On the right, the same scene as it appears today. When the owner of the above house died, his heirs sold his farm to an LLC league farmer who now lacks only my farm squaring his land up from one county road intersection to the next. Many would have liked to rent this house, but the new land owner has had headaches dealing with some of the renters he already has in other properties. Rather than risk more headaches, he razed this house and all surrounding trees with a bulldozer. He then dug a hole with a track hoe, pushed all debris into the hole, burned it, then buried the ashes. The beginning of a gravel drive is the only indicator of the former home’s whereabouts.
This isn’t just an isolated incident. The exact same fate has befallen quite a few other perfectly sound farm homes in my community and I suspect, in numerous other farm communities throughout the nation.
I understand the point of view of the landowner. My nephew had recent dealings with a problem renter. For starters, the renter removed the storm door to better display a Christmas wreath, then lost the screws that held it on. He also accumulated truckloads of trash in out buildings and got many months behind on rent. When my nephew finally got this renter out, he didn’t offer the house to anyone else.
Here’s another enterprise contracted by the same land owner who pushed down and buried the house. In this photo, a deep trench is being dug connecting a transient pond with a sink hole. After digging the trench, a 3 foot diameter pipe was placed in the trench connecting the pond to the sink hole, then buried. In addition to the earth works shown in the photo, four dikes with drain pipes were erected along waterways leading to the central bottom shown in the photo. This had to cost many thousands of dollars and gained less than an acre of crop land. I believe a government cost share program paid half or more of the cost.
Now let’s see if I can find a point in sharing these local happenings. They seem to be pretty good examples of excessive energy expenditure for value added. But what besides nothing might I expect anyone here to do about these particular sorts of doings?
Voting for Democratic candidates is a start for all sorts of policy changes leading to cleaner energy sources. But changes in overall societal outlay of energy can only come with individual, day to day decisions.
I can’t do anything about the carbon footprint of the farmer who burned and buried a house and re-contoured a whole farm. I can only do something about my own carbon footprint as can each of you.