Blog 1836 – 10.03.2020

The Legend of the Bluebonnet

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yKTln37sNL53ZEuNbqxywrGQKqRAD4ae/view?usp=drivesdk

The Legend of the Bluebonnet

Here is another Native American story and an especially Texas one. While her husband Lyndon Baines Johnson was President of the United States of America, Claudia Alta Taylor, more widely known as Lady Bird sponsored a Texas Highway beautification program where wild flower seeds were sown along the highways and the first several grass mowings were put off each year to allow the colorful flower to reach full maturity and with beauty grace the Texas country sides. Soon after I met the lovely Linda Lee again we began a custom of trekking north and west of Houston in the early Spring to see the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes, but the legend of the Indian Paintbrushes is for another day.

Bluebonnets are perennials and after only one planting come up again and again. Lady Bird Johnson’s flower planting program not only saved the state of Texas many dollars in highway maintenance fees and continues to, but more than most any program helped make and keeps Texas a beautiful state to drive through especially in the early Spring.

Legendary Johnny Appleseed is credited with planting apple trees across much of the north eastern United States. Legend or no, tree planters and flower planters are all to be praised in my book. We take so much from Mother Earth to sustain us even the air we breath, and the air that we breath out helps all that is green to grow. Animals and plants are in a symbiotic relationship with our environment. The First People knew this and in many ways were better managers of the land they managed to keep almost pristine for the thousand years of their sole stewardship before the onslaught of white settlers came from Europe turning once vast forested lands into pastures for planting crops and grazing cattle.

They vast majority of climate scientists believe that global warming is real, caused by man, and that unchecked it will make earth uninhabitable in the not too distant future. All our problems cannot be solved by planting trees and flowers but here’s hoping we will by their growth be inspired to become better stewards of the earth.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5UGucaz8iwNY0U3NjFfTXAxdE0/view?usp=drivesdk

What A Wonderful World

For the time being, no shaking hands, just wear your masks around people and maintain social distancing. The threat is real. Be safe and be around to see the next Spring crop of Bluebonnets.