I Must Be Getting Old.

I have lived in this area for nearly 16 years. During this time I have lived in 2 homes and worked for the same company.

Our of shear boredom, I have driven most every route imaginable to get from home to office and back, day in and day out. (Incidentally – 200 working days a year X 2 trips a day X 15 years = 6,000 trips, not including the days I ‘ran' home for lunch.) Some years ago my north most route was a 2 lane through a rather rural area with many small farms and one very large farm. The large farm has nearly 1,000 acres of crops. I watched them responsibly rotate soybeans and corn through the vast fields each year. I also watched them go form the old plow and tilling method to the more popular ‘no till’ method used widely today. They also have about 300 head of Black Angus cows. Turning down a side road (another of my routes) you could go very near the main barn and see as many as 3 stud bulls just ‘hanging’ out in all of their ‘bull’ glory….

Starting about this time of year, maybe a little later (like late February early March) I would see very pregnant cows on my morning drive moving away from the heard. Then on my return in the evening there would inevitably be a new calf. Sometimes on cool spring mornings I would catch a glimpse of a newly born calf, laying in the grass, steam rising of off the new life, mom standing by. Although never really seeing the actual event, the sight of a new life was both awesome and somber. I remember one day seeing a new calf in the morning laying in the grass, mom standing oddly far away. When I returned in the evening in, it was still laying there, nature having seen to take this life down a different course.

Today the 2 lane has become a 4 lane and only that big farm remains. The others have become houses and urban strip malls that are the bane of today’s growth and progress. Recently I have noticed that all of the cows are gone on the big farm, and I have heard on the news that the farm has been sold and will become 400-500 homes with a ‘neighborhood shopping area’ (read ‘another strip mall’).

I guess I should be grateful to live in an area that is growing… but it seems to me that the cost is too high.

I must be getting old.