Category Archives: environmental news

environmental news

Loving the recycling life

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I want to offer a big-league shout out to communities — such as Princeton, Texas — that embrace the idea of recycling items that otherwise would end up in a landfill.

When my bride and I moved to Princeton in early 2019, we came here purely to be nearer to our granddaughter and her parents. We were unaware when we bought our house that recycling would become such an important part of our daily lives.

We came here from a community in the Texas Panhandle that tried to promote recycling but then gave up on it. Why? Because, I was told, residents of Amarillo just weren’t into it, They were tossing food waste and other non-recyclable trash into the recycling bins.

We have curbside recycling in Princeton. I am proud to declare that our recycling bin contains more items to be repurposed than our trash bin. The disposal company picks up recyclables every other week; the trash heads for the dump each week.

I have spoken a few times over the years with a fellow who handles municipal waste matters for the company that serves Princeton. He has told me he believes recycling throughout the network of communities served has reduced landfill deposits by more than 30%. That tells me the residents of North Texas have embraced the idea of filling up their recycling bins with material that can be repurposed. It saves our Planet Earth’s valuable space. It conserves fossil fuels. It protects the only planet we can call home.

I am pleased and proud to be part of a community that embraces the idea of recycling. My neighbors and I want our planet to survive.

environmental news

Rain forecasted differently

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When you come of age in an environment known for its incessant rainfall, you kinda/sorta learn to chuckle at various perspectives related to weather forecasting.

I just came home from a trip back to where Mom and Dad welcomed me to this world: Portland … the one in Oregon. It rains a lot there. I have joked over the years that the relentless light drizzle has to soak everything for three or four days before you even notice it.

Then my family and I moved to Texas in 1984, where it also can rain a lot. The volume of rain here is vastly different than what usually soaks the Pacific Northwest. Here it often comes all at once in huge quantities; there, it’s a little at a time.

Here is what made me chuckle. The weather forecaster for KATU Channel 2 lamented that the city had gone “nine whole days without rain.” Wow, man. Stop the presses. She was hoping for more. Today, the forecasted weather system delivered the goods in fine fashion. I managed to fly out of Portland on time.

But wait! Our plane got diverted and delayed about a half hour because of rain at D/FW airport. We landed. I got my truck out of parking and then drove through a downpour to my home in Collin County.

I don’t believe any of the weathermen and women here were disappointed at the rainfall. Why? Because nine-day dry spells are more like the norm than the exception around here.

They got the rain they expected to get in Portland. Let’s hope it stays wet there … per normal.

environmental news

‘Hint of fall?’ Hah!

Leave it to my friend and former colleague Jon Mark Beilue to dig up a clever quip to discuss the, um, weather.

“You know it’s hot,” Jon Mark said recently, on a social media post, “when it’s 91 degrees outside and you think the air has the ‘hint of fall.'”

Indeed, it’s been broiling in Amarillo, where Jon Mark lives. I saw recently where it hit 108 degrees up yonder. and that’s not counting the dreaded “heat index” or “feels like” temperature!

I’m happy to report that North Texas might soon be feeling that “hint of fall in the air” as well. I saw recently that the temperatures will top out later this week at “only” 90, with the projected high temp slated to each 82ish over the weekend.

We’ve been hot as hell here, too, with several consecutive days at more than 100 degrees. The TV weathermen and women seem to have run out of creative ways to tell us the obvious: stay hydrated and look for shade whenever possible. 

But … hey, we know what Texas summers are like. They are hot, man!

I will just have to look forward to the eventual cooling of the temperatures around here and then keep my trap shut when they linger at or below freezing in the middle of winter.

environmental news, local news

Birds outsmart me

I have concluded that the term “bird brain” does an injustice to the creatures that actually rely on their brains to get them through life.

I now shall explain.

My wife, our sons and I moved to Texas in 1984, where we discovered right away that the Golden Triangle region of the state is rich in avian creatures. Kathy Anne wanted to treat them, so when we moved into our house in North Beaumont, we set up hummingbird feeders. My goodness, the birds literally flocked into our backyard to partake.

