So, quality-wise, my house is OK, but it isn't the greatest. Basically
it's a "starter" townhouse that I never bothered to upgrade out of. So it
lacks some amenities found in more expensive places. I will probably be
remedying that later, but for now (and the last fourteen years) it's been
an OK place *at best*.
One amenity, however, that is pretty nice and that few others get is that
on the other side of my fence in the backyard is a giant field. It think
it used to be a farm, but the city grew up around it and they stopped
farming it at some point. So as long as I've lived here it's just been a
big unmanicured grassy area that some guy would hop on a tractor and mow
every three weeks or so. There is a line of trees on the other side of the
field which *completely *blocks the massive housing development over there,
which according to Google Maps is only about three trees deep.
Cosmetically, though, it may as well be a forest over there.
I am *completely *surrounded by city, but when I look out my back window I
only see country. My street out front is a dead-end, and so there's no
real traffic front or back, and thus it's very quiet here. I mean, you can
hear the busy road if you listen for it, but it's a ways away.
There is a very nice log farmhouse at the end of the field, maybe 100 feet
or so from my back fence, where the owner of the field apparently lived,
and I would occasionally see people walking around and visiting and
whatever. The driveway to the house goes all the way through the middle of
the field, and the house is as far from the entrance as you can get, and I
would see cars occasionally come and go.
Since I moved in fourteen years ago, I've been afraid that the field would
eventually get sold to some developer and get turned into a housing
development, with eventually some other backyard appearing over the fence
from mine, or, worse, a road. That would not be as good as the current
setup.
Aaaaaand, I just got a piece of paper in the mail, detailing the new owners
future plans for the site. As I was afraid might eventually happen, the
property has changed hands, and yes, there ARE plans.
Turns out a renowned Oregon poet lived in the farmhouse. Since I'm not a
poetry sort, I had no idea. Anyway, Renowned Poet died in 2019 and
apparently willed the property to a local college. That college now wants
to make the farmhouse+field a special "writers retreat" where they invite
new up-and-coming writers from all over the world to come and live in
residency in the farmhouse for a (probably school) year at a time, thus
allowing them to enjoy the peace and quiet of the field and etc. while they
work on their new break-out masterpieces. The paper I got in the mail said
that any improvements on the property would mostly be some landscaping, if
anything at all. As with the poet, the field would mostly be used for
pondering.
So, yay! No housing developments in my future! And apparently the field
out back is now *officially* conducive to pensive thought. Who knew?
Well, I guess the Renowned Poet did. Actually, they did mention that in
the piece of paper, that that's why she lived there. It was supposedly
very inspiring to her. So I guess it's a special field for that, which
I've been leeching off of all along, and even throwing my yard debris
into. I mean, there's just blackberries right over the fence, so who cares
what I toss over there? But at least now I know my yard debris is going
into a high-brow field, and not just some random cow pasture. Although
there's no cows over there, so I guess it wouldn't be that anyway.
Scott
