing in many parts of the world now (Australia is a good example).
I fondly remember having chipmunks when I was young...haven't seen one in YEARS. Last one I saw was my cat bringing one in (bad me...I didn't know I shouldn't let them roam free then).

Yesterday I saw a Northern Mockingbird mother screeching and flying low chasing a cat across the street and she meant business. It was pretty good. We've never had chipmunks here, just squirrels and they love to tease dogs and cats which is also fun to watch. I did see Dishrag Cat with that dead one though, I was surprised because the squirrels are faster than cats and much better at climbing and navigating through trees. Its the baby birds just out of the nest that don't stand a chance and I've seen way too many of those killed.

Dbarron, you reminded me that I haven't seen a chipmunk in at least 15 years. So I googled Chipmunk range and found out they don't live in Texas (which is where I moved from up north 15 years ago)! Bummer. I love those guys. I'm glad to see from Google that at least they're doing fine in the Northeastern U.S.

YIKES, I take a vacation and the best discussion all year happens. I will try to not take this personally (joke). Where do I start to respond. ...

Havaheart... it is questionable if I have one.... another joke, but I am a bit on the deleting mentality side. I am not at all consistent and unchangeable where my morals are concerned. I am a pragmatist that is sometimes a lazy one at that. I am guided by my gut through all the conflicting views and overload of info and opinions. I weed out what I don't want and I am likely to change my mind tomorrow because of hearsay I heard yesterday. I will try almost anything and if it doesn't work, out it goes. The biologist that wrote up my wildlife plan for my land has recommended that I kill some deer, coons and feral cats. 40 nights of setting my trap per annum to get that out of control predator credit. I make offerings to the vultures above and have grown to admire them. I had a cow bird trap but was lousy at catching them, so my neighbor is raising chickens in the trap. My resident cat killed a baby cow bird that tried to fly out of a Bewicks Wren nest on my porch. The other 3 real wrens made a good escape. OH, I live on the borders of the EX-exburbs. A small development to my west about a 1 mile away. closest neighbor about a 1/4 mile.

I am supposedly running a bird sanctuary (Believe me I am a dilettante, a learn as I go type that appreciates all the combined knowledge in this thread.). We are just getting back mountain lions and I celebrate them warily I take out the garbage (a walk on a caliche road with trees and grassland at the head of a long and deep ravine) baring a heavy stick and a flashlight. The over abundance of Tiara-wearing-rats-in-high-heels-with-an-entitlement-complex is getting a bit of a culling. I have found two 300 lb. boars with their throats ripped along with LARGE blond hair filled cat poop and tracks 30' from my buildings. Maybe my shredded agave's will get a break.Coyotes stay in the valley where there is a better stream and a house that feeds feral cats. I hear their howls from afar at night but very rarely hear their up close yipping or up close howling.. I find the foxes getting more numerous as I decimate the coon population and that has made the feral cat population less. Coons rip open bird boxes that I have not as of yet constructed coon guards on. ..I sure wish those foxes would get that Alfa feral male that has made my aging and now demented cat's life hell. He swoops in through the cat window every week and has cost me hundreds in vet bills. He is untraceable so far. I will try stinky salmon.

I am just back from visiting the houses of my grandparents that I grew up in mostly and they are I eye popping green with tall woodlands jack in the pulpets and skunk cabbage damp with meadows (probably artificial) of Pennsylvania and mountain woodlands on the foothills to the Sandwich mountains... Otherwise I grew up in Jungles of Thailand, Hawaii. That makes me a hill and tree person, not a Flatlander (great band if you have not heard them). I am comfortable with the vast spaces of the grasslands but I find the structures of homes on them almost an artificial imposition when they are grouped in towns. I don't feel that way about the farmsteads. Farmers seem to instinctively understand the feel of the land and the value of good placement. New Mexican grasslands always have those amazing hills and mountains to create the dimensional space and far off closure. Meadows and lakes in New England create much needed space in the closed in two dimensional woods. I always climbed the mountains and felt such freedom when I reached the tundra line. I live now in a usually semi arid oak savanna and cedar break. It is a treed place , but a grassland also. I fight the Mountain ash juniper.

This visit made me so aware of the successional changings of our world. I had countless "I am older than the woods" experiences. One was picking flowers off of sizable trees and brush in the old clay tennis court in PA and the raspberry patch on the hill that was LARGE 50'+ trees.. and then there was the old blueberry patch in New Hampshire that had not been scythed for awhile.Half was ferns and half was impenetrable young birch.The trees on a WHOLE everywhere in this area of NH were so much larger than I remember as a child. I became aware that the trees of my youth were young successional population . 50 years sense the wholesale clearcutting of the lumber companies during the last years of the nineteenth century. Even the types of trees are changing from maple and birch to hemlock ,pines and oaks.

