The land adjacent to ours has been untouched and unused except for some trails in the 11 years we’ve lived here, and by the looks of it, probably since the mid-80's. But the owner passed away and the family is doing some logging on the property. We’re also getting at least one new house on our quiet dead-end road with just 5 houses now - all on the same side, opposite this forested land.
Our hope is that we can buy some of the land, at least what’s across the road from us - the land next to us is where they’re building. It’s ~60 acres total, so we’re hoping that the family will either a) do the logging and then leave it alone or b) if they DO subdivide it, that we can get a parcel big enough to join it with our existing ~5 acres, parcel out our house, and put the rest in conservation to minimize our tax burden and preserve the land.
I’m still sad to lose this land the way it was, where I explored with my kids, found frogs in the vernal pool (where that machine is parked in the pic above), and where the trails connected up to other local trails. But it’s not my land. Here’s hoping we can change that!
Oh, at least the kids are entertained by this process. Yesterday around 7am a huge skidder showed up on a trailer:
About 10 seconds later:
And I might try to get a deal on some of the trees for firewood - ideally, free. I figure it’s the least they can do for coming in and doing all this without so much as a single word to us as an abutter. If it wasn’t such a small town, I would have found out only when the equipment showed up at the end of my driveway. Some kind of notice would have been a nice courtesy, but it’s not required for the scope of work they’re doing, so here we are.