Waiting for the Wheel to turn

“Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it”
~Santayana~

  Resistant to change….

   Not for the sake of resistance itself, or in a stubborn mood merely to be contrary… but this area resists incursions due to having seen what happens in other places taken over by development.  The move into this area to bring dude ranches, and resorts has a beneficial side in some aspects.. but the realities of water always trump politics… it’s just by the time the wells have gone dry… the developers have gotten their money and left… and part-time homes is what remain.

   Throughout history people have been moved from their homes due to natural disasters and man-made contrivances….. I’d like to say ‘Never Again’, but know it is the way of man to do so.  We have… in this small canyon a developer proposing to expand the population of the canyon by a percentage of several hundred percent.. we don’t have the water for this…. so a group of us in the canyon have banded together to resist this change… because if it goes through, the character of our rural isolated canyon will be irrevocably changed…. and when the wells go dry… there will be no option but to move.  Again, invaders from the south have entered into Highlands, offering gold to those who would take the bargain…. and they have it now in someone willing to turn over several hundred acres for development of a dude ranch… and over 100 new homes, in an area that has only 35 homes presently along ten miles of canyon and the many miles of side-canyons. These will be folks not on their own well, but a dozen high-output shared wells for the development, and knowing the precarious water situation here, they’d be folks from LA who don’t know what it means to live within their own resources… they’ll be putting in large and lush grass lawns and using several times the amount of water that the present inhabitants use.  Times change…. The Clearances were done by force… our clearance will probably happen when they make our wells go dry.  But they won’t need to send the police in to move us…. we’ll pack our bags, wave goodbye to the hills and leave when we’re thirsty enough and everything has died around us.

  For previous postings on this subject, please see the ‘Laetitia Development’ section to the right. We need all the help and advice we can get to stop this development.

Here come the Clearances my friend
silently our history is coming to life again
We feel the breeze from the storm to come
and up and down this coast
we’re waiting for the wheel to turn

Yes, you’re taking it all away
the music, the tongue and the old refrains
you’re coming here to play
but you’re pulling the roots from a dying age

~Capercaillie~

 

 

“The pen is mightier than the sword”
~Edward Bulwer-Lytton~

 

 

~Capercaillie~
‘Waiting for the Wheel to turn’

 

Living in a place with time
Living in a place where reality is
Standing on a big broad line
Watching it all go by
Ah, but you’re taking it all away
the music, the tongue and the old refrains
You’re coming here to play
but you’re pulling the roots from a dying age

 

 

Remember the Buachaille Mor
reaching for the skies from the barren shores
Watching over the village of Burns
and counting the days since the Gael kept home
but the stranger claims it now
sitting like a king with his gold from the south
don’t you see the waves of wealth
washing away the soul from the land

 

 

Here come the Clearances my friend
silently our history is coming to life again
We feel the breeze from the storm to come
and up and down the coast
we’re waiting for the wheel to turn

 

 

Free were the Fields of Fern
Free was the fishing in the coves of Care
empty are the homes of old
empty for the sake of summers cause
Yes, you’re taking it all away
the music, the tongue and the old refrains
you’re coming here to play
and you’re pulling the roots from a dying age

 

 

 

Here come the Clearances my friend
silently our history is coming to life again
We feel the breeze from the storm to come
and up and down the coast
we’re waiting for the wheel to turn