Took the big oaf Winston out into the West pasture yesterday for a little run and to snoop on the progress that was being made across the road on the mudpit/subdivision. Probably post a pic or two about that tomorrow. On the way back in Winston wanted to stay out a bit so I left him in the back yard fenced in area.
I fenced in the back yard a few years back because as the road outside our house gets more popular it is death to any animal and Winston is far too braindead to get the point even after running out in front of a truck already once before. If he get's loose he is 1/4 mile away in about 5 seconds and almost always running down the middle of the damned road.
Only reason he has not been smashed again is the fact that hitting a dog his size is gonna do some damage no one wants. Funny thing is all he really wants when he escapes is for me to chase him. If I ignore him or he escapes and cannot see me and doesn't have a witness he knows about, he never goes very far for long. If he is not discovered within a few minutes he comes back home and lays on the porch until I go out and get him. That is how I usually find out he has opened up a new escape route which as he ages is happening far less often as I think he is losing some of his acrobatic skills.
I swear for such a big dog he can wiggle through things like a snake sometimes.Or could anyway.
So Winston starts barking which is my signal that he is ready to come back in. I go to get him and when I open the gate he fires off at the speed of light toward the front of the house and goes right into the road. This time however he is not alone.
He now has three youngish teen boys he is facing off while barking like he is some type of hired guard dog. Truth is that dog has never bitten a thing and even hid under the bed when my mom's Yorkie snapped at him. He does have a bark that sounds like a howitzer being fired in the seat next to you at the Astrodome however.
These kids were about 13 to 15 I think. None of them dressed in some type of odd way just normal teenage boys with skateboards. Two were average White boys one was mixed Black. The important part however is where did they come from? I mean the closest occupied house that I don't know who lives there on sight is about 1/2 a mile away. I have not seen any one walking out here since 1995 and he was a lost hiker except for one woman down the road that comes by maybe once a week walking.
So now my rural utopia is not only ruined by constant traffic and side by sides coming by but I am going to have teenagers roaming the countryside. I should be grateful I guess I got to live in peace out here for so many years but I wish this would have happened 10 years ago when I will still young enough to move and start over.
When I went out to feed I hear a tractor pulling a load only to look up as a larger New Holland comes by dragging a flat bed full of young adults and children. I would say 25ish to 30 or so and a few bales of straw thrown in for ambiance followed by a train of about half a dozen side by sides. How sweet an old fashioned hay ride. Except they won't go on the gravel roads, too much dust and they have hangers on to put more traffic on the road.with em.
And I have already been informed my property taxes are going up.... Just fu&king lovely.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!
A local campground does what I refer to as the "High Speed Hay Ride of Death." A 6 wheel dump truck pulling a "hay wagon" full of campers (20+) around town at 45 MPH as they hold on for dear life. One of these days we will be responding to a horrific mass casualty incident.
ReplyDeleteGD - I haven't seen a hay ride around here since I was in my early 20's and back from the Army for a bit. They were something rarely done except the occasional younger woman would sometimes want one for her birthday. The last one I was on was a young Mennonite lady who had just turned 20 and wanted a party with all the guys she wanted to date but never could :) I am seriously not lying she told me that when she invited me. There were only three guys though including me the rest were all friends and family.
DeleteSo they have assessed your property because of the unfinished rural subdivision and raised property taxes already? When I am appointed benevolent dictator, parking meters, property tax, income tax abolished and only a 1% sales tax will be allowed. Oh, and a lot of unnecessary (98% of them) agencies will be nixed!
ReplyDeleteCed - They actually raised our property taxes a few years back saying our county was below the state mandated amount. Never heard of that before? Then the fired off another letter saying they needed to raise them again and we just got one saying they were going to this next year already. My guess is there will be a raise for the raise next year at this rate.
DeleteI'm seeing more and more of that where I live as well. The road my property's on is just the opposite of yours; a 2-lane with a 40MPH speed limit. In Californian this means "70MPH." It's not a healthy place for pedestrians or bicycles. Even so, we're seeing more of both, even though there's really nothing out where I am except citrus trees. I went to leave for work a couple of years back and found the sheriff in my driveway. He had a couple of homies sitting on the ground. The sheriff is a "deplorable." The "youths" were supposedly just passing through, tattoos and all. The sheriff cited them for not having lights on their bikes. In other words, "You don't belong here. GET.LOST!" A few weeks back there was another vibrant wandering through the yards of the few houses on my road. A couple of the neighbors were watching him from a distance as he poked around wherever he thought he could get away with it. One of the neighbors confronted him and he started going on saying "I ain't doon-nothin'." He told the vibrant to shove off, which he did. The neighbor then got in his car and followed him from a distance. The vibrant proceeded to poke around houses on another street. My neighbor called the sheriff. The vibrant turned out to be a "porch pirate." He was scoping out houses looking for packages from Amazon. He had picked off a couple by the time the sheriff showed up.
ReplyDelete...Yup... This is the future... everywhere... except Marth's Vineyard, Malibu, Beverly Hills, ... Don't let your semi-remote location lull you into false security...
That "hay ride..." My money says "Sponsored by Pave The World Real Estate..."
Pete - the road right out front is a 2 lane county highway, speed limit 55 but it is also one of the few straight almost flat areas of road around. We get a number of bicycle groups that come by or used to before all the houses started going up as we are actually attached to the Mark Twain Forest area and there is a lot of park owned land mixed in here and there and some trails that use the gravel roads occasionally. Seeing a deputy here is rare the county seat is actually about 20 miles North of here and they usually have more issues along I-70 than down this way. The little and I mean little city the sheriff is in also had a very ambitious housing authority and invited as much vibrancy in as they could get. Didn't get em very far as the county is still less than 2% non-white I believe but they tried.
DeleteI'd like to add, don't let your gated community/fenced property lull you into a false sense of security either.
DeleteOne of the best things you can have is a dog; he can hear them and smell them long before you do.
CC
is it possible that the economic downturn will slow the ingress of those with the money to mess everything up?
ReplyDeletedeb - I am not sure. It did work in my favor once before back in 08 but I read last night the banks and such are really pushing the ARM loans for poorer people so if it is built someone will get somebody in it I fear.
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