Mourning the Loss of My Favorite Commute Spot

[kfergos]

My normal morning commute takes me by what seems to be an abandoned farm: Fallow fields with tall grass, old stone walls overgrown with lots of greenery, tall, shady trees along the edges of the fields, a classic red barn and white-painted fences, a very modest house with fruit trees around it, a couple of very old farm trucks, and some woods off around the edges. The trees are particularly lovely and some have clearly stood there for over a hundred years, becoming one with the piled stone wall. All seasons it's peaceful and beautiful, a little island of serenity left over from a bygone age. I often arrive around sunrise, when the new light guilds everything and turns it magical. I have seen innumerable red and gray squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits of all ages, birds, and even once a pair of juvenile red foxes dashing along the road beside the stone wall. I love the spot and rejoice every time I pass through its sphere of influence. Here are a couple pictures I took there, not of the entire farm (alas), but of bits of it.





I've never seen anybody living there, and in the winter the snow just piles up, unplowed, around the house. I imagine the old farmer who lived there died and nobody took it over. Recently I have started seeing alarming signs at this haven: First a company came and rebuilt one of the walls, tearing out all the trees and plants growing there. The wall, although still stone, is now perfectly straight and square, surrounded by mud from all the backhoe driving, trucks, and construction workers. Then I kept seeing pickup trucks parked next to the barn, and the barn opened up -- something that had never happened in the year I'd ridden by. Then the yellow construction vehicles, backhoes and other things with tines and grabbers and huge shovels, appeared and started driving all around. They have been clearing out around the house, not the fruit trees yet, but near the dilapidated old garage and what used to be a wall there. The wall, bushes, and small trees are gone, and they have started clearing out the small woods behind the house. When I came by today the clearing had progressed considerably, with trees torn out and grass run over with heavy treads.

I'm afraid this is the end of my haven spot, that they are going to tear down all the trees and the fence and dig up the fields, just like they did in an empty lot a mile down the road. There the construction progressed just far enough to log the entire lot and fill it flat with dirt, and then they stopped. Nothing has happened for 6 months, but it's too late -- the trees are gone, irreplaceable, and what used to be a cool shady patch of road is now an unforgiving, ugly, sunny ride along a huge patch of dirt. I know this is what's going to happen to this lovely old farm, and I'm going to have to watch it step by step. Today it was an effort not to burst into tears as I rode by watching the construction workers ripping and tearing, destroying the homes of all those animals I've seen, starting to convert this pretty, calm spot into just another ugly housing development.



Is it silly to be heartbroken over the loss of a place?

[Tri Girl]

It looks like a beautiful farm! I'm sorry to see it go, too.

[Biciclista]

no, it's not silly. I imagine all the critters are sad too. And I am sad about it and i know i'll never see it. We can hope that they don't get funding and then the trees and plants will grow back.

[Trek420]

I don't know where I get this trivia, someone will correct me but I read somewhere it takes about 8 families buying local to support a small family farm.

And we can't say for sure why this farm's abandoned, farming is haaaaaaaaard work and lots of things can go wrong

Yet if you enjoy these places where you walk, bike, hike, run, ride please think about it when you shop

Odds are good if this land gets turned into housing (and why is anyone building new tracts when they could buy and remodel existing and turn this &^%$ market around or buy my newly remodeled bikeably close to BART, 3 farmers markets and coffee condo? But that's another thread ) those owners will drive to the store and buy whatever it is this farmer raised that's grown now somewhere else and the process continues.

I'm sure those farms and farmers are great but why should they get all the great rural places to ride?


http://www.organicvalley.coop/kickap...bike-tour-2009

http://www.organicathlete.org/tdo

http://www.slowfoodvancouver.com/index.php/AgassizTour/

[BikingNurse]

I am so sorry to hear all of this. People just don't realize that new is not always better. Some things just need to be left alone.
I wasn't even able to see the links for the pics. But I could totally see everything you said in my mind.

