Notes from Defiance

Defiance, Missouri is a small town located on the edge of the flood plain of the Missouri River west of St. Louis, in St. Charles County. The Lewis and Clark expedition passed this way, and Daniel Boone and his family settled in the nearby valley of the Femme Osage creek.

This is a beautiful region currently undergoing rapid change as people flee the results of the failed economic and social policies in the city by moving across the river to the countryside. The dense-pack housing development is being rolled out mainly to the north of us, on the former fields and pastures of the Dardenne Prairie along US Hwy 40 heading west towards Wentzville on I-70.

The land transitions from prairie into rough and broken Ozark hills and hollows as it gets closer to the river, to the south. It is incredibly wild down here, and all of the subdivisions are older, with a minimum lot size of 3.5 acres to accommodate septic systems, so everyone is spread out with lots of breathing room and privacy.

We live in the Wilderness subdivision, which is backed up to the Weldon Spring and the Busch Wildlife Conservation Areas, which total over 15,000 acres of prairie and mature hardwoods forest. There are trails behind the subdivision that connect with the network of biking and hiking trails in the conservation areas, as well as the Katy Trail, a rails-to-trails bikepath that runs along the Missouri River from St. Charles to the Kansas City. It's a big change from living on a 20x140 foot residential lot in the middle Pittsburgh!