Wheat and development

"Summertime, and the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high...", well the oats and the wheat, anyway. Time for a walk. Up the end of Trombity, across the tracks, to the end of Kórnicka, through Zgorzała, across the fields to Mysiadło, and home past the Rampa.

Arising out of the wheatfields between Zgorzała and Mysiadło is the huge Little Boxes estate, on the wrong side of the tracks as far as ul. Puławska is concerned.

The wind rustles the ripening wheat, cockerels, cicadas and skylarks add to the rustic summer soundtrack - but in the distance the sound of power tools being used by new residents adapting their new homes for dwelling.

How long before this wheatfield I'm standing in becomes a housing estate, a shopping development or a tarmacked road?

Above: This aerial view, taken three weeks ago, shows in the foreground just how intensively Mysiadło has become developed in recent years - most of the housing has appeared since 2002. Note also the estate featured at the top of the post (centre), the wheatfield behind it. As the local land use plan suggests, there's nothing to stop all of the land between the tracks, Zgorzała to the west and Nowa Iwiczna to the south, from being swallowed up by intensive housing. Beyond Zgorzała is where the S7 (Puławska Bis) is projected (the long strip fields running left to right).

Above: Puzzling grafitti in Zgorzala. On the wall of the village Hall of Culture, in cyrillic, the words "Min Nyet" ('no mines', or 'clear of mines'). These words were painted by Red Army sappers after the Soviets had occupied Warsaw in January 1945. At huge cost to themselves (Stalin did not count human lives lost in pursuit of his goals of power), these brave sappers cleared Warsaw house by house of mines, booby traps, unexploded bombs and shells. Why has someone chosen to use this slogan here? What does it mean?

This time last year:
Waiting For The Summer Rain
Magnificent July sunrise