{"id":514,"date":"2026-06-03T19:33:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/?p=514"},"modified":"2026-06-05T16:32:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:32:06","slug":"kaylee-sells-seashells-by-the-sumter-county-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/kaylee-sells-seashells-by-the-sumter-county-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaylee Sells Seashells by the Sumter County Line"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Summer is officially here. For many, this is a time when we begin to make our way down to the coast of Alabama for a summertime beach trip. Besides gorging on shrimp and getting overly tan (and now trying to stay mentally stable with with number of children we have), beach trips often involve finding seashells along the beach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve always loved seashells. Now when we go to the beach, our daughter Kaylee will find her a little collection of them to bring home. There’s a little basket in our home that has been the collection spot for seashells found over the years by both her and myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my most memorable seashell finds didn’t happen at the beach. I believe I was coming to the end of high school or had just started college, but I remember being on a hunt with my dad on a property that was comprised of Black Belt Prairie habitat. Though we would visit this property many times over the years, I remember him taking this particular visit to tell me about the habitat. It’s my first real memory of learning about the Black Belt Prairie (though I’m certain it wasn’t my first time hearing about it). But I remember walking along a road, stopping, and him pulling up a seashell from the dirt. He told me then a brief ecological history of the prairie along with naming some plants. Frankly, I don’t remember much, but I remember being there with him and looking out amongst the open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, thanks to the flu making it’s rounds in our daughter’s first grade class, I took Kaylee with me to a prescribed burn Hunter was conducting for a client. This client’s property is located in Sumter County, one of the 19 listed counties as part of the Belt Prairie Restoration Initiative<\/a>.<\/mark> While enjoying fire, riding UTVs, and consuming every snack we brought in the first 30 minutes, I was able to slip in some moments of education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we moved along the property following the men and the fire, we came along a spot that had quite a few shells tucked into the dirt. It was fun getting to tell her, “Hey Kaylee, come look at this seashell!” and seeing the confusion on her face. Maybe at this point, you might look like Kaylee did and are wondering why there’s seashells over 200 miles from the beach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kaylee holding seashells she found in a prairie site.<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(Trigger warning: I’m about to throw in some history, some science, and some terms you may haven’t heard since high school\/college. I’m also going to attempt to not make it too boring.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you remember from any of your science classes, the earth has been historically and scientifically described through periods through a geological time scale. The original use of eras, if you will (ifykyk). The soils that make up the Black Belt Prairie are associated with the periods of the Upper Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary. This is a time when the southeast was covered by the sea. I’m sure you can see where this is going with that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A seashell I found in Sumter County, AL.<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Much like when looking for seashells along the shoreline, as the seas resided, shells remained. Overtime, the shells broke down attributing to the soil that the Black Belt Prairie is known for. Now, certainly, there’s way more to it than that. But this snippet of what created the Black Belt Prairie region is just another reason why this area is cool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about it. You can be walking amongst trees, flowers, grasses, see a deer run by, hear a covey of quail, and then you look by your foot and see a seashell! That’s pretty incredible! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seashells Hunter spotted on a prairie site.<\/mark><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kaylee’s seashell finds from that day were added to our collection. They’re pretty easy to pinpoint from the rest as they are quite larger than the shells we have found at the beach over the years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than finding the shells, one of the best parts of that day was being able to pass on knowledge in a very similar way that it had been passed to me. Life can certainly hand us things we never expected-both good and bad. Much like many people wouldn’t expect to find seashells in Central Alabama, I’m not sure I ever expected to have the opportunity to pass that knowledge onto her in a way that the land was part of my work. But I’m glad it is. And I’m more glad that we got to take a break from the world and find seashells in Sumter County that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A Synopsis of Southeastern Blackland Priaires” by S. Lee Echols and Wndy B. Zomlefer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Black Belt Prairies” https:\/\/www.auburn.edu\/academic\/cosam\/arboretum\/collections\/native_collections\/black_belt_praries.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Summer is officially here. For many, this is a time when we begin to make our way down to the coast of Alabama for a summertime beach trip. Besides gorging on shrimp and getting overly tan (and now trying to stay mentally stable with with number of children we have), beach trips often involve finding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,9,17,19,18,16],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alabama","tag-black-belt-prairie","tag-black-belt-prairie-restoration","tag-prescribed-burn","tag-seashells","tag-selma-chalk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":683,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/landrevivalllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}