Here are some woods of my childhood...so much moisture. A symphony of green all in the yellow green spectrum. Not much glaucous here.

Here is the ex blueberry field in New Hampshire.. Yes, the trees were blueberries

Here are my woods of this spring. About as green as it gets. Yes , the agave are introduced. I am working on the forbes that all the deer have vanquished.

Catspa,

" The client and/or contractor is "all in" for the environment and "doing it right", until it costs $$$, or they can't do what they want, then suddenly that's not such a priority. "

I guess that I am that client with a limited pocketbook and limited time. I am DIY kind a human. I can do only what I can do which is only a third or more of what is needed. It is not that it is not a priority but somethings like, fighting invasive bluestem with a summer burn scares the shizz out of me and I can not afford people to do it for me, especially when the jury is still out wether it will help in the long run. I have seen the timing of the prescribed burning change from winter to summer and now they say even that is questionable. That leaves chemical and my little itty bitty hoe against a 7 acre population. It is more, feeling overwhelmed by the fighting of grass.

Wantonamara, welcome back. I can't decide which of those sets of pictures is the most beautiful. I like the New Hampshire one, but I like the Pennsylvania and Hill Country ones even more. I think the Pennsylvania is my favorite. It reminds me the most of the Northeastern woods where I grew up. The Hill Country landscape looks exotic to me, if you can believe that. :)

s8, I read your comment to texasranger as having a somewhat personal tone, which got on my wrong side this morning, but I can assume you didn't mean it that way. Yes, let us continue this interesting discussion in a positive manner.

So, you have experienced coyotes as top predators? It seems unlikely that coyotes will ever disappear from out here. They have been trapped, poisoned, and shot for decades and seem as numerous as ever (in fact, a somewhat recent, detailed study from the University of Nevada, Reno backed this up -- has to do with the pack structure: any action that does not get the alpha male and female is apparently futile; all other members of the pack are more or less dispensable cannon-fodder). I occasionally see one peering through my fence at the top of the hill, here in the middle of suburbia. I once had a coyote visit my place in western Massachusetts -- much larger than the coyotes out here, bringing to mind the hypothesis that they have crossbred with wolves in their journey back to the East Coast.

Wantonamara, let me hasten to assure you that the clients I refer to, which the company I work for contracts with, are all mostly large public agencies with lots of resources (e.g., multiple billions of dollars in public bond money, in one case) and the contractors are similarly large-sized -- NOT people like you doing wonderful and interesting things on limited funds, for which there can only be admiration and sympathy (I have, by the way, read quite a few of your past posts with interest, though not sure on which forums). Sorry to have not made that clear. What happens with the clients and contractors I work with is that they basically want to do what they want to do, and would like to have the gloss of being "green" and responsible, but when push comes to shove sometimes (money or whether or not the project should be done at all), true colors are shown. You, on the other hand, must pick and choose your battles and carefully consider what you are doing. Your burn quandary is tempting (my graduate work tangentially involved control of invasive grasses by burning), but Imust refrain from another long-winded tangent and retire for now.

"Relax and smile - it only gets better (smiley face)." That's my advice for anyone and everyone that seems to be having a hard day (for example, like Texas Ranger has with his nuisance neighbor or like you reported having this morning). Is that "personal"? Nope. Not in my opinion, at least. Now, if I said something like "go screw yourself because you're a worthless moron that deserves to rot in hell" to someone, now that would be personal. :)

Okay, s8, thanks for the explanation. I read your comment as being flip or sarcastic (I was in a grumpy frame of mind, I admit...) when, as you have explained, your intentions were supportive, so I apologize.

Thanks, no problem, no sweat.

texasranger, my guess is that the mission of the Humane Society program is aimed at true ferals, but a truly abandoned cat with potential to produce ferals would logically be included in that group, I think. On the other hand, a "stray" that is just someone's pet with a larger-than-average territory concept ("Boris" the Russian blue, in my neighborhood, for example, who seems to aspire to world domination, or at least the entire block), isn't that type of cat. The good condition of the cats there does suggest someone's care; the ferals here were very thin, rough and dirty, with some so malnourished that patches of hair had fallen out. In any case, I am relieved to hear that there are some resources available where you are , should things take a turn for the worse.

Wantonamara, I like how you describe your "older than the woods" experience. It was the discovery of the remains of barbed wire fences in my little patch of woods in western Massachusetts (lived there 9 years) that shocked me with the fact that what I had thought were mature woods had relatively recently been cow pasture. Succession happens fast there, very slowly here, where it's so dry. I also think your first-hand observations of wildlife interactions and your note about connections among raccoons-foxes-feral cats are very interesting. Are you running a sanctuary for a particular bird species or just birds in general?

