Yah so that’s my thoughts right now, but I can't elaborate until latter. Let's just say my hatred for the Town of Plattsburgh has just reached a new high.

Tomorrow is the first of three, yes THREE, meetings with the planning board, which means that it will be a least April until we can start building anymore shelters in the field. I know that these regulations are in place for a reason, but with more and more people deciding to raise their own food I think they need to reevaluate how they go about regulating small farms. It's ridiculous that we have to go through the same process as a commercial farm when we only have a few animals. The Planning Board officer said that ours is the first situation of this kind in the town, but just because we are the first doesn't mean there won't be others.  We are doing everything that the town has asked of us, and while they are working with us, what of the next backyard homesteaders? Do they really expect every person that wants to own a few chickens, goats or pigs to go through a three month planning board process, plus have an engineer draw up their plans? We only have one 20' x 20' preeminent structure planned; all the others will be portable and on skids, yet we still have to have an engineer's stamp on our plans. I don't even want to think about what that is going to cost.

I know that the main concern is that we are right up against a sub-division, but we are taking every precaution that our animals are not a nuisance. Except for a couple times when we first got the animals, we have been able to keep them in their pens and they have been less of a nuisance then the neighborhood dogs. We are doing everything possible to make sure they don't smell, but even if they did we live in an area surrounded by cornfields, it always smells like cow manure around here.  

Our little farm is not going to detract from the value of the surrounding homes, or drive people out of the neighborhood because of smell, noise, or vermin. Our little farm is going to provide my family and friends with fresh eggs, naturally raised meat and vegetables. Our farm will bring value to the community and an educational opportunity to the community's children. Our little farm should NOT be subject to the same regulations as a commercial farming operation, and the Town of Plattsburgh needs to realize that they need to make some changes so those that come after us don't have to go through the same hassle. 

The deadline for submitting our paperwork is today! Luckily we finished everything up last night and submitted it this morning. The meeting is going to be on Tuesday February 8th. Hopefully everything goes well and we won't have to deal with anymore of this bull sh**.

So latter today we are heading down to Jeff’s parent’s house for Christmas (for more info on my opinion of Christmas check out my blog post on my other website)… which is about eight hours away. I am probably going to have an ulcer by Sunday, this is the first time we have left for any extended period of time sense getting all of the farm animals and I am a nervous mess. Luckily my father is taking care of all the bigger animals behind his house and we have a friend stopping over to take care of the chickens. I don’t foresee anything going wrong, but still I worry! 

 Well, we will be back on Sunday and then we have to start working on our site plan for the Town Planning Meeting. We received an email this past week saying we had to either submit something to the planning board or face a fine, so yah. We explained to the Town that Jeff is being laid off and that we were holding off until we knew if we were going to have to move or not; luckily Jeff has found another job locally so we won’t have to move. We are scrapping the barn plans though, and will just be putting up movable shelters instead. We figure with the movable sheds we can rotate grazing so one pasture doesn’t get over grazed. We have to have everything together before January 18th (might have the wrong date) for the February planning meeting. I am actually looking forward to butting heads with the local anti-farmers again J I have given up on being frustrated and now just find amusement in their useless attempts to get us to remove our animals.

So, yeah that about sums up the town zoning board meeting tonight. The zoning board decided that it wasn't their issue and that because it was agricultural that we needed a approved site plan not a variance. So the site plan application has to be in by Tuesday so we can appear before the planning board next month. Well at least this is a step in the right direction... right?

The one thing I am concerned about it that the codes guy said this is setting a president, that now anyone that wants to own farm animals in the town has to have at least 7 acres and an approved site plan, or at least that's how it was explained to us. So now what happens to all those people in the town that have a half acre and a small flock of chickens? This is such a mess, I think the town really needs to look into how to handle small farms, backyard homesteaders, and urban chickens owners. This is not something that is going away, more and more people want to raise their own food, even if that just means a small veggie garden and a couple egg layers. Local government has to learn to adapt to the local, homegrown food movement, because we are here to stay.

So the Zoning Board meeting is tomorrow.... good news is that we have about a dozen contingency plans if the variance doesn't go through :) I can be a conniving little bitty when I what to be. I just hope the variance goes through and that’s the end of it; of course knowing my community as I do I doubt this will be the last we hear of the psycho hag and her minions.

Egg Update: 22 of my 27 eggs are developing! ;)

So the lady who said that there are restrictions on our property just won't give up! She is telling people that no matter what she is going to make sure we are not allowed to keep our animals on the property! Jees, really she doesn't even live by our property and we never even met her before this, so what is her issue!?

Ok so here is the link to the forum topic I posted on BYC about the varience issue LINK 
and here are the comments currently on the Press-Republican page.

greenacres2  Today 11:15 AM   

Maybe the neighbors would like a section-8 housing complex on the 13 acres instead. Drugs and violence would be so much better than farm animals. Unbelieveable. 

passnod  Today 11:30 AM in reply to greenacres2   

Ah yes, resort to instilling fear of low income housing and the residents of such. The issue with these animals is that they are in close proximity to a residential neighborhood that has been in existence for over 50 years and has NOT allowed anything but domestic animals. Having a pig/chicken farm in the back yard will diminish quality of life here and will adversely affect property values. Ask the people who live near the poultry farm in Chazy. The people who want to have these animals here do not even LIVE here! If they had a home on the property, they would not have needed the variance to begin with. There is a legal process and they need to follow it.  

greenacres2  55 minutes ago in reply to passnod   

There is 13 acres not 1 or 2.

There is a huge difference between a pig/chicken farm and someone who wants to raise the animals for their own consumption. That is what these people want to do. Not have 200 chickens and 300 pigs to sell to the public.

It doesn't matter if they live there or not they own the property and should be allowed to do with it what they want.

You sound like a neighbor who should go back to the city and keep eating that processed crap that is sold in the stores. If you only knew what was injected into that steak you just bought you would think twice about shooting down someone who doesn't want to be poisioned.  

passnod  Today 11:56 AM in reply to greenacres2  

I might also add that the environment that these animals will create (food troughs, feces) will attract rodents and other predatory animals. How attractive does that sound? Can you honestly say that you'd like to have that on top of your neighborhood rec park or your yard? Not so much, I'll bet. 

greenacres2  16 minutes ago in reply to passnod  

Well your preaching to the wrong person. I happen to own an 8 acre farm in CT and with proper manure management and feed storage the smell and rodents are minimum to none.
There are predatory animals all around not due to the "environment that these animals will create", but due to developments be erected all over the place and displacing them. 
Its funny how the two closest neighbors don't seem to have a problem with the small farm.
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 I beleive I have a friend from the BYC community defending me! :)

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