Thursday, November 29, 2012

It's baking day!

Bread is 'on the horizon', cookies ready to bake, and rolls in the planning stage will make up a good portion of my work today. 

This evening is the local library book club.  We read a very interesting book - The Big Burn, Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan - concerning the firestorm of 1910 that occurred in the mountain West.  I have to admit that although there were parts of the book that were quite well written, some of it was not.  Because I am a child of a forester - my dad worked for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources his entire career - I was very familiar with many of the "characters" of this part of American history.  But, I did learn many things I did not know and because much of the story was written about towns & the history of the Palouse I got more from the book than most will, I think.
However, if a reader thinks that the book predicts a "happy ending" one will be sorely disappointed.  It is hard to learn that the "beloved US Forest Service" really did not save the National Forests for us all, but were insturmental in the sad wholesale clear-cutting practices put into play.  Granted, we are now 'coming around' to a better way of thinking about managing forests, but what a treasure we have lost and all at the expense of a few wealthy people becoming even more wealthy through rape of the natural resources that belong to all the people of the world.

I am making progress on the craft front & am actually working on a few UFO's that have been "aging" for quite some time, LOL.  "case in point": a wall hanging kit from a quilt camp in 2005!

2 comments:

Kathy said...

Thank you for the book review. That book is on my "to read" list. My husband and I read The Worst Hard Time also by Timothy Egan, and Egan commented on the recent PBS program about the Dust Bowl (and also on "Black Sunday," another documentary on the subject). I find these documentary works enlightening despite shortcomings and I know they have changed my perceptions of history. I'm sure the perspective you share will be meaningful to others.

Where's Hazel?

drMolly, the BeanQueen said...

Little Hazel is still "en-utero", but I just got a text from the grand-children that they were going to go for a "bumpy ride", LOL.

drMolly, the BeanQueen