Sanctuary in the Desert II

This will probably be my last entry before moving, and though I don't have a lot to say, I thought I should post for the occasion. 

Almost everything is now in boxes, and it's hard to move through the house because of all of them.  It's quite an obstacle course.  The Nine, of course, love lounging on, investigating, and jumping into any that aren't sealed.   I wish we were moving in instead of out.  We shall miss this beautiful desert and our lovely home.

In an ironic coda to our time spent here, we've made a good friend.  A fellow animal-lover, she has adopted our four hens, who have integrated into her chicken population and whom she is spoiling just as I did.  Intelligent, world-travelled, a great conversationalist with a wide range of interests, and a fellow desert denizen, she is exactly the type of person I'd hoped to meet when we moved here, but whom I guess is in the minority here, as everywhere else in the current tight-lipped, tighter-minded society we find ourselves living in.    Perhaps there is hope -- perhaps we will turn a corner and come back into the light after this interminable darkness we have endured for far too long.  If so, people like us will be there, working in our slow and quiet ways to nurture and preserve what is worth preserving, the diversity of species, the multitude of environments, and the qualities within our own species that are worth saving -- qualities like compassion, kindness, understanding, tolerance, diversity of culture and beliefs, and the quest to learn and to share.   The Mojave, a living treasure, could blossom then, as could this continent and this world.   My friend told me that the plan to subdivide and tract-house a nearby part of our community has been soundly defeated and that the "city fathers" (and "mothers", one presumes ;) ) of this and the adjoining communities have voted, due to massive public outcry against ruining our part of this desert, to keep to the 2 1/2-acre minimum on land parcels.  That will effectively prevent the suburbization of this beautiful and unique area, I pray.

Though I will not be staying here, it is heartening to know that the people who will, care enough to want to preserve the degree of unspoiled,  TRULY free life that is to be found here; some, at least, care enough about the original residents of this land , the members of other species, to want to keep a place for them to live unmolested, as well.  So, as I put the finishing touches on our moving preparations, I keep good thoughts for the future of this little corner of the high desert.  We may come and go, but it is good to know that the unchanging beauty of this fragile ecosystem may survive, unpaved, un-subdivided, and un-malled. 

PEACE

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• #2 Comment from white6416r 
  11/20/07 4:07 PM | Permalink

   Hello to you.  This is old Dad in Tennessee,  Why don't you start posting in your Journal. It is interesting.
  
                                                                    DAD
• #1 Comment from white6416r 
  5/24/07 2:20 PM | Permalink

   WE ARE GOING TO MISS YOU < YOU BE CAREFUL IN MOVEING< DON"T GET HURT< AND DO HURRY BACK WE NEED YOU>
  
  I HAVE ADDED A LINK TO YOUR JOURNAL IN MY JOURNAL.
  
  BYE   BYE    DAD, Mary and Princess.