Keystone Forest visit

We went to one of the Nature Conservancy's projects in Oklahoma today. Keystone Forest is an undisturbed -- there are trees in the forest that are over 400 years old -- cross-timbers area northeast of Tulsa.  The preserve is a partnership between the Oklahoma Tourism Board, the city of Sand Springs and the Nature Conservancy (this sort of innovative partnerships is why I like the Nature Conservancy.)

The kids had fun finding butterflies, especially because they were so well camouflaged. This photograph has a butterfly (left) and a leaf (right):

The recent icestorm had damaged quite a few trees
Washington Irving famously described the cross timbers as a forest of cast iron. Imagine him on horseback, encountering this stretch and not knowing how far deep it was.

I saw Indian grass (Oklahoma's state grass) and switch grass for the first time (Switch grass is the promising biofuel). Or rather, I learned to recognize them.