The Country on Fire.

I joked with Rick that his RX prairie burns are always one of the big deals in the Town of Hewett...and I wasn't joking.  With firetrucks lined up along Columbia Av and white and gray smoke lifting up into the sky, it's about all the action we get out here. Exciting stuff.  Rick and Toni Sturtz live on an old farmstead, which they have transformed into a wondrous home property-caretakers of the land until the next generation comes along.

There are few prairies anywhere in the central forest region of Wisconsin.  It's hard to imagine that a 1000 years ago, all of this landscape would have been covered by warm season grasses and plants.  The Sturtz's are doing their part to bring a little back and enhance the environment.  Over the course of years since flipping the fallow ground back to what it is today, it's steadily improved and more and more varieties of prairie plants find their way "home."

I've written and posted pictures of these RX fires before, so I think there was a different need to do so this morning.  CV19 has claimed over 100,000 lives in the US and shows no sign of slowing.  In Wisconsin, it's getting worse as we "opened up" 2 weeks ago.  24% unemployment. The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer a week ago,  has now fanned protests and looting and violence across the nation.  (Knowing that protests & the violence are not the same thing, nor the people).  We are on fire in the US, literally and figuratively. There isn't anyone alive that knows how this will end, or if it will end.  3 months ago I had the same ache and anxiety, and it's returned today, but for a different reason. The racial injustice that has always been below and above the surface and those who willingly and purposely fan those flames as we are learning today.

Seems fire is a theme in this post.

So escaping all of that, Rick invited me help yesterday.  Of course-I'd be glad to.  Usually I'd have a big camera in hand, but it was replaced by some kind of fiberglass broom, used to stomp out any escaping flames heading sneaking to where they shouldn't.  The firemen had it all under control and I didn't have to do much 'sweeping."  The firebreaks were green, and the back fires worked like a charm.  The head fire really was subdued, but still blackened the majority of the field.  Successful in any regard.  I walked around in the black, made some pictures and took in the transformation of this property.

Our country is being transformed as well.  These past few months I've noted the very best in humanity in those who realize we're in this together (however cliche that is, it fits) and the very worst, as we are seeing now.  I don't think there ever will be a "normal" or a getting back to where we used to be. In so many ways we can't and shouldn't.  Like the prairie starting over after fire, so will we-we have to, to make this world better.

And then some pictures: