[To see photos and stories of this prairie in other years, go to the links on the main Pine Point Prairie page.]

In February and March of 2001 we planted the field below the pines into prairie (part of the Center Valley prairie plantings).

We also decided that we’d like to get rid of the pines – they aren’t native, and the straight lines didn’t look at all natural.  So we arranged with a local logger to cut them that winter.

It was a warm winter, and the loggers waited to start until it was below freezing – sometime in late December of 2001.

But the weather didn’t stay cold, and they kept working anyway.  Their big machines made huge ruts and roads through our newly planted prairie. This is the scene after all the pines were cut, and the logs hauled away.

It was a mess.  They had left tall stumps, so we couldn’t get in to mow, and piles of slash and torn up ground.  They had made a road along the edge of the woods.  I threw prairie seeds down on the muddy logging road, but they’d caused so much damage, that we had no idea how to fix it.  We moved on to other projects, and tried to forget about it.

The planted prairie was completely devastated.  We spent the money we got for the logs – and then some – to buy more seeds, and we replanted the prairie.   That summer we mowed it frequently.

7/12/2002

7/12/2002  At the edges, in places the loggers had missed, we saw prairie plants growing.

10/15/2002  And in the fall, some asters and prairie grasses bloomed.