It was a dark and blustery night. Vigilante crime fighter; The JackPott and her sidekick Stone Throw sit perched atop a lone tree amongst the vast plain of prairie grasses. A breeze speeds across the landscape, birthing rippling shadows in waves of grain.

“Do you smell that?” JackPott inquires, inhaling a swath of the sweet scented air.

Stone Throws gaze unfocuses from the murky crystal which had captured her attention, miles away from the tree she currently occupies. *Sniff sniff*. “Crime….”

“Precisely!” With the speed of a pronghorn, the dynamic duo launches from their roost, landing in the front seats of their super-charged hover truck: The Grassmobile. The roof closes overhead as a dim green glow floods the cabin. “Stone Throw, time to turn it to 11!”

“On it boss!” Stone Throw swiftly inserts a cd into the stereo and cranks the volume knob as far as it goes, where a piece of tape labeled “11” has been placed over the 10 setting. YMCA by the Minions nearly fries the speakers.

“Lets ride!” And with the press of a button, The Grassmobile zips away with the unfathomable speed of a shooting star.

After a few minutes of zoomin, a shadow emerges and smashes into the winshield. The truck screeches to a stop, launching the figure forward. Our heroes leap out of the vehicle with the grace of two toads. The shadow raises from the brush, illuminated by the headlights. Large brown wings, red glowing eyes, and bushy antennae morph into clarity as the duo approaches. “Mothman!” They shout in unison.

“Yeeeees it is I, THE MOTHMAN,” he shouts in a cheesy 50s mobster accent, shaking a fist to the sky. “I have plotted and traveled for months to achieve my goal, and you two goons won’t stop me now, see!” With a powerful flap of his wings he zips into the air.

“He’s escaping! Get him!” Stone Throw summons a swarm of rocks from the surrounding landscape, preparing to launch the mineral mass at the fleeing criminal. Just as she’s about to launch her attack, however, The Mothman diverges from his trajectory, and makes a beeline, a mothline if you will, straight towards the still beaming headlights of The Grassmobile, bonking his head and knocking him cold.

When he awakens he’s tied up and unable to move. “There’s no escaping this time evil-doer! What have you been scheming?”

“Wahahahahah! Its too late fools! My plan is complete! The bugs have been released! Sweet Clover shall be no more!”

“Wait… you don’t mean to tell me your plan was to release bugs to eradicate sweetclover?”

“Yes… YES! Its the perfect plan! I’ve smuggled the grumbo bug which heavily preys on sweetclover into North America in order to eradicate one of the most prolific invasives to ever plague this landscape!”

“Oh, well I mean I guess that’s technically illegal but, uhh, well, does the gurmbo eat anything other than sweetclover?”

“Just Alfalfa.”

The two crime fighters look at each other and shrug. They untie Mothman and he flies off into the night.

Moral of the story: I really don’t like sweetclover.

It has been a little over a month now since starting my work on the DRyiNG (Drought RecoverY In Northern Grasslands) project out here in South Dakota and I have already learned a ton about the mixed-grass prairie ecosystem of Buffalo Gap. I’m currently able to confidently identify over a dozen species found in the prairie, many of which are grasses that look nearly identical to each other.

We spent the first week going over the defining characteristics of plant families we frequently come across and collecting some samples to enhance our visualization of some common species. Some grasses are easy to identify as they have very unique characteristics when compared to their neighbors. Pascapyrum smythii for example, is the most common grass we come across and it is easily identified by the purple coloration on its collar. Others are much harder like the three Bouteloua species we often encounter: B. curtipendula, B. dactyloides, and B. gracilis. These took me a while to get the hang of as they are all fairly simillar and usually only distinguishable by the location and quantity of hairs on the culm and leaves when not flowering.

So far, our daily tasks have consisted of collecting aerial cover and stem count data within quadrats. This involves first identifying every species in the quadrat, estimating the area covered by each species when seen from above, and then counting the number of stems per species in a smaller quadrat.

So far, I have had a great time. Every day I learn new species and deepen my familiarity with those I already know well. I never imagined I would be able to go on a hike with my friends and not only annoy them by identifying all the cool flowers but all the grasses too! As the summer continues I am excited to continue my training as a grass wizard and learn more about other cool projects going on in the area.