Rebecca, thank you for organizing. That sounds trite given the scope of what you present but please know this post is essential and I am grateful. Thank you for the reading material for this "buzzy" week as Kollibri aptly described it. Thank you for featuring Lauren Graeber's free writing guide. Just thank you...it seems to be the mumbling, bumbling, and less than adequate but heart felt phrase we say softly in western North Carolina these day. 💙🌎
I love your prairie-dog piece. Thanks for bringing their lives into the light. Another way p-dogs are ecosystem engineers: prairie dogs insatiable grazing on fat, woody roots may be what kept woody species (that is, trees and large shrubs) from taking over the prairies. Wholesale killing of millions and millions of p-dogs may have led to the successful mesquite invasion of the southern Great Plains and the Chihuahuan desert, once largely grass-dominated, and now in some cases, simply mesquite hummocks with bare sand in between the trees. Bring back the prairie-dogs to restore the prairies!
"This was back in the days when dads would just pull over on the side of the highway and bustle the whole crew out of the sedan for a photo op."
They still do this 😊
I hope the prairie dogs can recover like the bison are.
Rebecca, thank you for organizing. That sounds trite given the scope of what you present but please know this post is essential and I am grateful. Thank you for the reading material for this "buzzy" week as Kollibri aptly described it. Thank you for featuring Lauren Graeber's free writing guide. Just thank you...it seems to be the mumbling, bumbling, and less than adequate but heart felt phrase we say softly in western North Carolina these day. 💙🌎
Also, have your read Terry Tempest William's accounting of her days spent observing prairie dogs? If not, I will find the book for you.🩵
Another great issue. Thanks for your work!
I love your prairie-dog piece. Thanks for bringing their lives into the light. Another way p-dogs are ecosystem engineers: prairie dogs insatiable grazing on fat, woody roots may be what kept woody species (that is, trees and large shrubs) from taking over the prairies. Wholesale killing of millions and millions of p-dogs may have led to the successful mesquite invasion of the southern Great Plains and the Chihuahuan desert, once largely grass-dominated, and now in some cases, simply mesquite hummocks with bare sand in between the trees. Bring back the prairie-dogs to restore the prairies!
Gratitude to you Rebecca, for all that you do and share.