Donna Phelps loves a good chat, so when the retired schoolteacher answers the phone one morning at the Gunnison County, Colo., ranch where her husband Duane has been raising cattle since 1958, she is happy to find a former student on the line. But the caller isn't interested in idle talk. Like so many people in the area--a remote sage-and-wildflower valley--the student is in real estate now. She tells Donna that a client from Texas wants to spend $105,000 on a 35-acre "ranchette" of undeveloped land. Would the Phelpses be interested in selling part of their 508-acre spread?
They could use...