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.

Move to the Country... And Have the City Move to the Country

Ah...  Good ol' country living!  We moved out to the country in 2001 when we built our home underneath some big live oak trees that had been an old homestead. Although we have neighbors, it is quiet.  Directly across from us is a big field that was planted repeatedly in soybeans after we moved here, but lately it has been fallow.  On the outside levee of this field is where dewberries grow each spring, allowing us to pick gallons of berries that we turn into jelly and smoothies.  I always comment that this is a crop that we never have to plant or tend to!  Here is a shot of the land standing in one location looking north east...

Then directly north...

And then northwest.

When we first moved in, we considered purchasing some of the acreage to fence off and put some cattle grazing.  We approached the landowner about buying a few acres from him and he let us know that he was not splitting up the land.  If we wanted it, we had to purchase it all and he had already been offered a nice sum of money for it, so if we were interested, we'd need to beat the current bid price. Needless to say, the amount of money to buy the land was way outside of our budget.

However, as the years passed and the land lay dormant, we have enjoyed the rural, quiet life.  The other day, however, we noticed a change.  The land was being plowed.  Trackhoes cleaned up the brush and most of the trees, stacking them in large piles where they would be splashed with diesel and set ablaze.  The field that had grown up in grass now looked like it was being worked up to put in a crop. It is late to be doing that for rice, but perhaps for soybeans...

Saturday morning two Versatile 875 tractors with discs were parked directly across from the house. As the men greased the bearings on the gangs, Tricia and I walked over with cups of coffee to talk to the gentlemen to see what was going on.  One of the guys built our house back in 2001.  I had not seen him or talked to him in probably 15 years.  I joked with him and told him that he plowed up my dewberry crop!  He laughed and said that I was the second person that told him that.  He told me that he had just purchased the land.  So I asked him: Is this going to still be farmland?

"No," he answered.  He was going to develop it into an exclusive subdivided neighborhood.  He told us that many people are interested in getting out of the city and like the small rural school out here that has good academics. They are clamoring to move and this land is the perfect place for them to build, he said. Tricia and I are both disappointed. Obviously, WE moved out to the country, so it is a bit disingenuous for us to complain when others do.  We liked the wide open spaces and serenity that country life affords. I guess I'll soak up the view from the front porch of a wide open field while I still can.

Now things are going to be different and we'll just have to get used to it.  I guess the first thing we need to do is plant some dewberries in our yard to make up for the ones we lost in the ditch across the road!