Jewells of Thought

The Country is not feeling as spread out as it used to feel. The last couple of years have brought about a few changes to the landscape of where I live. In Southern Indiana in my corner of the state it’s really beginning to feel claustrophobic around here.

The shutdowns from Covid were brutal. I totally understand it was worse for those who live in the city. Thank goodness I am not one of them I have always lived in the country. It was such a blessing to have the space here at home that we have and the fresh air although we do live in the country meaning we have roads of rock none of our vehicles stay clean for long. Not to mention we have been next door to a mine my whole life. They may move around a bit but they are still too close for comfort.

So I am all for country life, although I do know it doesn’t take kindly to everyone. Since the shutdowns an influx of people with money have arrived in this little corner of the state. When it happens to your area it kind of gets personal. I guess I have always thought of these 5 acres around our house and the other larger number of acres that the mine is still due to return to us as being our land, our territory. We have been here the longest of pretty much all our neighbors in this immediate area; so it just feels like ours. In the past two years both of our counties, we literally live a mile from the county line, have seen this influx of new sites being worked on.

The Lord allowed Grandpa to accumulate the land, to live on it and work it.

This land is our family inheritance. Grandpa put his heart and soul in this land for the good of his family!

One is too close to home and is meant to be a bachelor’s quarters for hunters from the city. Not too thrilled about this when I have a niece living a stones throw from where this summer cabin of sorts is and with them expecting to be hunting. My family has lived in this area for 30 plus years my grandparents 50 plus years so it grates my nerves a little bit. Especially when we also have had basically the government and the mine take our land and use eminent domain to put the train in the middle of our property. Now these guys are here doing this when a family was forced to leave their home, possible second family it seems, in that same vicinity because the government and the mine wanted their land.

Now we have businesses east of our home. This was a residential country area. There’s a church and a cemetery, where a chunk of our family is buried. I wonder what some of them would say to these big changes in this area. Last year, for the first time ever we couldn’t get home taking our back route home because one of those businesses had a festival of sorts. What should have taken us 5 minutes to get home ended up being up to two hours to get home. The thought they would jam up our road home never came through my mind. Now there are 4 different businesses on this particular road. I don’t think they will all have festivals, but as of this week that same business started a second festival today.

Maybe I’m set in my way or too country. I miss being away from town; I don’t really like town coming to us or city people taking over the land my family has loved for most of a century. The train was the first nuisance we were forced to get used to I just wonder what is coming for us next? I know illegals are in every state now. Land owners have been dealing with squatters in the big cities and not able to get a handle on this situation except by thinking outside of the box literally. According to police the squatters have more rights than the owners, how screwed up is all of this.

Do I have a legitimate worry here? Or am I simply being paranoid?

This land has meant a lot to my family in all of the years we have been here. How would you feel if you were in our situation?

Will squatters stay out of the country except for the country acres they illegally trespass from our lack of a southern border? We aren’t dealing with illegals here this seems to be the normal influx after being in the city during a horrible period of time. They are spending money making new houses making the country seem more like an urban hijacking of our peaceful coveted acreage.