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?