Isaac's Journal: Memories of the Sand Hill Plum

Reader Contribution by The Mother Earth News Editors
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This story is from Lyn Fenwick, submitted as part of our Wisdom From Our Elders collection of self-sufficient tales from yesteryear.

To read more of Isaac’s 19th century journal entries see Lyn Fenwick’s blog.

When Isaac arrived on the Kansas prairie in 1878 the land was waving grass from horizon to horizon, with little else left to accentuate the scene because of the prairie fires that swept the land so often. There were exceptions. In the spring, wild flowers, whose tubers and seeds lay waiting, burst into bloom adding splashes of color amidst the swaying grass. At the same time, thickets of sand hill plum bushes opened their delicate white blossoms, offering hope to the settlers of fresh fruit to come, for somehow, enough of the thickets survived the flames to reproduce.

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