| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| connio |
Posted - Apr 12 2005 : 1:54:44 PM
This morning as I was driving from my home in the country to my job in Fort Worth, I discovered that one of my favorite, very beautiful pastures has been sold to CENTURY 21 HOMES. This pasture is only about a mile from my home so I pass it daily. I had noticed recently that there were no longer cattle grazing and now I know why. This is an area of about 50 acres so I feel ill thinking about how many homes will be squeezed into this area!
Since my co-workers tend to dwell in the city or suburbs, I knew that they would not be able to understand my grief. However, I suddenly realized that the Mary Jane Chat Forum was where I needed to go. Connie
cozycottage |
| 25 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| JoyIowa |
Posted - Jun 04 2005 : 2:15:41 PM
Connie,
I can identify with you with my whole heart. Until last September there was a beautiful meadow right to the east of us. My computer faces that view and I would sit in the quiet of the morning and watch the sun come up and listen to the birds say good morning. Now there is a house being built. It is ugly, they clearcut the land and are now complaining about the water in their basement. I'm trying hard to become an expert at visualizing so I won't continue to be heart-broken. I absolutely hate to hear of people building on their little "farmette" lot and then complaining to the county board that it is too dark! too buggy! too windy! etc. I wonder if there is a way to link up farmgirls with these people to show them the splendor of the night sky, how to harness the wind's energy for good, how to set up bat houses to help take care of the bugs, how to start a meadow, etc. before they start complaining. The best defense is a good offense.
Have a great day and know you are not alone!
Joy
To live without farm life is merely existing, to live with farm life is living life to it very last experience. |
| Kim |
Posted - May 20 2005 : 5:49:20 PM
Disappointment in my little town, as you drive into Hinckley an area of farmland is being used for a Storage Facility (like a U-store it). I am saddened by it. I think it's good of developers to set aside large tracks of land in subdivisions as natural areas with maybe a bike path around it, but if the developers don't watch it, someday we won't have farm land left to grow food and we will all be eating genetically grown food and fake food.
farmgirl@heart
Be at peace with yourself and the rest will follow |
| jpbluesky |
Posted - May 19 2005 : 10:59:14 AM
Eileen - this is the post I referred to in my email to you - I found it! I had wanted to go back and reread these posts because the subject is an important one to me.
I agree that we are not hypocritical here, and I submit we are trying to maintain a simple way of life in the face of change.
jpbluesky
O, cease to heed the glamour that blinds your foolish eyes,
Look upward to the glitter of stars in God's clear skies.
from God's Garden by Robert Frost |
| Eileen |
Posted - May 19 2005 : 09:08:12 AM
I don't think any of us here is hypocritical. I simply think that we farm girls and farm girls at heart feel that if people want to live in the country and have a little country home that those of us who already do and wish also to be in a small or large way contributing farm folk with a market garden and some farm animals, that we should be allowed to do so and that those who move out of the city just to get away from the noise thinking that the country is quiet should spend some time there first and then if the sounds and smells of the neighbors rooster, cow, sheep, or pigs is going to bother them that they should re-consider their desire to move instead of finding ways to stop us from being in fact farmers no matter how small because they do not like those somewhat unpleasant aspects of farm life. When a developer buys up and developes former farm land and incorporated into those developments home owner rules and regulations forbidding the raising of chickens, or other livestock and regulates the colors of the houses and the types of vegetation allowable to these developments these homeowners then feel that they now have the right to legislate the same rules onto the existing farmers by complaining to their city councils or other organizations about the sounds or smells from these viable farm neighbors and then the businesses get shut down so the farmer has to give up more of this precious comodity which then by default becomes a paved strip mall to feed those people who just recently moved in. When all of the farms are gone, who will feed these people?
What I think you will find here with these men and women who post are authentic farmers and those of us who wish we were but due to circumstances are not. Those of us who are not do not romanticise this lifestyle. Those of us who are do not need the strip malls to be within walking distance and at least in my case I only go to town to shop once a month. I eat what I grow or buy or barter for what I do not have from my neighbor who has what I need. Most of my food needs that are not met this way are met through local farmers market or a local co-op (40 miles away) that sells locally grown products as well as other organically grown products in bulk quantities. Personally I plan my few trips into town so that I can achieve everything I need in that one trip. Only emergencies will cause me to go to town more often and even in an emergency I use the trip to its fullest if possible. The people who want the country style life but also want the strip mall next door are the hypocrits. I would never consider stopping someone who authentically wants the country life from looking for and doing just that. I encourage wanna be farmers in making their dreams come true in the realist sense.
