A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
I have had some disappointments in my previously idyllic neighborhood. George and I moved here eight years ago from the central part of town because we outgrew my 30’s era, quaint wood-floored but one bathroomed home, and loved the out of town, rural environment, with its very small, quiet, one entrance neighborhood where everyone has at least an acre, and which is surrounded by ranches and hills. We got a great deal on our home as the previous owner had built it just before his wife left him. He was disillusioned with his dream-life/home, and behind on his taxes, so he pretty much sold it for cost to keep the IRS from seizing his profits.
But then they built a huge shopping center on the main highway which increased traffic on our ranch roads, as well as increasing the light pollution at night. We used to see a lot of stars. And more recently, one of the ranches adjoining our neighborhood sold its 45 acres to be developed for housing. My heart ached as I heard the bulldozers, in orcish fashion, cracking down groaning, longstanding oak trees behind our property. At least each custom designed house will be spread out on acre lots, and the front entrance has a nice, but faux, wooden ranch fence.
I mentioned last week that we were starting to take walks out on the ranch road. It was pretty nerve-wracking to be forced to walk in the culvert to avoid the traffic which I hadn’t realized had increased so much on a nearby road. There is a lot of natural gas drilling going on in our surrounding counties and the amount of loud trucks that it takes to haul the drilling materials is ridiculous. They’re going to have to repave all our roads, which will need to be widened when they’re through because of the new super bright shopping centers and car dealerships.
But maybe it wouldn’t be too compromising to find an unexpected boon. Yesterday we decided to walk the other direction and ended up walking through the newly paved road loop of the new, but still houseless, neighborhood. By the way, there are some aggressive dogs in our neighborhood, and the teenagers who ran over our sweet dog (Punkin, not Pippin) live there so I haven’t enjoyed walking our neighborhood for a while. We don’t stay on the heavily trucked road for very long if we cut into the new neighborhood, and the cleared land still has some trees on it and the view of the nice, rolling property is much better from the inside. And it makes the mile walk much safer. Hopefully we will get some nice neighbors who have good taste in building who will keep the walk enjoyable. I wish ranch roads were more pedestrian friendly because I’d rather walk amid the cows, goats, horses and donkeys along that route, if it were as peaceful as these pictures show.
