Amid the chaos of 2020, I reached a point when I needed to get away: from people’s anger and fear, the suffocating cluttered skyline, even the lush vegetation where I live. Open space was what I craved, and to find it I secured a small place in the Flint Hills, where for the next several days I walked grassland trails reacquainting myself with an ecosystem I had long appreciated but had woefully lost touch with.
It is rare to find a Kansan who does not know the quieting whisper of prairie grass or the sweet, clear trill of a lark. These grasslands and their creatures make us…
