The fringes of hurricane Isaias are brushing over us today, having rolled in during the night with heavy rain. As such, I decided to forgo my usual tramp in the woods with the dogs, not wanting to get caught out in one of the possible predicted storms. Instead, I took them for a walk in between downpours in our neighborhood.

Well, technically, the neighborhood behind us. See, I’m surrounded by a wild thicket on three sides, and the front of our property opens onto a busy road. When I first moved here 20 years ago, the only access to a safe walking zone was to either get in the car and drive somewhere, or cut through the back of the property where a path led to a ridge occupied by only a dirt road and a magnificent view.

Oct 28 2015

I used to walk my big German Shepherd up there because there was little traffic and it was peaceful. On days when we had more time, I would take him down to the nearby school, and walk back through a huge empty field occupied by a lone, enormous tree. That tree was gorgeous, like Yggdrasil or Crann Bethadh, spreading wide arms to the sky, deeply rooted in the ground. Once you passed this tree and climbed the steep hill back to the top of the ridge, you could stand on the dirt road and look back the way you came, over the fields that stretched toward the mountains, dotted with a few homes, and the notable presence of a farm with silos.

I got into the habit of taking photos of those silos on most of my walks. Having a smartphone made it easier with time, and I liked catching the same view on different days during the passing of seasons and years.

March 25 2015

Over the years, things changed. Oh, so many things have changed. The animals I moved here with are all gone now, and one of the dogs I’ve gotten since is turning gray around the muzzle. I noticed he has cataracts the other day. I’m a grounded horsewoman now, having lost both horses during this time as well. A twenty pound container of cat litter now feels heavy when fifty pounds of grain did not. My hair is thinner, and my clothes are tighter. On many levels, I feel as though I did not consent to this, but apparently by virtue of being a menopausal woman, I did.

Spring 2016

Other changes occurred as well. They paved the dirt road. They began building houses all along the ridge, blocking out the view of the valley, and giving it to people in five hundred thousand dollar homes on properties the size of postage stamps with an aggressive HOA.

Sept 9 2022

Then they came for Yggdrasil. I knew it was coming because they had begun excavating in the field where we walked, laying down the foundations for a sea of half a million dollar homes with a two car garage big enough for the SUVs and pickup trucks. It hurt just the same, and I wept for a tree that had to be hundreds of years old, bulldozed and ground into splinters with no regard for its beauty or value.

July 29 2025

The silos got a little harder to see as the new developments went up, but they were still there, on farmland separate from the subdivisions. And the construction wasn’t all bad: the subdivisions put in paved walking paths behind the new properties, which made walking in areas that now had much higher traffic a little safer. But it was hard sometimes not to look back on how it used to be and remember the wild beauty of it.

Oct 28 2025

The silos became a thing for me. Something I would frequently photograph, especially with the change of the seasons. So today, when it was raining and misty, I told myself that even if it wasn’t a good day to take the dogs for a hike in the woods, at least I was likely to get a good photo of the silos. 

July 17 2026

Only today when I looked for them, they weren’t there. I couldn’t believe it at first. During the hottest part of the summer, I only took the dogs out after dark, but since it’s been cooler, we’ve been back to our usual walk at dusk. The silos have been such an unchanging presence on my walk that it’s possible I’ve taken them for granted, and they have been gone longer than I realized. Recently new construction has gotten underway, with new roads being put in and plots being bulldozed to create more foundations. Parts of the walking path have been closed due to the construction, so maybe I just missed the disappearance of the silos. Or maybe it only recently happened. Or maybe visibility was so poor this morning they were there and I just couldn’t see them.

It’s bizarre how much I need this last possibility to be the correct one. It’s funny how I’ve weathered loss after loss in the past decade–family members, beloved pets, the person I used to be–but it is the absence of these damned silos that seems to gut me now. In all likelihood, the farm could no longer make a profit. The costs of fertilizer and deiseal are through the roof, and a farm owner, faced with increasing debt and the odds of no one else in their family wanting to take it on, would be a fool to refuse to sell their land to a developer for millions. His or her own children probably pushed them to make the deal, and honestly, it was the best choice for them. How can small farmers hope to compete with the likes of huge factory farms getting subsidies from the government? This unknown person can’t be expected to hang onto a financial albatross simply because I need one constant in my life, one thing to make me feel grounded when the ground around us all is like quicksand. Take the money and run, even though we have enough subdivisions and they aren’t making any more land.

At least it’s not a data center.

Tomorrow, when the weather clears, I’ll go back out to see if I’ve made a mistake. But I don’t think I have.

Nov 2 2025