sitting both adjacent and behind our 50 acres is another plot -- 130 acres. other than a pole barn, the only thing on it are trees and a small creek.

last year i spent several months trying to acquire this land. at best we could put cabins on it and generate revenue; at worst we'd have a nice buffer in case liberals move in down the street.

ultimately we couldn't make a deal, and this week i heard a rumor that the owner may have sold it to a property developer who intends to build a subdivision.

i grew up in the suburbs and TBH it was great. we had a neighborhood pool, tennis courts, playgrounds, woods to roam in, even a lake.

but i did not move to a rural area to be next to a subdivision. i came here to make noise, shoot guns, build a compound, and bury enemies in my backyard.

so let's just say this was the worst news of my week.

in our county there is a minimum 1.5 acreage required for each home in a neighborhood. which means realistically, a developer could build at maximum 30-40 homes beside our property. the land is not 100% develop-able (?) due to unrelated issues that i won't share because they give away my location.

so anyway. suppose we had 30 new neighbors. first, i would not really "see" them because most of the 130 acre plot is 100s of yards away from our heavily wooded property line. second, this development would (theoretically) increase our property value if we ever wanted to sell.

third, everyone on my street has a septic tank. a development like this may compel the city to extend sewage lines to our block. although septic is ~50% cheaper than paying for city sewage, this is one benefit i would happily drop. we had a sewage emergency once before and it was pretty... crappy.

yesterday we bought Green Giants from the Home Depot nursery and planted them 12 feet apart along the edge of our property that butts up against the 130 acre plot.

these ~240 feet are the only exposed (no treeline) area between the 2 properties and i don't want any stupid neighborhood kids playing in our pastures or fishing in our pond.

according to the literature, Green Giants grow 30-50' tall and have a longer lifespan than Leyland Cypress, our original plan.

a few hours later we had a huge rain, so i'm hoping these can pull through this summer and turn into something great. because if they don't, well. this area will become our new graveyard.