Whole slough of reasons to preserve wild places

My grandfather, who homesteaded in Iowa with his family in the late 1800s, was bigger than life to me. One of the farms he built with his father is about 140 acres not too far from the Mississippi River.

It includes an eight-acre preserve of virgin prairie set aside by his father, a special place we called the slough.

Grandpa would take me there when I was little, to pick a few of the flowers that bloomed each spring and summer. He would talk about the plants and wildlife and there was little doubt he took pride in it.

The slough reverberated with life. Quail and red-winged blackbirds loved it. Crickets chirped, the mice ran over my shoes and snakes abounded. Afraid of the creatures that lurked, I avoided the slough when I was very young but as I grew, I played there regularly with my cousins and a new fascination and respect evolved.

It was completely silent in the dead of winter, but like magic it came alive every spring.

Walking down the road that divided the slough from a cornfield on a summer day, I stopped and listened. The slough was bursting with sounds and life, so much that it was palpable. A small rabbit showed itself momentarily. Red-winged blackbirds perched precariously on the grasses waving in the wind and below, pheasants tended their young.

By contrast, the cornfield on my left was silent - no birds, crickets or pheasant? The leaves made a wooden sound as they rustled in the wind, but that was it.

It was a moment I haven't forgotten and I consider the time spent between that small patch of wild land and a cornfield, as a precious gift from a man I never knew.

The slough was a small island that stood in a sea of corn, milo, alfalfa and oats and the sacrifice by the family over the years to preserve it was no small thing.

The land wasn't plowed during the Great Depression when my grandfather sold one of his two farms just before he was going to lose it.

In Iowa, farming seemed like a game of financial roulette that depended on the weather, which was never right and my uncle constantly complained about that and the prices paid for his corn.

The rains came too early or too late, or it was too hot too soon, but the soil is black as coal and on a hot day in July or August, the corn would grow so fast the stalks would crackle.

I remember my uncle sitting at the table with a cup of coffee looking out the window.

"I'm going to plow the slough," he announced, more than once.

At times like these the usual din would go silent as my cousins and get very quiet. We knew this was serious. We also knew this was not a democracy and nothing we said would change anything, but in the end the slough was never plowed.

Carson Valley will soon have its own Brockliss Slough, restored and preserved for all time.

I'll be the crazy lady crouching in the grass with her grand daughters, teaching them about the power and pulse of nature.

Some day I hope they will understand what a precious gift that slough is, from people they will probably never know.

-- Susie Vasquez is county reporter for The Record-Courier. Reach her at svasquez@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 211.