In January of 2003, Jim and Stephanie Varnum became conservation buyers when they purchased 126 acres adjacent to The Nature Conservancy’s Clymer Meadow Preserve outside Dallas. The land—a onetime cotton farm—represented a place where the Varnums could literally roll up their sleeves and practice prairie restoration. Four years later, the Varnums have found that stewardship of the land, although often exhausting, frustrating and fraught with trial and error, is every bit as satisfying as they’d hoped.


“We’ve always been interested in conservation and we used to say, ‘wouldn’t it be neat to get five or ten acres in our retirement that we could try to restore?’ In October of 2000, we learned the Conservancy had a 126-acre conservation buyer property for sale adjacent to Clymer Meadow. At first it seemed way too large for us, but as soon as we saw it we fell in love with it and fell in love with the idea of partnering with The Nature Conservancy. So we bought it and put it under a conservation easement. We negotiated the easement by asking ourselves ‘what’s our vision for the property? Does it match the Conservancy’s?’ We wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page.  

“We also talked to our two children so they knew what we were doing, because it’s eventually going to be their property. And we talked to our lawyer, accountant and financial planner. We got everybody involved in the process. “After the purchase, we got to work right away and with the Conservancy’s help, created a quarter acre seed-increase plot to grow and bank seeds for use on the rest of the land. Two years later, we bought 12 pounds of seed from Native American Seed Company harvested in Clymer Meadow and drilled in two and a half more acres. And then it stopped raining! 

“We haven’t seen anything out of it yet, but with all the rain we’ve had since, maybe we’ll have better luck this year. We also spread seed balls for restoration. We molded teaspoon-sized balls of clay mixed with humus and native-grass seed and spread almost 5,000 of them around the edges of areas where the native grass was beginning to erode. They lay on top of the soil until it rains, and then break down. The humus acts as fertilizer for the seeds that soon sprout and help stabilize the soil and stop the erosion. 

“The reason we decided to go with a property so much larger than we had imagined was because we knew that if we wanted it, we could rely on the guidance and expertise of the Conservancy. We learn so much just being around their staff. They really know the prairie and they’re the kind of people that can go out and stand by a pick-up truck and talk about cows and grass all day long.

“And we realized a bigger piece of land would give us the opportunity to make a bigger difference in the Blackland Prairie. When we talk to people about this land we talk about our legacy to the future.”

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Dan Tharp (Jim & Stephanie Varnum); Photo © Bob Parvin (Clymer Meadow Preserve); Photo © Dan Tharp (Cattle drive).