Before shifting to cattle I raised dairy goats. One evening 20 years ago I got home and the door to the house—closed when we left—was open. Uh-oh.
Inside, 17 baby goats were sleeping in a pile on the couch. A doe was standing in the bathtub eating a bar of soap. Four more were standing on the kitchen cabinets. They’d opened the cabinets and spread most everything edible around the house. Boxes of cereal. Bread.
A dozen more were wandering the house. They let in two pigs who found a half-gallon jar of honey, opened it and spread it all over the floor. Footprints of honey are still there to this day.
The whole place was about an inch deep in droppings.
My girlfriend at the time cleaned with me silently and then moved out the next day. She moved 5000 miles away. Never saw her again.
@BuffaloByGodDan I tried bare root redbud up in zone 4B. They’re not liking it but shockingly they haven’t died. They’re 9 years old and still about three feet tall.
@iowahawkblog Absolutely LOVE when this guy pops up in my feed. He’s observant and his affect of dumbfounded awe is comedic genius. The French tend to be stuffy. That’s what made Peter Sellers’ impersonation of the French so hilarious. This dude is a gem. Glad Texas has him.
@jerrythornton My knowledge of figure skating is pretty much limited to Nancy and Tonya. But even I know that was electric, smooth as butter, totally in the zone. She is the HERO of these games. USA!!!
It doesn’t affect current use per se. It’s statewide zoning and property rights seizure targeted at the most rural landholders and locks up the only land left in the state that is affordable to those who’d like to homestead. It’s regressive.
It eliminates ACT 250 review and promotes rampant development in their chosen high density areas and then maps the vast majority of the state under tier 2 and tier 3 designation. Tier 2 precludes driveways over 800 feet among other things. Tier 3 is total restriction designated as “land to be set aside” in the verbiage of planning commissions. With a stroke of a pen remote farms, woodlots, and affordable backroad homesteads, lots gets automatic Act 250 review to do absolutely anything. Want to build a cabin behind the house for your kids if you happen to fall within Tier 3? Hire a team of lawyers, pay thousands in fees, engineers, impact analysis, public hearings and be told no 24 months later by an unelected Development Review Board.
The stated justification of Act 181 was to increase urban development in Vermont while matching UN global land conservation targets by permanently conserving 30% of total land area by 2030 and 50% by 2050.
They just decided it was most expedient to eliminate private property rights for rural Vermonters and the working poor and overrode Scott’s veto. The law comes into force July 1 and they haven’t even made the latest draft rules and maps public.
I’ll be testifying at the State House in a few weeks. Fix-it bills are in committee but Amy Sheldon chair of the House environment committee and sponsor of the original bill is taking a multi-week vacation to dead-end those repair bills in committee.