09/28/2025
The long-held farming ideal is that our organization of crops, soil, and energy resources must be static, unchanging, and reliable. These conditions might promote a fairly predictable (and exploitable) market in the short-term, but do little to support long-term survival and advancement. And they do not reflect the reality of a functional ecosystem. Nothing is permanent here on the prairie, or in the woods– which is a part of why terms like permaculture or permanent agriculture are a bit of a misnomer. Out here on the tallgrass prairie, changes in our burning and grazing regimen –not to mention climate and weather– favor or disadvantage different species compositions: and no amount of attempted human control can keep it the same forever. The continued survival of our culture relies more heavily on change than stasis– the shifting, dying, sprouting chaos of soil, sun and seed.
