Indian Grass Prairie 2004

[To see photos and stories of this prairie in other years, go to the links on the main Indian Grass Point page.]

This year we burned the prairie in April.    We raked a strip along the top to act as the initial fire break, and then burned carefully across, up into that bare area, using the big water tank on the gator to control the fire at the top.

4/2/2004  A few days before the burn – raking the line along the ridge top

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4/3/2004   This is the “black line” of the first burn line.

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4/3/2004   The black line after a little more burning.  (I don’t have photos of the fire because we were too busy burning to take pictures.)

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4/3/2004   The finished burn

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4/3/2004

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4/18/2004   Plants are just starting to green up in the burned area.

3-weeks-later

 

4/18/4004   Hoary Puccoon

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4/18/4004  Prairie Dropseed

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4/18/4004  Silky Aster

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4/18/4004   And, unfortunately, lots of seedlings of White and Yellow Sweet Clover.  It took me a while to figure out what these were, and then I didn’t know how bad they were, so I didn’t pull them right away.  They turned out to be a huge problem.

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5/1/2004

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6/27/2004  Mist in Center Valley

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7/3/2004  Ragwort Opening – still hemmed in by brush and birches, although I’m slowly clearing at the edges

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7/6/2004  The east slope of Indian Grass Point has one of the few Butterflyweed plants we have here.  I cleared around it so it would get more sun and have room to expand.

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7/25/2004   The burn area – dominated by Big Bluestem

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7/25/2004  More flowers bloomed this year, and everything grew taller.

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8/1/2004  Monarda, Leadplant, Whorled Milkweed

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8/2/2004   Purple Prairie Clover

 

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8/1/2004  Prairie Coreopsis on the point

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8/1/2004  Looking back into the savanna area

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8/1/2004  The savanna area looking toward the point

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8/16/2004  There are still a lot of weeds in the savanna area.   We mowed the honeysuckle, rather than cutting and poisoning the stumps, so it’s growing back.  Burdock is a biennial, so we’ll have to cut it and remove seeds for a few more years to get rid of it.

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8/16/2004  Looking from the savanna out to the point

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10/9/2004  Lots of tall Big Bluestem with an understory of sweetclover

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11/29/2004

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11/30/2004  The path into the point from the north

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