Daily observations of my simple life.

More Puddles:

I woke last night and out my window was moonlight on small lakes and water filled tire tracks. The sunshiny week with Springlike symptoms gave a false sense of oncoming warm weather. The long warm days had been spent pulling weeds and starting Spring cleaning. Yesterday morning had started with sparse high white clouds but by afternoon dark clouds rolled in. Early evening thunder rolled across the valley and the downpour started. I felt like holing up in my bed and sleeping. I went to the vidio store rented some movies and came home and made fried eggplant. The movie "Perfect Strangers" had just enough adventure and suspense to make it intriquing.

I woke up in the middle of Wednesday night and couldn't sleep. Tv is getting so old and I didn't feel like going on the computer so I padded into my spare room in my barefeet to look through the bookshelves. I found several and padded back to my bed, propped up and picked a book. The book I picked was , "SHEEP, STARS, AND SOLITUDE," by Francis Raymond Line. I had started the book but got distracted. A couple years ago I got another book by the Line brothers about their trek across America on foot before they started college. The trek was life changing. Francis later became a feature writer for National Geographic and he and his wife made a trek on foot to the bottom of the Grand Canyon every year to celebrate their wedding aniversery. I was camping at Burro Creek when I read that book, lightning striking around me, safe under the ramada, reading by propane light. What a read, these young men slept under highway signs, climbed mountains and treked through deserts, worked in mines, and sold shoestrings to eat. Yes, that's traveling on a shoestring. The books title, "FOOT BY FOOT" .

Now I sat propped up reading Francis Lines book about a sheep herder who took 2000 sheep from the Salt River Valley in Arizona to the high country for summer feeding. Francis Line took the journey with this mightly little Mexican man who for some 40 odd years made this journey twice a year with his sheepsies. What a vivid account of the hardships, the sheeps suffering, the beauty . I was taken in, knowing full well the terrain and unforgiving nature of Arizona's wilderness. How I understood the magic of the brightness of the stars, the quiet, the cholla forests, the small wonderous creatures that survive.

Thursday morning arriving, my day is full of the spirit of Arizona wilderness, this in the face of impending new development everywhere in this county. I'm to meet with my neighbor and travel north to the site where she is to tear down a house. We meet and talk about the development. South of us a Las Vegas developer has bought 7000 acres where he is going to put in a cooky cutter golf course development with homes , club house, shopping center, and half million dollar homes. We are just soooo upset as this guy secreted his whole plan but has already broken ground.

Traveling North my neighbor showed me land that was $1000. an acre last year and is now selling for $25,000. an acre. I'm in awe of the house she is tearing down. Chicken houses, hobby houses, a whole house, all with good lumber she gets to have. She wants to rebuild somewhere away from the growth. We threw ideas around and by the end of the day she had a deal going with a man who has 40 acres he is about to lose due to little money. She will make the payments for 10 acres so she can build. I'm excited for her but I wouldn't want the job she has ahead. Tearing down a house is formidable even with workers. Long days of work and hauling ahead for her. She has three men who will work for her and she is the foreman. Blessings to her and her dreams. The man who purchased the property is going to develop it in some commercial way, another Las Vegas man. This whole area is inhabited for the most part by lower income people, the desert rats, the survivors with little resources. Now Las Vegas is spreading and the area is changing. I resent it that money can destroy the dreams of those who have just enough while those who are rich can buy up whatever and override the simple way of life I hold dear. I'm not looking forward to a golf course down my block. The news of a golf course in Laughlin is how all the effluent from the golf course is costing the county more than all the other effluent combined. Why does that make sense? Why such waste for a stupid game? Take a walk in the wilderness and enjoy nature. I'm sad, development means lights, lights mean the stars will be dulled. We';ll have more traffic, smog, higher prices, on and on. Now, I'm looking for property in the mountains. Sometimes I wish the crush of unappreciative humans, the greedy glut of commercial expansion would just disappear. Be gone with you, give us back the beauty of nature, the peace of a simple life.  

Posted by: cactusandquail at 15:06 | link | comments (5)

Comments:

#1  05 March 2005 - 19:15

 

Never heard of the Line brothers definitely going to look them up, sounds like my kind of books. The neverending development is sickening, a good portion of the destruction around here is for second homes, thousands of square feet of unoccupied space empty 95% of the year, just eating up non-renewable resources so their pipes dont freeze. Now you've got me all worked up. Fried eggplant sounds good, eggplant belongs in a tummy, not my head.

rustymadgal

#2  05 March 2005 - 19:55

 

We just sat in bumper to bumper traffic on a road that is always under construction because too many people have moved in here. We did this so we could escape to the river, a calm oasis in the desert of overpopulation. And we wondered what this area was like a hundred years ago, and what it will be like one hundred years from now. I'm glad I won't be around to see it.

InMyLife

#3  06 March 2005 - 02:13

 

That's the whole point. These developers come in with money and do their thing. If areas are left to grow at their own rate with local people developing and building the growth is much more sensable. I'm sickened by the inequality of it all. Is the American dream to get far more than is decent for one person to have while others are suffering? I was taught when I was a child to divide up the pie so everyone got a piece of near equal size. Guess my mother was wrong and greed is good.

cactusandquail

#4  11 March 2005 - 02:13

 

Welcome Back, sounds like you got a good deal on the dish!

rustymadgal

#5  11 March 2005 - 18:41

 

My heart is broken for you and selfishly enough, for myself. I've come to love getting lost in your private little world with you! I don't want to see that change for you in any way. I don't want to lose it for myself either.

Ladyinthemoon

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