By Holly the Assistant
(Say a prayer for Sarah and Dan, as today they perform the final duty of any pet owner to their Havey.)
(Photo by Jeff Henry, National Park Service)
Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, the summer skies were mostly blue and clear . . . not in 1988*, but before that, and after that.
But that isn’t far enough back. I’m lucky to live in a place that still has living memory of when was far enough back, at that.
An elderly friend told me that when she helped her daddy pull cattle off the range for the winter, they always fired the range, because the Indians had told her daddy to do that when he first came out and settled. The transition of the land from nomadic to ranching/farming is just outside of living memory, today: the oldest generation here are the first settled children born here.
The experts decided at some point that fire was very bad, and banned the regular fall burning.
And here we sit, under an orange sky, with a red sun, in June, July, August, September . . .
Somehow, we need to get back to the ranchers firing the range when they pull the cattle, and burning all the stuff that needs to burn, when the fall rains and snows will put fire out, and the burns will be light and skippy like they were back before the experts got involved because they happen so often they burn the tinder fast and don’t get into the larger plants.
It seems increasingly clear that absolutely everything has had the same problem of incorrect experts infesting the system. People who didn’t have the entire picture, only parts, and wanted to fix the problems, and did fix the problems, they could identify, but in so doing broke the entire system and left us with a world prone to conflagration.
Medicine. Education. Research. Publishing. Government. Food. Transportation. Culture.
All it takes is a spark, and there are so many sparks blowing around right now. Who knows how things actually work? When did they actually work? In what ways did they not work that left openings for improvements that were actually the seeds of destruction?
Much of it was a multi-generation process of breaking working systems to improve them, in the name of progress, in the name of scientific advancement, in the name of modernity, equality, charity, environmentalism . . . and some fields have definitely improved immensely at the same time as they have created the conditions for destruction. It doesn’t seem to have been pure malice, but misguided and/or ignorant do-gooderism, with a touch of malice slipping in here and there.
Like Sarah always says, Build over, build around, build under. Keep building, and try to rediscover what used to work in the areas you can see starting to smolder that you can touch your own self, and build from that.
*Yellowstone Fires. The Yellowstone Fires were a direct result of the long time policy of suppression of fires being lifted. There was too much to burn, and did it ever burn.
According To Hoyt 
Prayers up for Sarah and Dan.
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Prayers for Sarah and Dan.
Rest well, Havey cat. You will see Sarah and Dan again, when it’s time.
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I was talking to a young woman some time ago, and the discussion drifted into environmentalism. She seemed stunned at the idea that there might be a difference between an environmentalist and an environmental activist.
We talked about a lot of environmental disasters, how they happened and why. I think I left her with some things to think about. I hope so.
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Probably the greatest environmental disaster the United States experienced was the American Chestnut blight. The entire Appalachian ecosystem collapsed with the death of those 4 billion trees.
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I am so sorry.
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Dan and Sarah, I’m so sorry.
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It’s terrible to lose a pet in that manner (actually any manner). [Sad]
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Death has taken so many from me over the years, and it never gets any easier.
The older I get, the more I lose to the grim reaper.
Yet not fighting is not an option. Never give up. Never surrender.
The best weapon against death is new life, new friends, both 2-foot and 4-foot varieties.
And don’t wait for death to add life. Keep adding life every chance you get;
Build a bulwark and a support network against the pain.
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Oh, and here’s a funny for everyone heading into the weekend.
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A good post, experts usually aren’t. They tend to screw up things that have worked for years because they are sure that they are so much smarter than everyone who came before them.
Sorry to hear about Havey, when a beloved pet is lost it’s the loss of a family member. So hard to deal with when they reach a point they are suffering and nothing else can be done.
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Knowing it is coming never helps. Picking the right timing sucks. Been there, done that. It is the price of having them in our lives.
Prayers for Sarah, Dan, and the boys.
Regarding firing the land. The natives did not start fires in the Cascades, the coast range, or the various other mountain ranges in Oregon. But they did fire the Valley, letting it run into the foot hills. Which did two things, bring in better forage for the wildlife and the plants the natives used directly. Fire is what kept trees from getting established in the valley. It also kept the mountain lightening fires from overrunning the valleys when they started.
Anyone thing the big fires burning now are new does not know the west coast history. The Big Burn, also known as the Tillamook Fire, early in the 20th century (not the only one either). Large burns observed by early trappers and traders as early as 1810. All lightening caused. Future fires severity were mitigated for awhile by those occasional large “devastating” fires. Timber cutting, thinning and clear-cut, mimic those large fires to an extent. Not completely because man cannot completely mimic nature (not that timber harvesting is to mimic nature, side affect, not intent). No harvesting then nature fully takes over (not all the current fires are arson).
Least people argue that the private timber landowners do harvest and they are being overran by the big fires. Note, big fires generally do not start on their lands. Managed timber lands have been known to stop or at least have the larger fires go around (partly luck too). Too big to stop is a thing. Especially in the mountains in the west.
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Havey has earned his rest, I will miss hearing about his adventures.
He had the best life a kitty could ask for. I’m sorry for your loss.
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