This afternoon I bought a quarter of a cow raised a few miles from where I live. Of course, I asked about the seller’s operation. He has a few cows but does not make a profit, he hopes to break even at some point, but the cows are simply a hobby at this point. He has 17 acres of COID water rights, but some of it is for extremely rocky land. COID has told him he needs to water it all or lose some of his rights, so he is going to do it. He is on a lateral where he and his fellow patrons have their gates open all the time, constantly filling their ponds, and run their wheel lines pretty much nonstop. He has old, leaky wheel lines and can’t afford to fix them. Even the less rocky land where he has wheel lines is not good enough to raise hay, whatever grows is what the cows eat, and he supplements with hay he buys. To be clear, I have no problem with people pursuing their hobbies and look forward to eating this locally raised beef, but clearly this is problematic. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual story.