My family was out in one of our big pastures in the Flint Hills last weekend to hunt musk thistles. These nodding-headed invaders can take over the prairie with their insidiously spiky leaves and deceptively pretty purple blooms. We spade them out, chop them up, and collect the heads. Once the heads have dried some, we burn them. Having just read Bram Stoker's original "Dracula", I feel like Van Helsing describing some arcane method for destroying the Un-Dead. While out in the pasture I got to see all sorts of wildlife, including: a swimming muskrat, two dung beetles rolling a ball of their precious namesake, 6-7 prairie chickens, an aquatic soft-shell turtle, many big bull frogs, and a very friendly farm dog. I was just out cutting thistle in a pasture adjacent to our house this morning and actually saw a Texas horned lizard! That was a first for me ever in the wild, and I certainly didn't expect to see one in my own backyard. There have also been a number of ornate box turtles that I've seen trooping around our yard. I'm continually amazed at how much life there is out here in the world.
I have found the recent events taking place in Iran to be exceptionally interesting. It is amazing what power an informed, involved, and motivated populace can achieve. Hopefully not too much violence will be committed before it is all said and done, however it goes.
“If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang.”
~Charley Reese
“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.”
~Eleanor Roosevelt
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