“You’re lost!”

And so I was.  A bridge out and a sideways GPS screen had turned me around. Instead of following Thurman Creek Road to Teter Rock, I had followed Cedar Creek Road to upland grazing lands. Big semis with yearling cattle came towards me, forcing me to pull off to the side. This is “loading season.”  One-year-old cattle have reached the end of their lives on these rich grasslands of the Flint Hills. I have come down these gravel roads to think and talk with those trying to imagine different futures for them, and the others who inhabit these lands.

For now, though, I’ve got to get myself sorted.  I need to make it to Teter Rock, and then down the Madison Road by 1PM.  I learned from the rancher—who had rightly discerned I had gone off course—that if I took a right at the next fork the road would take me straight to Teterville.  There was one catch: it was barely maintained. Grasses and creeks had reclaimed much of it.

Yet what it lacked in stability, it made up for in exhilarating, unexpected moments.  The prairie, as a person I met in Council Grove told me earlier in the week, is not immediately impressive.  There are no mountains or grand rivers to draw your attention.  To see it, you have to get close to it, into it.  It is then that you begin to experience its beauty.

And—if you are lucky—see its many forms of life.  Like many ecosystems on the planet, this one is threatened.  I had been hearing the last few days from locals about the loss of bird species. The recent Audubon report about the loss of 25% of North America’s bird population had been making the rounds.  In these parts, the loss of one bird in particular has served as a wake-up call.  The prairie chicken once filled these prairies, but now are threatened with extinction.  When I last traveled to Kansas in Spring, I was supposed to come out to this ranch to see their unique mating rituals, but a snowstorm stopped me. So I was thrilled when today one flew out of the grass in front of me.  There was no mistaking it—a prairie chicken in the air looks like a flying football.

The cattle rancher who manages this land has placed it in a conservation easement and is using practices designed to support species diversity. The presence of 56 varieties of butterflies, countless birds and this prairie chicken testifies to their success: a working landscape, it turns out, can also be a conserving one.

Traveling on, I encountered many other beings.  This plain-bellied water snake gave me a good long look.

This tortoise also was curious, but then took off at top speed.

The road came to an end at this gate.  I had been assured that I could open it despite the presence of a lock. Deciding I was not Houdini, I simply lifted my bike and myself over it.

Soon I arrived in Teterville, one of many Kansas ghost towns.  In 1920, oil was discovered here.  When the oil dried up, so did the town.

What is Left of Teterville

But one marker remains that continues to beckon: Kansas’ version of Stonehenge.

Originally erected by James Teter as a navigational aid, it since has become a site of some spiritual significance.

These twists in the fate of land in Kansas are many.  Towns, farms, ranches grow up around different ideas about how to make money from the land—its oil, water, gas, grasses.  When resources are used up, or technology moves on— trains, for example, that no longer run on steam so need not towns to provide water—it is the wind, sun, and ever changing weather that remains, reclaiming the land, and morphing it into something else.

Increasingly there is an awareness of these interdependencies, and more and more an ethic of working with the prairie to create new life.  The end of my ride brings me back to Matfield Green, where in the 1990s Wes Jackson and the Land Institute established a Community Rural Studies Program that aimed to create a prairie that supported not just cattle, but diverse grasses, animals, reptiles and people.  They renovated the old school.

They helped bring world renowned artists—like Terry Evans—to help envision different prairie futures. Ultimately the Land Institute withdrew to focus on their efforts in Salina, but its spirt remains.  Indeed, when I visited a few days ago, they were finishing renovations for a re-opening of the school as an art gallery space.

Prairie Grasses with Ladder in Background, Matfield Green School

Not many–but more than you might expect–are risking getting lost in these prairies.  And sometimes getting lost is the best way to be found.