Here is a post from Oklahoma, though we are actually in Rock Springs, Wyoming on the way to the Grand Tetons. Grasslands are not photogenic, but the camera always comes out anyway to try (and fail) to capture their shimmering glory. Lucky for you, I have another story to tell
We come to these ravines for the boys to play war games and climb the soft dirt walls. You didn’t know that Oklahoma had rocky cliffs, did you? It doesn’t.
Sliding down 30-foot dirt embankments sounds fun, at least if you are a school-aged boy. However, you can see above how the wind is like a giant clawed hand digging towards good farm land. Last time I saw it, erosion had ruined the road and was reaching towards the fence. It seemed very dramatic to me, and made me feel small and powerless.
The boys have their shoulder-launched rockets ready to fire while Uncle Terry looks on. This is also oil country, and the companies have to break up the concrete pads they pour and haul them out when they are done. The red truck is parked on 500 semi-truck-loads of broken concrete and gravel fill. The oil companies would have paid to dump it, but he let them do it for free because he wanted all he could get.
The winds are thwarted for now and here is last scrawny Indian paintbrush…
And a ravine at sunset. Terry also taught himself microbiology and bought a professional-quality microscope to document some problems with his wells. He showed me photos of a tiny tracking chips shaped like arrowheads from the oil company and a glowing white bacteria. It isn’t all win/win with big oil, but he is a genius.
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