the historic Little River Valley area near Roanoke, Indiana is home to 300 acres of native Indiana landscape you'll find restored grasslands, wildflowers and ancient sand dune forested areas and elk and bison.

>> It's a place to unplug from the world around you and connect with the natural world nearby.

>> This is L.C Nature Park the valley behind me here.

OK, you can see that we're up and it goes down and then it comes up way over in the horizon over there where the tree line is ten twelve thousand years ago this was all wetlands and woodlands.

We've created some of the tall grass prairie.

It is part of what we want to show is natural Indiana.

My family and I had been vacationing on the Yellowstone area for a number of years and came to grow a huge admiration for the bison in particular I watched him swim across the river and jump off a six foot bank and go up a none of us could walk up probably these are incredible animals taking care of our natural landscape is a very important part of our task and drive here part of that and is returning some of the animals that inhabited those ecosystems.

Right now we have 30 bison and twenty three elk.

All but three of them were born here.

They're doing their thing you know they're grazing and they're going to the bathroom out here and so they're really reinforcing these habitats in restoration's our primary goal is we want them out here to be part of the landscape, you know, to do what they do in these native ecosystems.

Both species are just incredible animals.

The more you watch the more you learn about them.

I'll take the gator or golf cart out there park about 100 feet away within 15, 20 minutes they will have grazed their way over to me.

They're looking at me and wondering what I'm doing and I'm watching them and watching the interaction between Calf and my mom and bull mom's between mom's calves playing with each other.

>> That is the best time these opn areas where it's grassland they were ag fields getting to see them returning to a native ecosystem is pretty awesome.

>> Every day you're just experiencing something new we're able to reproduce this natural landscape and show people how beautiful Indiana really is.

>> It's not all soybeans and cornfields.

It's it's this we're in late summer so the prairie is very yellow.

All of the yellow we see out here is one plant called Wild Senna and then the purple and that's called Tul Ironweed.

>> Each month you get different flowering plants that are out there and so it changes in terms of the way it looks, which is a lot of fun to see most of the woods that runs east to west here in the northern part is actually sitting on a sand dune really nice diversity of trees on the doing the woodland growth that we have here appears to be pretty much Vergence was never cleared farmed wild.

So that's why we have a proliferation of wildflowers and great trees tulip poplar, a lot of black cherry, some sugar maple red and white oak beech trees, bucchi trees.

So we've got a lot of really great native trees that comprise the over story since our primary focus of our definitely want school groups and home school groups to come up.

Our official program.

It's like a mammal program but obviously we can highlight the elk and the bison.

We can do a little bit of a lesson and we can point out all these differences between all hese different animals t can come out and show them and look and say hey, what are some of these differences?

And we offer similar things for all of our different ecosystems the grasslands, the woodlands, the wetlands.

>> We have a Rafter's program.

Some groups you don't want to know more about the elk or the buffalo bison or some want to know about the geology out here.

Some want to know more about plants and native species.

We have invasive species.

We have anyone can set a reservation or schedule a time to come out and take a hike and that's actually a great way to get to see all of the park and kind of get a little bit of all of those educational programs.

>> The Audubon Society, they are into birds so they come out here and we'll do a hike, you know, try to identify as many birds as they can.

It's so much fun bringing experts out here because every time they come I learn something new.

>> We want anyone and everyone to come out.

We think this is valuable enough that everyone should see and should learn about this stuff like box.

>> Everything we have here is native Indiana wildlife.

All these artifacts here came from animals on the property.

We want kids to come over and touch them and feel them and see what they're really like.

Kid comes over and touches us OK and picks it up and says I got two of these in my head for six months.

What does that do to my neck muscles?

It's you know, it's pretty incredible and so being able to experience it rather than someone telling you about it, there's so much more meaningful.

When we bought this place we had no idea of the richness and value of it and I want to speak of value.

I'm not talkin about monetary.

I'm talking about fullness of the nature that's here coming out here has really expanded my appreciation for the entirety of the ecosystem.

You know, our goal was never to grow to be huge or to make a lot of money or anything else.

It was to just do a really good job and Northeast Indiana has been so good to my family we wanted to have one way to get back to it.