The thought occurs to me that gardens usually don't include succession as a factor; in fact, the goal of most gardeners is to stop succession in its tracks, by all means possible. That makes some sense when what you have is a set-stage of choice exotics making up the garden, and, even with native gardens, when you live in a neighborhood where (as discussed earlier) it is tough to just let things run amok. Working at landscape-level, like you are doing, wantonamara, is a different mind-set and very interesting.

I had played tennis badly in that tennis court, made jam from the rasberries from where that forest was and blue berry pie where the birch trees are. I showed the pictures of PA and the Northeast to show the mindset of people that came west and felt a need to change the land that their towns sat on, planting trees and struggling to feel at home in a vast ocean of grass..The vocabulary of space, color and light is so fundamentally different. IN Mexico , they had forest all over when the Spanish arrived. and most of the Aztec and Mayan farming was done in shade and part shade. The Spanish did the reverse. They cleared the land in a huge effort to make their newly conquered land look like the clear open plains of central Spain. The tropical soils were very damaged by the removal of the canopy. I like the clear space but I ,also,do appreciate the break beneath an old oak tree on a Texas hot summers day. That shade is to die for.

I don't buy the idea of the mindset you described as being an accurate representation of the majority of the people who settled out west. The land in those photos you posted wouldn't make very good farmland. People settled here because of the desire to own land in order to plow it up to raise crops or obtain grazing land for cattle to sell as beef or dairy. Other people came to make their fortune in mining, wildcatting for oil or railroads.

I've listened to too many conversations at too many tables around here in the midwest listening to what life was like, what people think of as important and how things were back in the day to buy an idea like that. If I said something like that they'd look at me like I had crawdads crawling out my ears.

What drastically changed the land in the midwest was first and foremost plowing after the invention of the John Deere steel bladed plow which was able to cut through sod. Fencing, the railroads creating little towns, killing off the buffalo herds and replacing them with cattle ranches all played a part. It was not an attempt to recreate a landscape like the northwest out of some feeling of making it feel like home. That is a modern persons notion and viewpoint looking with hindsight of ecological results, urban sprawl, different values and living a consumer lifestyle of comparative ease.

I spent the afternoon listening to my 94 year old aunt who is sharp as a tack and as practical as they come telling many stories describing her life as a girl and reading that post doesn't fit the picture at all.

Just look at me like I have crawdads crawling out of my ears..... Could be exactly what is wrong with my thinking. LOL. Do you have a solution for this malady? A crawdad flee dip? Or a good talking to from your Aunt. I would actually love a good dressing down from your aunt.

There is good farm land in PA., just not in that specific bog. The top of the hill has a great patch that kept 5 families fed through the depression. The farms are small. I apologize if I misspoke ,TXR. I come from some very impracticable people who are somewhat divorced from the people who did populate your area so I am just guessing and, it appears, probably guessing wrong. My people were not nearly so hard working. I wish I was at your table with your aunt listening to her stories. You should be taping them. The history of our elders are fading with them.

I was talking about the towns and the urge to plant trees in the plain. The uncomfortableness that many people feel when looking at the uncluttered flat land is a testament to their roots and your relatives ability to look beyond, speaks of their ability to question the known environments of their past and seen the plusses of a treeless land. I think that story would be of your Great great Grandmother's thoughts on what she encountered. I guess that being free of land clearing and contour plowing was a definite plus in the mind of a farmer. Fighting regrowth is a constant. Or the bit about fewer rocks , the bain of the swede, highlander scotsman and the displaced New Englander.

I think the plains of OK are more inviting than the Llano Estacado of the West Texas plains . Even the Indians took to it out of duress. Here is a quote ... Guess his assumption was wrong too about it never being good for farming and inhabiting.. He was not a farmer , but a soldier and could not guess how the aquifer would change things.

"After his 1852 expedition to explore the headwaters of the Red and Colorado Rivers, General Randolph Marcy wrote: "[not] a tree, shrub, or any other herbage to intercept the vision... the almost total absence of water causes all animals to shun it: even the Indians do not venture to cross it except at two or three places."[1] In his report for the United States Army:

"When we were upon the high table-land, a view presented itself as boundless as the ocean. Not a tree, shrub, or any other object, either animate or inantimate, relieved the dreary monotony of the prospect; it was a vast-illimitable expanse of desert prairie .... the great Sahara of North America. it is a region almost as vast and trackless as the ocean -- a land where no man, either savage or civilized permanently abides ... a treeless, desolate waste of uninhabitable solitude, which always has been, and must continue uninhabited forever."[11]"

Tex, In Picture three, are those trees on the horizon? Were they planted as hedgerows to break the wind, supply wood for building? . They remind me of the coastal plains west of Houston where the land gets as flat and then they have those far away copse rising tall from the plain. When I drive through this region, being a person grown up amongst trees, I teleport myself to the base of the copse and wonder what they are like. The prairie is a new realm of interest for me. I used to have that tendency to look at it as blank space, negative space that accentuates the islands of Real Land. I am not in that camp now. Even where I found my visual magic on my walks in the east this time was where I found light from above. I found myself often feeling very closed in and looking up for air. I thought of you. Maybe I aspire to the land where the It is 85% sky and 15% grassland. Give me time.

