Eagles dip and dive over the meadow, looking for breakfast. Geese graze near the swamp, a pair of swans appear on the lake, then are seen no more. Where did they go? I’m sure they never flew. Oh, they’re diving for food. It’s breakfast time and everyone has an appetite.
Killdeer flutter ahead of vehicles; they’ve nested nearby. Deer tracks inside the yard when I dump garbage to the imaginary chickens. Obviously, coyotes like eggshells, there are some scattered inside the fence and those are one of the few things Ruby won’t eat.
Signs of spring. Bull sale catalogs come every mail day, even though I’ve been out of the cattle business for several years. I’m tempted to go window shopping though. Walk through the pens and listen to the auctioneer. I miss that a lot, but it’s likely that an afternoon on the sale barn seats would cure me. Bulls these days are selling for more money than my dad made in a year.
Along with notices that property taxes are due, there are frequent ads from realtors. Sell now; prices are good, they say, and the demand for recreational property is expanding. Many of the ads are addressed to my children’s father, who died in 1990, and never lived at this address.
The phrase “recreational property” irritates me. Land is not a toy, something to be exploited financially, or put aside when the fun is finished. Land is what enables us to survive, but not many people realize it. When most of our nation was based in agriculture, everybody knew where their food came from. Town folks could go to the farm and buy milk or eggs, and many of them had gardens in the back yard. The food wasn’t full of chemicals and preservatives, and very little was imported. Nobody expected strawberries in December.
A lot of the properties here are bought for recreation, by people from other states. I’m ok with hunting and fishing, but it’s a fact that long time land owners are likely to take only what is allowed, be aware of fire danger and erosion, and honor the other residents by stopping to look at a deer track or listen to the cranes calling. Many outsiders have an entitlement mentality, especially if they paid a lot for their privileges. One of our family ranches doesn’t allow all- terrain vehicles. The son who manages that property used to let some hunters come in and stay in the guest house, making clear that there were not to be any 4 wheelers and that the guest accommodations were limited to the basement. I went there during hunting season and saw 4 wheelers on trailers in the yard. My son told them when they arrived, that those were not to be unloaded and, as far as I know, they complied. But the yard was full of cases of liquor and empty cans and bottles. The upstairs living room was strewn with guns, hunting gear and muddy boots. Those people probably never noticed blackbirds singing and swaying on rushes in the meadow, the Milky Way, or a calf bawling for its mother at sundown. Their recreation was expensive; they didn’t get to return.
I don’t enjoy paying property taxes any more than you do but I try to reframe it as paying the rent. The land has only one owner and it isn’t us. We try to treat it as you would a rental house. Keep it nice for the person who will live there when you are gone, and be considerate of your neighbors
Meet me here next week and meanwhile, do your best. Somebody might like it.