wildlife wildflowers and waterfalls

Is it diamonds in the grass? Yes, only it's dew drops at sunrise. Sparkling prairie and occasional wildflowers seem undisturbed the morning after. I peek out of our modern covered wagon, see empty tents, gently waving flags and remember.

Symphony in the Flint Hills greeted 6,000 visitors with a miracle of sunshine and a gentle breeze on Saturday, June 14, 2008, at the Lakeview Ranch south of Council Grove. Horseback riders ever willing to visit and tell about their horse and life on the prairie greeted us on the walk to the concert site.

As we arrive, we are surprised to see Bruce and Susie Taylor, lifetime Chapman area residents. They are enjoying a day away from the traumatic past few days at home. Although they personally did not have damage, members of their family did. It was good for them to talk and us to listen.

We still have time for three seminars before our volunteer duties.

Luther Pepper, a member of the Kaw Nation, tells stories of the early Kaw/Kanza Indian presence in the Flint Hills. Kansa means “south wind people.” The men hunted and the females cultivated, harvested and stored. They called the prairie their home from the 1600s until 1854 when they were moved south to Indian Territory now Oklahoma.

Leo Oliva is a long time expert on the Santa Fe Trail. On September of 1821, William Bicknell and four other people set out from Franklin Missouri with goods to sell at Santa Fe. They make a 2,000% profit and thus the beginning of the well-known commerce trail established centuries earlier by prehistoric Indians.

Seminars in the Butterfly Milkweed Tent feature families who have deep roots in the Flint Hills. Their love of the land, cattle and open spaces is obvious. Modern ranching is computerized and complicated. I did not hear one panel member say they wished to do anything else.

We eat a traditional picnic dinner of barbecued beef and pork and all the fixings. Many others tote in picnics and eat on blankets spread on the hillside.

The concert is beautiful. The vastness of the open prairie provides the perfect backdrop for a symphony, which at its loudest speaks to thunder and softest the song of Bob White Quail and Meadowlark. After intermission, we notice wranglers slowly herding cattle over a knoll. Horses and riders hold them in place as the music continues. Then, as Overture to The Cowboy (1980) by John Williams begins, they herd the cattle over the slope and through a break in the hill behind the orchestra. The cowboy music with the visual makes me tearful.

As if on cue by the conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, Damon Gupton, the sun slowly slips down over the hills at the last note of the concert.

Most packed blankets and chairs and headed home. We opted to watch the stillness set in over the prairie then headed for the star gazing area to look at an almost full moon and stars. I was able to see Saturn’s rings, a thrill.

Earlier in the day, Peg Jenkins, a Flint Hills rancher, eloquently told her thoughts about living her entire life in the prairie. “There is sacredness in the grasslands. You can see God. When I was a girl, I dreamed I would ride to the top of every hill to see what was on the other side. I have never had any desire to do anything else”

Thank you, Peg, for sharing your prairie…and its diamonds.

Click on photo for slide show.

Symphony in the Flint Hills 2008

Same pictures in YouTube Video