“…mere open space, a lack of trees, and vegetation that doesn’t rise above the height of a man’s head do not make a prairie…prairie refers to a natural community which, like a giant organism, is composed of a multitude, a sum total of its parts. It is a complex ecosystem of grasses, flowering annual and perennial plants, shrubs, a few trees, and a variety of wildlife, from the macro-vertebrate to the microcosmic.” From Mary Taylor Young, Land of Grass and Sky: A Naturalist’s Prairie Journey (2002), page 101

This was taken about 15 miles east of my apartment. Of course where my apartment is used to be 15 miles east of town. Large raindrops were falling, wind was blowing and temperatures were dropping as the storm clouds moved across the prairie.