Today was a case of “Don’t believe even 2 cents worth of what ya read on the internet.”
Beautiful day out today, tho not really a September day. Very warm. Very humid. More like late July or early August.
I set out for a relatively tiny local township cemetery based on an article I read online from the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources. Don’t trust the government. Don’t trusft the internet.
They said:
Located in the cemetery is prairie land which is owned by the Afton Cemetery Association. The prairie covers four and one half acres of the cemetery and is representative of the virgin black prairie soil of the Grand Prairie Section of the Grand Prairie Natural Division of Illinois. Afton Cemetery Prairie was included in the Illinois Natural Arears Inventory. This inventory checked nearly 4,000 old cemeteries for remnants of prairie vegetation. Only 24 cemeteries, including Afton Cemetery Prairie, qualified for the inventory.
I’ve driven by the cemetery a few times over the years & have never seen any “prairie.” Hah! Nor did I see any today. The entire area was beautifully mowed. Not good enough to maybe qualify as a golf course putting green, but it was definitely “lawn,” & not “prairie.” No prairie on site or in sight.
When I got home, I delved further online into the list of “prairie cemeteries” & found out from a University of Wisconsin site that Afton Prairie was one of the few that had been given no protection as a nature preserve (or similar protection). Oh well. Sh*t happens, I guess.
A drive in the country on a beautiful September day is always worth it tho. The following pics are shots I took from the cemetery entrance. The top one shows the famous (arguably, but we like to think it is) old Elva grain elevator (that around here we call ‘nine silos and a barn on top’) beyond the corn fields. The bottom one shows the soybean fields in the sunshine.
All 3 pics are DeKalb County, Illinois
