he quality of open-mindedness is essential to learning. Never fear to be open to new ideas. Nothing new or useful ever results from a closed mind. Specifically, consider all the country, not just those areas to which you presently feel drawn. Once in your new place, let your brain be like a sponge.


Persistence

Stay with it until you get what you want. Few have said it as well as cool Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Here's one by Lucretius that will make a picture: "The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence, but by oft falling."

Ability to make decisions



By picking up this book you've already made a decision. We'll get back to this one later, when we need it most.

Willingness to take a chance



Willingness to take a chance derives from passion and confidence-knowing that we're ready because we've accumulated adequate information. This book provides the recipe for the ideal country place. That will contribute to your confidence level. Add passion and stir.

Essential country skills #87 and #93:
Instructions for Skill #87-Chasing bears away: Always keep the pointed end of the spear in the bear's face. Tell the bear to go away. If the bear slaps the spear out of your hands, pick up the spear and again point it at the bear's face. Repeat this procedure as long as necessary to impress the bear with your sincerity. Some bears are stubborn and require prolonged training.

Instructions for Skill #93-Shooting birds for dinner: Point the gun at a bird and pull the trigger. If the bird keeps flying, repeat the procedure. Continue shooting birds until you have as many birds as people coming to dinner. Have an alternate menu.

Are you seeking a permanent, temporary, or second home?

This is a fundamental question. If you are seeking a permanent home you have the luxury to ignore investment considerations. But do be concerned about growth direction, as nothing can so annihilate peace and quiet as nearby development. If you need a temporary home, you will do well to buy where values are rising, so that you can make maximum profit when you sell. The optimum location is where rapid growth is imminent. Read Jack Lessinger's book, Regions Of Opportunity: A Bold New Strategy For Real Estate Investment With Forecasts To The Year 2010. If you must be able to sell quickly when the time comes, buy something that is in high demand-not too big, not too small, and within a short distance of school, shopping, and highway. Try for assumable financing and high loan-to-sale price ratio-invest as little cash as possible. Sellers are more likely to make an assumable loan than institutional lenders. A second home, used for long weekends and vacations, often eventually becomes more desirable than the primary residence. It would be wise to treat the search for a second home as if it were for a permanent home, as it may turn out to be. If you want a second home that may become a permanent home, then do not compromise-look for your ideal place. Spending enjoyable holidays and vacations at a second home is seductive-you may soon find that life is better there than "back home." Welcome to the country.

Wants and needs
What are your true needs and wants, your hot buttons-what turns you on? Do you want to garden, landscape, conduct a business, or farm commercially? Find a traditional school for your children? Have your fishing boat tied up to a dock in front of the house? Ski out the back door? Hunt and trap? Park your plane on your own landing strip near your house? Answers to these questions will begin to shape your requirements. Write them down.

How much land do you want?
This decision not only has a dollar value-in many ways it affects quality of life. One of the reasons most of us move to the country is to experience openness and quiet not possible with close neighbors. Larger parcels create more privacy-our activities remain only ours unless we choose to share them. Later, if children or grandchildren are drawn to join us living on the land, a larger acreage will allow each a measure of privacy. Securing a high level of privacy derives from two qualities: location and size of acreage. Other than climate, location is the only factor that cannot be changed about a piece of land. Area population change is inevitable but we can go a long way toward ensuring stable tranquillity by choosing a home place with attention to certain factors. Desirability of place is a double-edged sword; if we find an area highly desirable, others will find it so also. The result can be a phenomenon, or disease, sometimes indelicately called "Californication." There are two solutions: choose a place that has a feature others find objectionable (economically depressed, poor accessibility, remoteness, occasional flooding); or get there first and buy enough land to buffer the inevitable invasion. Note: when the invasion comes, taxes will rise. Beyond privacy, there are other considerations for owning more land than needed for personal use. We presently own 130 acres but use only about five on a regular basis other than for cutting firewood. We feel good about the remaining land being protected in its natural state, the trees helping to ameliorate global warming, all vegetation protecting the watershed and providing a home to a multitude of flora and fauna, the natural world essentially untouched. And there is deep pleasure gained from walking on and observing one's own land, knowing that it is safeguarded and will not be damaged during our lifetime. Or just sitting on a rock and absorbing. It is a better church than any building. The how-much-land decision must be a very personal choice for each of us, but the following is offered as a guide:

* Space for house and other buildings: garage, workshop, barn, other outbuildings * Space for activities for yourself and your animals: crops, pastures, gardens, orchard, woodlot, pond, landscaping, leisure activities * Extra acres to ensure the desired degree of privacy and quiet * Land for natural, undisturbed space

