Some years were better than others.
But Hank believed the farm should contribute when it could.
His father used to say that growing food was meaningful only if people eventually got to eat it.
Hank liked that.
It reminded him that farming was more than a way to pay bills.
The trouble began when a development company purchased several hundred acres adjoining the eastern boundary.
The property had once belonged to an elderly farmer named William Pollson, whose family had worked it for generations. After William died, his heirs decided to sell. They no longer wanted to operate a large agricultural property, and the development market around Lincoln had become attractive.
The buyer was Cornerstone Residential Group.
The company proposed an upscale subdivision called Prairie Meadows Estates.
There would be large homes.
Wide streets.
Decorative stone entrance monuments.
Landscaped common areas.
And a homeowners association responsible for maintaining the shared facilities.
Hank didn't object to the project simply because it was new.
He understood that families needed places to live.
And he knew agriculture had always existed beside changing towns and communities.
What troubled him was the speed at which the old farm disappeared.
One morning, excavators arrived and began removing the Pollson barn.
Hank stopped his tractor near the property line and watched.
The building had stood for more than seventy years.
He remembered visiting it as a boy, listening to William tell stories about difficult winters and record corn harvests.
Now the structure came apart beneath the machinery in a single afternoon.
By evening, only broken timbers and a broad patch of disturbed earth remained.
Hank stood beside the fence for a long time.
Then returned to work.
He told himself the new neighbors might become good friends.
Some eventually did.
But the development also created a problem nobody fully appreciated at the beginning.
The new subdivision required utility connections.
The planned infrastructure included water, communications, electrical service, and other systems that needed to cross or run near existing parcels.
A Cornerstone project manager approached Hank about a narrow utility easement near the eastern edge of his farm.
The man's name was Ronald Price.
He was forty-six, soft-spoken, and experienced in coordinating construction with landowners.
Ronald explained the project requirements and offered compensation.
Hank listened.
Then asked to review the proposed easement with an attorney.