Eileen
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 3:43:48 PM
There is a real difference between farms/country homes and suburbs. I am not sure what the point is here? Suburbs are developed on tracts of land by developers that was once farm ground/pastureland. Farms and homes in the country are acreage set aside for food/livestock production or conservation of some sort and a domestic dwelling, ect. With suburbs there is business development. to to meet the needs of the population thereof... The farm is self serving...it is an economic entity in and of itself. Due to the structure of the farm economy many rural dwellers must have supplemental income outside the farm. No one here is being hypocritical about farmfolk wanting the country life versus the urban life...There is a distinct difference in the two. There is an extension of the urban, and there is the farm/country. At the cost of all consumers and future generations urban is overtaking the farm. Plain and simple. Jenny from Kansas
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| jpbluesky |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 1:35:36 PM
I guess we long for the times when farms and rural lifestyles were the norm. If anyone could manage to go back to that way of life, it would be some of the people who post here.
Our responsibility is to try and protect as much of that way of living as much as possible. It made America into a great country.
jpbluesky |
| ThymeForEweFarm |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 1:01:19 PM
An important thing to think about: How do you feed a growing population with less farmland, without turning to genetically engineered food? A lot of people are eating food with GE ingredients and don't know. The cost of fossil fuel is going up yearly which increases the costs of synthetic fertilizers and transportation to get commodity grown food an average of 1,500 miles to your dinner plate.
While we're strolling through the grocery stores looking at meats, grains and vegetables we should be thinking about how much higher prices are going to go. What do we do next?
Robin
Thyme For Ewe Farm
www.thymeforewe.com |
| RstyLdy |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 12:17:25 PM
I submit that it's precisely the desire of the farmfolk-at-heart (versus real farmers) to live in the country that brings the sprawl - the WalMart, fast food places, strip malls and the like. Businesses go where the demand is. Listen, I am not trying to dis your right to live in the country, what I am saying is that it may be hypocritical to try to prevent others from doing the same. It's like picking a flower from a beautiful garden to enjoy - if we all do it, there'll soon be no more garden left for anyone to enjoy.
Urban Linda |
| Eileen |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 09:43:09 AM
Sorry Linda,
This is your first post and I do not know you or anything about you. What you have said here is possibly true in some instances but what I think is the topic at least from my point of view is that here where I live at least, the farm land is being bought up at an alarming rate, the top soil is being scraped off, and the land is flattened, vegetation removed and in a lot of cased being sprayed with roundup to kill any future growth. It is then either being paved over to become strip malls or it is populated with very close together cookie cutter houses with a life expectancy of about 10 years, then these houses are in such bad shape that they either become abandoned or become a mess. The ground where these houses were planted has nothing left in the soil that will grow or else needs so much amendments that the homeowner cannot afford to rebuild the soil in a healthy way so resorts to sod and a lot of chemicals that run off the hardpan underneath and into the streams and wetlands that were there first, polluting the water for all of the living creatures. Also the strip malls at least where I am familiar have outlived their usefulness by their 10th year of life and they become abandoned buildings with a paved parking lot that is smothering the piece of earth where there was at one time a thriving farm environment.
If you are fortunate enough to live in a lovely country home surrounded by thriving wildlife and have enough land surrounding you in your country home to keep a few chickens or raise a kitchen garden and you are actively doing something to protect the environment from further pollution in your own way then I think you are a farm girl at heart too.
Before my husband and I bought our five acre farm where we are now working and living we had built our lovely country home on a little country lot where were planning to retire and live out the rest of our lives. We lived behind a lovely horse ranch where people boarded horses. There was a salmon stream and wetlands where we could bird watch and go berry picking. A great grey heron was always standing in this stream doing his fishing. It was peaceful and wonderful. Within 5 years of moving there we were surrounded by concrete. All of the wetlands were filled in with little token areas scraped away of what was naturally there and swales were built to create a smaller version of this wetland to satisfy the beaurocrts demand to keep the wetlands. We had a 100 unit 4 story apartment complex built right up to our backyard fenceline where the drunk marines and sailors would party every weekend night into the early morning on the decks and throw their beer cans over the fence into out back yard. By the time we sold this dream of ours we had a Wallmart, A Safeway, And every kind of gasoline station and fast food chain store within walking distance. The two lane country road had become a 6 lane freeway and we could no longer walk our dog. Wee joined a citizens group in the beginning to try to stop this "progress" but had no effect what so ever in the end. None of us had enough money to keep a 1 house for every 5 acres area from becoming a concrete jungle.
What is really sad is that several of the strip malls about 5 miles up the road are now abandoned. One had an Eagle hardware, an Albertsons. a bank, a drycleaners and laundromat,a payless drugstore,and several other smaller businesses that changed hands often. Last time we were over that way the mall was vacant except for a Sharis restaurant. Eagle moved a mile down the road to a new building built on one of the former protected sites when they could have simply renovated that whole mall into one bigger Eagle hardware and used the building materials that were salvageable to show a concern for the environment by recycling. The parking lot could have been gobbled up by one of those blacktop gobbling machines I have seen on the highway and then re used as new recycled paving.
