Morning Commute

This morning I took the "long" way to work, adding about 5 minutes to my 20 minute commute. For the time being I'm staying with an old friend in Gallatin Gateway until my apartment downtown is available. The drive to work passes a couple of huge ranches, wheat farms, and ranchettes. A lot of these larger parcels are in jeopardy right now. Property values have skyrocketed, even in the recession, and land owners are getting taxed off of their properties. The choices are tough - sell out to the developers and watch generations-old ranches get sliced into ranchettes and Louisville/Erie/Superior-like subdivisions, or sign the land over to the state in a conservation easement. On the surface the easement looks like a great choice. The state owns the land to be forever preserved as ranch land, habitat, or open space and your family gets to live there and continue to ranch. I like the permanent protection (the ranch-land equivalent to wilderness designation), but to me it sounds a bit too much like serfdom. Tough choices.