Tomorrow would be worse out on the open county roads.

I picked up a glossy brochure from the little end table between our chairs.

“Agricultural Land Valuations,” the cover read.

I opened the thick paper flap.

A chart on the inside page showed local parcel prices over the last ten years.

The black line on the graph curved upward, slowly at first.

It started at two thousand dollars an acre and crept to three thousand.

Then, right at the edge of the page, the line shot up.