Monday Blues: Like This

 You might remember a post from last Monday about some unwelcome local trail work. A comment attached to that post lamented the excessive pruning of the native plants that took place when some of the trails were built, and on the Friday past I studied this bit of wanton destruction:

I think the qualifies as excessive pruning. Some of the sage and chaparral, both sides of this turn, have been cut, stomped, smashed and otherwise brutalized for really no apparent reason. The razing of the plants has not enhanced the trail, or improved it, or whatever word someone may have used to describe what they were doing when they decided to engage in this hack job.

Lest we forget, this is private property and the owners have, by my estimation, been pretty darned tolerant of the trespasses that local walkers, runners and riders have enjoyed over the years. Is, as seems increasingly possible, is Strava going to change that, bringing more people, disfiguring the land in order to eke out an extra two or three seconds, seeking to become king for a day?

"...Even noisemaker, spirt maker

Heartbreaker, backbreaker

Leave no stone unturned

May be an actor in a plot

That might be all that you got

'Till your error you clearly learn

Now he worships at an altar, of a stagnant pool

And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled

Oh, man is opposed to fair play

He wants it all and he wants it his way

Now, there's a woman on my block

She just sit there as the night grows still

She say who wanna take away his license to kill?"

(Dylan)