Buying & Living on Raw Land

The Quest

I don't know about you, but I like a place outside of town, a place
surrounded by fields or even wild meadows, a place enhanced by rolling
hills, maybe even some mountains. I want good, fresh lakes and ponds
nearby, and a stream that I can fish in -- but not one that'll threaten
my house or barn whenever it floods. I like ranches & farms with their
fields of grain or corn, but I also like the raw, wild land, where deer
and other wildlife wander about freely. I like trees and thick woods,
but I also want to see the land itself. I don't mind building my own
house, but I also enjoy remodeling old farm houses, or maybe even
converting an old barn into a home.

This kind of living is what I call success in life. Sure, it's great
to live in a city and make lots of money. Many of us have been forced
to do just that. We make it as attorneys, or in marketing, or in
investments. Some us of run a small business of our own, maybe selling
hotdogs, cranking out pizzas, marketing clothing, automobiles, computer
equipment, or shoes. We gotta make a living, right?

And so we learn to spell out success in life in many ways. Often, it
starts with numbers. Numbers of units produced, sold or serviced. How
many calls did you make last week? How many zeros are there in your
paycheck? That sort of thing. And then we measure success by the kind
of house we live in. Where is the apartment located? How many
bedrooms does that condo have? How many square feet does the house
have, and how many cars will fit in the garage? How old is the
subdivision? Let's not forget the vehicle we drive. A Jaguar or a
Cadillac Escalade tells us something about the driver's need to
communicate status and success. So do a host of other autos and pickup
trucks.

But real success in life cannot be measured by the material things we
manage to accumulate. Material things do not necessarily take away
from genuine success, but they certainly are no true measurement of
what we've managed to accomplish as human beings. It's been said many
times through the centuries: the things that really matter are health,
family, genuine friendships, honor, decency in personal ethics and
business policy, and simple generosity.

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 succeed at the things that really
count in life. It's about sharing whatever you have, and whatever you
know, with your neighbors. It's about helping to create a better way
of life -- making things better for the next generation as well as our
own.

That's the real American story.

What does all of this have to do with staking out a claim, so to speak,
on some raw or abandoned land? That's a fair question. This is how I
see it: what we manage to accomplish with our own two hands is real.
By properly developing a piece of ground (and by the term "develop" I
don't mean to destroy), and by building or restoring a house, by
raising a few animals, producing crops or having a garden, by making
something with our own hands, we physically alter the world in a very
small but real way. This is especially so when we can take something
that others have cast off as useless and work with it to show it for
what it really is: good and useful and meaningful.

Taking the Step

If you have no interest in making a place for yourself (maybe you
already have a great place, and simply want to keep working it) then
this information is not really meant for you. But if you are still
dreaming and thinking and looking for some way to get away from the rat
race, then you may be interested in the information available at
House-n-Land. Don't worry. The info is free of charge. But to take
the steps of actually finding and then buying some good land, to settle
it and make it work for you, well, that's going to cost you everything.
All the cushy comforts of easy living will soon become a things of the
past. Smooth-skinned hands will give way to blisters and cuts and
bruises. Easy chair evenings will be replaced by long hours of
planning, building, clearing, repairing, and maybe a little cussing
along the way.

Will it be worth it? Only you can really answer that. What's it worth
to you to walk on soil that you own, sit in a room that you hammered
out, to eat a meal that you raised? What's it worth to you to have a
place for your children or grandchildren to see life for the natural
wonder that it really is?

When I was about 8 we moved from the city to a dairy farm. The house
had no electricity when we first moved in. There was no indoor
plumbing at all. I remember waking up to the sounds of cows pulling
and chewing grass in the front yard whenever they got through the
fence. I remember my mom running out of the outhouse screaming when a
big king snake got in there with her. I remember the taste of warm,
raw milk at meals, and watching my folks stir the fresh cream into
their coffee. I remember having to clean the stuff off the front porch
left by chickens and ducks. I remember running barefoot over wide
pastures and freshly cut hay fields. I remember the creek and the
quicksand, the thorns and the stinging nettles. I was introduced to
life on that dairy.

Life in the country, especially on a piece of mostly undeveloped land,
is no picnic. But for many of us, it is required.

If you require real life, if you are working toward the goal of having
a place that is really your own, then you will want to visit the
House-n-Land website. Just go to http://www.house-n-land.com/ and
click on the "Buying Raw Land" link. You may also want to check out
the information on other pages, information about getting land from the
U.S. government.

http://www.house-n-land.com/

Jim