Hey Cuz, Nice Article

The Mister's first cousin once removed (the Mister and my second daughter are the only two in our family that can figure out the cousins relationships, and believe me, there are plenty of them, since both sides of the family have lived here for nearly a century), Norman Knox, showed up in this front page article of the AZ Republic today:

This is the last year Norman Knox and Mike Gantzel will plow a field, harvest a crop or worry about irrigation. They are end-of-the-line, third-generation southeast Valley farmers who found out the new truth about agriculture against the background of Arizona's growth. Cotton, grain and potato prices can't compete with Arizona's hottest commodity: real estate. On Saturday, they will auction off the majority of their farm equipment, and decades of farming for both families in Chandler and Queen Creek will come to an end.
Farms are giving way to housing developments throughout the Valley and state, especially in growth hotbeds such as once-rural Gilbert and Queen Creek. Even the owners of Young's Farm in Dewey-Humboldt, a popular Valley getaway, announced earlier this year that they plan to sell their land to developers. About half of the Valley's land that is now urban was once used for farming, according to Arizona State University's Center for Business Research.....

Efforts to preserve land for open space and retain the agricultural "feel" in Gilbert, Queen Creek and near Young's Farm have all been abandoned for lack of taxpayers' support and grant programs. In this seller's market, the farms make room for the people.

I'm not sure how Norman feels about being tagged "end-of-the-line" but I am sure that we have some empathy for his situation. Read the whole article if you haven't read one like it before. About ten years ago, this type of article was published about every other day, as our farming neighbors grappled with the explosive growth of Gilbert. Farming gets in your blood, and is passed down from generation to generation. Only someone who has inherited some "farming genes" can understand the deep veneration for dirt.

As I've posted before, the Mister's response to the inability to farm as we had for generations, was to take things into his own hands, and make his own efforts to "preserve land for open space and retain the agricultural 'feel' in Gilbert," - and thus you see Morrison Ranch. I guess the difference is that the open space and agricultural feel invites the new Gilbert residents to partake rather than trying to reserve it for only prior residents. Farmers are generally pretty hospitable that way.