One person's endeavors are another person's nightmare!

One person's endeavors are another person's nightmare!!!!







     My philosophy on life has always been simple. A person is on his/her own path and should enjoy life the way they want. Sometimes my outlooks rise up and bite me in the butt.

There is a gentleman buying up all the land he can. On my road, he owns the farm in across the road and bought the farm down the street. Those two farms total about 1300 acres. As near as I can figure, in the last year he has bought or rented several thousand acres.

He is turning it all into pasture land for cattle. Since they are grazing in open spaces and not penned in small areas, I don't know if it is considered  factory farming.

Word is out that he would like to buy any land a farmer wants to sell.

Like I said, usually I would salute him. This time, his actions are changing my life.

He is clearing all of the land. That's right, there is not a tree, shrub or weed in sight. He puts up beautiful fences and brings in trailer loads of cows.

About now, you are saying to yourself, "There has got to be a point to this. Who cares if he raises cattle?"


Well, all of those woods he bulldozed down contained the homes of several hundred deer, coyotes, owls, mice, raccoons, badgers, opposums, bobcats, a mountain lion and several ferel cats and a million rabbits.


Can you guess where all of those animals are now? Okay, not all of them, I'm sure, but a huge number of them.


I woke up the other morning with three adult coyotes in the orchard. To put this in prospective, the orchard is about 50 feet from my bedroom window. They can't find much prey so they have become vegaterians. More specificly, they are eating every apple and pear they can get their paws on.


The sheep graze in the orchard daily, but now I have to take a shotgun out each morning and shoot it several times to scare off the coyotes so the sheep can come out.  I don't kill them because so far they haven't eaten a lamb or a calf. The one I kill might be replaced by an animal who has a taste for mutton or veal.


The owls are fighting over the mice, ferrel cats and maybe my cats if they happen to be in the wrong place at the worng time.


The ferrel cats are hungry and eating the cat food in the barn as are the raccoons, opposums and groundhogs.  This is not a good situation.


At first I didn't want to sell the farm knowing the first thing the guy is going to do is bulldoze my orchard to the ground. It is not the world's best producing orchard, but we have slaved in it for nine years. When we started the trees looked like sticks in the ground. Now they are big enough to climb.


We are getting ready to build a new green house and it has us thinking. Do we want to live here? We are now the only people on the road for 4 miles. Hum.


There is much to think about. Thought I would share this because someitmes it helps to write it down. Besides, I am a writer more than a farmer.


I was told today that there are people who come out and kill all of the coyotes. Others would come. Maybe not as many, but it only takes one or two to eat my sheep.


Of course, people are selling out here. There are many people who come along and other to buy your farm. Most people don't want all this land and the work that comes with it.


Maybe a moat is the answer. I always wanted a moat around the farm. I  get voted down every time. My first step will be to move the sheep out of the orchard and into the field next to the hoop house. Then am going to horse fence it and move the three big dogs out there and let them run. It will do several things. It will keep all of the wild life at least 7 acres from the house. For those of you who aren't farmers, picutre each acre as about the size of a football field.


It will also protect the sheep in their new space.
Okay. I am finished. Felt good to have my say.