tallgrass shtetl state of mind

You stick around here long enough and you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to about North America’s prairies. I am a farmer; no farmers, no food.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

URL change and a place for my tags. Formerly @majoras-skull-kid. You may still refer to me as Skullkid.

ask me your burning questions about kansas and receive a detailed, sourced, long-winded and passionate answer. #i am kansas’ unofficial Leslie Knope #kansas my beloved

cat tax:

Fletcher #fletcher cat dad extraordinaire

Gremmi #gremmi lynn the gremlin #a girl and her carrots

Woodley #woodley the foster fail

In memoriam, Margot #the gooey goo #the original goo #grief on main

my spouse is #mr skullkid

my baking #skullkid bakes

my elaborate crafts #skullkid crafts (I am sorry to inform that this will only include my most recent elaborate craft because I did not think to tag previous crafts as something different. Somewhere in the world is the dnd modular cardboard map pieces I made of an entire city)

One change at a time lads. The pfp change will come later. It’s been 12 years as majoras-skull-kid and the time has come to take her out to pasture.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

“I have two people fighting over me for my love” - tired.

“I have two neurologists fighting over what’s medically wrong with me”. - wired

[konzaprairieunofficial]

There are now 3 neurologists who don’t know what’s wrong with me :) :) :)

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I am now being thrown into the specialty neurologists at UPenn neurologist enclosure as an enrichment pumpkin because nobody knows what’s wrong with me :) :) :)

[alphacrone]

as a child i assumed that martha’s vineyard was a fancy private vineyard owned by martha stewart and the reason rich people vacationed there was because they were friends with martha

[konzaprairieunofficial]

If you feel like sharing, I would love to hear about the native species you planted in your yard.

Oh sure! Most of these I started from seed, some I purchased as established plants from legitimate native plant nurseries. I’m gonna use common names but if you want Latin names on any of them let me know.

Trees and shrubs: black chokecherry, common elderberry, meadowsweet, buttonbush, sandhill plum, St. John’s shrubby wort

Ferns: ostrich fern, royal fern, sensitive fern, cinnamon fern, interrupted fern, hayscented fern

Grasses and sedges: little bluestem, big bluestem, switchgrass, Indian grass, Canada wild rye, bottlebrush grass, Virginia rye, Pennsylvania sedge, golden star sedge

Perennial and annual forbs (flowers): baby joe pye weed, spotted joe pye weed, tall joe pye weed, blue flag iris, rattlesnake master, butterflyweed, swamp milkweed, common milkweed, slender mountain mint, short-toothed mountain mint, purple coneflower, black eyed susan, false (ox-eye) sunflower, anise lavender hyssop, beebalm, dense blazing star, prairie blazing star, evening primrose, obedient plant, blue false indigo, cream false indigo, Culver’s root, cardinal flower, zig zag goldenrod, gray goldenrod, heartleaved aster, white woodland aster, New England aster, lizard’s tail, prickly pear cactus, late bonneset, yarrow, thimbleweed, nodding onion, sand coreopsis, foxglove penstemon, prairie cinquefoil, golden alexanders

[konzaprairieunofficial]

Oh I forgot columbine! And New Jersey tea! So 61 total lol

[konzaprairieunofficial]

If you feel like sharing, I would love to hear about the native species you planted in your yard.

Oh sure! Most of these I started from seed, some I purchased as established plants from legitimate native plant nurseries. I’m gonna use common names but if you want Latin names on any of them let me know.

Trees and shrubs: black chokecherry, common elderberry, meadowsweet, buttonbush, sandhill plum, St. John’s shrubby wort

Ferns: ostrich fern, royal fern, sensitive fern, cinnamon fern, interrupted fern, hayscented fern

Grasses and sedges: little bluestem, big bluestem, switchgrass, Indian grass, Canada wild rye, bottlebrush grass, Virginia rye, Pennsylvania sedge, golden star sedge

Perennial and annual forbs (flowers): baby joe pye weed, spotted joe pye weed, tall joe pye weed, blue flag iris, rattlesnake master, butterflyweed, swamp milkweed, common milkweed, slender mountain mint, short-toothed mountain mint, purple coneflower, black eyed susan, false (ox-eye) sunflower, anise lavender hyssop, beebalm, dense blazing star, prairie blazing star, evening primrose, obedient plant, blue false indigo, cream false indigo, Culver’s root, cardinal flower, zig zag goldenrod, gray goldenrod, heartleaved aster, white woodland aster, New England aster, lizard’s tail, prickly pear cactus, late bonneset, yarrow, thimbleweed, nodding onion, sand coreopsis, foxglove penstemon, prairie cinquefoil, golden alexanders

