Learning to See The Prairie for the Grass

A Poem by Asher:

Your dog is mean

My dog is a jellybean

She eats them from a machine

It is a beautiful evening in Iowa. I just got back from a nice walk with Rosie the dog. The weather the last few days has been spectacular, with temperatures hitting the 70's and plenty of sunshine. Today was a bit cooler, but still beautiful. In the matter of a couple days, green grass has begun to appear in the lawns, taking over the gray and yellow.

We spent last weekend soaking up the relative warmth. On Saturday, the three of us played disc golf at Southwoods in West Des Moines. It was a blast, and other than the mud and getting "lost" in the woods, Asher loved it. He is pretty good at throwing the frisbee.

On Sunday after church, we went to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge outside of Prairie City. It is a large restored tallgrass prairie, complete with elk and buffalo. We went for a nice long walk around the refuge. Asher had a little bit of a hard time with the concept of the prairie, since all he saw was a bunch of dry grass. He really loved the buffalo. The refuge is a cool place. You can almost imagine standing there years ago, with hundreds of miles of dense, rich prairie in almost every direction, with huge herds of buffalo moving around. We are going to make sure to go back later in the year, when the wildflowers are out.