"I've been things and seen places." 
--Mae West, American actress

We have more than a few places for you to see on the Katy Prairie but one you may not have visited is an unassuming, out-of-the-way over performer - the Katy Prairie Conservancy's Field Office Preserve.  KPC bought the 155-acre tract in 2001 and also acquired a 7,000 square-foot structure which serves as our field office-hence the unappealing appellation.  
 
But the Field Office Preserve is more than a building or just our field office.  Wildlife abounds on the tract.  Ducks and geese roost on a tranquil reservoir, sparrows and mourning doves flitter among peach and pecan trees improbably planted by the tract's former owner, butterflies alight on the native grasses, and bees search for nectar on the wildflowers still blooming in our nursery.  
 
The Field Office Preserve is abuzz with human activity as well.  Volunteers have rescued more than 1,000 plugs of native plants, grasses, and wildflowers and transplnated them in our Texas Coastal Prairie Native Seed Nursery.  Boy scouts and other volunteers created a trail from the nursery edge back to the plant beds where Grace Liggett and many Master Naturalists have nurtured 200 seedlings to mature plants.  John Lane used a tree spade to transplant 20 plugs of native sod and Chip Davis of ChipCo transplanted 2,500-square feet of native sod to create a demonstration prairie to introduce the public to prairie ecology. A  new interpretive garden shows off the resplendent colors and blooms of natives found on the coastal tallgrass prairie areas. 
 
Come out during our November events to be things and see places on the Field Office Preserve.  Good things sometimes have boring names. We hope you'll take time for a seventh season of The Office (and what's around it).


Mary Anne Piacentini