Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Say good bye...







Lush green farmland once was the legacy of Iowa, vast hills of green clovers and grains. Massive forests of mighty oak and elm provided lumber and heat source for the new pioneer. As families migrated to cheap land, farms sprang up all over, dotting the landscape, tiny islands floating on green seas. Families grew as more hands were needed to maintain the farm, some stayed on the farm, some went to the cities. A hard life was the farmer's and his wife, as more and more of his children migrated to the cities, parcels were sold off to lesson the burden.

Herds were culled as competition from huge factory farms steal their livelihood with cheap product of unhealthy animals. Polluting the land, the rivers, the air, nothing stops this destructive beast, subsidized by a biased, well paid government. Yet farmers are encouraged to farm more ground to feed the masses, with little payback.

Chemical companies vie for the latest, most toxic venom to poison the fragile eco-system, killing every innocent in it's path. Unscrupulous developers are stealing the habitat of the deer and the turkey, complaining as they forage for what we deem as landscaping. The eyesore is the addition that popped up over night, each one vying for the better space, the better overlook. What of us, the passerby that used to relish the beauty of rural Iowa. Mow that grass, water that grass, fertilize that grass, mow that grass...what is this all about...

There is this thing called ego, the consciousness of self... is it a thing that makes us a little better than our neighbor...that we need to have more than we require...consume more than we require...throw away everything that is no longer of use to us for bigger and better...no, that is a thing called egotism...selfishness, vanity and conceit.