Everyone Needs a Lock

       On a gate in Archer county . . . . Now for which lock do I hold the key?

       In the north Texas countryside, one often comes upon gates locked by several locks, each one belonging to a different entity. 

       There are several persons who need keys to enter the property, which may consist of a private home with several acres, or a farm, a ranch, or, just . . . open prairie owned by someone, anyone else, upon which pumps extract oil, or cows graze contentedly, or wind turbines loom, or wheat sways in the wind: 

     The pumper who works for the oil company needs a key; the trucker to transport the oil, too; the bulldozer guy who maintains the roads; the nephew of the brother of the husband of the cousin who will clean up the abandoned batteries and other oil field equipment; the foreman who works for the rancher needs a key, too; the owner would need a key for when he goes in to check on what on Earth everyone else is doing on his property; the energy company guys who maintain the power lines or the wind turbines need a key . . . the farmer and his combines and swathers . . . the crop-duster who . . . oh, wait, I take that back; crop-dusters do not need any keys.

     Have I listed everyone? Oh, the poachers. They scam a key from someone or barge through. They don't care about locks. 

       

     I've concluded that one does not really "own" land at all, unless everything underneath and above the land comes with that ownership. Minerals and now air space have become rare for a landowner to control. Instead, someone's "ownership" of a land consists of the dirt on the surface and merely gives him the right to gripe about the pumpers, the oilmen, the cowboys, and the energy companies that stomp across the prairie, some gripes of which lead to lawsuits. 

     To me, it is sad to see all the steel scattered across a land that once grew healthy; still, we have what we have now, and we do with it what we can, namely, save it. Renovate the land. Help it heal.

     As for locks, really, what function do they have? 

     

D4, f3.5, 1/2,500s, 190mm, cropped for effect during post processing in the digital darkroom.