When Did I Really Understand What Prairie Was? (And Why It Took So Long)

You know that feeling when you grow up around something special but don't realize it until years later? Yeah, that was me with prairie.

Kent asked me this question on a recent episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast: "When did you first understand what prairie was?" And honestly, the answer is kind of embarrassing. I mean, I'm the CEO of Hoksey Native Seeds now. I should have some profound story about falling in love with big bluestem as a kid, right?

But the truth? I didn't get it for a long time.

The Farm Kid Who Didn't Know What He Had

When I was in middle school—fourth, fifth, sixth grade—my dad would drag us out to prairie remnants. And I mean drag us. We did not want to go. He'd be so excited, checking in on prairies he'd planted, pointing things out, saying "this is really cool, you can't find this anymore."

And it meant absolutely nothing to me.

I understood it was a thing. I knew we farmed something different than our neighbors—got teased about it a little bit, actually. "Would you even call that real farming?" kind of stuff. But no one was mean about it. I think most of the dads in our community really respected my dad, so their kids weren't coming at me hard. It was more like, "yeah, your family just does something different."

But special? Gone forever? Difficult to get back? Water quality issues? None of that clicked. I just knew we grew grass and wildflowers instead of corn and beans like everyone else.

The Long Road to Actually Caring

The gravity of prairie probably didn't hit me until after I got back from college, about six years ago. That's when I started looking around and thinking, "Wow, this is not how it's supposed to be." You know, actually understanding what an ecosystem of prairie looked like—that was an evolution.

When I was a kid, we had way more acres in production. Dad was doing it mostly solo, maybe with some seasonal help from cousins or neighbors. We had big fields of native grasses—mostly big bluestem, Indian grass, side oats grama. But back then, we only had maybe five to eight species of wildflowers. Each grass species would take two or three weeks to harvest instead of several days like now.

Now we've got way more diversity. Those old grass fields? A lot of them are now packed with wildflowers. We're doing smaller acreage but way more complexity. And honestly, looking back, I don't know how dad did it all by himself. Managing what we do now with our team—holy crap, it's a lot.

The Six-Foot-Two Filipino Farm Kid

Here's the thing that made it weird: I'm a six-foot-two Filipino guy. So when I went to college in Dallas, I'd tell people, "Yeah, I'm from a prairie grass farm in Iowa." Walking around in my peacoat and scarf. And they'd be like, "You're not from Iowa. You're not a farmer."

And you know what? They were kind of right. I knew how to do the specific tasks—run equipment, manage fields, all that. But I didn't understand the overall decision-making and operations. I thought I did. But I was woefully unprepared for actually running a farm.

If someone had told me at 19 that I'd be farming for my career? Man, I would have revolted. My soul would have gone on strike against God, as my roommate once put it. I wanted nothing to do with it. I had this whole other life planned out.

Why Growing Up Different Actually Mattered

Looking back now, growing up on a prairie farm instead of a conventional operation shaped me in ways I didn't appreciate at the time. We were doing something that most of Iowa had lost. My dad was rebuilding ecosystems that had been plowed under for over a century.

And yeah, I felt special about it, even if I didn't fully understand why. When you're the weird farm kid, you either embrace it or you run from it. I did both at different times.

But here's what I've learned: prairie isn't just grass and "another type of dandelion" like Kent joked. It's a complete ecosystem—hundreds of species working together, supporting pollinators, filtering water, building soil. It's what Iowa looked like before we turned it into the largest monoculture on the planet.

What Changed Everything

The shift happened when I started asking different questions. Not "what do I want to do with my life?" but "what problem am I solving?" and "what value am I adding to the world?"

Because here's the thing about prairie: it solves problems. Real problems. We've got water quality issues in Iowa that are killing the Gulf of Mexico. We've got pollinator populations crashing. We've got soil washing away faster than we can build it. And prairie—real, diverse, native prairie—addresses all of that.

When I finally understood that, everything clicked. This wasn't just my dad's weird passion project. This was ecological restoration at scale. This was rebuilding what we lost. This was work that actually mattered.

Starting Your Own Prairie Journey

If you're reading this thinking about starting your own prairie project, here's what I wish someone had told me: you don't need to understand everything right away. You don't need to have some profound revelation. You just need to start.

Maybe that's with a small pollinator garden in your yard. Maybe it's converting a few acres of pasture to native grasses and forbs. Maybe it's just learning to identify what's already growing wild on your property.

The important thing is that you're building something that will outlast you. You're creating habitat. You're improving water quality. You're giving pollinators a fighting chance.

At Hoksey Native Seeds, we've spent decades figuring out how to grow, harvest, and clean native seed at scale. We've got seed mixes designed specifically for your region and goals—whether that's a pollinator garden, a wildlife habitat, or a full prairie restoration.

And honestly? The best part of this work is that it gets better with time. Unlike row crops where you start over every year, prairie builds on itself. Year two is better than year one. Year five is better than year two. After a decade, you've got something truly special.

The Answer I Didn't Expect

At the end of our podcast conversation, Kent asked me the question he asks all our guests: "If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the world, what would it be?"

I'm going to steal someone else's answer here, but it's one I've thought a lot about: I'd grow the fruit of thankfulness in everybody's hearts.

Sounds simple, right? But think about it. Thankfulness solves our wars. It solves our conservation issues, our consumption problems, half of our marriage conflicts. When you're genuinely thankful for what you have, you stop constantly chasing more. You stop seeing your neighbor's field as something to acquire. You stop treating the land like it's just another resource to extract and exploit.

Conservation happens one mind at a time. And that mind shift starts with gratitude—for the soil beneath our feet, for the native plants that built this land, for the chance to be part of rebuilding what we've lost.

So yeah, it took me way too long to understand what prairie was. But now that I get it? I can't imagine doing anything else.

This blog post was inspired by Episode [#] of the Prairie Farm Podcast, where Kent Boucher interviewed me about my journey from reluctant farm kid to passionate prairie advocate. You can listen to the full conversation on our podcast.

Ready to start your own prairie journey? Check out our native seed mixes or reach out with questions. We've been doing this long enough to help you avoid the mistakes we made along the way.