Wednesday, September 5, 2007

End of the season

Well, it looks like we're about done with this year's wildfire season: they've finally gotten control over the largest fire in the state of Montana this year: Chippy Creek.

At 99,090 acres (that's just shy of 155 square miles), it was the largest --- but certainly not only --- wildfire of 2007. Shucks, the darn things were even visible from space.

Wildfires like these are simply a fact of nature here in Montana; indeed, they're considered a natural event, and the general approach is only to try and contain them to keep them from destroying life and property, not actually try to put them out.

The only ones that seem to have a problem with this is the folks that move here from somewhere else (most notoriously Californicate), build a house/cabin right on the farookin' edge of the forest (preferably out in the middle of nowhere), and then demand 'city' services like ten-minute response times from volunteer fire departments twenty miles away. The vast majority of these dipsticks would benefit from reading the Code of the West, and re-thinking their options.


I've lived in several different parts of the country (including Jersey [Hackensack, Westwood, and Bergen]), and always been fascinated by the idiots that move from Place "A" to Place "B", and then immediately try to make the new place like the old one. By way of example, I grew up (in part) in Albuquerque, New Mexico - which is, essentially, part of the desert Southwest. Yet there wasn't any lack of ding-dongs that would move there from places like Ohio, and insist on trying to grow a nice, lush, green lawn in an area that patently didn't naturally support such.

There's an area of Albuquerque just a little north of 'downtown', where the owners have small-acreage properties (suitable for a horse or two, for example). Most of these folks have homes that are appropriate to the history of the area: ranch style, adobe, and the like, done in traditional Southwestern earth tones and pastels. Well, except for the one putz that decided he just had to build a white 3-story Southern plantation style, complete with columns. Needless to say, it stands out like a turd in a punchbowl.

There is a similar situation in Phoenix, Arizona - a city once known for it's dry climate is now facing problems brought about by steadily increasing humidity caused by folks that don't grasp the concept of 'desert'.

Yo! Moorons! If "home" was so much better than "here", how about you go back there, and leave us the hell alone? WE moved here because we like the way it IS NOW, and we consider this "home", now, not where we came from. 'Kay?

1 comment:

Erica said...

Oh, God...I know. The minute some schmuck from New Jersey tries to build a Wa-Wa's here in Brooklyn, or grow tomatoes in their backyard, Gott as my witness, his/her sad sack will be drawn and quartered by me, personally.