Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to break off from work and head to the field as often as possible. As I began to collect
seeds for high-diversity, local ecotype prairie restoration, I also began to become a bet-
ter botanist and all-around naturalist—noticing more of interest close to home, and
falling in love with the Great Plains. My main subject matter became my home
county. I dedicated my efforts to rediscovering the natural history of central Nebraska
as a scientist traipsing through some of the same places I had frequented along the
Platte River as a kid growing up. I found out we had real prairies—in hay meadows
and native grazing lands and along roadsides. I was able to piece together a fairly com-
prehensive working list of plant species for the county, in a range of soils and moisture
conditions. I not only came back home and discovered a new and fulfilling social set-
ting, I came back and learned my natural history—becoming native to my place.
What I was exposed to along the Platte as a young person exploring the river and sand-
pit lakes now had deeper scientific and cultural meaning to me. I learned the local
plants, birds, fish, ecological communities, hydrology, and history—things I never no-
ticed or studied as a child—and they became beings and ideas I could now place into
a new holistic context. This seemed quite profound at the time, as did the fact that
I had a community of friends to share it with. It is important to understand that
the roots of Prairie Plains Resource Institute go deep into the purposeful exploring,
thinking, and talking that went on during this period. It happened when I was alone
in the field, or with Jan, or with friends on road trips, or late at night around the din-
ner table.
My pondering of nature and prairie ecology was also attended by thoughts about
the local farm culture, which was under tremendous stress at the time, and the subtle
and complex interplay between nature, agriculture, community, and agrarian ideals.
We were searching for ways to be relevant to people—ultimately to make environ-
mental awareness and action a part of the living culture as opposed to a form of ac-
tivism, which is ineffectual in our region. Core principles pertaining to thrift, self-re-
liance, generous service to community, the value of good work, stubbornness in
striving toward goals—definite attributes of our midwestern farming culture critical to
survival on the land—became extremely important, fundamentally informing most
everything Prairie Plains stood for and accomplished. We took pride in being called a
bootstrap organization, learning how to do more with less and do it pretty well. We lay-
ered onto these agrarian values some others less often associated with the traditional
ones, such as the quest for acquisition of contemporary knowledge and new skills, the
need to stay connected outside of the local community, the need for beauty and di-
versity in our lives, the vital importance of becoming awakened to nature, and think-
ing globally. It occurred to me during these stressful early years with no money that
these ideas were really all that we had; there was not much meat on the organization's
bones. However, thinking about such things led to certitude regarding the value of
our mission, which would prove later on to help us immensely. I observed frequently
over the years that if we had had lots of money in the beginning, Prairie Plains may
never have developed in the deliberate and fundamental ways that it did. Money
would have made some things easier in the beginning, but it may have been our
downfall.