And welcome to Prime Time.

I'm Bruce Haines and welcome to our guests from L.C Nature Park where Hope Wallis is the executive director with Hope is John Brooks whose family restored the land so generations can experience the beauty of the natural world through outdoor education.

>> And of course we welcome you to the program as well.

If you'd like to join with a question or comment by all means use the number you see on the screen.

>> We'll bring you in as we widen out and say hi to hope to John.

Thank you so much for being here.

>> Thank you, Bruce .

Thanks for having to be here.

Yeah.

You know what you said toward the end of the video is something I like to start with when you found the land or when were the land found?

>> You might be a little bit of both that you started.

>> It seems the effect was a genealogical journey for what the land was all about the history of the land and the context of it all for the content of what became the park.

Talk about that and start with you, Joe.

>> Well, initially when we first purchased part of the property it was like we had no idea of the richness and the diversity of what we had in terms of plants and animals were there and their initial part was like thirty seven acres.

So it was not a big part of it but did include part of the dune.

>> And when you go out there particularly like the first week of May and see this incredible spread of great white Trillian plants on the Doonside it reminds you of what you might view as paradise.

>> Wow.

Yeah, it's it's stunning.

It's stunning.

These flowers are this big around they're white.

>> They carpet the hillsides.

It's one of the largest populations in the area and we're really fortunate to have it is also reminds us of trying to do a little research online and of course Little River Wetlands is an assistance to to this work as well something like 25000 acres at one time form with when glaciers decided to come over the top of a geological formation and the marshland appeared then arguably disappeared and now is being reclaimed by that organization by the work you're doing.

I was amazed to see initially how the farmland looked, you know, void of of all thoughts.

>> How do you figure out where to start?

It's like walking into a room where you that needs a little paint and you just don't know which wall to start on.

>> That's a very good question because we didn't know where to start, OK?

And what we what we did is we went back and talked to a lot of people that have been familiar with maybe what the pre settlement nature was in the area and tried to figure out how to locate to recreate that.

And in doing so, you know, we reestablish some wetlands, reestablish some tallgrass prairie and it's like these were all native plants, all native fauna and flora that we had in the area and that's what we want to try to do is recreate pre settlement conditions knowing by doing that that it would attract much of the animals, insects, the birds all that by recreating the original flora that was there.

>> Right.

So we'd struggle with invasive.

So there are many different kinds of invasive and some of them you won't think that is an invasive such as clean and lakes.

So controlling invasive is really important and one of the primary tasks that we have but it's been really interesting watching the little river interact with this land and this elk like that we have in the main prairie and how it actually is functioning as it should have and that it did attract as we look before shots as we go through here naturalists and other conservationists seem to or at least the impression I get is that they came alongside and said we'd love to help as well as to what goes where and how much and that kind of thing.

>> I can't give enough credit to the other conservation groups in the area that in terms of helping us letterer wetlands acres, the Nature Conservancy, they have all been really, really supportive and helpful in terms of how we could restore this and how we could make this better for our mission and our goal.

>> Yeah, we're all in this together.

Well, it's a wonderful thing that also sounded like it was a collective family aha.

Moment when Gates said why don't we do this?

What was that discussion like that led to to finally saying OK, let's let's let's put some action to this?

>> Well we bought our original acreage back in the mid 90s and built our house and barn and pond and that kind of thing on it and again didn't know exactly all the richness that we had there and we're able to add on that.

>> As time went on I basically became our family's private park OK introduced elk in 2011, bison in 2012 and continued to enjoy them.

And you know from the video you saw how much I appreciate watching the different species interact and what I've learned from them but at a certain point in time was like OK, how can we share this with the community rather than being a private facility right.

And I'm thinking to that along the way as well.

The inspiration from Carol your wife is significant and we can resolve the question of what the elk stands for .

>> Well, originally no one was supposed to know but it does stand for loving Carol, OK?

>> And she was the inspiration for the park.

But the park is not about her.

The park is about things that she was passionate about, including children including education, including the STEM subjects and nature.

>> And she loved all those and it was provided the inspiration for sayig OK, we have this property, let us share it with community.