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I have a good 10-15 hummingbirds hanging around enjoying my nectar feeders and all the native plants and I’m glad even more of them are here this year compared to last. Word got around apparently. I had missed their tiny bodies of volatile hostility. Such rage filled smol creatures.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My neighbor down the street is like “I don’t have any hummingbirds how do you have so many” and I’m like Deborah why would they go to your yard you have nothing for them to eat. If you build it they will come.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My other neighbor was like “I see so many more fireflies in your yard why is that” well you see Jorgé I don’t use pesticide and I planted like 50 different species of native plants for them to live in and I’ve been rehabilitating the woodland behind both our townhouses to accommodate them so first step is to stop using pesticide my brother from Basque

[konzaprairieunofficial]

“How does your yard stay so green in this drought when you don’t even water it or have a lawn person like we do” Scott and Steve do you see just a uniformed monoculture of grass or do you see at least 8 different species of plants growing in this “lawn” and most notably are 3 different kinds of clover which is naturally nitrogen fixing. Do you see how many bugs I have on my property versus yours. Look at how spongy my soil is. It’s like walking on a sponge. Stop wasting your money on a lawn guy and I’ll fix it for you this fall okay

[konzaprairieunofficial]

This is exactly what I wanted to have happen, by the way.

I knew that if I made the example of a “manicured” landscape in a suburban neighborhood using native plants and regenerative practices that people would take notice.

I specifically designed it in a way so that there is always some sort of color and food source for pollinators from April through October. I specifically designed it to fix flooding issues in our neighborhood. And I specifically designed it to show my neighbors how much wildlife and birds and beneficiary insects you can attract if you build the right habitat for them without compromising maintenance and aesthetic.

I wanted to be the example that they could come and ask and I could show them how to do it themselves. Since we are renting this townhouse, we don’t pay into the HOA but my neighbors do. And even the HOA board has noticed my efforts. I have two neighbors asking for my help this fall in changing their lawns into a clover/sedge mix. Other neighbors routinely go to my backyard for photos because I have so many flowers and blooms.

If you build it, they will come.

[spockwithacat]

I think Tumblr should get really into Falkland Islands discourse. Not because anything good would ever come out of it but it would be entertaining.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I have a good 10-15 hummingbirds hanging around enjoying my nectar feeders and all the native plants and I’m glad even more of them are here this year compared to last. Word got around apparently. I had missed their tiny bodies of volatile hostility. Such rage filled smol creatures.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My neighbor down the street is like “I don’t have any hummingbirds how do you have so many” and I’m like Deborah why would they go to your yard you have nothing for them to eat. If you build it they will come.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My other neighbor was like “I see so many more fireflies in your yard why is that” well you see Jorgé I don’t use pesticide and I planted like 50 different species of native plants for them to live in and I’ve been rehabilitating the woodland behind both our townhouses to accommodate them so first step is to stop using pesticide my brother from Basque

[konzaprairieunofficial]

“How does your yard stay so green in this drought when you don’t even water it or have a lawn person like we do” Scott and Steve do you see just a uniformed monoculture of grass or do you see at least 8 different species of plants growing in this “lawn” and most notably are 3 different kinds of clover which is naturally nitrogen fixing. Do you see how many bugs I have on my property versus yours. Look at how spongy my soil is. It’s like walking on a sponge. Stop wasting your money on a lawn guy and I’ll fix it for you this fall okay

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I have a good 10-15 hummingbirds hanging around enjoying my nectar feeders and all the native plants and I’m glad even more of them are here this year compared to last. Word got around apparently. I had missed their tiny bodies of volatile hostility. Such rage filled smol creatures.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My neighbor down the street is like “I don’t have any hummingbirds how do you have so many” and I’m like Deborah why would they go to your yard you have nothing for them to eat. If you build it they will come.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My other neighbor was like “I see so many more fireflies in your yard why is that” well you see Jorgé I don’t use pesticide and I planted like 50 different species of native plants for them to live in and I’ve been rehabilitating the woodland behind both our townhouses to accommodate them so first step is to stop using pesticide my brother from Basque

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I have a good 10-15 hummingbirds hanging around enjoying my nectar feeders and all the native plants and I’m glad even more of them are here this year compared to last. Word got around apparently. I had missed their tiny bodies of volatile hostility. Such rage filled smol creatures.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

My neighbor down the street is like “I don’t have any hummingbirds how do you have so many” and I’m like Deborah why would they go to your yard you have nothing for them to eat. If you build it they will come.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

I have a good 10-15 hummingbirds hanging around enjoying my nectar feeders and all the native plants and I’m glad even more of them are here this year compared to last. Word got around apparently. I had missed their tiny bodies of volatile hostility. Such rage filled smol creatures.

