Last week I was driving past a large corporate campus when I smelled smoke. At first I thought, “What’s on fire?” and then I realized the smoke had a distinctive fragrance: it could only be a prairie burning. But how late in the year for a prairie burn! I parked at a nearby building, and when I got out of my car, that marvelous smell was even stronger. The burn must have been at the far west end of the campus: I couldn’t even see the smoke. Just to know it was going on, though, gave a huge lift to my spirits. As I walked away from my car, I felt a wonderful nostalgia for my prairie-burning college days.
Later, a woman I knew in the office building I was in complained that someone was burning leaves. “Oh, no,” I said, “ burning leaves stink. The way it smells, they’re burning a prairie.” Then she said, “Oh, yeah! When I drove by, I saw they were doing a controlled burn!” We talked a bit about burning prairies: I said they ought to burn the little patches of prairie near our building; then she mentioned that she’d like to plant something like that on some land her family owns. I gave her some information on how to get help finding out how to plant native landscapes, where to buy prairie plants, etc. (how cool, possibly a new convert to more natural landscaping!).
This week, I found out they didn’t burn those little prairie patches near us, which so badly needed it: they have been poorly maintained, and are full of weeds. They are very small; maybe they’ll burn them in the spring, or give them a once-over mowing: I hope so. A few times in the summer, I heard a field sparrow calling when I walked through the parking lot for our building. I hope some of the corporate campus prairie plantings are big enough, or contiguous enough, for them to nest, but I’m not sure.
Now winter approaches, and snow is coming; there was some over the weekend, which didn’t all melt, and today more is expected: possibly a lot more. The summery weather went on so long, the leaves changed so much later than usual, and then suddenly it was cold; it got cold so fast there was no time to get used to it this year. Too late for burning prairies now.
