Indian Grass Prairie

Native Indian Grass grows chest high on the plains of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  As a child I would walk through the grass, tracking rabbits by the droppings they left as they as they traveled well worn familiar trails.  Giving up on the chance of ever catching one, I’d lie on my back in the grass listening to the prairie wind, completely hidden from all the world except the red-tailed hawk circling in the thermals overhead.  I have heard early pioneer tales of prairie grass being as tall as a horse’s back and stretching into the distance as far as the eye can see.  A large section of Southwest Oklahoma was once called “The Big Pasture” because of the grassland sea covering 480, 000 acres.  These native grasses, as the swayed in the daily winds, and stretched to the horizon over the gentle rolling hills reminded the pioneers of swells upon the ocean.