A herd of wild bison have been brought from Wind Cave National park to the Nachusa Grasslands. They've only been here a week. The return of bison is a project of the Nature Conservancy. Volunteers have been helping to return the grasslands to their original state since the mid 1980's, planting prairie plants. The bison are the next step in returning the grasslands to their original state, and once released will help diversify the prairie. No interference will be done to these bison, other than maybe some health screenings. They will have to forage for water and food. Not sure how long this website will be available, but is informational about the process for returning the bison to the grasslands.
I spoke to two of the volunteer stewards, who said the bison will not be viewable by the public to see until sometime is 2015, but when released, the bison will have a wonderful grassland prairie to roam.
The bison are 100% wild, no cow DNA at all. One of the large bulls earned a name as soon as he got off of the transport stock trailer. His name is Chainbuster because in the nine hour drive from Iowa, he broke thru chains and put a hole in the trailer. The stewards said he is quite large. At his shoulder he is taller than a round bale of hay. The stewards also mentioned that more fencing has to be build because the bison have a strong migration instinct and if left unfenced, they will try to return to the Great Plains. I forget exactly how many acres the bison will have to roam. Maybe 1,500 (?).
Very rough trails, but the stewards said you could go off trail also. My total walk was around 5 miles (I'm guessing - forgot the pedometer again).
The bison are somewhere over that far rise.
Clouded sulphur butterfly
Eastern comma butterfly - also known as Angelwing
Then took a ride towards the grist mill in Franklin Grove. It is not the original, but has been rebuilt based on information they have found including that no nails are used in it's construction because the vibration of the wheel caused the nails to come loose.
The creek that runs the mill. The valve wheel opens the water gate which runs the mill. The volunteer said there is little elevation change in this area, so when they rebuilt the mill, the made the water drop 6'.
The grinding wheels are in the wooden boxes at the far end. Volunteer said since it is a working mill, the corn and wheat dust would be very thick, so they've covered the grinding wheels. To the left is another grinding wheel. The two (forget what he called them) metal things in the center right are used to start the water wheel outside.
There was some information on the mills second floor, but since I'm interested in the bison, only this seemed interesting. And no, there are no real buffalo in the US. Original settlers just called them buffalo, but they are actually bison here.
Across the road from the mill, a horse campground. There were signs warning hunters that horses could be on the prairie. That's a little scary.
The man at the mill said the national headquarters for the Lincoln Highway is located in Franklin Grove, so went to take a look.
According to the woman here, the actual headquarters is only from the front door to these first set of poles. Maybe a 10'x 10' area. The rest is a consignment shop.
Really? The national headquarters? The Route 66 museum in Pontiac, IL was more impressive for being about the same size. A lot more building restoration is needed here.
