Prairie Restoration

I spend quite a bit of time with the folks in this image restoring local prairies, particularly the prairie in this image.  Tuesday, we were planting forbs for to help with the reintroduction of the rare Taylor's Checkerspot butterfly that suddenly went absent from this area 15-20 years ago.  We are creating dense stands of the plants the larvae and adults use in the areas where the larvae are being released.  In all, we'll be sticking about 100,000 plants in the ground this fall.  There is a program in the area called the Sustainability in Prisons Project and the prisoners raise the plants and the larvae and do most of the work of putting the holes in the ground and laying out the plugs for planting, while the volunteers and staff do most of the planting itself.

If anyone is up this way in April through June, I'll be happy to show them our prairies in all their glory.

20D (ressurected as something I can afford to destroy in dirty/wet conditions), 18-55mm kit lens at 25mm, f/13, 1/80, iso 400  Aperture priority, average metering.  I cropped this a bit to eliminate some of a bright sky and straightened to compensaated for my sloppy technique.

Thanks for looking,