I once read a diary of a German Grandmother , written by a woman who settled down the road I now live on in 1825 migration. She mentions that the descendants were swallowed by the land and left their german intellectual traditions behind. She was a concert musician, one of the german intellectuals that left Germany in the "free Radical Movement" that settled Central Texas. There were actually many of them. Their Children became hardscrabble dirt Farmers and ranchers. Some might say "Bubbas", I wouldn't. I find their connection to this scrabble more and more interesting. I am guessing that the intellectuals picked land for beauty and not for fertility. LOL. I think they were also fleeing from the diseases on the coasts.

Oh dear, a much to long a post.... Whats that saying of my Dad from Montana. You can see farther and you can see less... well here you can read longer and read less.

Cattle hides and silver were the top commodities that the colonial Spanish sent back to the old world out of the West. The missions in California were basically livestock-raising operations. I imagine tree- and brush-clearing might have been related to that enterprise, just as my grandparents also cleared trees and brush on their ranch in N. California to expand grazing areas. There is also the effect of livestock on shrub and tree recruitment. Some grasslands around here that cease being grazed quickly revert to coyote brush (Baccharis), and in places oaks begin to recruit again, so grazing itself supports an area remaining grassland.

So, it goes both ways, it seems. People without trees want them; people with trees find them a nuisance.

By the way, my husband and I did take the dialect quiz, WoodsTea, and it puts me squarely in Northern and central California and my husband in Boston -- absolutely correct!

I took the recent photos of the farm, which is now owned by the grandson of my uncle, and my aunt started in on how disgusted she is by the way the trees have been allowed to grow up around the buildings. Trees were always a sign of neglect. A shade tree or two by the house was typical but they were not planted as a landscaping element like people do today. Many suitcase farmers came to the midwest to score quick, plowed, then left. Many farms were abandoned when the owners died and the kids moved to urban areas. There are also many abandoned or nearly abandoned towns scattered across the plains. Those abandoned acres have become neglected & choked with trees, vines, brush undergrowth and weeds. On the other hand, many farms are still in operation. My aunt and mother jointly own one called The Mccoy Farm which is still a wheat farm and my aunt owns another by Pond Creek that is a working wheat farm. My Dad chose the portion of the farm on his side of the family that was free of trees in preference over the other one where they had been allowed to grow for that reason alone. The point is, people didn't have notions of creating the northeastern forested landscapes for a sense of home nor did they allow the landscape to become forested on purpose. That would be considered useless land and it was a negative result of what happened, not a goal. The land has become forever altered and infested with trees.

What was difficult living out here was the isolation because of the distances between people. The added fear from constant winds, freezing cold winters, blizzards, blazing hot summers, violetn storms, droughts, prairie fires etc, added to the challenge--not the lack of trees. There is a term called Prairie Madness that people came up with to describe the psychological effect of this on people. You have to realize how open and vast it actually was to really understand what we lost and what the plains were and still are all about.

Outside of people like Zach who posted early, and who obviously understands and appreciates the landscape, most don't grasp the enormity of the ecological disaster on the plains or what the peoples goals were who moved here. We now view preservation in terms of specific native plant and animals in isolated pockets but prairie pockets and reserves are like ponds or scraps. The scale of what happened is not simply the upset of a balance that needs correcting, its a 90% permanent loss of an entire feature on the earth. The largest natural grassland on the face of the earth was almost entirely lost and there are very few who mourn it due to ignorance or prejudice against that type of landscape which they see as inferior to what they grew up around or personally prefer to live around. The equivalent would be if there had been another machine invented that could drain a large sea to create farmland leaving some small ponds and the locals saying "There used to be a great sea where we are standing". Or, draining and refilling the Great Lakes with soil, leaving a few small lakes here and there and saying "There used to be what was called The Great Lakes here" with me telling them I know what they mean, we have some lakes down here too, while they, as an enlightened modern people with a greater appreciation for natives than the original settlers had, went about trying to figure out which plants were native and which weren't so they could restore the area that had replaced the now non existent Great Lakes with native plants.