[wifegideonnav]

gonna be honest i don’t know how many more ‘enter the 6 digit code we sent to your phone’s i got left in me

[konzaprairieunofficial]

Cringe marriage post!!!!!!!

I miss my husband :(

[polarity-disturbed]

Ryland Grace and his popularity as a character feels like such an important step in repairing the cultural tsunami left by the long running trope of every genius character needing to be an insufferable asshole to everyone in a ten mile radios about it.

[polarity-disturbed]

Conversely, Eva Stratt is doing wonders for repairing and inspiring a appreciation for commanding women with dubious moral convictions who are fully willing to bend laws for the greater good without hesitation.

[polarity-disturbed]

And together they are doing brilliant things by not kissing or hooking up even once.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

What are your top ten favorite places in Kansas?

Oh boy how to choose just ten

These are primarily going to be sentimental with a splash of tourism. In no particular order:

1. My grandpa and a few of his hunting buddies used to lease some land in the Flint Hills near Cassoday for field trials. There’s this creek that has a small waterfall shaded by small forest of cottonwoods along the creek bed where my brother and I used to fish for crawdads and pop ‘em over a campfire as snacks. I use to go with my grandpa on field trials on horseback with our horses (I lived with my grandpa primarily as a kid) through the prairie with the dogs (English setters) hunting for bobwhite quail. There’s nothing else quite like camping in an open prairie where stars are so bright and visible, or riding horseback across rolling hills with no buildings in sight. I’d like to be buried there.

2. Public at the Brickyard, a restaurant/bar/music venue in Wichita. They try to primarily source all food and drink from a 50 mile radius as much as possible and the food and drinks are just so good. It’s also where my spouse and I had our first date and many (see: all) future dates and eventually had our wedding reception there. We were known regulars.

3. Oak Park in Riverside borough in Wichita. There’s this abandoned limestone bridge with a creek running through it. It’s where I did all my big thinking and where I decided to propose to my spouse and it’s where we had our popup in the park wedding ceremony.

4. Tuttle Creek cliffs outside of Manhattan. I went to K-State and man the amount of times I drove out there, climbed fences illegally and sat on those cliffs to watch sunrises and sunsets over the lake. Did a lot of reflection and thinking there.

5. Taco Lucha, a restaurant and bar in Manhattan because I still have dreams about their chipotle raspberry black bean dip. Like, regularly dream about that dip and their tacos. Equally tied is René’s in Wichita. You can’t really beat 24/7 top notch Mexican food and their breakfast burritos are out of this world. Kansas has a really great local food scene that Kansans sleep on until they move out of state and then it’s like “damn Kansas has incredible food”

6.) Konza Prairie and Tallgrass National Prairie Preserves. Prairie and bison, what else could you possibly want in life. The Flint Hills are something out of this world of insane beauty and tremendously humble to behold.

7.) Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park and Monument Rocks out in Gove County. Limestone canyons and giant rock formations leftover from when Kansas was the coral reef of a prehistoric inland sea. Incredible.

8.) Lindsborg, AKA “Little Sweden” because it’s fucking cute lol tied with the Cosmosphere and Salt Mines in Hutchinson. Always amazes people when I tell ‘em rare movies are stored int the salt mines and that there’s a Smithsonian museum in Kansas with the coolest space shit and actual lunar rovers etc.

9.) my grandpa’s farm that he had to sell because *gestures to the agricultural crisis and his age*. All the happiest and safe childhood memories are there for me.

10.) Keeper of the Plains. Iconic. Incredible. Zero notes.

Honorable mention: Sedgwick County Zoo because damn that zoo is fucking dope. Helps that there’s so much space for them to expand and make exhibits and animal welfare and enrichment just, outstanding. I go there every single time I visit home and it never disappoints.

[konzaprairieunofficial]

“I have two people fighting over me for my love” - tired.

“I have two neurologists fighting over what’s medically wrong with me”. - wired

[konzaprairieunofficial]

There are now 3 neurologists who don’t know what’s wrong with me :) :) :)

[destroysoil]

two egyptian fruit bats enjoying a yellow bell pepper