— By Barbara Clark
Barbara and her husband Larry are fifth and sixth generation ranchers who have lived in Rock Creek for over 40 years. They have two grown children who help on the ranch.

Ranching is steeped into our souls. You cannot plow a field, pick rock by hand, plant that field, irrigate it, watch the hay grow, hay it, get ready to defend it from wildfire, watch the calves you calved graze it and not feel it is a part of you. A part of you just as real as your arm and leg.

We are fifth and sixth generation Montana ranchers.  Our family has faced bad prices, wolves, drought, blizzards, depression, bad prices, bankers, fires, crop failure, cattle diseases, grasshoppers and bad prices. Sometimes these have won out for a short time. That’s why the sixth generation is on the third ranch. But never have we been as threatened or in danger as now. Today we have problems facing us that our ancestors never had to face: global markets, environmental extremists, special interest groups and soaring land prices, ranches competing with recreation markets and coming out a very distant second. Urban sprawl, special interest groups buying winter ranges and wet lands, playgrounds for the rich and famous are gobbling up ranch and farm land as we speak. Never before have we needed to draw a line in the dirt and say this ranch or farm will remain a ranch or farm. Conservation easements are a tool that we can use to do just that.

My family entered in a conservation easement in 1991 and another in 1996. The first placed 920 acres of prime land in protection from subdivision forever. In other words we sold the right to subdivide the land or use the land for anything but agriculture. We retain the land in our ownership and ranch. With our easement we can build any building for agriculture purposes, we have since built a hay barn. We are restricted to an agreed number and location of any new homes.

We are monitored once every year. For us, it is a visit from friends. We go over any improvements we’ve made or any questions we have or they have. We have had no problems with our ranching operation and are very committed to our conservation easements with Montana Land Reliance and Rock Creek Trust.

Conservation easements are a real commitment and certainly one size does not fit all. It is a very personal issue and needs lots of effort from both sides to place one on a ranch. We are glad we did.

The second conservation easement placed 160 acres into an easement that protected it directly from sub-division, something it was slated for before we purchased it. We purchased it because it was going to be sub-divided and we felt it would impact our ranch very negatively. So with the help of Rock Creek Trust, we purchased it and placed it in easement. Today it has cattle, not condos, on it.

Wildlife, people and cows all need open spaces. By helping ranches and farms stay ranches and farms, we will have open spaces forever. To me that is as important as the restoration of the valley. It goes hand in hand. Stabilize the stream, stabilize the ranch.

This morning I stood out in the meadow, the meadow that will always be a meadow raising hay and cattle. I felt the wind blow up the valley, as it does in March and I heard the blackbirds singing in the willows. I watched bighorn sheep in the cliffs, a bald eagle soaring along and a whitetail deer flashing by with twenty new calves sprinting after her and I knew I was truly blessed.