09.20.04 | 11:28 am
Prairie burns and viruses

I have been knocked out with a nasty virus. There was a little bit of knitting while curled up on the couch. I have filled up my needles with the shawl from Katherine's handspun, just need some circulars that can handle the bulk to finish it. The dacapo sleeve has reached a few milestones. I have split for the back and front, so it really is coming along.

More than knitting I have been slogging through papers about soil arthropods (bugs) and the effects of prescribed prairie burns.

Just at the right time for my research, we did a burn!

There are some nasty legumes threatening to take over one of the prairie plots. So we burned them to the ground in hopes of killing them back. It was lots of fun, and uneventful.

When dealing with fields on fire, uneventful is good. You get to stand back and watch, and be ready to smoother out bits that are creeping in the wrong direction.

Warren came along to photograph. It was hard to be in a photographically interesting position, but I think he enjoyed himself.

The corner we were burning is up next to a cattle farm, and the cows we quite distressed, not that we could do anything or cared to. While standing near the fence line, we observed an interesting bit of ecology. Cows are generalists, they do not seek out certain types of grasses as buffalo do. Cows do avoid certain plants, such as verbena and canabis.

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