Farmers and Ranchers have opportunities to utilize their land in more than one way to support the ranch: outfitting, movie sets, lodging, hunting opportunities, events and conservation easements. Ranches discovered years ago that folks enjoy the romance of working on a ranch and were willing to pay to help herd the cattle and pretend to be a cowboy for a week or so. Guest Ranches sprouted up around the state over time. Some now offer their barns for weddings and other larger events, another has had an antique store on the property or glamping in tents. Conservation easements can offer tax incentives while continuing to farm the land and can be beneficial to all in the long-run. They can be a small portion on the property rather than a large chunk.

In…

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According to Bankrate.com, the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage tumbled 7 basis points this week to 3.77 percent, according to Bankrate’s weekly national survey of large lenders.

This drop in rates comes ahead of next week’s first Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the year, where the Fed is expected to leave rates unchanged. Experts are eyeing the bond markets for signs of mortgage-rate movement, but rates have been in a narrow range for several months. This is good news for homebuyers and refinancers, alike.

“Even with more positive developments surrounding the U.S. and China trade negotiations and healthy retail sales data, investors seemed cautious and maintained their demand for safer U.S. Treasuries, which kept yields lower,”…

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From the City to the Mountains

There's an undeniable hustle to city life. Everything in a city becomes entertainment; the speed at which everything moves guarantees it. 

Like watching television, city living means constantly being bombarded by information. Buildings display the information that people in other buildings decide will convince them to buy their products, even as those people have been convinced by someone else that putting ads up on a building is still the right way to earn clients. 

Even cities filled with greenery, like Portland, maintain strong energy. It's not an energy that everyone can handle. But it's hard to identify that when you've been in one your whole life. Whatever feelings you might realize you don't miss upon…

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BOZEMAN YELLOWSTONE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

On the heels of the direct to Nashville flight with Allegiant starting May 21, 2020, Alaska will also begin operating direct flights to Seattle/Tacoma.  Two additional daily departures to SEA and Alaska’s daily departures to Portland, Oregon will continue to operate with 76-seat Q400 aircraft operated by Horizon Air. 

Delta Air Lines will convert seasonal service between Bozeman (BZN) and the airline’s largest hub in Atlanta, GA (ATL) to daily, year-round service beginning July 6, 2020 utilizing a 160-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft. 

JetBlue in June will begin offering direct flights to New York’s JFK International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport.

“Boston is our number one market…

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Over 70 teams will compete over 3 days in West Yellowstone for cash and prizes.

Equestrian skijoring consists of a team of a single horse, generally guided by a rider, pulling a person on skis who carries no poles and simply hangs onto a tow rope in a manner akin to water skiing.

Today, equine skijoring is a highly specialized competitive sport, where horses accelerate to over 40 mph in just three strides covering a straight track roughly 900 feet (270 m) in length. Skiers must navigate a series of jumps and gates and capture rings while being pulled by a rope at speeds up to 60 mph as they accelerate around turns. Jumps can reach 7 feet (2.1 m) in height, but are typically lower or roller style which are more friendly to…

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This has been my dream for our area...if a farm needs to sell to development, why not turn it into an agrihood? The idea is to not just sell to a developer and squeeze as many houses into it as possible but to mesh it with both homes and farmland.  The homes would have smaller footprints giving way to farmland for CSAs/horse pasture/pond for community water and trails. The benefit can go to either the developer or the farmer in the form of a conservation easement in addition to the sale of the development rights for the remaining land. For example, instead of building 100 homes on one-acre (0.4 ha) lots, an agrihood might include 100 homes on quarter-acre (0.1 ha) lots with 75 acres (30 ha) of conserved open space and/or farmland. significantly from…

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This year, we have partnered with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) to identify 6.35 million acres of state lands in 11 Western states sitting landlocked and off-limits unless access is granted by a neighboring landowner. By using onX technology, we have created an analysis of state land access issues, assessing various initiatives by state agencies across the West in the hopes of identifying and establishing new recreational opportunities on these lands.  Click to download the report.

In 2018, onX worked with TRCP to identify 9.52 million acres of landlocked federal public lands around 13 Western states. The data from this report was curated to help identify access opportunities, collaborative solutions and increase public…

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyo. – Biologists from the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey and the Universities of Wyoming and Montana published findings of a 10-year study about bison migration and grazing in Yellowstone National Park in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November.

The findings result from a decade of research on Yellowstone bison by National Park Service biologists which included putting GPS collars on bison, setting up field experiments to evaluate plant growth and grazing intensity, and collecting dung and plant samples.

The findings confirm that wild bison shape vegetation cycles and enhance growth throughout the summer. Scientists discovered, with the help of NASA satellites,…

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I recently sold my home in hopes of building a new home on a small acreage. I am very frugal by nature, so renting has always been hard for me since I learned the benefits of owning. I have turned some of my tenants into homeowners as well. I understand it is not for everyone, but I am happy to advise when it is a benefit to you. 

My original plan was to start building shortly after closing on my previous home in hopes to have a new home by March. So, with that in mind, I rented a portion of a friend's house short-term so I could have my dog and flexibility of when I would move into the new place.  Well...the trade wars started and building materials skyrocketed, therefore the cost of the new home skyrocketed, too. So...the best plan was to both wait…

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