I missed the dialect quiz and can't find the post. If I talk like my Dad, uncles or aunts and some cousins I can sound like a true rural Okie through and through but you have to have the drawl along with the words to do it right. I can speak correct English fine and proper when it comes to verbs etc but never dropped the drawl. I found that out real quick when I lived in North Carolina for a while because they laughed at me, it kind of hurt sometimes.

Well, that is interesting texasranger, about the trees. I have only been through the Mid-West twice in my life (the last time about 20 years ago), by way of the old Route 66, and don't recollect seeing much in the way of trees at all, until hitting the Mississippi River, but I wasn't paying very close attention in those days.

However, I am a little confused. I am assuming that no tree is native and that the trees that are overtaking the landscape in the areas you are discussing originate from trees brought by early settlers? It is interesting that trees can get a foot-hold where it was once only prairie -- there must be enough water and the previous disturbance of the land allowed them to settle in.

Though I can't truly comprehend the prairie landscape of the interior U.S., I can relate to the problem of figuring out how to restore something that has completely disappeared. California's dry, interior, lower-elevation grasslands had been totally converted to European exotic annual grasses even before white settlers arrived. It is considered one of the largest, most complete and pervasive habitat conversions in history. The lack of records or true references for restoration plus the fact that it would be impossible at this point to convert the majority of it "back" (to what? nobody really knows...and the exotic annual grasses are supremely adapted to this climate, in any case -- hard to discourage them), has led many here (the more pragmatic of us, anyway) to consider the exotic annual grasses as "honorary natives" in dry, interior grasslands and call it a day. By the coast, where there is more moisture, it's a bit of a different story.

Here's the quiz:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html

Catspa, that would take a long extensive answer, its a very large and diverse area of the US and would depend on where you are, there are several native species in the midwest. Attachedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Tallgrass_prairie is a brief read from wikipedia. I find your descriptions of what has occurred and goes on in California quite interesting. I am not well read on California. I'm very familiar with the midwest from personal experience, being around many rural people & reading history. Like you in California I was raised here and I would guess that like you I remember a time when people were concerned about agricultural matters, just getting by, supporting families etc and didn't focus on such things as native plant issues. We were raised in a place where there were only a few common shrubs like lilac, rose of sharon or forsythia and the common kinds of flowers that some people grew from seed packets and stuff like iris or daffodils for decoration and everyones lawn was filled with clover and other weeds and a large percent had big vegetable gardens in the backyard.

I think, in my area, the mindset was a little different. Here on the Front Range, farming was merely an afterthought, once they realized they needed some way to sustain the multitudes of gold seekers headed here, and then, most farming was small scale, only to serve the City's needs (we didn't get a railroad until close to 15 years after the town was founded, so, no way to ship goods back east). The climate and soil also played a part, but more on that later.

It wasn't until much later than that, even, that people here would even dream of worrying about landscaping. Most of the population in Denver was simply vagrants that came out of the mountains get drunk and visit brothels, petunias and daisies were the least of their concern. (Oddly enough, when Oscar Wilde toured in Leadville, the miners there couldn't get enough of his landscaping and interior decorating tips.) Then came the "City Beautiful" movement that was a nationwide phenomenon. Mayor Robert Speer (a native of Pennsylvania) made sweeping changes to the landscape, building public parks are lining every city sidewalk with trees. After all, as we have established, trees are the incarnate of natural beauty (many municipalities however have reversed that trend, instead of planting rows of ash and maple, they now plant medians and parks with ornamental grasses, native and xeric perennials).

Regardless of farming or landscaping though, the "treeing" of Colorado's prairies came mostly from our subduing of natural forces, namely floods and fires. Prior to settlement, the cottonwoods, which now choke the banks of the South Platte, never gained a foothold because the river was inundated with torrential flash floods on the regular. Take away the floods that once washed away the vast majority of tree seedlings each and every year and the trees are now a veritable forest.

Even in the foothills, most of the trees you see today would have been absent in 1859. All there was a few polka dots of ponderosa and Gambel oak thickets where now, immense stands of doghair lodgepole cover the side of every hill from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Ponderosa is a largely fire-resistant tree, whereas burns in lodgepole forest tend to be stand replacing. Every time a fire swept across the land, it cleared out the lodgepole, leaving the ponderosa. Now however, since we do our best to extinguish fires just as quickly as we possibly can, only in areas managed specifically for ponderosa savanna, where humans routinely remove the lodgepole pines, does that particular ecotype still exist. We removed fire, and now, once "barren" hillsides are an endless carpet of Pinus contorta.

I guess guess the above wasn't really a "prairie story" but it does illustrate how our human footprint has drastically changed the world around us.

