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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Land Use Choices




In my newest blog for Mother Earth News I recruited a good friend of mine to act as a co- contributor. My friend Sakoieta' has been inspiring and educating people for years where he teaches at Brock University in Canada. He has inspired me and so many others outside his University environment that I asked him if he would contribute to this blog.
I believe that this topic is essential to living with nature as opposed to trying to work against nature. On one of my other topics I received a comment from a gentleman who thought he was living rural with his nearest neighbor a mile away. He soon found himself with his dirt road paved and chock full of neighbors with all the noise a group of people bring with them. Therefore wise use of our land can be instrumental in our lifestyles and happiness.

We too experienced the noise factor two years ago when a neighbor 3/4's of a mile away had the sound from his generator amplified up the side of the mountain. If you stood next to the generator it was fairly quiet. The sound however became more amplified as it went up the terrain and when it reached us it sounded like a semi truck going through gears driving past our house. A reasonable neighbor would have understood the situation and not run it at night but this particular neighbor became very belligerent over the matter. It was finally resolved but left a polarized community and hurt feelings. So when the gentleman wrote me to tell me of his remote living suddenly turned congested and complete with the noise I could sure sympathize with him.

If you want to read our most recent collaborative effort on land use, go to: http://www.motherearthnews.com/the-happy-homesteader/choices-wise-land-use.aspx
My purpose for writing it is maybe it will inspire someone to make good choices about land use and not think that they need to build a home, strip the land and plant non-native grass, exotic trees and shrubs to make the homestead look better. If you ask me when our wildflowers bloom there is no more beautiful place around and it is all natural and native.

So don't just rush in with a back hoe and push everything aside and strip the land because it is more convenient for you to build, but think about what you are doing; don't fight nature, but consider working with nature instead. It is just common sense to do so.

3 comments:

Deirdre said...

Bob told me that when he was in England he noticed that the roads were built to go around old tree stands, instead of cutting them down. We don't know if that was a always the case there, but it is a lovely idea. Of course it made the driving more enjoyeable and kept the old trees alive and prized as great and living treasures, just as it did the historical buildings. Sounded wonderful to me.

Patricia said...

Your comments reminded me of the last time I camped in Mesa Verde National Park. I thought camping was about enjoying the beauty of nature and the lovely peace and quiet. The loud mouth drunks who camped across the road from us apparently thought otherwise. They sat up drinking and partying until the wee hours. Kind of made me want to set their tent on fire.

Bruce said...

We had that happen to us one time too, Patricia. We ended up breaking our tent down in the middle of the night and leaving. The drunker they got the louder they got and we were out of there.