VA: Development in Orange Hunt (Flint Hill Farm)

[talloaks]

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”>billion dollar piles of stone-fronted 2x4’s. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

gothedistance, are you suggesting all those, in your quote, are just Hollywood Brick/Stone Jobs??? For that kind of money you don’t even get the real thing eh??? (“eh” is the Canadian influence!!!)

[Pwinslow1]

hey, as the aged 47 year old Mom of a 7 year old little boy - it’s sure rocked my world upside down quite unexpectedly - I was an unabashed proponent of zero population!! - no more leisurely trail rides, nights before the events in the bar having a few so I wouldn’t feel the ground the next day… - but the times in the barn aisle where his first pool was a clean Fortex bucket, his first ribbon in the “Walk” class on Mr. Elliott - and having him give ME a riding lesson and lecturing me about my heels - wouldn’t trade it for the world - so lecture all ya’ll want - I"m not having more than one rest assured!! - but’s he’s the most fun in the whole world - and he’s now an excuse to ride and have even MORE adventures!!!

jw

[2ndyrgal]

I hate development with a passion, having watched many of the farms of my childhood turn into mini malls and subdivisions, and we didn’t foxhunt on this land, we grew crops and raised cattle! At some point, it won’t be about land to hunt on, it will be about where are we going to get our food? Yes, it IS about the almighty dollar, and everything has a price. Large tracts of land that are owned by family members who simply do not care to hold on to valuable land and would rather have the money will always be sold to the highest bidder. My huband and I owned a property several years ago, near a well traveled road with a lake on it. Apparently the previous absentee owners did not care who fished or when. We did. When folks started showing up and putting up “camp” right behind my lakefront home, they were surprised when I objected. How could I restrict their use? My reply…if you wanted to fish on this lake, you should have done what I did and bought it when it was for sale. If it was for sale for years and the hunt didnt purchase it, then shame on them for whining about it. Members of our hunt have found less valuable land, purchased adjoining acreage and ensured for themselves a place to hunt for the future. It isn’t Middleburg, but the hunting is great and apparently there are tax benefits. Old money and large tracts of land in premium areas will not be there forever. The financial base being so much greater in the Virginia Hunts than elsewhere, one would think it would not be such a problem. Do I wish that there were not subdivisions and mini malls, of course. Is that realistic? No. “A Portion for Foxes” was published years ago. Maybe we should dust off our copies and learn from it instead of trying to shut the door after the horse is gone. To think one will compel landowners to agree to make it mandatory to allow the hunt access in this day and age is probably not going to happen. With the way all the eminent domain laws are going, you’re lucky the lot sizes are so generous.

[Hunter_s_Rest]

The same builder-developer, Gretchen whatsit, did the exact same thing just down the road from Flint Hill Farm in Hume a few years ago. The development took a 150 acre or so tract of land that was nothing but bramble and hedgerows and deer trails and a few Old Dominion Hounds maintained rides (and a beaver pond and a feeder creek for Thumb Run) and made it into parkland. It is beautiful - land purchasers had to choose from a dozen or so home plans that she’d then build so the community looked as if it was cohesive. It really is pretty, and there are a ton of covenants - no fencing (except for her pretty 3 board black peremiter fence), no outbuildings, etc. It is gorgeous. ODH has ride-thru privileges. BUT — the parkland does not allow for (much) covert for little or big game. No feeding shrubs or cover for quail or hedges for little rabbits or mice or what have you. We must stay to hte driveways (which isn’t that big a deal, really) but it is now just a big ride-thru, not a hunt territory, really. I’d like to say she ‘ruined’ the place, but, Fauquier actually has 10 acre zoning or something, so, in reality, what she did is better than 15 houses (instead of 7 or so). Development is a product of HAVING BABIES. WE NEED LESS. Anyone else want to join the bandwagon of non-reproducers???

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Hey, hey. Nobody get testy on me here. I suggest not having kiddies for the same reasons as I have exhaustively maintained previously.

1. Green space
2. overcrowded schools
3. road rage
4. pollution
5. farmland lost is farmland lost forever
6. not breeding further generations that believe that milk comes ‘from a store’
7. diluted gene pool has some relation to intelligence (see refs. to Guns, Germs and Steel on the off course board.)
8. There is nothing, nothing at all, that requires the human species to reproduce oneself at the cellular level. I’d rather leave my ‘mark’ another way than an ankle biter.
   Just some amused thoughts as I (like most of you) tune into 107.7 all news radio and listen to the pitiful traffic reports every 10 minutes.
   Actually, that gave me another, perhaps better, idea for stopping OVERgrowth in rural areas. What if we petition for UNpaving I66 and I70 (in Maryland). Make those roads gravel 1 1/2 lanes. That would stop the slouching crawl of suburbia in its tracks and turn it right back. If the planners keep improving the friggin’ roads what do they expect that people won’t move farther out since the commute has just gotten ‘easier’ due to the 6, 8, 10 lane highways bisecting your neighbor’s lovely cow pasture.
   Just some thoughts as the sun sets once again on lovely (rural) Rappahannock County. Air cooling, birds still singing, not a house (or even a barn) in sight. Horses snorting, crow calling goodnight, crickets starting their chirp. Leave the floodlights off. Leave the ac off. Enjoy the quiet. It might not last …

[Piaffe56]

How many people here have put conservation easements on their own farms or taken steps to make their own land unavailable for development? How many people financially support their local land trust or land conservancy group? It is not just about the large landowners.

[wateryglen]

Wow, don’t get me started! My last 2 hunts have been wiped out by developement. Bull Run died near Manassas and rose from the ashes down in Culpeper. Now Loudoun is almost gone. I think I’m bad luck…Hey! Anybody need a new hunt member?!! I swear I wanna go hunt far, far from here. Hey, how ya’ll doin’ out there in Missouri!! Nebraska sounds nice!

[Windsor]

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-title”>quote:</div><div class=“ip-ubbcode-quote-content”>Originally posted by Glimmerglass:
Of course I’m of the belief that in large part gates really shouldn’t be necessary. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It “shouldn’t be necessary” for me to deadbolt my door at night, either, but it’s a precaution I never fail to take. Too many nutjobs.

If someone made the effort, as Tantivy suggested, to put up nice-looking gates that don’t stick out, it seems like they should be able to put them up without fear of incurring the neighbors’ scorn. If I’m living on 100+ acres in the middle of nowhere, I think I’d sleep a little more soundly knowing (a) that I had gates and (b) they’re closed and locked at night (after having been, as Tantivy says, “invitingly open” all day, that is).

[Painted_Wings]

It is happening everywhere. Even in Missouri! Our hunt is looking at moving farther out. If so, will we be able to maintain members?

This photo of our country says it all:

http://www.pbase.com/lesliegra/image/40752513

And this one:

http://www.pbase.com/lesliegra/image/40752514

Very sad. These photos taken at our last hunt from the club last season. Now the 130 acres behind our farm is sold, more hunt country lost.