Years later, in early 1995, we moved from Beaumont to Amarillo … way up yonder in the far northwest corner of the state. KA was intent on feeding the Panhandle hummingbirds. Up went the feeders. Although the birds weren’t as plentiful as they were on the Gulf Coast, they did consume the substance we put out for them.

Then we moved again in early 2019, to Colin County, a tad north of Dallas. We set up the feeders again for the hummingbirds to enjoy.

Except that in five years in our house in Princeton, I have seen precisely one hummingbird. Just one! Oh, and what about the feeder’s contents? They disappear. Some birds are consuming this stuff … except they’re doing so when I am looking the other direction.

Go figure, man!

This will stand as my tribute to the fine-feathered creatures God produced for us spoil and for them to confound this smarty-pants human with their evasive tactics.

Hummingbirds, thus, should not be considered a “lower life form.”

environmental news

Summer solstice on tap!

Hey, gang … got some good news to share: The summer solstice, the longest 24-hour period with daylight, is just around the corner.

It occurs on Thursday. It’s the first day of summer. Officially. On the record.

After that, the daylight period shrinks daily by about a second. In December, we get the winter solstice.

Is this a huge deal? Sure it is! We bitch about being too cold in the winter. We long for warmer temps. Then it gets too damn hot! There’s just no pleasing fickle human beings.

environmental news, local news

Drive home: not for the timid

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I want to offer a serious shout-out to my fellow North Texans who today demonstrated that smart people do exist and they do occupy motor vehicles wisely through some seriously inclement weather.

My day began inauspiciously enough with a drive from McKinney to Fort Worth, where a friend of mine and I went to see a movie. We enjoyed the new release, “Ezra.” We had lunch and then I headed back to my house in Princeton. My GPS said it would take a little more than hour to make the trip. Bwahahaha!

I was heading for the Sam Rayburn Tollway when I saw it get very dark, very quickly. It was about 4 p.m. Then the rain came. With a vengeance!

Lightning flashes lit up the sky. The rain came down in seemingly Biblical amounts. The wind started to howl.

I turned on my four-way flashers and slowed my Ranger pickup way to down to around 35 or 40 mph.

This is where I want to offer a bouquet to the hundreds of other motorists I noticed. They did the same thing. Flashers and a major slow-down.

I noticed one serious wreck on the tollway median; a young couple had crashed through a utility pole and their car was parked rear-end first on the embankment, suffering heavy damage. The couple appeared to be OK. I said a quiet prayer that they would get emergency personnel attention soon.

I don’t normally take time on this blog to bitch about bad drivers. I do want to offer a good word about those I saw driving with an abundance of caution in some highly inclement conditions.

Oh, I am sure there were some wannabe-Mario Andrettis out there who thought they could power through the rough stuff no matter what. I am just grateful beyond measure they did so out of my field of vision.

We have been getting a lot of this kind meteorological violence in recent weeks. It could be that we are wising up to Mother Nature’s unspeakable power.

Whatever. May we never lose sight of the value of those lessons.

environmental news, local news, political news

Politics enters eclipse coverage

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Leave it to the TV network talking heads to inject contemporary politics into discussion about the historic wonder of a total solar eclipse.

I was taken aback … but not surprised.

Listening to the eclipse run-up early this afternoon, an MSNBC commentator noted that an eclipse actually prevented a war from erupting in ancient Greece. I didn’t catch the name of the adversary facing down the Greeks.

Then she wondered out loud whether during these contentious times that we could have a similar peace-finding result from the eclipse that swept across the eastern third of the United States.

We all know the answer to that one. No! It won’t end the sniping, the backbiting, the innuendo here at home and the wars that rage in Europe and the Middle East.

It’s kind of a quaint thought, however.

The old-time Greeks didn’t have social media to take their minds away from Mother Nature’s splendor back in the day. Nor did they have cheap tinhorn politicians who play to TV cameras whenever someone — anyone! — turns on the lights; oh sure, they had their tinhorns, but they were motivated by simpler means.

