We spent a week away from “home” (in my case, home isn’t so much where the heart is, but rather where we are living at the time), visiting my parents and attending a reception given for our daughter at Texas A&M. We took my parents along as we visited friends we haven’t seen in a while. That was fun and left me with a warm heart. The reception was fabulous, and we loved meeting Daughter’s advisor and friends at the university. She took a day away from her studies to spend time with us. She and Hubby walked all over the campus. When they got back, she and I went to a very cool coffee shop and wrote for a while. We ate at a salad bar place that was delicious.
On the way home, we drove west into a fierce headwind. Hubby geocached along the way and had a hard time walking through the wind to find them. He brought most of them back to the truck before opening so the log inside wouldn’t blow away. Tumbleweeds blew across our path. One came right out in front of our truck, and we were left with parts of it sticking out of our grill. As we got closer to Amarillo, we could see smoke on the horizon, both to the north and the south. We both knew things were about to turn ugly. High winds and fire mixed together equal disaster.
And disaster came.
Over a million acres of grassland, mostly farm and ranch land, have been charred to date. Over 500 buildings, including homes, have burned, and there’s no count yet on how many cattle and horses died in the flames. Wildlife has surely suffered as well. While I’m writing this, I can hear the wind howling outside so those numbers will go up.
Two years ago, Hubby and I drove through much of burn area and enjoyed all the historical sites (see my blog about it). The fire doesn’t change the events that occurred on those spots, but the beautiful scenery and wildlife we saw are gone.
While fire is very destructive, Mother Nature has a way of regenerating. First the grass, weeds, and flowers return, then the bushes. Trees start sprouting. As the vegetation grows and is reestablished, the wildlife returns. It takes many decades for the landscape to return to the way we remember it, but it’s fascinating to see the rebirth. In time, barns, fences, and houses will be rebuilt, and cows and horses brought in, just like when it was first settled. The cycle of life is an amazing process to observe.
He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and the herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth Psalms 104:14