I could go on.
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
| RstyLdy |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 08:35:51 AM
I am all for preserving farmland and open spaces, but isn't there just a wee bit of hyprocracy going on here? Unless we're all actually farmers (not just "farmgirls at heart"), why is it great for us to want to get out of the city and enjoy all that country life has to offer but deny other would-be farmfolks-at-heart the same opportunity? Afterall, weren't we all outsiders at one point? Our neighbors up the road might have enjoyed the pasture land that is now our beloved country home.
Decreasing the sprawl that is invading our rural areas will happen when people (non farmers) either begin to realize the benefits of living in urban areas or they can no longer afford the gas from traveling from country homes to city jobs.
Something to think about.
Urban Linda |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - May 12 2005 : 3:59:25 PM
Thank you for the post Jodi! Kudos for what you are doing! I do try to support our farmers market during the season. I wish there were more like you where I live but alas the mentality here is very frustrating in the ag community. There are small steps being made though and putting the information out there to all American consumers is necessary! Our government has GOT to change its ag policies or the small local farmers are doomed in favor of big corporation run cash cow subsidized mega farms! Sorry for the ranting but this is an issue I find very frustrating living in a heavy Ag state like Kansas. I DO not buy the kind of produce you mentioned! Best of luck to you!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Clare |
Posted - May 12 2005 : 2:57:52 PM
I'm with you Jodi on the politcal sentiments, and it's nice to see a grassroots effort taking place to stop the destruction of farmland. Missoula is a pretty progressive place, isn't it? Good for you and your group.
I know it's going to require a huge cultural revolution to change the eating and buying habits of the general public, but I intend to do my small part toward that. WTO may have been a blessing to some countries, but to our American farmers it has been detrimental. Not to mention the role that advertising plays in all of the junk food people are willing to spend their hard earned money on.
Okay, enough venting.
EAT LOCAL is a good motto.
****Gardener, Stitcher, Spiritual Explorer and Appreciator of all Things Natural****
"Begin to weave and God will give the thread." - German Proverb |
| Eileen |
Posted - May 12 2005 : 2:40:11 PM
Isn't it amazing how wonderful locally grown food tastes in comparison? Home grown strawberries are just about ready and I can't wait. The grocery store imports are so tasteless and dissappointing. It is worth the wait for the locals.
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
| jallibunn |
Posted - May 12 2005 : 2:31:56 PM
Hey, everyone out there, you can do something to stop farmland being turned into new sloburbs! Help keep the farmers in business so they don't need to subdivide their land. When the strawberries from Central America and the apples from New Zealand show up at the store, don't buy them. Every time you make a choice to eat local food, in season, it is a quiet act of rebellion against the destruction of our country's capacity to feed itself. Without getting completely political on you all, it's pretty apparent that where we spend our money is about the only vote we have left.
It means that you have to wait until strawberries are in season, but that makes them all the more special. 
I'm part of a group here, Grubshed, that has been trying to eat as much local food as possible for the last two years. We grow most of our food through a custom CSA by Garden City Harvest, a great organization that runs CSAs and community gardens throughout Missoula. I've been tracking our food dollars for the last two years, and we are eating 50% locally. We're saving fuel and keeping farmers in business, and the food is oh so delicious. And the growing season here is only about 120 days!
It's so great for our kids as well. My four-year-old spent the morning helping me plant chard at the community garden.
The efforts of ten families here in Missoula aren't stopping sprawl or the loss of farmland. But if more people did it, it would make a difference. Only thirty years ago, most people ate local food. Now, 90% is imported an average of 1300 miles. |
| Eileen |
Posted - Apr 17 2005 : 2:01:01 PM
I have been to places in Montana where you still can hear nature instead of traffic. I am sure that there must be places like it in all of our states but urban sprawl is on the move and seems to be speeding up as time goes by. What used to take 20 years is now being acomplished in just 4 or 5 years. Bigger equipment and richer developers.I think what makes me the saddest on this issue is seeing a place that was a huge dairy farm 20 years ago that was turned into a shopping mall about 15 years ago is now 90% abandoned for another landfil project with newer buildings. Instead of improving what they have already built they fill in another wetland and build a bigger and better? building. Meanwhile the other location is empty, with forlorn looking broken down signs and for sale signs. I think this is the way big business gets big writeoffs on their taxes so that they can keep on filling in and destroying the farmland. I would like to see this practice stopped. I would like to see some legislation that requires the developers to return the abandoned lands to their natural state before they get the permits to rebuild somewhere else rather than leave this wake of destruction in their path, Enough for my soap box.
