Prairie Driftwood

Day 344: The grass prairies of central western Washington are disappearing. Douglas Fir now crowds out the prior stands of Garry Oak and Scotch Broom threatens to obliterate the whispering grasses called "shelm" in the Nisqually dialect (a loose pronunciation), a term which gave rise to the early white settlers' name for the town of Yelm. My late husband's grandparents were among those who tried to dry-farm a section of land, hauling water in barrels from the Deschutes River several miles from their ranch. Had Grandpa Harry not also been an inventor, the family might well have starved for the little produce they eked out of their acreage.

When we took over the homestead from them, the Doug Firs Grandpa had planted on the property stood 60-80 feet tall. As he had done before us, we kept the property free of Scotch Broom by religiously hand-pulling any we found growing. After one season of trying to garden with rain-barrel water, I gave up, preferring to listen to the gentle "shelm" instead of the sound of my hoe hitting rock after rock.

Today, Yelm is a burgeoning "bedroom community" for Olympia. The "shelm" is drowned out by cars. Our old homestead has been timbered and divided, and a well was sunk by one of the several successive owners who weathered far less years on the prairie than the eighteen we endured with no conveniences. Yet when I return to the prairie, I feel a twinge of homesickness. The house looks the same on the outside and the trees are growing back, but the "shelm" is audible only on the windiest of days, blowing ghosts of another era through the tall grass.