>> Community has been very good to our family and let's celebrate those things that she was passionate about.

>> Absolutely.

So as executive director your given the commission to find ways for students of all ages to observe the variety, the plants and the animal, how do you take that on?

>> It's a big project we just recently started an education task force so we can reach out to those schools and get more field trips out and we have had pretty good luck with field trips but we want more and and audience that we're really concentrating on as is the underserved people who don't always have an opportunity whether it's physical or location to experience this wonderful place and be out in nature and feel comfortable in in those surroundings.

>> So we're working on that and that's growing a little bit.

But we need to grow it a lot more and I can imagine not only K-12 but also post-secondary for folks who are exploring undergrad and advanced degrees if they are looking for the living lab, if you will here you want is we're working with the AMP lab students.

>> Some of them are going to be filming for B roll for a content library and then the plant group is going to be working on soil and and creating plants.

So we're excited to be working with them.

We also use interns throughout the year on a myriad of projects and additionally we also BFW has been doing a number of studies out there.

We've had bad studies, small rodent studies.

>> What else we have owls.

Well yeah, we've had a number of studies that BFW students have been doing also out there.

>> That's wonderful when you mentioned the Audubon Society as well, I mean they're it's like this is an extra REPL we hadn't really thought of but by golly, you know, because I assume the biosphere or the the circle of life or what's being experienced that there are some concentric circles that are that are going to absolutely we participate in the bird count every year.

One of our volunteers from hard working volunteer basis-associa.

>> So we work with them as well.

OK, let's let's get to the question that will ask on your behalf.

>> But if you have a question you're welcome to call why bison and elk?pLet's bring thesd and give them their five minutes what what what to talk to us about bison in any particular order.

>> Bison and elk.

We're here before we were so they were native to Indiana Buffalo.

>> Ah yeah.

Buffalo Trace is not just a whiskey.

It is a pathway that the bison used to come up through Indiana and we wanted to be there was a bison in our state seals.

So we want to introduce these back into our area and people realize that these were once you know, walking around in our woods.

Jumba, you know, you're mentioning you're encountering them in a golf cart and I thought you what they're encountering you at a golf cart would go well they are very interesting species and I really enjoy observing them and I'm in turn I think they observe me also OK, but as I said in the video, you know, I can go out there and park a hundred feet twenty yards away and within twenty minutes they will slowly graze their way around me to find out what I'm doing out there incredibly curious animals.

>> Yeah.

And you change anything out there and they will notice it and as long as they're not scared they will check it out.

>> I can put a game camera out on a tree and they won't see me do that.

>> By the next morning I will have a picture of a nose see the hidden camera thing sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

They're used to drones now.

>> I thought the elk would be terrified of them but they were quite hams.

They were like turning and you know, looking at the drone to see what it was but they weren't afraid of it at all and we've gotten some great shots as you can see.

>> Well, absolutely.

And that because of how the park is constructed there are no feeding stations necessarily.

>> I mean you may have something supplemental understandably for the being of all concerned.

But when when they're in the wild they are able to literally fend for themselves.

>> And right now to you were telling us before the show began that this is a way this time of year the herd is growing.

>> Yes.

The whole natural way.

Yes.

We should have some baby bison very soon which are called Red >> You saw some in the film.

They're born with a really rusty red and they have really dark muscles and big brown eyes and they're really, really adorable.

>> They should be showing up pretty soon here a week or two a couple of weeks we should have some of the calves are born in June.

Typically the elk behave similar to deer when the calve a young one they'll hide it in the grass and you may not know about it for a couple of weeks whereas the bison are white out in the open and you know about it right away and mom tells you to stay away, right?

>> Well there are some amazing with several of these elk and the antlers and then and this they just shed the old and are growing the new right.

>> They just shed them in March .

>> I think we just turned out the last one last week and by now the two dominant bulls their antlers are already this big, you know, six inches wide and they're all fuzzy and they look kind of silly but they're they're trying sure love.

>> It's here to share the story of the display in the education center when it comes to elk antlers.