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
| jamie |
Posted - Apr 16 2005 : 5:15:28 PM
Wow ladies! Really interesting topic going on here. It is so sad to hear that this is going on all over our country. Like someone previously said, "where are these people coming from and what's happening to the old houses?" It is such a vicious cycle with no easy answer. The farmer anymore has to either get big or get out and I suppose when they are approached by a land developer with $$ it is hard to refuse. My husband worked on a farm down in Peoria, AZ (suburb of Phoenix) and that farm was one of the first ones in that area many years ago. Well when my husband went to work there in 1999 the farm was completely surrounded by major highways, interstates, etc. In fact when we were there one of the dairy cows had gotten out and was run over by speeding traffic. That whole area had once been farmland. My husband tells me that they can get more money by selling their land to the developers than they could to keep farming it. We have to keep supporting our local farmers!! I can reassure you that there are still little patches of heaven left in the country. My family farm is in northern Montana just three miles from the Canadian border. I was just home this past weekend and was in awe of the peacefulness. Our nearest neighbor is three miles away. All you hear are the birds, the sounds of the livestock, and occasional breezes. My husband and I would like to go back and farm it one day in the near future. I have resisted going because it is so isolated but hearing all of these comments makes me appreciate it more now. People laugh when I tell them the nearest town is 15 miles away and that is a size of 1500. For major shopping we have to drive about 3 hours. The nearest McDonalds is 60miles away and that is just fine with me. I don't think we'll ever see in my lifetime (I'm 29) suburban development in my area. If anything, people are either dying off or moving away to the larger cities for better paying jobs and "easier" lifestyle. My generation doesn't want to take over the family farm because they want the security of a paycheck and benefits. You can't really blame them. I think we need to band together and support the remaining family farms. I am sure that most farmers would have much rather kept their farms but just couldn't resist the $$.
Take care, Jamie |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 8:48:31 PM
Bayoubunch, the fact that you raise your herbs in raised beds is a good idea. Do you notice earthworms in the soil? Soil with a good population of worms is a healthy sign. I still find them in spots where there hasn't been any farming for years and I am always careful how I dig in those areas so as not to disturb them. I try to transplant them to the more heavily gardened areas.
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Clare |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 8:27:05 PM
Reminds me of the opening scenes in Kevin Costner's movie The Postman, Eileen. That may turn out to be quite prophetic. |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 5:14:28 PM
I also firmly believe that the pesticide, herbicide and chemical fertilizing we are doing to our lands for bigger yields is killing the planet. We had a horrific struggle in our own neighborhood with land application of human sewage sludge for dumping on farmground. The smell is horrific, it made us very ill, and affected the basic quality of our life for 7 years. We had to take legal action against the landowner ( who by the way was a wealthy developer, not a farmer)and I did two years of research on the subject for our fight. we GOT HIM STOPPED, and that is all we wanted was for him to stop so we could enjoy our property again and not smell human waste and be exposed to the virus, bacterial chemical toxins. I guess I became an environmental activist by accident...but I am a mother and I love my little piece of land and I was mad as #**#. Google the word sewage sludge or biosolids and see what comes up! This is going on all over the country and is backed by the EPA. It is frightening...people have died from exposure to this stuff!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Eileen |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 4:47:35 PM
It is a battle in every state. Just don't stop raising your own animals and food whatever you do. The world crude oil supply will run out someday and when it does those of us left who know how to do without it and raise our own food and husband animals will be the ones who have skills and knowledge that will be in demand. Nature does know how to take care of itself and she will reclaim all of the lost farmland. Just look at how fast the weeds and grasses grow on abandoned lots even if they have been paved over. I believe that the wierd weather, all of the strange migrations of wildlife and marine mammals and all of the earthquaking are telling us that nature is struggling to breathe and will throw off the covering of concrete very soon. Continue to learn the arts of farming and animals and create little wildernesses for the wildlife. Do what you can where you are and little by little we can make a difference.
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
| Kim |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 4:21:41 PM
Mine too and it has affected a friend of ours who wanted to make his pig farm bigger. Our community has done everything in their power to stop him.
farmgirl@heart
Be at peace with yourself and the rest will follow |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 3:53:06 PM
Wow thanks Kim! Great stuff there! In my local paper there is always news of battles between big businesses, developers and the like and farmer/landowners. It is really getting out of hand in my state!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Kim |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 3:44:34 PM
Yes they do!
www.farmland.org
farmgirl@heart
Be at peace with yourself and the rest will follow |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 3:35:28 PM
Kim, Do they have a web site? I am very interested! Thanks
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Kim |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 3:23:23 PM
I belong to a great organization called American FArmland Trust. They support farmers all across the U.S. It kills me to see all these houses built on top of one another. Where do people come from and what happens to the old homes. AND how do they afford these astronomical places??? "Starting at only $399,900...."
farmgirl@heart
Be at peace with yourself and the rest will follow |
