Family Farm Friday # 95: The Value of the Land

"Once you have lived on the land, been a partner with its moods, secrets, and seasons, you cannot leave. This living land remembers, touching you in unguarded moments, saying, "I am here. You are part of me." ~The Land Remembers

I've had some interesting conversations of late about the value of farm and ranch land.  You know, appraisals and stocking rates and profit margins.  All of that grown up, men in suits, business stuff.

And at the end of the day, it makes me just shake my head.  Don't get me wrong, ability to pay your bills is quite important.  But for those of us who have been fortunate enough to grow up on family farms and ranches, the value of that land we call home is so much more.

If someone were to look at our family's farm and try to put an appraised value on it, they would have no idea.

They wouldn't understand that the value of that land includes blood, sweat, and tears poured into that dirt for decades by three generations...The Baby from Texas will make four.  The banker wouldn't know that every tree, every fence, and every ditch has a story.  He never saw my grandpa planting a windbreak with his two young sons.  He doesn't know about the time my 7 year old cousin assured my dad she could drive the pick up home and crashed it into the middle section gate.  He's never heard kids screech with joy while swimming up and down an irrigation ditch while their parents set tubes. He doesn't know that my mom's bum knee occurred when a horse reared up and over on her in the lot in front of the barn or that my crooked finger came about helping my Gran move milk crates, or that my brother's discolored tooth occurred because of an unfortunate bike mechanic incident.  Other people don't have memories of feeding ducks in the pond or taking wedding pictures in a wheat field or spending the afternoon riding horses for hours.

From the outside, land looks like most any other.  You don't know the lessons it's taught.  The importance of family.  Horsemanship.  How to balance a checkbook.  Independence.  How to drive a tractor.  Work ethic.  How to pull twin lambs that are coming backwards and upside down.  The true meaning of the word sacrifice.

I wonder, sometimes, what my grandparents would think about the place now.  Was this what they envisioned when they started out almost 60 years ago?  I'd like to think so.  I'd like to think that it wasn't the profit potential, but the idea of their kids and grandkids and soon to be first great grandkid understanding the value of the land might have been what they were after all along.