Texas Bluebonnets & Wifebeaters at Tandy Hills Park

It is another windy, gray day today in Texas. I needed to escape this chair and computer screen, so I went to the Tandy Hills around noon and saw my first Tandy Hills bluebonnet of the year, up close and very personal.

Bluebonnets are very photogenic. The one you see here was up by the Fort Worth Needle, that being a really tall communications tower. This was the only spot I saw bluebonnets today inside the Tandy Hills Park. I saw a lot of bluebonnets along side the roads on the way to Tandy Hills.

Bluebonnets are the State Flower of Texas and are very strongly protected by strict Texas law. You can look, you can take pictures, you can see if they smell good, but if you pick a bluebonnet there is a chance you may do a stint in Huntsville.

Imprisoned for picking a bluebonnet? And yet some wonder how America manages to imprison 756 inmates per 100,000 Americans, at a rate nearly 5 times the world's average.

Speaking of crimes and jail time. For months now there has been a white wifebeater t-shirt hanging from a bush. Today it was blowing in the wind like some sort of ghostly apparition. Why would someone take off their wifebeater and leave it behind at this location in the Tandy Hills? Or did it blow in from some domestic dispute in some distant location? It's a puzzlement.

The first new Tandy Hills wildflower of today's hike appeared even before I exited my vehicle, in the open prairie zone viewable from View Street. I don't know what the name of this wildflower is, but it looked like an orange Indian Paintbrush that had been dyed pink. I'm pretty sure no one went to the bother of painting a field of Indian Paintbrush a new color.

It's less than a month til the 4th Annual Fort Worth Prairie Fest, Saturday, April 25, 2009, 10 AM - 8 PM.

Don Young's December Tandy Hills Prairie Notes

REMINDER: Prairie Fest is April 25, 2009. Applications for Exhibitor space are now being accepted. Brave Combo is already lined up as our musical headliner.

Most of you have probably noticed the rather late and colorful autumn tree foliage in north central Texas. Ideal weather conditions are, apparently, responsible for this phenomenon.

One doesn't usually associate vibrant fall color and trees with tall grass prairies, but Tandy Hills Natural Area (THNA) is Unique with a capital "U". Experts have noted that, the range of elevations, soil types and other factors have conspired to make THNA an ecological rarity. They point out that THNA has more botanical diversity in the smallest amount of space than anywhere else in the state of Texas.

Right now, the Oaks, Cottonwoods, Elms and other trees that inhabit the drainages and lower elevations of THNA are at peak Fall color. (The photos were taken just before the recent frost.) The native but invasive Ash trees, now leafless, allow panoramic views of the towering bottomland hardwoods.

December is also a good time of year to appreciate the "Hill" part of Tandy Hills. Over the years, I have attempted, unsuccessfully, to express in words or capture in photographs the essential profundity of the hills. Their soft, grass-covered contours and (mostly) gentle slopes are elemental to THNA. I view them as the essence of the place even more so than the 500+ plant species they nurture. The most reverent sense of the timeworn phrase, "Mother Earth", comes to mind.

These hills are or have been home to a surprising variety of wildlife, considering the proximity to I-30 and downtown. I have personally seen Red Fox, Wild Turkey, Coyote, Wolf, Bobcat, Cottontail Rabbit, Great Horned Owl, Screech Owl, Coopers Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Turkey Buzzard, Roadrunner and many other bird species.

This past October, when Chesapeake Energy completely removed one of the nearby hills, it affected many of us like the death of a loved one. The thought that they also own 50 unblemished acres of the Tandy Hills greenbelt is especially difficult to accept. I'm keeping a wary eye on that hill.

I have a treasured memory from the late '70's of a Red Fox, its long tail fully fluffed, the setting sun catching the red highlights as he scampered up the same, lovely hill that Chesapeake recently obliterated. It is observations and memories such as these that can inspire one to activism.

Come to the meadow - FAST - and catch autumn's fading color wheel and see with your own eyes where the Red Fox once ran free and what words and photos cannot capture: the irreplaceable essence of Tandy "Hills" Natural Area.

DY

"Be as I am a reluctant enthusiast...a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here."
~Ed Abbey

This Farmer Wants a Wife

Before I get to this wanting a wife thing I've got to mention that there is this brilliantly insightful website devoted to all that is good about Fort Worth that has the extremely highly evolved good taste to include me among all that is good about Fort Worth.

The website is called West & Clear and they had this to say about me....

"The Durango Texas blog has writeup and YouTube-ry from last Saturday’s PrairieFest. You’ll see our booth at about 3:16 on the video! We are famous in the internet! Durango Texas looks like a pretty interesting read (especially the frequent Star-Telegram bashing) and I am looking forward to spending some time on the site. "

So, what I got out of that is yet one more person who sees the need to bash the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Pravda-esque Purveyor of Propaganda and Disseminator of Misinformation tool of the good old boy network that runs the company town of Fort Worth.

Well, let's do some bashing. In today's paper we had yet one more article that revolved around the exciting news that yet one more person from Texas is on yet one more reality show. It makes us so very very proud. My 2 readers may remember me complaining about this odd trait before, with me getting a clarifying message from the Star-Telegram's lead TV writer explaining that, unlike that evil paper in that evil city 30 miles to the east, the Star-Telegram tries to make their paper localized, connecting their few readers to anything remotely local about any given story.

Tonight a new show starts on the CW Network. I've no idea what that is, the network I mean, not the show. The show is of the reality show genre and is called "The Farmer Wants a Wife." Some farmer in Missouri apparently is having such a tough time finding a mate that he contacted the CW Network and asked for help. So, they brought in a bunch of city girls for the farmer to choose from.

And one is from Texas. Which the Star-Telegram made the focus of in their article about this show. The headline being "Farmer girl on new CW dating show has local ties." Wow. Now that really makes me want to watch this now that I know the show has a Texas connection.

The article goes on to report the totally important and pertinent info that "Brooke Ward is identified as being from Dallas. But the Texas Christian University grad grew up in the East Texas town of Atlanta, about 25 miles south of Texarkana. So among the 10 'city girls' that Missouri farmer Matt Neustadt has to choose from on this Bachelor with hay, the 23 year-old marketing representative would seem to have an edge."

Because she's from Texas? That's her edge? I don't think I am able to follow the train wreck of logic.

The article goes on to interview the Texas connection in a fine example of making a story local for the readers of the Star-Telegram. A paper with a mission. Unlike the Dallas paper that does not connect its readers to anything remotely local.

And on a totally different note on the same subject. I looked at the Farmer Wants a Wife website. It opens with a video. The video is amusing. At one point the voice over is saying something like "when the girls get to the farm they see the biggest (we cut to a rooster strutting about) they've ever seen." Then one of the girls says, "I didn't realize roosters were real things." Obviously the producers selected for high intellects when casting this show.

No wonder they ended up with at least one Texas girl.

Prairie Fest

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 26, 2008 the Fort Worth Prairie Fest takes place at my favorite place to hike, that being Tandy Hills Park. I'll be there. I'm sure you will be there too. For details go to my website and you will find all the info you could possibly need. If you need further convincing that you want to attend this event, watch the video below of last year's Prairie Fest.