I do believe that people who first came here thought this place was ugly for it's lack of trees. I do think that played a role in how they chose to landscape their yards, once that luxury became available and they weren't merely trying to survive in this harsh, and extreme environment. This is readily apparent when you sit on a high vantage point (there's plenty to be had) and look over the city of Denver in midsummer and you see the green leaves of millions and millions of trees. It's hard to believe at one point, a tourist from Europe once complained that Denver was home to more prairie dogs than people. That story is true of many towns all over the central part of the Country. I remember driving past historic Victorian homes in Abeline, Kansas and the lawns were completely shaded under a canopy of enormous trees that must have been planted near the time of original construction. Trees that were planted for beautification rather than the practicality of a shade tree or windbreak.

"most don't grasp the enormity of the ecological disaster on the plains...We now view preservation in terms of specific native plant and animals in isolated pockets but prairie pockets and reserves are like ponds or scraps."

That is true of any ecosystem. Small bits and pieces dotted here and there on the map are useless to species as a whole. But, what you say is particularly true of the prairie, which, unlike the comparatively large swaths of National Forest that cover the West, almost none of the Great Plains has been preserved.

The tallgrass prairie is virtually non existent. I'm not even sure there's much left of it in way of ponds or scraps, or islands. Places like Midewin National TGP are little more than museums in my mind, preserving a historical artifact for future generations to ogle. Much as we put on display the lost treasures of ancient empires, in preserving such a negligible piece of land we are simply saying "look what ONCE was, but is no longer." These tiny pockets of TGP scattered throughout the eastern great plains are so insignificant they really serve no ecological function.

The mixedgrass prairie may be in somewhat better shape, I'm not sure. Texasranger, you would know far more than I about that since that's smack dab where you live. I do know that the remaining MGP is significantly fragmented and scattered, though, I'm not sure if it's to the extent of the TGP further to your east.

The shortgrass prairie, however, I am intimately familiar with. It is lauded and feted as "nearly 80% of SGP remains intact." Laying in the immense rain shadow of the Rockies, the dryland farming that was used elsewhere on the Great Plains was impossible. Our topsoil is far shallower and far less rich then the MGP or TGP. In the end, the SGP was pretty much saved from the plow, except the areas hugging the river. Even today looking at satellite imagery shows that the vast majority of cropland in Eastern Colorado is within a few miles of either the South Platte or Arkansas river. Driving through the region, you will see that virtually all food crops in the state are concentrated exclusively on those two narrow bands of precious water. The rest of the agricultural land is either CRP, grass for haying, or is ranched. That didn't save it entirely though.

So, unlike much of the prarie, the shortgrass has been pretty much free from the impacts of farming. While the majority of the ecosytem may remain intact, it, like the other types of prairie is severely fragmented into small parcels that can not, on their own, support the biodiversity necessary for a healthy ecosystem. Even the largest parcels have been tremendously degraded through early attempts of farming (the belief that "rain follows the plow"), overgrazing from cattle, and the introduction and take over by invasive species. So, yes, we can say that 80% of the SGP is still in existence, we cannot say that it is good repair and useful to native wildlife.

I wouldn't call them "ponds" Texasranger, as ponds can be an example of a well functioning habitat. I would definitely agree that they are scraps. Though, I'm not sure even the dog would be happy with any of them.

Agree full-heartedly with your summation, Zach, that regardless the plant community type, little drips and drabs of "preserved" habitat are near-useless. As a fan of what once was S. Florida, I see that sad reality every time I'm down there. Good people are fighting incredibly hard battles against well-heeled real estate development interests, just to "save" what really do amount to scraps.

We're not quite so bad off up here in Wisconsin. The large-scale failure that was the 19th century attempt to turn the north into farms failed so miserably that govt. re-takeover of the land was just about the only option. Even following some of the most fierce, non-natural forest fires the world has ever seen following the logging-off of the northwoods, recovery has been nearly miraculous. As happened further east in Maine, et al, these very fires set the stage for a rebound of pine, birch, etc. Basically, the forest we enjoy today came out of the calamity of unbridled greed and lack of concern for what happens next.

Only now, with an utterly irresponsible state govt. in power, are these resources once again threatened on a grand scale. But that's another topic.

+oM

texasranger, not only did folks not focus on native plant issues prior to roughly the 1970's, the impetus was in the whole other direction. Dr. P.B. Kennedy for a long time ran a USDA program in the early 1900s that actively solicited the importation of seeds from all over the world and immediately dispatched them to farms and ranches all over the U.S. for "trials", with reports of results coming back from the recipients, to see if these exotic species had potential for food crops or range improvement.

