Suburban Spread

After dropping my eldest off at school, I decided to get my free latte since I had a full punch card. Waiting in line at the coffee stand, I was able to take in the beauty of the snow covered mountains! 

As my eyes lowered to the horizon, the pristine view became marred due to huge homes on the golf course. "So sad" I thought to myself, as some of those huge homes on perfectly manicured half acre or so lots sit empty during the long winter season. The HOA's there are particularly stiff. Stiff as in you get in trouble if you leave your garage door open longer than ten minutes.

That brought my thoughts to my family's situation. Trying to come up with financing as a first time home buyer on usable land without becoming hugely burdened with debt due to inflated land prices. 

Then I realized something: The loss of farmable/usable land is directly related to dependence on grocery stores (and stores in general). 

Putting my situation on hold and looking at the generality of what is going on, here is how I came up with that: 

As cities become more populated people want to move out "in the country" but don't want to give up their big city lifestyle and all the conveniences that go along with that. So, someone buys acreage, subdivides it, puts in an HOA and starts selling the land at inflated prices. People come (to live full time or seasonally) and buy this "lot", builds on it, landscapes it, and lives their merry lives. 

There really isn't anything wrong with that picture, in fact for some it's the "American Dream". I'm not against that! 

Now back to my story.

Now that we've found out I need to eat organically 99% of the time (the remaining 1% is when I eat out at friends/family homes), it's impacted our budget dramatically to the point where we either need to become a two income family or go back to basics and grow a great majority of our own food. . .

No big deal, right? Eh, not exactly. . .

Land prices are pretty inflated everywhere, but easily double what we are used to. Add in the fact that we want to have livestock, chickens, a huge garden and obviously a place to live and the price goes up past our financial ability. 

What is interesting to me, though, is that it is SO hard to go back to the land, even though it's the best choice! One would think it would be easy to procure land and just start basically homesteading it, but its so hard to find! If its not HOA, its the conventional field right next to you spraying the very poisons that you're allergic too. 

All this from slowly becoming more dependent on others and not yourself. I'm no doomsday prepper, but even if I didn't have to have organic food, I sure enjoy having a garden!

The disconnect from the land and where our sustenance comes from is mind-boggling and sad. 

So very sad. 

I'm still praying the one opportunity we have at some property will come through, by some miracle. If it doesn't come through for us, then I just pray we can find someplace quickly where we can grow a lot of our own food. 

And all this stems from admiring the beauty of the mountains. . .

~KT~

P.S. I'm not against growth, just mourning the loss of ease to which one can "go back to the land".