"Take the land" [View all]

[H2O Man]

Kelly's tail begins wagging as fast as a humming bird's wings when I begin to get a bag of fish food ready. He walks across the lawn and then the field at a faster pace than me. This gives him time to pop in and out of the woods before we get to the pond. I take him out for a swim when I feed the fish and birds, and he enjoys watching the fish feed around him when he is in the water. Then he is off to play in the swamp while I sit and watch the hundreds of ripples upon the pond's surface as the fish eat.

I'm glad to see that my favorite apple tree is producing well this year. I see evidence that the deer have been consuming the fallen apples, and sleeping near the tree. Kelly investigates the scents, though whenever we encounter deer, he never barks. The deer have no fear of him if we are at a distance. It's the other scents from where various wildlife comes to the pond mornings and nights.

The colors at the end of August are different from what they were earlier in the summer. Besides the green in the field and woods, there is a lot of yellowish-orange a couple feet above the ground. There is also a variety of small purple flowers along the path. A growing patch of black-eyed Susans cover one of the pond's banks.

After following a series of low paths that go low through the underbrush, Kelly returns to my side, and we begin the round-about walk back to the house. He bounds into the woods, and I see a cat climb a tree. We had a stray cat have kittens in my garage this summer, a few weeks before she was hit by a automobile. Kelly's brother Sam has become close friends with the kittens, but Kelly chases them.

A series of large rocks set along the path. These are the size that required stone sleds and oxen to move for the bases of stone walls. My younger son has constructed dolmen with them. He also used some of them on my lawn, where my swimming pool sat until a storm brought a tree down, crushing it. My boy made a labyrinth/garden this summer, along with a 7' by 7' fire pit.

He used my grandfather's saw to cut the tree into firewood for me to use. I helped him stack it, causing him to give me about as much of a compliment as his sense of humor allows: “Keep it up, Old Man. You'll never be formidable again, but you might become less pathetic.” I'm content to weed the garden, and to sit on the benches he has placed around the labyrinth and fire pit, and enjoy the solitude.

Behind my favorite bench is the foundation of an 1800's blacksmith's shop. I like to think about all the people who have lived in the house since it was built in the late 1790s, first serving as a stage coach station, complete with a post office and doctor's office. I've lived here longer than anyone else has since then, though I'm certain that those before me had the same affection for the property.

The sun has gone down, and the fire is about out, and so I head back to the house. I have to watch my step, because the kittens morph into tumbling clowns once it's dark. While most of them are busy chasing insects, one has a habit of running in front of me and stopping on a dime. I've learned that she wants me to pick her up and carry her, until the next flying bug captures her interest.

Once inside, I begin watching some of the news. Farmers are experiencing serious financial troubles due to Trump's foolish trade war. At very best, it is estimated that at best, it will take them eight years to recover. I'm reminded of when Kennedy was running for president in 1960, and a farmer told him, “I'm hoping to break even this year. I could really use the money.”

A number of those farmers recognize that they were had when they voted for Trump in 2016. They say that they will not vote for him in 2020. And they believe others will sit that election out. Still, they are in the minority, at least for now. But the time may come when more see that Trump does not care about family farms that go back generations. These will be forced to sell out to corporate farms which can get enormous tax breaks by losing money.

Ranchers in Texas and beyond must have had their ears perk up when they heard reports that Trump told people to “take the land” for his imaginary wall ….and that he would pardon them if they faced legal troubles for purposely violating the law. That's not a popular theme among the conservative ranchers who have also worked their lands for generations. Clearly, they did not fully grasp who they were voting for in 2016.

Few if anything is more obscene than Trump insisting that he “knows more about the environment” than anyone else. His only outside activity is golf. He advocates “raking the forest floors” for fire prevention. He has fallen from grace as far as is humanly possible. And he is beginning to fall from the graces of a growing number of those who once believed him.

Happy holiday weekend.
H2O Man