The University of California also maintained a number of experimental stations in various parts of California from the 1930s through the 1950s that were set up to test suitability of a wide range of species, mostly exotic, for "range improvement". These trials were motivated, at first, by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, which put the kibosh on the long standing practice of moving livestock to green, high elevation Sierra Nevada ranges during the summer when the lower elevation exotic-annual grasslands were all dead and spent. The goal was to find a way to make lower elevation ranges more productive in summer, maybe by using exotic perennial grass species (our native perennial grasses had already proven themselves not up to the task, apparently, having already been defeated by exotic annuals). Later on, an added motivation was the post-WWII population explosion that threatened to exceed California's capacity to produce enough beef (this was before plane-loads of beef began arriving from South America).

Using exotic species to try to improve grazing began as early as 1867, when perennial smilo grass (Piptatherum miliaceum, from Eurasia) was first introduced to California for that purpose and continues even to this day with a standard NRCS prescription of "rose and brome" (rose clover and Blando brome, Trilfolium hirtum and that variety of Bromus hordeaceus) for range improvement. Rose clover, from the Mediterranean, was only just introduced to the U.S. by Professor R. Merton Love of U.C. Davis in the late 1940s to improve ranges but is now found just about everywhere at low elevations. (Ironically, the annual prize for best PhD dissertation in ecology at U.C. Davis is the Merton Love Award :-). )

There were also many publications from that era describing how to efficiently remove native chaparral brush with herbicides or by "chaining" (using a taut chain scraping over the ground surface to uproot shrubs), after the Forest Service clamped down on using fire for that purpose in the 1950s.

My own family was, of course, part and parcel with all this in those days. And it wasn't just trying to "improve" the landscape with new, exotic plants and removing brush. They also introduced wild turkeys and tried to introduce chukars (that last one failed, if I remember right). "Improvement" also included removing rattlesnakes, bears, lions, coyotes, pileated woodpeckers, or any other animal deemed a threat to human aspirations. Sad to think back on all this now.

As Zach and tom note, fire suppression alone has played a huge part in altering landscapes. Repeat photography history photos show, for example, that there were far fewer trees and younger trees in Yosemite National Park a hundred years ago than there are now. The Sierra forests are currently in the midst of large-scale species conversion, with white fir threatening to replace Douglas fir, Ponderosa and sugar pine, etc. due to fire suppression.

Thank you very much texasranger and Zach for the references and explanations about the prairies, a real education for me.

Here is a good summary of the westward expansion. It covers political policies and makes clear how the diverse ecological problems we have been discussing occurred. When talking about how areas in the US became altered from an ecological perspective it is important to understand the timelines, political policies and events of history. The individual farmers who settled in the plains were put into a position by greedy Eastern bankers and speculators to pay back loans which forced them into raising cash crops and which resulted in over farmed lands. The drive to eliminate the Native Americans by mass slaughtering of the buffalo herds for economic gain by speculators in the East played a large role in the ecological disasters we have today on the plains.

Catspa, my family was part and parcel too. There wasn't a lot of choice. My long distance generalizations and impressions of Colorado & California are being altered.

The rivalry of the common man in the West and Easterners still exists today. People I know and grew up around have always resented the attitudes held by people who live or have moved here from the East who consider themselves superior and more cultured while they consider us uncouth and primitive. The attitudes still exist and pass from one generation to the next.

Today King Corn is the crop affecting decisions and ecology. Some things, like greed and power, never change.http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/westwardexpansion/

This video illustrates the calamity of what happened pretty good. I know lots of people whose parents were sharecroppers and migrant farmers, they know what went down and how it was.

TX, I can attest to that disdain of westerners. I apologize for being a transplanted easterner. The fact is something that I have no control over. Some attitudes are like our smell. We think we have bathed and are rid of it, but it creeps in slowly after awhile and we just can't smell ourselves. I just got back from a family and a high school reunion and I don't know how many times I was greeted by the "Are you STILL in Texas", with a slight wrinkling of a nostril. One told me , when I commented on the attitude, that it was well deserved because we have birthed the worst and commented "as in Texas goes the Nation". I started listing names of Eastern bankers , criminals and politicians of powerful ill repute from the north east and started listing our cream of the crop that were progressive, journalistic, artistic icons that had benefited the nation. And ended it with a "I don't judge you by your criminals." She was amazed at who I claimed as a Texan. I think she was shocked that I called her on it. When I moved here , I was dissed by Texans and then I was sent back to school in NY and I was dissed for being a Texan there. I got it from both sides. Reading your page with the sumary that you sent out, the distance of the East and West is a long term feature of our nation's chemistry and I doubt we will be rid of it ever.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone. This was the best thread ever. Sorry I got busy and missed the last week or so. But I had read every word until then. It was great hearing the stories from so many intelligent, passionate folks who are leading the way in native gardening. Have a great July 4th weekend!

