Forest end, Lewis Farm

Earlier this year, I started to notice that a wide stretch of forest south of Interstate 95 very close to where I live was being clear-cut. I was horrified and profoundly saddened, and, given my inability to figure out who was responsible for the desecration and why it was being done, I feared that what I was watching was yet another repulsive housing development being foisted on the community, human and natural. To be sure, this one, if that's what was going on, wouldn't be as personal an affront as the sharp-stick-in-my eye abomination right across from my house, but, given what I now have to bear witness to every morning, noon, and night, I'm not sure I can stomach even existential despair. Recently though, I discovered that the cutting was being done to expand the farm fields of a local, much beloved, and more-or-less enlightened farm family who has been working the landscape for generations. I know these folks. I like these folks. I respect these folks. But I sure wish they had used a lighter hand in expanding their operations. That said, while I'd have preferred more woods, silage corn fields certainly beat "little boxes made of ticky-tacky." Big boxes, too.