Homebuyers beware: Farms will fill the senses (ROFL ---- DUH Alert)

St. Cloud Times ^ | 12/22/03 | Kirsti Marohn

[coder2]

Someday, prospective Stearns County rural homeowners may get a scratch-and-sniff lesson on farm life.

For now, Stearns will use a brochure to inform people thinking about building a home in a rural area about the sights, sounds and odors associated with farming.

[open mind-closed fist]

It's funny, growing up in the city, we called this "fresh country air". And, we were damn happy every time we got to smell it because it meant we were fishing or hunting -- having fun. It smelled like freedom to most city kids.

[cpst12]

>>I've often wondered about the viability of building a home on formerly cultivated land--

If you are worried about that, then you should be really worried about eating the stuff that came out of the field!

[Capriole]

I am so heartily tired of this S***.

Suburbanites read Country Living magazine and think that living in the country consists of plunking a brand new three-car-garage, vinyl-sided McMansion down in the middle of a field and watching the children frolic with lambs. But when they actually move out to the sticks, they don't like country life so much, and rather than move back to the 'burbs, they demand that the 'burbs move out to them. They start whining that it's so far to go pick up a gallon of milk or rent a video; why can't they have a little strip mall a mile or so down the road? Why can't there be some fashionable shops? Why can't they have sewer and water hook-ups? For that matter, why can't the roads be widened so that their commute to their law offices is faster? And those hunters are such a disgrace, making the countryside so dangerous on autumn Saturday afternoons! And the farm vehicles are so tedious, too! The suburbanites were trying to drive little Morgan's hunter pony to a show the other morning and there was this combine, if you can imagine it, taking up the whole lane!

Of course, if they whine long enough the strip malls do start to appear. Then they have the same sort of crowding, congestion, and ugliness they were trying to escape from in the suburbs, and the relaxed rural community is gone. So are the farms, livestock, and country people; the only inhabitants are bleached-blonde real estate agents and antique dealers.

Yuppies who move to the country and then whine ought to be forcibly ejected and sent back to suburbia.

[VetoBill]

I suspect that many of those farmers didn't sell because they wanted to, they sold because the property tax on the land was so high that they could not afford to farm the ground anymore.

[Feckless]

I could not live within the city limits of any town again. My sister from DFW visits me and can't sleep at night. The night sounds (whiporwills, coyotes, bull frogs, etc) scare her to death. She misses the ambulance and police sirens and the occasional shot in the night.

[VetoBill]

To smell a cow patty you have to get on your knees and put your nose right down to it

Doesn't have to be a large operation, just has to rain and stay humid for a couple days... I guarantee you will smell something from more and a few feet away.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

I lived in Northern Ireland for three years, in the country, and right across the road, to the west, was a pig farm. I knew that when I bought the place. Never had an odor problem inside the house. Prevailing winds should have made it unpleasant. Occasionally we got some of the aroma if we were working outside, but it never was a serious problem. I would choose the country life any time to living in the city, there or here. Now we live on 5 1/2 acres in Ohio, we have horses and Beefalo and chickens. No odor problems, and no complaints from the neighbors.

[William Terrell]

Alabama has high heat, lots of rain and high humidity 9 months out of the year.

[VetoBill]

The night sounds (whiporwills, coyotes, bull frogs, etc) scare her to death

I have relatives that are scared to death of the remote area where I live. It spooks them to drive 40 + miles without meeting another car. I guess they love traffic or something.

[Independentamerican]

I went to a christian boarding school in New Market VA and every morning I was treated to new and different scents. After awhile I got use to it and often go back to visit just to get a way from the carbon monoxide, car horns in my area.

[baltodog]

"Yuppies who move to the country and then whine ought to be forcibly ejected and sent back to suburbia."

Right-freaking-on!!!
I live in a rural part of the city -- as rural as it can get-- and it's WORK to live here.
Wanna' garden? Be prepared to pick weeds when it's 105 degrees out.
Wanna' nice lawn? Be prepared to spend lots of time and money.
Wanna' fixer-upper? Be prepared to devote your life to it.

Everyone wants instant gratification and then cannot understand that nature has moved at the same speed for eternity.

[isatoi]

I ABSOLUTELY AGREE!!!!!!!!!!! If you don't like it, get the H@!! out!!!!!! That is my philosophy. I live in the country and there is nothing like it. When I was young we moved from a small town to Houston, if you can imagine. When I got old enough I moved back to the small town life. Then when I married, we moved into the country life. It is a wonderful thing to know when you hear a car, its at your house. Or to be able to go outside and sit n the porch and actually see the stars. No Pollution, no noise (cept the wild dogs). No crotchety neighbors..........HEAVEN on EARTH

Merry Christmas All
Lisa

[lewislynn]

I only shake my head in disappointment as one of the most charming counties in Michigan falls victim to 'progress'. Whatever. It just depresses me to see so many farms disappear.

Well YOU could buy their land, then farm or preserve it...Or, you could (for selfish reasons) take away the private property rights of the farmer for the sale of farm land...Or, you could offer another huge increase in farm subsidies and restrict imported foods so they can afford to stay on the land

Your dream can come true, it's up to you.

[coder2]

Geez, your post sounds like where I live...

So many city people move or visit here because of the beauty of the area...

But then they start to complain because the drive to modern conveniences or shopping malls, or major restaurants ---- UGH UGH UGH

And of course, they are starting to build these at the expense of the very beauty they were trying to find in the first place...

What absolutely drives me nuts are the people that come up here for the quiet, and then take their jet skis out and continue to run them in circles on the lake. I've talked to them, and they just exclaim about the beauty & quiet.. HUH ???? Well, maybe after hours of listening to the whine of the machine, they are now deaf, I dunno

[sarasota]

Worry has led me to organic produce and products.

[rintense]

You don't know how many times I have driven past land for sale wishing I had the capital to buy it. Progress is a fine thing. But when you sell your soul for profit, what is left when the money is gone? Maybe I'm a cynic here, but the day will come where the US is solely dependent on other countries for her food supply. That day, I fear, isn't too far away. I'd rather see farming given proper credit, and encourage people to continue farming. This from someone who grew up in the city.

[alfa6]

Nothing like driving by a feed lot to get the full effect of a couple of thousand head of beef. Passed a feedlot west of Amarillo Texas a few years ago on I-40. You could smell the cattle a half mile coming and going. The kids wanted to know what the smell was and the wife, who is an old farm girl, said "Dinner".

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[MarkL]

Don't need no stinking "scratch and sniff" cards! Just have anyone thinking about this stuff take a trip out to Garden City, KS. There are feed lots on 3 sides of the city... No matter what direction the wind is blowing, it's blowing across a feed lot!

Mark

[templar]

Unfortunately, the farmers usually lose the resulting battles and are eventually forced out of business (mostly due to economics)

Been a big problem here in Colorado. City folk (usually from elsewhere) come in and buy up farmland to develop into rural housing developments. Build 500,000 dollar houses on 5 to 35 acre tracts, sell 'em to other city folk (usually from elsewhere). They new homeowners then begin to complain about the odors, crop dusting, dust, etc. associated with farming, even try to get it stopped by the authorities or pass laws against it. Some counties have had to pass laws protecting the farmers from this.

[Muleteam1]

>>Ahhhhh, honeysuckle. And being able to walk outside of your home and night, and hear only the faint sounds of crickets chirping........<<

And here in New Mexico, looking into the sky and fully understanding why they named it the "Milky Way."

Muleteam1