>> OK, Fred is our oldest elk bull and he will be fifteen in a couple of months here and we've been able to collect his antlers from age three up to this past cropping which happened just about two weeks ago and we've taken these antlers and put them on a tower essentially wood tower where they go from age three to the last year up to the top so you can see the growth as they mature and then as a past maturity and begin to diminish in terms of the robustness of the the antlers.

And so Fred has been awesome to be able to share with us his his Hamer's.

>> But you know, the hammers are the fastest growing bone in the world almost.

And so in six months you go from nothing to you know, twenty pounds twenty five pounds of armor on your head and if you're doing point infantry to find out how many offshoots there are purpose side indeed supports the point that there has to be a lot of things going on with with growth and extension when you're not really thinking but you might come back and you see the same elk the next day or the next two days and then you something's different with noticing something different here that's going you can almost see the antlers grow.

>> Wow.

Yeah.

And there are lots of things for you to see.

L.C Nature Park one of them is coming soon and you may have some in your neck of the woods as well.

Talk to me about trillion trillion feste yeah trillion investors May 4th it is open to the public.

It is a free hiking festival.

We have food trucks.

We have vendors, we have our partner organizations attend.

We have nature themed games.

We launch seed into the prairie with a giant slingshot and we have eco challenge where you're going to learn how to do some of the jobs that we do on the park and animal Olympics where we have craft stations and this year we're making clay faces stick weaving and like some little nature boats.

>> But the main point of the festival is to get people out.

There's no admission you can hike freely.

There'll be interpretive guides along the way if you need them or you can hike freely with, you know, just yourself.

>> So it's a great day for that.

Typically we have guided hikes, OK for two reasons.

One, we want to protect the animals, OK?

>> And secondly, we want to make sure that people get the full value of their hike and without a guide showing them the details of what they might be walking by, they're going to miss so much that there are a lot of places in the county in northeast Indiana just go out of the hike.

But there are many places that can take you out there and teach you as you go and increase the knowledge you have while you're having fun on a hike you're in the situation.

So that's that's part of our mission.

>> Wow.

And it's kind of nice on those hikes because because you pretty much do have the park to yourself with your guide and each hike you take it's not like one and done you can take another hike and something's different in the park and your guide can explain those things well and there are camps to understand where some of this experience is.

>> This is talk to me of the Camp Trillium is so much fun to watch.

I have and all the kids are having such a ball it's a daycare bring their lunch.

It's kind of based on the forest school model where the kids are outside all the time.

Most of the time they're getting muddy and dirty.

They're exploring tadpoles and frogs and they're really getting an education in nature and we hope that that that programing hooks them so that when they grow up they can have their kids enjoy nature and you know, hopefully protect it in lots of ways to support the park philosophically and such but also to support it financially.

This is one donor at a time when public media's familiar with your model.

>> I guess they are a not for profit and you know all kinds of different funding sources that we employ.

>> I wonder if you could share what we're looking at the past.

We're we're in the present and that dynamic is there and you're thinking about the future, how do you keep all that in balance when you're involved with an atmosphere such as L.C Nature Park?

>> I'm not sure we can keep it in balance.

OK, we're doing our best.

Obviously part of the park has to do with the heritage of the area also not only geologically you know the valley created between four winter Hunton created by the Momi torrent which the whole story in and of itself.

But the area was also a tribal reserve area for the EMEA nation and we are working with them trying to provide more education about what the cultural aspects that were here before settlement happened and trying to help make that happen.

>> Well in our final minute, additional thoughts about again that notion of unplugging and reconnecting and if you really want to get back to the way it was here it is.

>> Yeah, it's it's an incredible place.

It's just kind of envelops you in this quiet and peaceful way and you can let go and just be it's a great place to explore.

We have awesome awesome unique programs during the month with varying themes and so we encourage everyone to come out and if you'd like to get additional background there's the place to go see nature Park dot org and the phone number below that as well.

And remember Thulium first coming up just in a matter of days.

>> Yeah.

Anymore it seems.

Yes.

Hope well this is the executive director and John Brooks and his family founders of L.C Nature Park.

Thank you both.

>> Thank you very much, Bruce .

That's half hour.

Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your evening for all of us with prime time.

Take care.

We'll talk to you soon.

Goodbye