Prairie burn


I took a long walk today at Morgan Creek Park. This is one of our favorites in our area and we hope to be there quite a bit this summer. The park besides a great campground has an arboretum with a walking trail through it and then lots of grass trails through a large area of prairie. If you have never experienced true native prairie it is something you should check out. We have a friend who converted part of his farm to native prairie and that is where most of my knowledge comes from. We walked through his prairie at the end of a summer and the grasses are so tall that if there wasn't a path I would have been lost. To think that the settlers had to travel through hundreds of miles of it is amazing. Part of maintaining prairie today is to have controlled burns every so many years (not sure how many). Today I got lucky and was able to watch them burn an area close the walking trail. It was interesting to watch them start the fires on the one side and then after it burned awhile they began back burning from the opposite side and if all goes well (and it did) it burns itself out. Wish I'd had my camera. Oops I do- on my phone -too late fire had burned out. You'll have to trust me it was cool!
Now that I realize I have a camera here are some photos of the campground. Oh summer is just around the corner!

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