Piece Description

Host intro: "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, and a bee, and reverie. The reverie alone will do, if bees are few." That saying, by Emily Dickinson, could well apply to Nachusa (nah-CHOO-sah) Grasslands in north-central Illinois. About twenty years ago, some locals got together with The Nature Conservancy to buy a couple of hills - knobs really - that were slated to be a subdivision near the town of Dixon. Developers even had street names, such as 'Pussytoes Lane,' picked out. It was about 300 acres of what's called remnant prairie which, unlike most of the rest of Illinois - 'the Prairie State,' had never been plowed into corn fields. The land included some rare native plants that offered a glimpse of what it looked like 10,000 years ago, just after the last ice age. Since then, more land has been added so that what is now called Nachusa Grasslands covers some 35 hundred acres - much of it corn fields that have been restored with native plants and birds. What's unique about Nachusa is that the restoration work is being done primarily by a spirited group of volunteer stewards who manage large parcels of land - gathering seed, planting, weeding and conducting prescribed fires - with plenty of reverie. Producers Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison have this profile of some of the volunteers of Nachusa. Tape 10:23 Outcue: music fades Credits: Our story on Nachusa Grasslands was produced by Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister for Long Haul Productions in association with Chicago Public Radio. The music is "Spare-Ohs" from Andrew Bird's CD "Armchair Apocrypha."