Surprise, Surprise

March 10, 2010

Class met at Lubbock Lake Landmark again, on a day so windy I had to spread my arms out a few times and pretend to fly. I never realized until that day that the wind could deter the note-taking process.

We learned about the beginnings of Lubbock Lake Landmark, what sparked interest in the land and why it's such a point of interest today.

LLL is the only place in North America to foster evidence of human occupation during all five historical segments. I found this surprising. Of all the climates in North America, semi-arid Lubbock prairie land has the oldest evidence of human occupation? I didn't expect that because I tend to associate life with climates with lush vegetation and large water supplies.

Yet Lubbock did have a large water supply. Lubbock lies within the Yellow House Draw, which once had numerous natural springs. It was in 1936 when white settlers came and used the water to irrigate cotton fields that this changed. The springs dried up and they had to dig deeper to find water.

Today only 2% of the native range land remains. That's 2% out of 25,000,000 acres. I can't even imagine that much land.

In the 1930s, when settlement was beginning, the city acquired all of the land and allowed public use. It wasn't until the 1980s that Texas Parks and Wildlife bought the land. On September 1, 200, Texas Tech University came to own it.

The mission of LLL is to restore the prairie without disturbing the archeological sites. This means that all of their work must be done above ground, without disturbing the soil. In order to remove non-native vegetation such as mesquite trees and broom-weed, which crowd out native species, they must use more creative methods.

Mesquite trees consume so much water that other native trees can't survive, but we learned that the Siberian Elm is actually more of a threat. Unlike the Mesquite tree, it grows very fast, sprouts, and is a prolific seeder.

Thanks to Hollywood, when one thinks of West Texas, a tumbleweed often comes to mind. I was surprised to learn that this is actually non-native Russian thistle.

The boardwalk going through LLL was built entirely by hand and took at least two years to finish.

There are many threats to the prairie, but reduction of fire has hurt it the most.

Many of us in the class thought that removing all of the mesquite trees would be beneficial, but found out that this would actually harm the Mississippi Kites who nest there. When renewing a habitat, it is about balance, and the solutions are not always as straightforward as they seem.

Throughout the day we encountered such surprises. The final surprise was really exciting:

in some odd weeks (I've forgotten when) our class will get to participate in a service project with LLL. We'll be dividing into teams helping plant native trees. I'm so excited! I love the idea of helping so many trees grow.