Mr Right Stuff Chuck Yeager is still out there pushing boundaries. At 81 he recently married a woman 35 years his junior. Not bad going at all. However he has been in the headlines of late for other reasons.

It’s probably a very long story, but to be succinct, three of his children are suing him. Stories like this aren’t totally unheard of these days, but it should be noted that this courtroom drama is being played out in the land of litigation, the United States.

The problem is over various aspects of the ownership of Yeager’s Penn Valley ranch. The thing that caught my eye though was the size of this supposed ranch. It is all of 1.2 hectares big!

That’s not much room for sprawling prairies and several thousand head of cattle, no? It seems to me every American celebrity, or anyone who is anyone, owns a ranch. I have to admit though, I did lose count of just how people own… ranches. After all, the land mass of the USA is of a reasonable size, so shortage of land surely wouldn’t be a problem?

Apparently not. If 1.2 hectares constitutes a ranch, then obviously there is a shortage of land. And now it seems they are rationing land so everyone who wants a “ranch” can have one. Even if there is only room for a house, a front garden, er, paddock, and a couple of cows out on the back yard, ah, meadow.

So lets see, the courtyard out the front of my apartment is about maybe a tenth of an acre… so what does that make it? An English country garden?