Eminent Domain...What a Pain...
Yeah, well, people need roads and parks. I understand that. But the Texas Department of Transportation has just made an offer on an eminent domain taking of a second slice of my land, and while the offer is a whole lot better than what I'd read about as a kid--when bulldozers crashed through little old ladies' homes when they refused to sell to the state--the taking of someone's property remains a pain. Our little place is gorgeous. Not the house, but the way the 1.39 acres were laid out by nature and the previous owner, with front, side and back yards, out buildings, a chicken coop, ancient trees and a creek crossed by two bridges...simply one of the prettiest spots on the planet. That's what I think, anyway.
But the state needs 30 feet of it across the whole front for a new road. And that won't kill us, but that's 30 feet by 270 feet and this place just won't be same without it. So I'm sort of grouchy about it.
The other side of the equation is that the new road is going to need a new gas station near the entrance, and I'm the beginning of the entrance ramp, so it could be this will all work out in a couple of years and I'll earn enough from a future sale to go get another gorgeous place with a simple house. And maybe have enough left over to go investigate the pyramids in Peru that I've been dreaming about for so long.
Still, I ain't a happy camper bout this whole thing. And when those trees near the creek get cut I'm gonna chop them with my axe and burn them in the fire pit piece by piece and watch the cool white smoke rise and say prayers into it. I don't know what I'll pray for yet...right now I'm praying it takes the state several years to start the actual road building.
5 comments:
Owwwwie in the heart.
Your post catapulted me back in time to when I was in my twenties and had a little 4.6 acre plot of farmland on which I raised goats for milk and chickens for eggs. Loved that place. The municipal airport expanded and gobbled it right up, no choice for me. Bye bye idyllic life.
There will be a different beautiful piece of earth and nature for you and your family... let your eyes begin to see it...
Sorry for your upsetting news.
Oh--
How is the trip preparation coming? :)
Have a good weekend at the Gorman Zoo!
Thanks. Problem with the zoo is that one of the goats is in rut and he keeps trying to hump his brother and bash me in a goat-challenge every time I go to do yard work. His eyes turn a strange grey, he makes different sounds than usual and is generally ornery to the n'th degree.
Hell, even if I agree to a little kissing it doesn't seem to do anything but get him more fired up.....LOL
Thanks for reading and writing...
I simply do not understand the concept of freedom where you can own land but the goverment (whom you elect) may at any time decide to take it away. If the government can suspend your right to land ownership for "the greater good" where does it end. Sorry I can't think more positively about this, I understand your grouchiness and you deserve it. The wife and I have our collective eye on some very inhospitible (read hard to develop) land for our future endeavors. Best of luck Mr. Gorman.
I visited Saint Louis, for the first time, this summer. The arch was gorgeous, but while I was waiting to take that little pod ride to the top, I toured the museum area.
What I experienced made me physically ill. The Saint Louis Arch is a tribute to "Westward Expansion"--translated means, a tribute to the robbing, slaughtering, lying, and deceiving that happened as a result of a map two guys and and Indian girl came up with. The first eminent domainers. (not Lewis and Clark, but their employers)
My stomach cramped, and I got that slobbery spit that happens right before you puke.
Now, hundreds of years later, Jerry Jones is doing the same thing right here in little old Arlington. And the government is still lying and killing to further its means
It pains me to picture an axe to those trees...better you, than them, though.
Pray in the fire and walk on its coals...
... focused on you very strongly on the 16th and also today...
Light and Love!
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