On the way over to yesterday's sale, on the antelope trail that masquerades as a county road in that direction, I passed by a ranch, another one, where a family no longer lives. Some of these old places are now lived in by the hired men of the big ranchers that buy them up. That'll be the fate of my friend's place. Some of them are just left to rot away. This is one of the latter. Nobody lives there any more to watch the ruddy dawn come up over the hills to the east.
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Is it a lot of land? How much does something like that cost out there?
That place was vacant when I got here so I don't how much land it had. You need somewhere between four and ten sections to make it as a rancher here nowadays. That would be a small place. Middle-size ranches run from 10,000 to 20,000 acres. The big boys up from there and the skies the limit. Prices are way high right now. You might get a place for $400/acre, but I have seen place for sale as high as $750. Some hunting acreage near the river went for nigh $8000 a year or so ago and everybody almost choked. If you don't have about $1.5M for land and at least twice that for gear and running money you're probably not gonna make it.
I wasn't so much thinking of ranching, as just buying a place like you have. I only have ten acres here, and although it is surrounded by national forest, ten acres isn't much. But alas, my wife told me to forget it. She said this is isolated enough up here in the Blue Ridge. But I sure do envy you your isolation and the wide open spaces.
H., the wife has probably nailed it. The place pictured is 40 miles from the nearest town (on a 'road' that you probably wouldn't recognize as such!), which has about 500 folks and no big grocery, no movie theater, no WalMart, no... well, you get the idea. The next closest town, in the other direction is about the same distance and it's even smaller and has even less to offer.
There are prices to be paid for living out here. I happen to like it, but I can tell you it's not for everyone. In fact, it is for very, very few.
I can't look at a place like that without hearing entire chapters of 'Atlas Shrugged' being read in my mind. Fascinating, but sad.
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