Wide Open Spaces

I stepped out on the front porch and took a photo looking due north.  The immediate front yard is pitch black.  The only light you can see 10 feet out is the backlight from the inside light.  I can recall when we moved in twenty years ago really liking the fact that you could see stars at night, that there was a sense of calm and quiet, other than occasional cars on the highway you could hear hoot owls in the oak trees, hauntingly hooting.

The bright lights in the background emanate from a recent real estate development.  A developer bought some farm land and has put up a master planned subdivision with 88 units on 18 acres.  The houses went up quicker than poop through a goose.  Most of the homes built are either occupied or sold.  

On the weekend we like to sit on the front porch in rocking chairs, drink coffee and look out over the wide open spaces, watching neighbors passing by and waving.  The farmland across from us was formerly planted in soybeans.  Then it laid fallow for a number of years before becoming a prime spot for picking dewberries for jelly-making.  In the late summer to early fall the field would be solid yellow from the goldenrod that grew thick in the open field.  The honeybees that inhabit our column would visit the goldenrod and their honey would take on a distinctive and strong smell of the flower.

Here's the view.  It is a little hard to see in the photo, but right above the blacktop road, running parallel with it is something white.  Can you see it?

It is a six inch pvc water main.  We understand that the same developer that purchased the land for the subdivision in the background that you can see the roofs of bought the land in front of us.  That wide open field may soon be filled with homes.  Does this make us sad?  Of course.  We like living in the country.  We would rather the field be agricultural land, or better, just a field.

Years ago, we attempted to buy a few acres of that very field across the road in order to graze cattle on, but the land was way, way out of our price range.  It would have been nice to have a buffer between us and further development, but it was not to be.  We do have neighbors to the east and west of us and we know them all and get along well with them.  They help us in times of need and we try to do likewise.  They don't mind the sounds and smells of our cows, goats, and chickens.  We're hoping that our new neighbors to the north of us will feel the same.