Here’s my immediate takeaway from what we witnessed today in North Texas.

For a few minutes in the early afternoon, I wasn’t worried at all about what mere mortal politicians were doing or saying in the halls of power. Not in Congress, or the White House, or City Hall or the county courthouse. My focus was straight up as I watched the moon block the sunlight shining on Earth.

Nothing else mattered. Nothing!

environmental news, local news

A gigantic event awaits

Epochal events, by definition, don’t come around often, but when they do it is good for the authorities to prepare for them with all the resources they have on hand.

North Texas is about to be the scene of one of those events on Monday. It will occur shortly after 1 p.m. when the moon passes in front of the sun, turning the bright daylight of a mid-spring day into the blackness of night.

The last total solar eclipse I can recall occurred in the early 1980s. On that day the sky was overcast, just as the weather service is predicting for much of Texas on Monday. But the sky over Oregon got dark during that earlier event, as it will on Monday here in Princeton, Texas, where I am hanging my hat these days. I remember then hearing about how zoo animals cowered in the dark, how wolves howled and dogs barked.

The TV stations, plus all the cable networks are planning wall-to-wall “team coverage” of the event beginning around noon. I heard one of the local TV stations is planning to launch drones presumably to get above the cloud cover to take pictures of the moment the moon darkens the sun’s glow.

Police departments and Texas transportation officials are planning to make their presence felt on our streets, roads and highways to ensure motorists are paying attention to the traffic and avoiding the temptation to look skyward, even though the weather guys and gals say there will be nothing to see.

I obtained my eclipse-watching glasses. I am staying home that day. I’m going to look skyward at just the right time … hoping that a break in the clouds might occur in correct spot to get a glimpse of the event.

And no, I will not peer with unprotected eyes at the sun the way the 45th POTUS and his wife did some years ago when they looked at an eclipse that appeared over the East Coast.

However, I am ready to be thrilled by this event that won’t repeat itself in this country until I am long gone.

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Staying put for this one

Command decision time, which means I have decided to stay home for The Eclipse. There. It’s done and I ain’t moving.

I keep reading in the local newspapers about how the cops are going to be out in force the afternoon of next Monday to make sure everyone’s behaving behind the wheels of their vehicles. They express concern about motorists not paying attention to the traffic while the sky darkens above them.

Fine. Let others hassle with all of that. I am staying put. It’s going to be the kitties — Macy and Marlowe — and me in our house in Princeton, Texas. which is in the middle of Ground Zero of the eclipse event.

My son who lives with me will be at work. So will my other son who lives in nearby Allen. My granddaughter will be in school close to their home and my daughter-in-law will be home, too, presumably staying safe.

The National Weather Service is predicting overcast skies that day. It’ll still get plenty dark for about four minutes sometime after 1 p.m. Eclipse watch parties? Getting together with friends to marvel at the universe? Forget about it!

I am staying where I know I’ll be safe from the nut jobs out there.

environmental news, local news

Goodness survives the flames

Stories about fire that rages out of control bring fear and hopelessness to many of us; we worry about what it all means and the lives it affects.

It seems the Texas Panhandle wildfires that have burned something far north of a million acres of rangeland would produce so little news to cheer.

Then I hear about all the trucks hauling hay into the fire zone. The hay is being trucked in to feed the livestock that has survived the inferno. It’s coming from neighboring ranches unaffected by the rampaging flames.

These demonstrations of selflessness remind us of the good that resides in the hearts of those who feel the pain being inflicted on those who must face down nature’s fiery wrath.

I no longer have a personal stake in what is happening in the Panhandle region of this great state. We moved away from there in 2018. Our son sold his home this past year to move near his brother’s family and me after my dear bride passed away.

I do have friends remaining in the region. I know of at least two families that have evacuated their homes and then returned once the danger had passed; they are thanking God Almighty their homes are still intact.

I am going to cling to the knowledge of the good that has presented itself as the remote region of Texas fights the flames. May it remind us of the good in humanity that fire cannot destroy.