Texas Prairie Girl -that's me. Not by choice though. I came here kicking and screaming a year ago - and frankly my complaints didn't stop for quite a while. The psyche of this landscape is hard to explain and it hit me square in the jaw when I first realized this is where we would call home. This always-windy, forever-flat, treeless, barren, blackland prairie of Texas does something mysterious, something not all that comfortable, to one's soul. At least it does it to my soul. Looking around leaves me with an empty spot, a longing, and dry place, looking for "life". Right now I can honestly say I despise this place. I see no beauty here. I feel no comfort of sense of home. In fact, scientifically, I feel ill -- my blood pressure is literally elevated from the lack of green and life around me. I see grass and mud and I hear wind. How did the pioneers survive in this wasteland? Why did they even try? "Surely those people who stopped here with their horse-drawn wagons long ago were insane!", my head screams. If the wind blowing a gale 300 days a year doesn't make you crazy enough, then certainly the hot, humid, and yet rain-less summers will drive you batty. YHWH, where have you brought us and for what purpose? Surely there is a bigger lesson to learn here. I pray I don't miss it, or that I don't die before I see it.
On the other hand, I cannot help but be completely inspired by the fortitude and stubbornness of those early settlers to this area - the Germans, the Swedes, and those with no particular place to call home. I wonder aloud often, "How did they survive emotionally, much less physically?" And yet, the glorious sun comes up again, and I can see blazing, big and bright, and it floods me with warmth and hope. It must have all the better for those hardy pioneers. Many aspects of this flat, solid, prairie land (and it's people) are absolutely breathtaking in a surprising sort of way. I am still getting used to it. It might take a while to want to call it home, or perhaps it will catch me off-guard?
Honestly, I'm praying for being caught off-guard. I just can't see me accepting this and gladly saying this is home. It seems to me that it will have to be an "off-guard" moment. I miss trees and green things. I leaves and flowers. I long to see a "wild" animal, a squirrel or rabbit, or at this point even a neighbor's escaped pet pooch! I miss the beautiful hills of the Texas hill country. I am flat out fatigued of seeing corn field after cotton field after wheat field etched out in perfect rows of rock-hard, black powder. No birds sing here. Squirrels have no trees in which to store nuts. Water gullies from the allusive flash floods stripe the land here and there. So far the silence in the distance during the long nights tells me there aren't even coyotes in this forsaken place.
The landscape immediately around our home is stark and barren, as well. We've been here almost a year and half. Finally, out of sheer desperation and necessity, Prairie Husband and I are working to somehow lure in the animals and birds with greenery and hiding places and a nibble of sustenance here and there. We have to set about somehow making this prairie *hospitable*. Flower beds and shrubs are going in. Weeds and Johnson grasses are being ripped from the ground to make way for raised bed garden Seeds are being sown and life is moving forward. It is not hard, not compared to what the hopeful Germans and Swedes had to deal with. I've heard stories of hand digging four or five wells on a property several times a year just to find water to stay alive as the clay soil hardened and dried up in previous droughts. No, we have it easy by those standards. And spring is RIGHT around the corner. Welcome spring and new life. Welcome being caught off-guard. I'm waiting.
On the other hand, I cannot help but be completely inspired by the fortitude and stubbornness of those early settlers to this area - the Germans, the Swedes, and those with no particular place to call home. I wonder aloud often, "How did they survive emotionally, much less physically?" And yet, the glorious sun comes up again, and I can see blazing, big and bright, and it floods me with warmth and hope. It must have all the better for those hardy pioneers. Many aspects of this flat, solid, prairie land (and it's people) are absolutely breathtaking in a surprising sort of way. I am still getting used to it. It might take a while to want to call it home, or perhaps it will catch me off-guard?
Honestly, I'm praying for being caught off-guard. I just can't see me accepting this and gladly saying this is home. It seems to me that it will have to be an "off-guard" moment. I miss trees and green things. I leaves and flowers. I long to see a "wild" animal, a squirrel or rabbit, or at this point even a neighbor's escaped pet pooch! I miss the beautiful hills of the Texas hill country. I am flat out fatigued of seeing corn field after cotton field after wheat field etched out in perfect rows of rock-hard, black powder. No birds sing here. Squirrels have no trees in which to store nuts. Water gullies from the allusive flash floods stripe the land here and there. So far the silence in the distance during the long nights tells me there aren't even coyotes in this forsaken place.
The landscape immediately around our home is stark and barren, as well. We've been here almost a year and half. Finally, out of sheer desperation and necessity, Prairie Husband and I are working to somehow lure in the animals and birds with greenery and hiding places and a nibble of sustenance here and there. We have to set about somehow making this prairie *hospitable*. Flower beds and shrubs are going in. Weeds and Johnson grasses are being ripped from the ground to make way for raised bed garden Seeds are being sown and life is moving forward. It is not hard, not compared to what the hopeful Germans and Swedes had to deal with. I've heard stories of hand digging four or five wells on a property several times a year just to find water to stay alive as the clay soil hardened and dried up in previous droughts. No, we have it easy by those standards. And spring is RIGHT around the corner. Welcome spring and new life. Welcome being caught off-guard. I'm waiting.