Trees on "The Prairie"

   It was a small, rectangle, piece of ground too steep to cultivate, that we called "The Prairie" in our east quarter section.  That was a good name for it because it was, and still is today, virgin prairie, because it has never been plowed.  Every year we cut the prairie grasses that grew there. raked it into piles, pitched into hay racks and hauled it to the cattle yard.  There we unloaded the hay, with our pitch forks, next to the fence of the cattle yard making a long narrow stack.  As winter reduced the grazing opportunities for the cattle we supplemented their grazing by pitching hay from the stack over the fence for their dining pleasure.
    A huge rock pile on The Prairie drew my attention recently as a I searched for a particular rock. (That rock and my search will be the subject on a later blog post.)  Farmers often chose sites that were difficult to farm to pile the rocks that they removed from the fields.  Likely my grandfather, Lars, piled the first rocks there, my dad added to the pile, as did I, participating in one of my least favorite farm duties...picking rocks.
   Two tall ash trees, perhaps 30+ feet tall,  guard the rock pile.  A warm surge of emotion surged through me as I noticed that these trees had generated a host of small trees growing around the rock pile, successfully competing with the grass. It brought back the memory of dad saying "I finally got trees to grow by the rock pile on The Prairie.  I've been trying for years to do that."  It's no wonder that it was difficult to start trees there so far from the farm yard the regular watering was not feasible. Now they not only stand sentinel to my dad's dedication to planting trees but are generating new growth.  They also are reminders of how the suppression of prairie fires alters the fauna.
    Both my grandfather and my dad were tree planters and I've tried to continue that tradition, having planted thousands of trees, but, this tradition is a topic for a future blog.