MILES AND MILES OF ROLLING TALLGRASS PRAIRIE

by YouShouldGoHere
April 19, 2015
in Go Here
0

[KANSAS FLINT HILLS] — Out in the middle of Kansas lies the Flint Hills, hundreds of thousands of acres of treeless, rolling hills with few fences and even fewer people, houses or signs of man. For generations these hills have remained the same, the soil to thick with rocks and limestone, they’ve never been plowed.

Some of those thousands of acres have been preserved in the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy and co-managed with the National Park Service, you can visit the original homestead house and walk its open lands. See some buffalo and feel the wind. It is almost zen like in it’s emptiness and calm. You should go here.

: See these luscious green shoots? This field was on fire the week before, charred to the roots, black and all smokey, like my famous blackened pork tenderloin recipe. Now look at it. This stuff grows like a weed. Ain’t nature grand? Actually, it was nature that started this thing. Lightning threw the first punch. Then the Indians saw the cleansing power of nature and started lighting their own fires. They saw the clearing out of noxious weeds, the nutrients churning back into the soil, the green grass snapping back stronger and more resilient. Lighting fire to the prairies each spring has been going on for hundreds of years. And that’s what brought us here last year. I got matches, we’re here to help.

: The views are expansive and serene. Zen-like.

: The views are expansive and serene. Zen-like.

: Still shunted in early spring, the tallgrass can grow to several feet by the autumn. Prescribed, seasonal burns keep the planes treeless and free of noxious weeds.

: Chock-full of flint and limestone, the fields have always been too thick to plow, so thousands of virgin prairie remain today, now in this national scenic preserve.