In spring, this is what I see out my back windows.

Right now, it looks a lot like this, but coated in white everywhere. Earlier this winter, during the ice storms, it looked like a fairy tale come true, glistening in the sunlight.

The wetlands run across the entire width of our yard in the back. On the far side of them, the right hand side of the picture is a distant view of a golf course; the middle is a buffer of trees where we frequently see deer and other wildlife; and the left side is an open field – currently farmed, and I hope it remains that way as long as possible. You wouldn’t think from this picture that we are in the middle of a typical suburban housing development, would you? But sure enough, we have a paved street out front, near neighbors on both sides, and a full complement of other houses and their occupants all up and down our street. That street is also part of a much larger housing development, in the middle of a golf course.

It’s an odd area – you can go out one side of our neighborhood and drive through farm country, and out the other side and drive through endless auto dealers, strip malls, and fast food joints just like those which seem to be outside every city in the country. The next stop light past our turn, the paving ends and the dirt road begins. But go three miles in the opposite direction, and we’re downtown.

Unfortunately, we’re on a side of town that is growing rapidly. On my way to work (a roughly five-mile drive) I daily pass one former farm now under construction, and across the street there’s a large “for sale” sign in another field. Despite all the talk about the housing glut in this area and the downturn in the economy, the building continues unabated. Like everyone else, I want to pull up the drawbridge now that I’m here.