Antheia

Droodles by Roger Price (from his 1953 book). Droodles (a blend of “doodle”, “drawing”, “riddle”) are simple drawings with a witty, often absurd, caption. The first one, as some of you may know, was used by Frank Zappa for his 1982 album, Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. (Zappa, a fan of Price's work, lived just a few miles from the artist and personally sought permission to use the image.)

2 cups dried milk (nonfat or whole)

1 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened (up to 1½ c for more chocolate flavor)

1 tsp salt

2 tbl cornstarch (or other thickener: arrow root, rice flour)

2 cups powdered sugar (3 if you like it sweeter)

Mix with whisk until it's blended and has no visible lumps.

They’re more endangered than tropical rainforests, coral reefs, the arctic tundra, all of those go-to environments that get more of the spotlight.

Where I live, maybe 25% of the prairie remains in a natural state and that number is dropping. Even these fragments are mostly missing the keystone species that maintain their health, like bison, wolves, and prairie dogs. I know this is the case for other grasslands like the pampas and steppe as well. Vast lands empty of many species that used to call them home.

If you live on temperate grasslands, hold onto them tight, because they’ve been exploited like no other land and most people don’t even know how far the devastation goes.

[ID. A map titled "Intact Grasslands, Plowprint, and New Plowprint, 2017". The grasslands of the central United States are marked as being intact (green), converted into settler farmland (brown for old plowprint and orange for new plowprint), and the land converted into settlements and cities (yellow). Only about half of the area marked is still green. The area spans from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada down through the US from North Dakota to Texas and Montana to New Mexico. End ID.]

Only 55% of the US Great Plains are considered intact grasslands. This is a figure that considers land that is not farmland but has been affected by nearby agriculture and human hunting to still be intact.