We are coming up on the high holy days around here. It's time to burn the prairie and the weather looks perfect on Saturday "the good lord willin' and the creeks don't rise" as Hank Williams used to say. It's hard to believe. We still have snow from Monday's blast. There's standing water everywhere. We'll probably get the truck axle-deep again this year if we try to drive it anywhere near the burn site. Last year we had to drag the truck out of a mudhole with the tractor and nearly got both mired. The weather report for the next couple of days can't decide between rain and snow.
But underneath it all, the European grasses are greening up and before we know it, it will be too green to burn. The big bluestem and the indian grass on the south-facing slope are just begging for fire. And the honeysuckle and prickly ash could use a good dose of it too. The prairie looks dead for sure, but the little bit of burning we have done over the past few years has encouraged species that we never saw before. The indian grass is especially a surprise because we never saw any before.
On some prairies you might expect to see pasque flowers, dwarf buttercup and prairie smoke starting to bloom in the next few weeks. We don't have any pasque flower, but hope we can find a little of the dwarf buttercup or prairie smoke. This will also be a good time to knock down some of the brushy stuff that's always just one step ahead of the chain saw and the drip torch. We may be able to burn just a bit in the woods this year if all goes well. We have about 10 acres that really should be oak savannah and all it would take is a few years of fire.
More prairie thoughts to come.
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