Nachusa Grasslands

Over the Summer Matt, my sister and I attended the STEM event, Breakfast with the Bison at a nearby tall grass prairie, Nachusa Grasslands. I’ve been pretty obsessed with the tall grass prairie since I was in high school when my grandma (who volunteered to conserve prairie lands near her home) taught me. My first semester in college, I took an environmental biology class and focused projects and did outreach in the classrooms about prairies. Since then I’ve had an item on my bucket list to join a prairie conservation group.

Years back I made a little prairie watercolor illustration that I turned into buttons

It poured on our way there and was a fairly blustery day, but it cleared up in time for our hike. The prairie at Nachusa was SO beautiful and so I want to share some of the pictures that each of us took.

The pictures above were mine. One thing our guide said was how everything changes from week to week and things will look completely different, so I’m excited to go back again and again to witness those changes over the seasons. Other than all of the other people that were there for the event it was such a peaceful place and I really just want to go and hang out for a longer period of time.

Here is a picture of me I found on Matt’s camera. This is how excited I am to be in the prairie. Of course I had to wear my Prairie State shirt from The Rockford Art Deli. The next 3 are other pictures Matt took and shared on Flickr. He took TONS of pictures, but deemed only these 3 worthy of publication.

Had to get one of the bison. Apparently they just added them last year and have already almost doubled their herd. The bison at Nachusa are real bison. Apparently a lot of “buffalo” farms actually have bison/cow hybrids because they can cross breed. I didn’t know that!

Below are some pictures my sister took

You can click on any of the pictures in this post to see them larger.

Again, super excited to be in the prairie

If you follow me on instagram you may have seen a snippet of a project that was inspired by our trip to Nachusa. Check back in a couple days to see a finalized project based on that snippet.