Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

This year rather than purchase a Christmas tree from a lot, we decided to visit a farm Haynie's Farm in Burleson since it is right down the road from my sister.


The farm is located at the end of a winding country road only minutes from town. As we approached a gas drilling site, I saw some fir trees in the distance. My immediate thought was, "please don't let this be it." Of course that was the place. We pulled in the gate and drove uphill to a large open pasture area where my sister and I, and the kids, parked. We walked across the gravel drive to the red barn where some of the pre cut trees are located. The house, far away in the corner, appears aged and one can see that the land had been used for some group of animals at one time. This place still has farm qualities from not so long ago, but is now updated to deal with today's modern annoyances which most of our culture calls progress.

We hopped on a trailer loaded with hay, pulled by an older model tractor, to check out the tree field. As we bounced along on our dusty ride on the once tree filled path, I began to notice things that saddened me so much I forgot to shoot photos of the tree field. Power lines cut a harsh geometrical pattern right through the center of the property. The huge century old trees that sacrificed their lives so we humans can live a more comfortable life with the help of nuclear power, lay dead and gray along our path. The photos I did snap are covered in dust as proof of the state of this land. There are no tree roots to keep the land from eroding so, grain by grain, it is blowing away every second of everyday.

Further down our powdered path, I got an up-close and personal view of the drilling equipment. It was massive. What was worse than the massive equipment? The land they cleared for the equipment. What was worse than the greediness of the gas drilling company taking more land than necessary? The fact that when this family purchased this land, it was full of beautiful trees and pastures. Now, only a few years later, companies have destroyed this family's land because they can. Eminent domain. There seems to be nothing we can do to stop it.
Sacrifice the few for the many.
It's called progress.
We have to have these power lines and these drills.

I don't believe any of those statements. I don't think we should sacrifice anyone. I don't believe what we are doing to our earth and the humans that inhabit it is progressive, AT ALL!
What about solar power? Does anyone ever wonder why our government promotes nuclear power while Europe provides subsidies for solar power?

I was deeply saddened, overwhelmed with grief, overcome by tears, and extremely frustrated and aggravated by what I witnessed on the tree farm Friday. If the only difference I make is to teach my children to value our world and all that is natural in it, @ least that is something.

I will support this tree farm until it no longer produces trees even though we just planted some fir trees on our east Texas property. I believe I was so emotional about this farm bc, that could just as easily have been my family. I hope I am never witness to the raping of our family property. I am debating writing to the Fort Worth Star Telegram since that is where I found this tree farm. I cannot believe I have never read about this farm before.

I hope I can make some difference.

Sweetie Pie

Sweetie
Originally uploaded by melissa_wrght

Testing, testing...

Sunrise, Sunset

New telescopic camera lens! Something to keep in mind as these photos are being viewed, I am certain the middle of the lake, where all the birds seemed to be landing, was @ least 500 yards from where we were sitting atop a craggy cliff. The photo with the fishing poles was twice as far. I had to try the new lens out and share it with our friends. There was no better place for test photos yesterday than this. I don't know who took what photos. I don't think I took many @ all actually. So most of this artwork belongs to C. Thanks C. for taking such great pix! I am glad you had so much fun with the camera! I will be sad when it is too cold for us Texans to head outdoors, but for now we are still enjoying awesome weather in the mid 60's with plenty of sunshine and soft cool breezes.

Happy Birthday!

Why can't blogger post in the order I loaded these photos?!! The birthday wish photo was first and the sunset was last. These aren't anywhere close to how I added them! Frustrating...

We had an awesome time celebrating our friends' birthday @ "our" creek. It is absolutely beautiful. I am so thankful I remembered to tote the camera the last 3 times we went. Now we have photos across the season. We will return as the winter passes to observe changes. There is a great deal of wildlife in this area. We have found several lizards, any array of fish, raccoon tracks, possum tracks, and deer tracks on our walks. We also discovered the small pools of water are fed by a fresh water stream. I was surprised to find the area trash free when we arrived this time. The last time we went to this location there was trash EVERYWHERE. Our friends cleaned up some before we arrived but they only had one bag of trash. There were easily several large black trash bags of trash @ this site when we were last there.
I cannot believe it is already Thursday. We are going to get our Christmas tree today to decorate tomorrow before Mady leaves for the weekend. I thought we would go to an actual Christmas tree farm this year and choose a tree. The kids do not seem to be interested in this. Sigh< I am dragging them anyway! >Grin


We do enjoy going to some local plays, musicals, and concerts. We went out to eat last night, after playing with some of our friends for the day. After dinner, we drove around to see Christmas lights. It may have been too early for that. Only a few houses had lights up. Maybe this weekend? We are only just now doing ours. This weekend is the annual Christmas on the Square in our big town! We attempt to see Santa there every year. Sometimes it is just too cold to walk around outside on the square and wait to see Santa. More Christmas traditions to come.