I just sat and read the entire thread. So many obviously deeply thought and carefully expressed ideas. I agree with so much of what everyone has shared. I grieve the tragic loss of the Great Prairies, but I don't quite know how or where to share that grief. How does one respond to such stupidity (in hind sight) when the causes are so multi factorial and justified, given most individuals' ignorance at the time. We definitely need to educate everyone about the fragility of the earth, but avoid coming off as zealots, which can turn our learners off. Praise any efforts, no matter how futile they may seem, to restore and preserve whatever natural assets we still have. Hopefully, these sorts of discussions will eventually spark ideas to help move society in a positive direction. Even changing attitudes toward being more accepting of diverse ideas and opening peoples' minds to considering changes in the status quo would be phenomenal. I look forward to much more discussion.

Martha

Indeed, all or nearly all intact plant communities, upon being seen for the first time by western man, were simply considered for their immediate utility to this or that purpose as it was then understood. None that I'm aware of-prior to the emergence of bona fide conservationists like Jon Muir, et all were ever considered to have intrinsic value. Across the world at large, in particular, in those places where "development" has not yet happened, the same mindset is at work today.

+oM

This thread brought out some of our personal, regional pet peeves. That in and of itself was educational. I am thinking specifically of you wisconsitom getting prairies thrown in your face as the native plant solution for all situations, along with some comments coming out of California and Colorado. One of mine is people who either live or have lived in the east and never cease to remind anyone around here for the umpteenth time that they are from a superior place in every regard. There seems to be no subject that doesn't offer a suitable opening for yet another reminder of the fact & they seem to assume we have the memory of a gnat needing to be constantly retold. It reminds me of name dropping for enhancing one's status or carrying around a list of credentials for a job application. Of course the local natives are in awe of them and we feel appropriately humbled and put in our place on the status ladder :#. (Mostly we have to wear duct tape across our mouths).

I got a strong reality check while sitting in my air-conditioned home in a housing development with a refrigerator full of readily available food & ice, typing away at my convenient computer judging those who suffered the hardships of settlement.

Perspective, perspective! I'm more and more convinced that the final arbiter of all human thought is a well-honed sense of perspective!

+om

And common sense goes a long way. I started thinking how most of us who post here are city dwellers with indoor jobs which are the result of established communities & urbanization. I'm comparing us to the people who immigrated here, many desperate to simply obtain land with the goal of living off the land, fur trading, lumber etc. What really makes us any less guilty? We use fossil fuels and enjoy all the luxuries and entertainments of modernization while mourning the loss of a pristine landscape. The people who settled here had a much greater understanding and bond to the land than we do, they were a part of it. The best we can hope to accomplish is awareness through education and being sensitive to the environment and land, trying to help in any small way to preserve & protect it. A lot of little guys appreciating and growing natives along with not wasting resources does add up but we have to keep things in perspective and not go radical in our attitudes spouting off like zealous warriors which only turns most people off.

BBC America has been showing some very well produced nature shows every Tuesday night, they play back to back all evening long. Has anyone else been catching those? Last night the subject was "The Human Planet". Very thought provoking stuff, they showed desert people whose main concern in life has always revolved around the effort to get water & food. I checked out some Willa Cather books last week, its interesting reading about the settlers which puts things into perspective.

TxRanger, I did not post those photos as a vehicle to put your grassland roots down and feed into your pet peeve.. I am sorry that you took it that way, if you did. I was trying to bring up the fact that many of us carry a primal landscape in our hearts wherever we go, weather we like it or not. What we do with it does differ. Some will want to recreate it. The bog of my past makes me very aware of the roll of water in my dryer landscape. I would never try to recreate it the old one. I love the differences in the two landscapes. Here Prickly pear can drip over a sheath of rock and have a conversation with a bald cypress and Maidenhair ferns. That to me is magic. Water is a visiter to my land now. It comes and it goes quickly.

I would love to meet you one day surrounded by what you think is the ideal grassland that feeds your primal landscape. I would want you as my guide in that landscape so I could see it through your eyes. Is it a date? I think I am headed your way in October. I was thinking of going to the grassland national Park and Wichita mountains unless you have a better place to suggest..

I wasn't talking about you or your pictures, I was speaking from my own set of priorities, values & experiences living and having grown up in a small town in Oklahoma among an average family of midwestern farmers who originally settled here as homesteaders.

The farmers have been done dirty by policies coming out of the east. The idea that people admired or wanted to create anything similar to what was in the east was laughable because most wanted to get away from there so if that is what's causing you to think I was referring to you personally, you misinterpreted it that way in your own mind as being about you. As a matter of fact, I bounced the idea off of a few grandchildren of homesteaders and migrant farmers (one was from the panhandle which was the worst of all) last Sunday and they all thought it funny & agreed their grandparents wanted to put in as much distance as possible from Eastern US influences of any kind. A lively conversation ensued.