[7rider]

Next time you ride by, if you see any human there....why don't you stop and ask them what's going on? Tell them it's a favorite spot of yours and you're curious to know what's happening to the lot. (b/c they may also know what happened with the lot up the street....)
Then let us in on it!

[shootingstar]

Lovely photo "memories" kerfogos! Hope you took/will take more different photos since this place will go soon forever.

It is sad. Where I used to work, there is some farmland at one end but probably in a few years that farmland will be gone.

[Mr. Bloom]

Why is a "housing development" ugly?

I don't think the folks who live there think so...isn't it all in the perspective

[kfergos]

Why is a "housing development" ugly?

I don't think the folks who live there think so...isn't it all in the perspective

It's not the housing development per se -- it's the way 99.9% of new housing developments in New England are built:

1. Cut down all the trees.
2. Build X number of nearly identical homes not less than 4,000 sq ft.
3. Fill in minuscule yard around said homes with grass (definitely no trees).
4. Repeat ad nauseum.

The older housing developments can be very pleasant, with big shady trees and homes set well back on good-sized lots. If they built new ones like that now, I'd be kind of OK with it. It's the cookie-cutter McMansion developments that have been going in all around this area that I'm afraid will happen here, too, and that's what makes me so sad: Losing something unique to the Wal-Mart of housing.

[Mr. Bloom]

I understand, but also remember that the fact that they're on small lots also decreases the amount of open area NOT lost to an equivalent # of housing units built on larger lots.

We happen to live in a neighborhood like you described (although our lots are about 1 acre), but there were no trees until the houses were built 15 years ago...and now there are trees everywhere.

Established neighborhoods with big shady trees have to start somewhere...

There are many models of controlled balanced development - I am a big fan of the Sycamore Land Trust in Bloomington Indiana. Portions of new developments are placed into the trust and provide for SUBSTANTIAL green space preservation and provide for substantial shelter and privacy in even the most densely populated areas of town...but it's easier to do this in University and Hi-Tech communities...

[Trek420]

The older housing developments can be very pleasant, with big shady trees and homes set well back on good-sized lots. If they built new ones like that now, I'd be kind of OK with it. It's the cookie-cutter McMansion developments that have been going in all around this area that I'm afraid will happen here, too, and that's what makes me so sad: Losing something unique to the Wal-Mart of housing.

I agree with you on the aesthetic. I prefer a small space with big yard to the big house where you can reach out the window to borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor.

But trees don't grow on .... well trees. Wilderness is wonderful and we must preserve it, and rural farm land too but the human landscape with trees and people takes people. Gardeners particularly.

Take my condo .... please nearly 500 units in the development, my mutt and I walk around it daily and I can count on the fingers of one hand the units where folks log off and turn off the TV long enough to garden. I'm not blaming TV per se but walk around and you see all these smallish condos with monster flat screens in the front room.

Most are satisfied to have the same agapanthus and ivy (two plants I really dislike) in front that the blow and go gardener guys maintain. It's not the builders fault that there's lawn and ivy.

Not to overgeneralize but the human landscapes we prefer came from generations of people who gardened and a lot of that culture is gone.

See "vegetable gardening" thread for more info on this interest returning

[Reesha]

It's not the housing development per se -- it's the way 99.9% of new housing developments in New England are built:

1. Cut down all the trees.
2. Build X number of nearly identical homes not less than 4,000 sq ft.
3. Fill in minuscule yard around said homes with grass (definitely no trees).
4. Repeat ad nauseum.

The older housing developments can be very pleasant, with big shady trees and homes set well back on good-sized lots. If they built new ones like that now, I'd be kind of OK with it. It's the cookie-cutter McMansion developments that have been going in all around this area that I'm afraid will happen here, too, and that's what makes me so sad: Losing something unique to the Wal-Mart of housing.

