It was perhaps 30 years ago that I encountered Edwin Way Teale's book A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm, which thoroughly intrigued me. Some time thereafter I did try living on the remnants of an old farm in the semi-rural Kentucky countryside and discovered that doing so while working a 60-hour week wasn't practical.
Prairie Haven is a blog describing the process of "unfarming" - helping restore a conventional rural farm return to its natural, "wild," state. It's not a laissez-faire process of benign neglect; instead it entails lots of hard work with controlled burns and eradication on nonnative invasive plants.
The blog is presented as a journal, stretching back for nine years (!), with supplemental categories documenting the flora and fauna that have appeared during the restoration process. Photographs are large-format and professionally composed and edited. More importantly, the accompanying text, while brief, shows a deep and broad knowledge of the natural world. One reason I didn't write anything for TYWKIWDBI a few days ago is that I spent hours exploring this site.
The property being "unfarmed" is a beautiful western Wisconsin site with an impressive variety of microhabitats, which the owners are enhancing. Inspired by the blog, I've now requested Teale's book from the library for another reading.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my blog. I love doing it. I hope you'll come back and visit - and maybe even visit in person if you're coming this way
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