On 4/4/2013 7:33 PM, GC wrote:
On 5/04/2013 02:35, Tony wrote:

Oh I definitely enjoy meeting the farmers, if they are within walking
distance of wherever I land. That doesn't always happen. Fewer and fewer
people are farming more and more acres these days. Population Density in
Western Kansas is probably less than 1 person per square miles.

Same in Australia. SOP is to check the farmhouse you're planning to land
near for: 1. Power lines to the house (two reasons for this) 2. Laundry
hanging out. 3. Fresh tyre tracks into the garage/shed/barn. 4. The
garden/grass looks watered.

Only about 1 in 3 is inhabited these days.

GC

Heh. One of my hitchhiking retrieves was in the panhandle of Texas. Musta been
a wet year because the lawn looked well cared for. No laundry though, despite
fresh tire tracks and powerlines to the house. No occupants, either. After
walking 3 miles to a paved highway and thumbing a few more, a member of an
itinerant road-paving crew from Missouri picked me up as he was driving to
town to his motel for the night; I think he wanted someone to talk to. Saved
me about 8 more miles of walking to the airport (shot down by outflow from a
thunderstorm on the "R" part of an O&R). I was later told the former occupants
of that house now lived in town, though they kept & used farming implements in
the equipment buildings, hence the tire tracks, I guess. Since my retrieve
crew was 3 sheets to the wind by the time I finished trudging the length of
the airport access road (I've a photo to prove it!), my retrieve may have
benefited from me NOT having had a cell phone on that landout...

Bob W.