I agree, but I also think that 99.9% of developments everywhere are awful. The stress that these developments put on local ecosystems and even the infrastructure of communities that approve funding without fully considering the consequences is usually high. I don't really believe that there are vast quantities of people who think "Hey! Let's move to a big ol' tree-less housing development where all the houses look IDENTICAL!" but they end up doing it because that's what's available and the houses are *new* and appear to be less work. I agree that in New England in particular (my home!) space is precious in the metropolitan areas and there are developers circling everywhere trying to make a buck. The majority of developers are not interested in creating sustainable communities, they're looking to make fast cash.

[shootingstar]

But trees don't grow on .... well trees. Wilderness is wonderful and we must preserve it, and rural farm land too but the human landscape with trees and people takes people. Gardeners particularly.

Take my condo .... please nearly 500 units in the development, my mutt and I walk around it daily and I can count on the fingers of one hand the units where folks log off and turn off the TV long enough to garden. I'm not blaming TV per se but walk around and you see all these smallish condos with monster flat screens in the front room.

Most are satisfied to have the same agapanthus and ivy (two plants I really dislike) in front that the blow and go gardener guys maintain. It's not the builders fault that there's lawn and ivy.

Not to overgeneralize but the human landscapes we prefer came from generations of people who gardened and a lot of that culture is gone.

See "vegetable gardening" thread for more info on this interest returning

Comment more to Mr. Silver: Part of the scary problem is simply the disappearance of farms and not enough people entering into the farming business to grow our food because of the financial risks involved in relation to the amount of physical effort involved, despite mechanization to help farmers.

It's great that gardening for family sustainability is returning or for low volume production, but not all people are natural gardeners or want to garden much at all.

So 15 years from now, I don't see food flown from faraway locations, disappearing from our grocery stores. Eating local movement is an excellent trend that will have long term sustainability but the reality for certain geographic areas, our climates just will not produce the food in the optimum manner/freshness that we want it for the sheer residential population.

It's a nice thought to think of canning, blanching, freezing and drying local food for winter preservation. But again, how many of us engage in this big time, even when some of us don't have gardens ourselves. It does mean setting aside time and space (if we have it in a tight apartment).

At most, I clean, cut and freeze fresh salmon, we freeze local blueberries, raspberries. That's all that we do. I can't say that I'm thrilled to freeze beans,..for stir fries in winter. It doesn't taste the same at all.

I don't can fruit nor veggies. It's probably more of a cultural disinterest /unfamiliarity that I don't do it plus lack of space for us to store more in our tight storage space area.

[Trek420]

So 15 years from now, I don't see food flown from faraway locations, disappearing from our grocery stores.

Not to run around in circles screaming "we're all gonna die, we're all gonna die" I do if we don't save our urban/human landscape, and local farms.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...em-479760.html

The human landscape matters. If you don't think so ride out of your city and ask an ooooold farmer. Find someone who's been around the area for 40-50 years farming and ask if they notice changes in the land, crops, animals.

I bet they do.

Meanwhile, plant a garden, eat local, get out and ride 8-)

[kfergos]

I didn't mean to denigrate anybody's choice of housing or start a serious debate about the appropriate method of suburban development in my OP, so I apologize if anybody was offended by my earlier comments. All I intended was to express how I felt so that you'd know why the prospect of that property being developed was upsetting to me.

That said, I have an update! I actually stopped and talked to a couple of the construction workers who were there when I went by after work one day. They said the owner was taking down the buildings (not, apparently, the barn, which is by far the nicest building on the property) because of the taxes associated with it -- I don't know anything about MA property tax, since I don't own property here, so I don't know what that means. But since then they have surgically removed the house, garage, and a building so covered in vines I didn't know it was a building , all while leaving the venerable fruit trees and most of the other property pretty much intact. I am pretty amazed, actually. The workers didn't know or didn't tell me the ultimate plan for the property, but so far it's retained most of the character I've appreciated about it.

I am tentatively relieved and very curious to see what else happens.