I’ve spent most of my career trying to convince people that prairies are interesting and important. Just for fun, here is an imagined conversation – inspired by many years of prairie evangelism efforts, some more successful than others:

Me: Hi friend, have you heard the good news about prairies?

Person: Huh?

Me: Prairies! 

Person: What’s a prairie?

Me: Oh, um, it’s like a forest without the trees!

Person: Nice sales pitch.

Me: Ok.  It doesn’t have trees – well, actually, some DO have trees and we’re trying to fix that – but it has lots of other things.  Lots of grass, of course, but tons of wildflowers, birds, insects, and other cool creatures!

Person: I think maybe I drove past some prairie on the way to the mountains.

Me: Yes!  There’s some amazing prairie in eastern Wyoming and eastern Colorado! 

Person: All I saw was brown grass.  It was hard to stay awake.

Me:  Well.  I mean, yes, from the highway, but if you’d gotten out to walk around, you would have seen lots of color and diversity of life.

Person: Why would I want to walk around in brown grass?

Me: Hm.  Ok, think of it like a coral reef; if you just look out from the shore, or from a boat, you just see water.  But if you dive into the water and start exploring, you find an astonishing array of life.

Person: Prairies are boring unless I crawl around in them?

Me: Yes!  Wait, no!  They’re not boring, they just have a subtle beauty.

Person: Subtle, huh?  Sounds like another word for boring.

Me: Ok, but when you’re driving through those prairies on the way to the mountains, isn’t it amazing how far you can see? 

Person: Yeah.  And eventually, I can see the mountains and then it takes me, like, three more hours before I finally get to them.

Me:  This isn’t going as I hoped.  Hm.  Oh – what about the sky!  You can see SO MUCH sky when you’re in the prairie!

Person: (looking up) I can see the sky right now.

Me: Yeah, but in the prairie, you can see so much MORE of it!

Person: So, your selling point for prairies is that they don’t get in the way of my view of the sky?

Me: Well, I mean, that’s just one selling point!

Person: Right, the other one is that if I crawl around in them, I might see something interesting.

Me: Ok, look, I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse about this.

Person: Fine.  Let me ask you this – what can you do for fun in prairies?

Me: Oh boy, there’s so much.  I mean, you can look at birds, wildflowers, butterflies, bees, snakes…

Person: I don’t like snakes.

Me: Oh.  Well, there aren’t THAT man snakes.  Really, just a normal amount of snakes…

Person: Ok, sorry to interrupt you.  Keep telling me all the fun things I can do in prairies.

Me:  Let’s see…  you can look at lots of plants and animals.  Did I say butterflies?  Um…

Person: Yes.  Look, can I go backpacking or camping in prairies?

Me: Oh, absolutely!  They’re wonderful for camping.

Person: But there’s no trees?

Me: Well, sometimes along the edges you can find trees.

Person: So, if I want shade or firewood, I should just stay on the edge of prairies.  Or, say, go camping in a forest?

Me: I mean, I guess that’s true.  Prairies aren’t really known for their shade. 

Person: Right.  What are they known for again?

Me: Well, like I said, there’s a tremendous diversity… Oh, do you like bison?

Person: Wait, prairies have bison? I love bison!  Why didn’t you say that?  So, if I go to a prairie, I can see bison?

Me:  Sure!  Well, I mean, not in MOST prairies, but there are a few places that have them.  Sometimes it’s hard to see them, though, because they’re out roaming.  You know, like bison do.

Person: So if I go to a prairie, I probably won’t see bison?

Me: No, I guess not.  Not in most prairies, anyway.

Person: Question for you…  Earlier you said something about trees.  Why don’t you want trees in prairies?

Me: Because then they wouldn’t be prairies anymore.

Person: Right, they’d be a place I could go camping and find shade and firewood.

Me: I guess, yes, but they wouldn’t have most of the same birds, wildflowers, bees, butterflies or sn – – I mean, um, toads…

Person: That I have to crawl around to see…

Me: Sigh.

Person: But at least prairies don’t block your view of the sky.  Maybe you should just focus on that.

Me: Right.  Thanks for the advice.  Good talk…

Person: Thanks for telling me about prairies!

Me: Uh huh.

.

.

Maybe we need a new marketing strategy. How’s this?

If you’re a podcast listener and on the lookout for prairie-related content, I’m a guest on two different podcasts that came out this week. The first is The Prairie Pod, a terrific podcast sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. On the episode I was part of, Megan, Mike, and I talked about habitat heterogeneity – why it’s important and how to create it. The second podcast is called Science for the Rest of Us and host Alex McKiernan and I covered just about everything you could imagine related to prairies in an hour and a half.

In other news, my wife Kim is training for an ultramarathon later this fall. Last weekend, I drove her to and from southeast Kansas so she could do some long training runs on the rocky trail the race will take place on. While she did her obscenely long trail runs, I wandered much more slowly around with my camera, trying to find something to photograph. The dense woodland along the trail and the weedy, brushy habitats nearby didn’t provide much for flowers or pollinators, but spiders were all over the place. That was ok with me, I like spiders just fine.

Below, you’ll see photos of some of the little friends I ran into. Kim ran into many more – literally – while she was running the trail. She had to comb all the silk and detritus out of her hair afterward (her reward for being the first out on the trail each morning!) My encounters were much less dramatic, both for me and the spiders. I know not everyone is a fan of spiders, but I think they’re beautiful and fascinating creatures. I can’t identify most of the species, but I’m guessing some of you will be able to.