Big View Prairie 2015

[To see photos and stories of this prairie in other years, go to the links on the main Big View Prairie page.]

Just at the end of the season, we started a small savanna restoration project at the entrance to Big View Prairie.  Most of the rest of the year we just enjoyed the view.

1/13/2015   A view looking up from the creek to Big View (on the left) and Indian Grass Point (farther back and to the right)

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1/24/2015

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3/11/2015

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7/14/2015

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7/15/2015

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8/10/2015  Western Sunflower – there’s been a patch of it in the middle of the prairie, but it’s getting bigger

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Dotted Horsemint

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8/21/2015

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8/25/2015

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9/21/2015   Great Plains Ladies Tresses – a native orchid that grows on dry prairies

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9/28/2015

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10/4/2015  The next few photos are ‘before’ pictures of the flat area on top of the bluff, just behind the prairie.  It was very overgrown mostly with Gray Dogwood, raspberries and small trees.

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10/4/2015  Another ‘before’ photo – Big View Prairie is beyond the big oaks on the right.

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10/4/2015  This is the tangle of trees and bushes and old fences just where the path goes out to the Big View bench.  We haven’t tackled this yet.

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10/4/2015  This is looking out to the point.  The tractor broke before we got to this part of the mowing.

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10/4/2015  Another view of the brushy way out to the point.

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10/5/2015  The view down the path to Big View Prairie, just before we started mowing.

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10/5/2015  And the same view just after we finished mowing

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10/5/2015  This is the view the other direction – looking out from the top of Big View Prairie toward Western Prairie – after mowing

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10/5/2015  This is looking west, across the top edge of Big View Prairie.  I cut out a lot of the brushy shrubs and trees, but there’s more to do.

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10/10/2015  Praag Valley on a misty – or maybe smoky – afternoon.  In the late summer the winds often bring in smoke from fires in the western states.

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10/19/2015  More ‘after’ pictures from the mowing.  It’s been a few weeks, so the leaves have drifted in and it’s healing a little.

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10/19/2015  More of the mowed area

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10/19/2015  And more – looking back toward Western Prairie

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After the snow came, I scattered some savanna seeds in the mowed area.  I had collected all the seeds on our land.

Agastache scrophulariaefolia
Aster novae-angliae 
Astragalus canadensis
Hypericum pyramidatum
Solidago flexicaulis  
Solidago missouriensis  
Solidago speciosa
Zizia aurea