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Across the Fence:  Our disappearing farm land  |
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Eileen
True Blue Farmgirl
1199 Posts
Eileen
USA
1199 Posts |
 Posted - May 18 2005 : 09:43:09 AM
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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 |
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RstyLdy
Farmgirl at Heart
2 Posts
Linda
Knoxville
TN
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 12:17:25 PM
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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 |
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ThymeForEweFarm
True Blue Farmgirl
705 Posts
Robin
An organic farm in the forest in
Maine
USA
705 Posts |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 1:01:19 PM
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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 |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 1:35:36 PM
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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 |
Edited by - jpbluesky on May 19 2005 10:56:01 AM |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - May 18 2005 : 3:43:48 PM
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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. |
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Eileen
True Blue Farmgirl
1199 Posts
Eileen
USA
1199 Posts |
Posted - May 19 2005 : 09:08:12 AM
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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 |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - May 19 2005 : 10:59:14 AM
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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 |
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Kim
True Blue Farmgirl
146 Posts
Kim
Pflugerville
Texas
USA
146 Posts |
Posted - May 20 2005 : 5:49:20 PM
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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 |
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JoyIowa
True Blue Farmgirl
273 Posts
Joy
273 Posts |
Posted - Jun 04 2005 : 2:15:41 PM
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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. |
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Across the Fence: Our disappearing farm land |
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Our disappearing farm land
