In this Book

summary
Writer and photographer Gary Lantz has always felt most at home in what the Osage used to call the “heart stays” country—the southern edge of the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie in Oklahoma’s Osage County. It’s a place of grassy mounds with lots of rocks underfoot and clusters of crooked little oaks providing shade. It started young, his long-lasting love affair with a landscape that unnerves the uninitiated a little, mostly because it just seems so empty, and it has persisted through his entire life.

As proud grasslanders know, the prairie is biologically fulfilling, unique, and increasingly rare: biologists from the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy agree that a healthy prairie remains one of the most ecologically diverse and dynamic ecosystems on this planet—as well as one of the rarest left on earth. This landscape that once inspired rapturous exclamations from travelers headed west on horseback now mostly exists in fragments exiled from each other by cropland, cities, and interstate highways.

Historically, tallgrass prairie stretched from Canada to Texas, from central Kansas to Indiana. Now the last major expanse of tallgrass occurs in the Flint Hills, a verdant landscape extending in a north-south strip across eastern Kansas and into northern Oklahoma’s Osage County. In these essays, Gary Lantz brings the beautiful diversity of the prairie home to all of us. 
 

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Half Title, Series Info, Title Page, Copyright
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. vii-viii
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  1. At Home on Prairie Earth
  2. pp. 1-6
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  1. Clarion Call
  2. pp. 7-10
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  1. A Creek Called Walks in the Night
  2. pp. 11-14
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  1. Dancing Up a Prairie Sunrise
  2. pp. 15-17
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  1. Save the Last Dance
  2. pp. 18-21
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  1. Ferns Prone to Take a Stroll
  2. pp. 22-25
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  1. Renewal at a Slow Burn
  2. pp. 26-29
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  1. A Song of Wind and Changing Seasons
  2. pp. 30-34
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  1. A Time of Frogs, Toads, and Tiny Flowers
  2. pp. 35-38
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  1. Night of the Banshees
  2. pp. 39-43
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  1. Ghostly Bird Dreams on Melancholy Mornings
  2. pp. 44-48
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  1. Daffodils
  2. pp. 49-51
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  1. Notes from the Konza Country
  2. pp. 52-55
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  1. The Grassland Legacy of J. E. Weaver
  2. pp. 56-59
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  1. Floods Mark the Beginnings of Prairie Earth
  2. pp. 60-62
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  1. Fuel for a Fiery Green Engine
  2. pp. 63-67
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  1. Spring’s First Warm Rain
  2. pp. 68-72
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  1. Tugging at the Crow’s Tail
  2. pp. 73-78
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  1. Blackberry Winter
  2. pp. 79-83
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  1. Cicada Spring
  2. pp. 84-86
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  1. Meandering along with a Prairie Stream
  2. pp. 87-91
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  1. Floating into Summer
  2. pp. 92-96
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  1. Judge Not the Brown-headed Cowbird
  2. pp. 97-100
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  1. A Tallgrass Summer Solstice
  2. pp. 101-107
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  1. The Curious Life of the Tumblebug
  2. pp. 108-111
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  1. Searching for a Prairie Queen
  2. pp. 112-116
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  1. Of Morning Haze and Lotus Flowers
  2. pp. 117-122
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  1. Dog-day Homicide
  2. pp. 123-126
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  1. A Few Thoughts about Aesop’s Favorite Loafer
  2. pp. 127-131
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  1. A Season Spun in Gold
  2. pp. 132-136
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  1. Butterfly Summer
  2. pp. 137-143
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  1. The Mostly Misunderstood Copperhead
  2. pp. 144-147
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  1. An Osage Thoreau
  2. pp. 148-152
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  1. Poet of the Prairie
  2. pp. 153-157
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  1. Gone in November
  2. pp. 158-162
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  1. Prairie Giants
  2. pp. 163-167
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  1. On the Wings of Eagles
  2. pp. 168-173
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  1. Pastures of Plenty
  2. pp. 174-179
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  1. The Ghost Springs of Sycamore Creek
  2. pp. 180-186
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  1. References
  2. pp. 187-193
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