Great Night for Bison Picnic
By Mari Radtke – The inviting weather on Tuesday night, August 12 was perfect to enjoy a lawn picnic with great, unique food and music. Many addition activities were available to enjoy at no cost.
The feature treat for this annual, 2nd Tuesday in August event is the bison burger meal. For a free will donation, a burger, beans chips and watermelon and water are served. Seating under the tent or on the patio is abundant. Music by Larry Heske, Newell, Iowa, provided live music performance featuring easy listening hits.
Several special sites and activities, some always available, some were special for the evening were up and running. Golf cart trips out the pioneer cemetery were on the constant move, taking guests out to an area overlooking the Little Sioux River and a manmade pond. The site is believed to be of the Hannibal Waterman family, first settlers in O’Brien County.
Next it was an easy walk to the staging area for the horse-drawn wagon rides. Two horse drawn wagons collected riders. Stan Krogman of Ashton, Iowa pulled with two cross-bred Percherons. The horses are larger and can pull heavier loads. Claude Struve of Sheldon brought a Tennessee Walker and pulled a smaller wagon. The mowed trails through the prairie below the Prairie Heritage Center and along the Little Sioux River made for an exception adventure, seeing nature, hearing birds, on a lovely evening made for a genuine special occasion. The rides were scheduled from 5:00 to 7:00pm but were extended to nearly 8:00pm to give all those in line a ride.
O’Brien County Conservation’s Prairie Heritage Center is home for some buffalo. Dave Stoll of Linn Grove owns and cares for the animals. He generously donates his time to making the meal part of this event possible. He also leads the care for the animals. While buffalo reproduce generally every other year, the center has been fortunate in having new babies annually for the past several years. This year one male and two female bison are at home near the corners of Buena Vista, Cherokee, O’Brien and Clay counties. Naming the babies is a fundraising contest each year during this event. Name choices are given and $1 votes can be cast for your favorite name. Simba won over Woody for the male. Dory and Ariel were the winners for the girls.
Several trails are available for walking, bird watching and other outdoor activities. The observation platform is heavily used to look out over the glacier created valley and offers a telescopic view. That platform is also the gateway to the Experience Trail. The Experience trail is a shorter path with a variety of displays to learn about sights, sounds, plant and animal life of the prairie.
Iowa Learning Farms and Water Rocks! through ISU Extension brought to this event one of their demonstration trailers; the rainfall simulator. ISU personnel spent the evening demonstrating the relationship between rainfall, farming practices and water quality. Water Rocks! has a fleet of mobile learning centers to educate all ages on different conservation aspects.
Overall, estimates of 450 – 500 people had dinner and enjoyed all the experiences offered. Organizers say wagon rides and visits to the cemetery had more visitors this year than ever before.