>
> Thanks to the group, and especially to our field-naturalist-for-a-day
> Gordon, I now understand "prairie" a bit.
While on Isle Royale, we had our choice of listening to Gordon talk biology
or Bill Barber talk Texas. We now know more about the plant and animal life
on Isle Royale than we ever wanted.
;)
I also now know that Iowa is not totally flat; it was interesting on the
> drive from Cedar
Rapids to Grinnell to see first the flat and fully-farmed Iowa with few
> trees, then a quite hilly and treed section with little farming, and then a
> half-and-half with some
> rolling hills but farms still covering most of the land.
>
Iowa is rather unusual in that it has been completely altered. If I recall
correctly, 97% of the land area has been farmed, recontoured, redirected,
paved or drained. Less than 3% is as it was before white man settled. Most
of that 3% is concentrated in a few spots. Most, if not all the rivers have
been modified and many of them resemble an unpaved version of the Los
Angeles River.
- The remains of the old Spaulding Manufacturing Company [carriages, wagons,
> automobiles] factory, in "downtown" Grinnell
>
The "remains" are a little deceptive. Most of the buildings are still in use
for warehousing. I've seen inside the doors a couple of times and security
systems abound.
> - The Sugar Creek Audubon Nature Sanctuary, west of Grinnell on US6
>
The funny thing is that we never even got past the first acre. I really
should re-up my membership again. Maybe I can get a key to the building.
> - The Reichelt Unit of Rock Creek State Park, further west on US6
>
Again, we never even got past the first couple of acres. There are 548
more. It's one of my favorite haunts around here. I go walking out there
whenever I get the chance. I drive past there twice a day going to/from
work and every time think "tomorrow, I'll go for a hike..." A path goes
around the perimeter and is about a two mile hike. Easy to get lost in,
actually. First time I walked the perimeter I was a bit bewildered. Second
time, I took the GPS. Last time I trecked out there, I went completely
off-trail and didn't have a GPS. I was doing fine, except for a few moments
of puzzlement. Being quite decent at orienteering allowed me to get home in
time for supper.
We talked about a couple other locations. It's rather interesting in that
you can drive for miles and miles and not have anything, but right in the
Grinnell area, there are at least five reasonably sized prairies, both
native remnents and reconstructed to choose from. Within 30 miles there is
something like 27 remnents and reconstructions, but nearly all are under 10
acres.
AG
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