About a mile from our house there used to be a glorious, big open field on the corner of Stagecoach Lane and Gum Tree Lane. Doesn't get much quainter than that. The land was once leased to a nursery, but ridiculous increases in rent pushed the flowers out. "Where have all the flowers gone..."

Poorly planned development makes my brain short-circuit.

It's not like I live in a cave and subsist on grubs. I know development is inevitable. But Fallbrook's finest is being robbed of its natural hicky beauty. And get this! The new development is called Shady Grove. Duh. Everything about this development is shady as far as I'm concerned. Also, (and this is rhetorical), what does the word "shady" conjure in your mind? Trees, of course! Yet, the developer has clear-cut a zillion acres, stripped the land of any vegetation and has the balls to call it Shady Grove? Give me a break!

I have nothing against stucco. In fact, much of our ranch-style house is stucco that has been painted a soft gray, and I adore the early California stucco cottages, which dot our small town. They're like little lollipops of happiness. But developers are bingeing and purging. They're gobbling up Fallbrook and tossing up homes with pink Mediterranean motifs, which is perfectly acceptable in coastal places like pricey Newport Beach or Monarch Beach, but looks downright silly in a humble farming community.

As I drive around town I am reminded of the movie Zulu. Our hills are becoming serrated with pink stucco houses and seem like scary Zulu warriors. And like the British of that movie, Fallbrook doesn't stand a chance.