Wednesday, September 21, 2022

So Heres the Scoop

 

So the guys who bought the property across the road from me are locals. Part of a pretty large overall family that are scattered all over the area. I don't personally know these particular ones but I know a few (OK probably several) of the extended clan. Some have been friends I think I even dated one years ago, went to school with a few, partied with some...you get the idea. Apparently the plan is for one of them to build his own house in the back of what they bought while putting in a lake, because everyone has to put in a lake these days it seems. Then selling lots around the lake in the front.

It's the lots around the front I am not so crazy about but nothing I can do about em anyway. Had this been some out of state group I may well have tried my salvage yard scheme, just to be an ass, but no way I wanna get as personal as it would have to get with local investors and mutual friends.

So depending on how fast they can get the lots and new homes beginning to build just means more traffic, more dust kicked up on the road, more stress on the already stressed local infrastructure and quite possibly requiring me to actually put locks on things around here and putting things away in locked buildings.

A couple co-workers who live close by here and I started going over parcels of land on a couple of apps yesterday and it is pretty easy to see what has happened. Seems most every field within a 10 to 20 mile radius has been recently sold. Investors or their agents have been buying up anything and everything for the last two years at ridiculously high prices. Most of the places that are still planted are probably on their last year or so of being that way. One in particular who's grandfather still has a few hundred acres about 3 miles North of me has been offered a huge amount of money and they keep coming back with better offers whenever he says NO. They still run cattle and interestingly enough the cattle pastures are not what most investors are after. It's productive fields they are turning into building lots that are disappearing fast.

One ray of hope is that The Small Hold has been in this situation before. Almost exactly the same as 2008 to be honest although the suburbs are much closer now to begin with than they were back then. 

I witnessed the same type landscaping equipment and the same type of land deals sweep the area and actually saw the equipment parked across the road (to the South then which has also been recently sold again)  start their dirt moving only to come to a complete halt and then sit there and rust for over a year until one day it was just all gone. Then 10 years of Corn and Soybean fields again.

Obviously things have already been changed and destroyed but in many ways the overall situation might be worse now for new development. If you ask me it looks like a gamble but I am pretty sure the new lake and house in the back is probably this guys dream home so that is gonna happen regardless. I actually am happy for him and his if it is what they want. The lots and new houses and people? Well I am so sure about but someone will still take the gamble either way. So they are coming. How long until it happens is still the final question.

My options are limited. I am not young enough to start over and honestly it isn't like there is any place left that isn't in the same predicament or danger to relocate to anyway. I have been all over this Continent and while there are many beautiful places the exact combination of what I want to call home is pretty specific and I am afraid it no longer exist in this Country right now and will not come back in my life time I imagine. So it is pretty much the end of a lifestyle choice I guess.

So be it.

The truth is I started this endeavor mostly for my son and expected Grand Children. Looks like my son wanted to see the world, I don't blame him but I see no prospect of children in his future, mostly because he doesn't see one himself. That can change, believe me I know that, but my motivation for continuing very long term projects has taken a huge hit because of this and other things I see developing. I am sure many of you will understand.

As the light dims for many of my expectations I guess so dims the lights of the Milky-way around here at night, the frequency of pure natural silence, the sounds of bees in the fields and cattle calling to their calves a half mile away etc. I guess I will maintain my small part of it as long as I can. Maybe I will buy a bunch of goats just to watch em run around and eat.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!! 

Cause I still think it is going to be necessary before these New World Types are done.

One last thing. Does anyone else find it interesting that small private farm ownership always seems to come under well funded financial attack every time a Liberal Democrat gets into office? Funny isn't it?


 

8 comments:

  1. Plant a windbreak along the road. Will help with noise from the road also.

    Around here I'd do a mix of native plums and thorny blackberries as I am a tad anti-social :-)

    And they both grow pretty fast.

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    1. Michael good idea and I have thought about it and even done it years ago. Until the power company claims their easement goes out for almost the entire width of my 20 acre hay field and spray everything. They killed about 100 little shrub trees last time I tried growing a dust break.

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  2. i read that the b is falling out of real estate market maybe that will slow down the mess?
    only thing to do is pray
    who knows? maybe errant son will return?

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  3. should read 'bottom is falling out'
    sorry not computer literate

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    1. deb - He may return. I chat with him either on voice or text about every day or so some. I know he misses the place but there isn't much by way of suitable employment or suitable relationship material for a mild mannered 20-something White Male around here anymore. At least not cut to the mold he wants right now. I honestly don't understand how young couples even last in this day and age myself. Some may say I am biased but none of these young women I see around are honest or trustworthy at all anymore nor do they seem to have time for anything not on their phones. If there are some left they are rare birds that is for sure and my son has always been like a baby seal in a bunch of shark infested waters when it comes to the fairer sex. Despite my excellent and experienced advice :)

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  4. I understand your pain. When I bought my farm, the pavement ended at my house. I rode my horses on the roads. It was quiet and still at night without mercury vapor lamps everywhere. Then the interstate opened to the nearest city and the influx came. They paved all the roads. The town mows with a bush hog on an arm and mows the road sides back as well as reaching up 12 ft. Took out a row of spruce I planted. Now I lease the ground and wonder where I could possibly go at my age. The thought of liquidating everything itself exhausts me. It really weighs on my mind. Just keep on keeping on.

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  5. Have you ever heard the tune called ‘Telegraph Road’ by Dire Straights, PP?

    The old world is being left behind along with its trappings and relics like you and I. The kids wouldn’t want the world we came from, or the things in it.

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    1. Filthie - I am sure I have heard it. I had most of Dire Straight's albums on my reel to reel in the 80's that played pretty much 24 hours a day whenever I was inside whatever abode I was living in at the time. I can still sing alone to the entire "Brothers in Arms" album if someone plays it. In fact ya got me humming the ancient drummer boy song now damnit.... played a tune to many a torture session... Damn you ear worm spreader...

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