The best thing yet to grow in our prairies – Cale!

Posted by Jan Whitney on May 7, 2007 - 10:11 AM

I’ve decided to blog about Amy’s Me and My Shadow blog, so don’t read this until you’ve read hers.

(Pause while you read Amy’s blog.)

Now, I want our readers to know that Amy wrote about her son, Cale, at my request, and furthermore I’m adding my assurance that it’s all true.  Except that I don’t think he’s interested in her job.  Probably Mike’s or Bill’s.  But that thing about remembering there was a document to be delivered to our board president Saturday – and making sure that it was done  - whoa, that just blows my mind.  This is a little person with a Y chromosome after all, not usually, in my estimation and experience, associated with tending to such details. 

Amy didn’t mention the time Cale went to school as a prairie restorationist for the second grade’s “dress as what you want to be when you grow up” day.

I know, I wrote about it back then, but it’s worth mentioning for the benefit of our (yay!) new members.  He had on the Prairie Plains shirt and cap, work gloves, a belt looped through a couple of plastic detergent jugs just like we use for collecting seed, and of course a high diversity seed mix sample.  And, according to his teacher, he delivered quite an impressive little speech about the restoration process as well.

We have spent 27 years trying to explain to people what we do.  By the time we’ve touched on  “educational land trust” and “prairie preservation and restoration” and “Summer Orientation About Rivers” and “Platte Corridor Initiative” most inquirers have that glazed over look in their eyes and comment, “Oh, how nice.” And walk away still wondering how we make a living.  I wonder if we had Cale on staff NOW to explain things better, we’d have a lot more members.  It may be tough for Bill to hang around for another 15+ years waiting for Cale to take over.  But every time Cale shows up to help, he inspires us to give that serious consideration.

Next up (Blog 4):  Dandelions and Disunity.