Finding, Using, & Keeping the Land

I don't know about you, but I need a house outside of town, out among fields and wild meadows, rolling hills, maybe even some mountains.  I want lakes and ponds nearby, and a stream that I can fish in — but not one that'll overflow and flood me out.  I like ranches & farms with their fields of grain or corn, but I also love the raw, wild land, where deer and other wildlife can wander about.  I want lots of trees, but I also want to see the land itself.  I don't mind building my own house, but I also like remodeling an old farm house, or maybe even an old barn.

Sound familiar?  Millions of Americans want very similar things.  We want a place where we can live like real human beings again.  Some of us want to try our hand at working the land, raising a few animals, making a living from the land itself.  It's not such an unreasonable desire or dream.  We are willing to work hard, to make things from scratch, and to learn from our mistakes.

And the fact is, we really need more people to grab hold of land that's in danger of being converted to cheap housing and shopping malls.  We need more Americans to find a way to make the land sustain whole families, healthy crops, and to leave some room for wildlife.  It won't always be easy.

Ideals are Okay — Dreams are Necessary

Real success in America (or any place else) is not about making billions of dollars off of other people's ideas and hard work.  It isn't about getting filthy rich from playing politics and marketing games.  It's about finding a way to survive and succeed.  It's about sharing whatever you have and whatever you know with your neighbors.  It's about helping to create a way of life that makes things better for the next generation.  That's the American story.

So What is Real Success?

To discover real success, we must always be willing to work hard — with everything we are and with all that we have — to make our dreams come true.  However small or great our dreams may seem at first, and no matter how the odds may seem to be stacked against us, we will accomplish much if we're willing to devote our time, our creativity, and our full attention to those dreams.  It's really that simple.

These pages is about that kind of love and hard work.  It is about finding a way to carve out a place for ourselves in and on the land we love.  For some of us that means living in the mountains.  For others, it means a place by the sea.  Still others want to make it work in the Midwest or southern states.  The exact location doesn't really matter, so long as it's the place you really want to be.