Ohio Prairie Article by the Akron Beacon Journal

For those of you who regularly visit the "blog", you know that most of my posts detail some animal or plant I have observed in the field. The local media does cover natural history from time to time, and I thought that I could start highlighting various stories about nature that appear in Ohio's newspapers. The Akron Beacon Journal recently published such an article about Ohio's prairie past. It is a good read. The article can be accessed here: High praise for prairies

Ohio had several grassland areas called prairies when the first settlers reached this state. A very few of these areas still exist today. In addition, Ohio also is the home to prairie-like habitats called wet meadows dominated by sedges rather than grasses, which make up prairies. For more about a wet meadow that I have studied, check out The Ohio Department of Natural Resources prairie education website here:Ohio Prairie Interviews. There are several informative interviews that detail the people behind the management of a state nature preserve.

Tom

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Title: A Prairie Home Companion Soundtrack - My Minnesota Home (Meryl Streep & Lily Tomlin)

Track 12

Lyrics
And now for Bebop-a-reebop, please welcome one of radio's great singing families, the Johnson Girls, Rhonda and Yolanda

Way down upon that old Mississippi River not so far away
That's where my folks have lived forever
And that's where I'm going to stay.
I've been searching across the whole creation half my life or more
But I found my own sweet satisfaction right here on that muddy river shore.
All the world is so sad and dreary everywhere I roam.
Oh mama, how I miss the prairie and my Minnesota home.

I can see my mama's sweet sweet face, every Sunday morning, all the good old hymns, praise God, that we've sung, we knelt in prayer right beside our precious aunts and uncles, who loved us when we were young

In the valley of darkness they are the shepherds
Who lead me to pastures green
And I'll sit with my mama by the still still waters
And goodness and mercy follow me

I floated down the Columbia and the Hudson
Walked on the banks of the Ohio
On the banks of the Wabash and the mighty Colorado
And the old Red River way up north
All the world, it is a world of rivers flowing to the sea
But here on that old Mississippi
Here is the home for you and me
All the world is so sad and dreary everywhere I roam.
Oh mama, how I miss the prairie and my Minnesota home.

Title: Down the Ohio- Blue Edge of the Prairie, written by Kerry Spitzer

For my daughter, Serenity. Be Exposed performance, recorded at Carolyn's Coffee Connection by Channel 14's John Bloner Jr. I had just written this song a few days before and we had rehearsed it only once.