By SIU Press
“In 2003, Fred Delcomyn imagined his backyard of two-and-a-half acres, farmed for corn and soybeans for generations, restored to tallgrass prairie.
“Over the next 17 years, Delcomyn, with help from his friend James L. Ellis scored, seeded, monitored, reseeded, and burned these acres into prairie.
“In A Backyard Prairie, they document their journey and reveal the incredible potential of a backyard to travel back to a time before the wild prairie was put into plow rows.
“It has been said, ‘Anyone can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie.’
“This book shows us how.
“The first book to celebrate a smaller, more private restoration, A Backyard Prairie offers a vivid portrait of what makes a prairie.
“Delcomyn and Ellis describe selecting and planting seeds, recount the management of a prescribed fire, and capture the prairie’s seasonal parades of colorful flowers in concert with an ever-growing variety of animals, from the minute eastern tailed-blue butterfly to the imperious red-winged blackbird and the reclusive coyote.”
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Fred Delcomyn in 2017.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on June 30, 2021