Way too long

"This is a working truck" was the explanation the rancher gave me yesterday. As we toured his 200 + acre farm he highlighted different land features with remembrances. His father had been born in a dugout on the edge of what the family called the 'old field'. He talked about the yearly floods that changed the landscape as the river escaped its banks. "That all ended when they built the dam" he mentioned as we stopped next to a grove of towering cottonwood trees.

It resonates everytime Utah Open Lands visits with a landowner and tours the land. What is lost to development is more than the prime farm soils, scenic vistas, wildlife habitat, open space. What is lost is a connection. I imagined the number of grandchildren that had heard the story of how grandpa almost lost the family draft horse while checking fence lines one wet spring. "This was the very spot where we both began to swim" he said.

As we ended the tour and discussed the possibility of preservation, I knew that I could only promise to look at funding options and get back to him. This was the beginning of a dialogue that would take months and perhaps years. For this rancher somewhere upwards of 80 years old, it couldn't happen soon enough.