In Perpetuity

Back in my Masters degree days, Dr. Terry Cooper gave our Soils class an assignment to take an actual farm area in Minnesota and use the soils data to create your dream land use. I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun with an assignment. I saved the resulting drawing- replete with lamas, wild rice, tea and herb gardens on a farm site I chose in Dodge County, MN.

So now we are doing a similar exercise for real. A contingent of US Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resource Conservation District, and Ducks Unlimited folks pulled into our driveway in a convoy of white federal pick up trucks. They laid out some really tempting visions for a grass based farm. We focused on the wetland/grassland restoration lined in purple. It is a beautiful vision—working lands—grazing cattle.

The hitch is that it is in perpetuity. Forever. That concerns Mike especially. We’ve hardly owned this farm any time at all and now we’re talking about ceding 1/3 of it to federal government oversight?

Kids are up… More later…