Choices

“We had eight-hundred acres, just about fifteen miles south of Fort Collins, at least where the town sat when I was a boy. My granddad Schmidt had bought the place right before World War One. He’d grown up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, and he figured he’d give it a try out in Colorado where the land was pretty cheap. All the towns around, Greeley, Loveland, Longmont, even Fort Collins, were still pretty much just little cow towns back then. The Front Range was pretty sparse.”

As we drove north past the exit for Longmont, I asked, “So what finally made you decide to sell the dairy farm?”

A pause, then “Well, that’s a little complicated, Ever since I was a kid, I watched the towns around grow and radiate out. In the fifties and sixties, it still seemed like the developments and shopping centers were a long way off, but then in the early nineteen seventies, when I went into business with Dad after college, I remember him talking about how our days on the farm were numbered. I guess I sort of discounted it at first, but eventually there was no denying that the suburbs were creeping closer. We started getting calls from land developers asking if we were interested in selling, but my Dad always answered with some variation on “No way, we’ve been farming this land for seventy years, and we’re not quitting now.” ‘Course, the ag economy was rough in the late seventies, so we did have to sell a hundred-sixty acres then to stay afloat, but things were still going pretty well through the eighties.”

“Huh, I thought you guys had always been pretty profitable. I didn’t realize you guys sold off in stages.”

“No, it was tough at times, just like for a lot of people; we kept things afloat into the nineties, but we watched farmer after farmer up and down the I-25 corridor sell and the developments go up. My dad was pretty determined, but after he passed in 1989, I felt like it was only a matter of time. Dairy farming is hard work, and when you’re a little older, you realize this whole gettin’ up at three in the morning to go milk the herd sometimes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Do you ever regret selling the place?” I could see a bit of emotion come over Marvin’s face as he considered his answer.

“Well, I don’t know if regret is the right word. I understand that people gotta have a place to live, and the housing developments certainly gave them that. I don’t mean to complain about the work, either. I really did want to stay, but by accident of geography and where my grandfather had purchased, we were in a prime spot right off the exit from the interstate. I mean, what choice did we have, really? It got to the point that we’d get noise complaints from folks in the surrounding neighborhoods when we went out in the morning to work the field or bale hay. Eventually, we were going to get zoned out of existence.”

“So our choice eventually came down to not if we were going to sell, but when. Do we take this particular developer’s offer, or do we hold out for another season to see if we can get more next year? Eventually the dairy business got so tough that we weren’t really making much of anything. We hung on for another year and then finally decided to sell the last 640 acres in 1998.”

The Ford Raptor pick-up truck we were riding in tipped me to the answer, but I asked Marvin anyway, “So you did OK when you finally sold? Sorry for being nosy…”

“No, it’s alright. Honestly we sorta made a killing. We had plenty of money to get the kids through school; we’ve got the big house in Cherry Hills that we like, and a nice pickup truck to boot. AND we get to see the grandkids more than most. We’ve had plenty of struggles, like anyone, but all-in-all, Ona and I are pretty blessed.

“OK, but I bet you still miss it sometimes. I know my Dad sometimes talked about missing the farm, even though he knew it was the best thing.”

A country singer crooned softly on the radio as the interstate billboards passed us by. Martin slowly turned away from me, looking to his left, off toward the Rocky Mountains. “Of course, you’re right. Sometimes I miss a crisp day, watching the sun come up in the east, as the steam rises off the cows, the smell of manure and alfalfa hay all jumbled together. I could turn around and see the sun illuminate the face of Long’s Peak way off in the distance, and that’s when I thought…things are alright.”