Sun, 03/01/2009 - 12:42am — Sarah
Texas is burning. Please don't cheer. Thousands of acres of powderbox-dry woods and brush in the Hill Country have gone up in flame since Thursday, and it's getting worse. That white streak in the satellite photo below is the smoke plume from just one fire.
If you are so minded, say a prayer for the firefighters -- and the wildlife, and the livestock, and the homes and families and parks in the way of those fires across the state.
»
- Sarah's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Front page
Comments
I was just saying a prayer to the Goddess....
...to send some rain our way here in Arizona. But no thunderstorms 'cause the lightening will set us on fire, too.
Another fire season is upon the West. Thanks and encouragement and prayers for safety to all who lend a hand.
(Oh, and Happy Birthday to my twin brother, too!)
Shainzona
Wow...
LBJ was from the Hill Country, right?
UPDATE I should make it clear that I'm not trashing LBJ at all. I view his Presidency as a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions. (And Nixon's more like a modern tragedy by Arthur Miller... And the Bush family like neither, except possibly MacBeth, where the emptiness of the central figure (I won't say "hero") is the theme...).
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Lambert, LBJ was from the Hill Country, a place on the
Pedernales ( Puhr de nay less, is how he pronounced it -- and how most of us in Texas say it ever since we heard him on the radio or teevee) River.
The biggest fire right now is burning around, and threatening, the town where one of our best-loved state parks (with among the richest legacies from the CCC) is, Bastrop.
Central Texas has been in a record-breaking drought for more than a year now. I was there last fall, and the amount of fuel on the ground frightened me -- and I'm not a range fire expert.
The house in which President Johnson was born and grew up looked like this:
(that's a photo copied from the National Historical Site, which shows some of the family standing in front of that house circa 1897; President Johnson was born in 1908) and though it was torn down in 1940, a replica was built in the 1960s (with serious upgrades) which stands, still, on the original site (they reused part of the lumber, and the limestone fireplace).
The fires have been burning for more than a month, now, off-and-on around the Hill Country.
I will ask you to look at the links to Pedernales Falls State Park and Bastrop State Park too, but to spare the hamsters I'll not put up more photos or video today.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
I don't think the hamsters will mind
I've got system optimization issues, not bandwidth issues.
That house looks even more hard scrabble than Zone 5b.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Well, maybe one photo, then -- a reminder
that the architect of the Great Society knew whereof he spoke, when he addressed the blight upon our nation that poverty is, still, today.
In that house, in a cradle, this infant:
Hard for me not to see the face of the first President I really remember well, in that photo.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18