duck-shaped pain

A postcard came in the mail the other cay, from the county planning board. It announced some zoning changes to our neighborhood: the farmer down the street had sold his farm, and it is going to be turned into a subdivision, laughingly called "Forrest [sic] Estates." Ha ha. Forrest? Forrest? First off, there's the misspelling. Second, this is the desert. Sure, through irrigation and all, people here have been able to fool themselves into thinking that this isn't really a desert. But if the water were to disappear one day, it would only be a short time before the juniper and cactus and other desert plants began to reassert themselves. "Forrest" my ass.

I guess this isn't that surprising. This farm has been up for sale off and on for the last ten years. Mr. Farmer doesn't grow a lot any more, just field corn and alfalfa: not crucial or tasty crops in any way. Still, I am sad. The view from my front yard, largely peaceful, will now be full of ugly houses and traffic and yelling and whatnot. We don't need any more houses, and we certainly don't need any more cars. I realize that my annoyance here, at least in the way I have expressed it, is entirely self-centered: I don't want my view blocked and the streets around my house to get more traffic than they already do. But at the same time, I also think that the loss of this land for more subdivisions is in some ways tragic. The farmland in my county is already disappearing quickly, threatening peaches, apples and grapes and the people who grow and eat such things. Is the loss of the farm in my neighborhood worth the housing it will provide, in a town that has little shortage of it, where crappy, cheap houses are being built all over the place? Or should I just accept that, at least in this valley, a farm is an artificial landscape, created and maintained only through the help of irrigation, and that what is happening here is the replacement of one artificial landscape with another, less visually pleasing one?

I have to go back to work tomorrow, where there will hopefully be a paycheck. I have secured for myself an enviable six-hour work day, if I can successfully manage to leave at the time I've said that I will be leaving at. Still, all is not pleasant. There has been no replacement hired for C., who left in February. We had a temp worker in for a week or so, who was okay, but who tended to screw things up through her tendency to not ask questions about what it was that she was doing, and who suddenly stopped showing up one day. So it will be a lonely summer at work, since almost everyone else will be in the field. At least I can catch up on downloading crap and perhaps take some naps out on the back lawn.

previous | next