Cold, clear, and sunny this morning. Managed to trip over the dog, no harm to her, no improvements to me....but I will be okay. Just a few bumps and bruises. Concrete is not forgiving.
Meanwhile, there is another world parallel to ours, which we experience pretty much every day. Alike in some ways, different in many others
It is astounding how the county has changed in the past 20 years or so. We used to have to go to Lancaster, now Lancaster has come to us. Used to be dozens of small English farms were scattered everywhere. Fifty or sixty cow dairies, pastures, small square hay bales, and concrete silos or Harvestores. Farm machinery auctions and cattle sales were abundant and a lot of fun for participants and spectators.
Almost all of them are gone now, leaving a handful of larger farms and hundreds of little Amish sawmills, tiny dairies with communal milk houses, goat, sheep and horse farms and greenhouses.
Like everything in life it has its good and not quite as good aspects. We share the roads with both tanker trucks, flying along taking up most of the road and wagons with a milk can or two, horses limping along at a snail's pace. It can be very scary driving at night. No matter how slow you go it isn't easy to see unlit farm wagons drawn by bay or brown horses...at least most of the buggies have some form of light now.
On the other hand it is good that the land is farmed still and nice to be able to buy produce along the road. We froze many pints and quarts of winter squash this year thanks to a neighbor who sells his less than perfect ones along the roadside. The better ones go up to the big auction up west.
One way or the other change is constant....might as well embrace it.
Our ground here is being purchased and developed into subdivisions...it's so hard to see top quality farm ground being planted with houses. Sigh
ReplyDeleteLinda, it is so sad to see that going on. Around here we have solar arrays, housing developments, and Amish. Of all I prefer the Amish
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