Jed Clampett: Pearl, what d'ya think? Think I oughta move?
Cousin Pearl: Jed, how can ya even ask? Look around ya. Yer eight miles from yer nearest neighbor. Yor overrun with skunks, possums, coyotes, bobcats. Ya use kerosene lamps fer light and ya cook on a wood stove summer and winter. Yer drinkin' homemade moonshine and washin' with homemade lye soap. And yor bathroom is fifty feet from the house and you ask "should I move?"
Jed: I reckon yor right.
A man'd be a dang fool to leave all this!
The Beverly Hillbillies

pp 94-95

There may be a psychic connection between people and place. Others and I have marveled at the high incidence of us Capricorns in the Ozarks. We speculate that the heavily vegetated, rugged hill country is simply natural terrain for goats, who delight in climbing and will seemingly eat anything. We try to have annual Capricorn parties, although January road conditions are the most challenging of the year. The ideal country home place has at minimum enough good soil for a garden and orchard, a woodlot, and sufficient vegetation to prevent erosion of sloping land and to provide a pleasing view. All these items are factors of topography. Americans can choose to live in terrain that is mountainous, hilly, flat, coastal, desert, or plains. Choices continue with ridgetops, valleys, hollows, bottomland, and upland. Then we have forests, grasses, cropland, mixed vegetation, even swamps. Each of these land characteristics has advantages and disadvantages. Each has its own character and each shapes the character of the characters who live there. This influence of topography on humans is illustrated by the words that define those who live in certain places: swamp rat, desert rat, hillbilly, flat-lander, mountaineer, woodsman, etc.

Topography 101
As the outside of the earth cooled down, cracks developed which created the giant plates that comprise the present mantle, the solid stuff we walk on and that underlies the seas. The swirling gasses settled down to a pattern, separated into layers, an atmosphere developed, water fell, hit the rock and began wearing on it. The plates, floating on the hot inner magma, slowly moved. Where they pushed into each other, edges lifted and became mountains. A few billion years of plate bumping, rain falling, frost cracking and heaving, rivers forming, and Earth began to look like the neat place we see today. (We know all this because Cecil B. deMille was there to film it.) Up to this point we are talking about geology, which is sort of the underlayment of topography, which is on top, which is why-ahem-it is called top-ography. The action of rain, wind, freezing, and the glaciers created soil from rock. Depending on the rock it came from, soil is composed of percentages of various minerals. When plants die and decay they become humus, which becomes food for the next generation of plants. Depending on the incidence of temperature, moisture, type of soil, wind, sun angle, and other things, unique plants grow in different places.
A quick topographic trip from sea to shining sea
Areas that have similar physiography often have similar geology, hydrology, and climate. The following map shows the physiographic regions and provinces of the contiguous states. A brief explanation of each numbered region follows:

1. Superior Upland-Hilly area of erosional topography on ancient crystalline rocks. 2. Continental Shelf-Shallow, sloping submarine plain of sedimentation. 3. Coastal Plain-Low, hilly to nearly flat terraced plains on soft sediments. The east coast is like the edge of a broken jigsaw puzzle, with continuous inlets, bays, and sounds. The coastal plain extends from Long Island south to and around Florida including the Gulf coast to Mexico. With an average width of about 150 miles this is approximately ten percent of the land. 4. Piedmont Province-Gentle to rough, hilly terrain on belted crystalline rocks becoming more hilly toward mountains. 300 to 1,000 feet in elevation, a transition to the Appalachian Mountains. The east edge of the Piedmont is the "fall line," an escarpment down which rivers tumble in falls to the plain. 5. Blue Ridge Province-Mountains of crystalline rock 3,000 to 6,000 feet high, mostly rounded summits. Mount Mitchell, in the Black Mountains of western North Carolina, is at 6,684 feet the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains. 6. Valley and Ridge Province-Long mountain ridges and valleys eroded on strong and weak folded rock strata. 7. St. Lawrence Valley (look in upper New York)-Rolling lowland with local rock hills.

pp 238-239

Rural property prices today
The average value of U.S. farmland in 1995 was $832 per acre, an all-time high. (See page 144 for area averages.) Prices of marginally productive farmland in areas such as parts of the Great Plains are falling as irrigation costs rise, land is abandoned, and agribusiness forces more family farmers out of business. The trend today is to huge agri-factories, whether for grain or animal production, on land close to inputs and markets. This trend has created difficult conditions for family farmers but is beneficial to urban refugees looking for old farmsteads at favorable prices. Rural homes with acreage and unimproved land suitable for homesteads may be more or less expensive per acre than land appropriate for full-scale farming, depending on location, seller motivation, demand, and other local conditions. Following is a sampling of listings from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estater Service and Rural Property Bulletin, available as of March 1996:
* Arizona: 40 acres near Ashfork. Appraised value $15,000, cash discount.
* Arkansas: 3 BR, 2 BA, central heat and air, 2-car garage, 25 acres, $95,000.
* California: 16 acre parcel. Panoramic view of foothills, $55,000.
* Colorado: 1.9 acres w/cabin. Views of the Rocky Mountains. $68,750.
* Florida: 3 BR, 2 BA home on 10 acres, $39,900. Also, 20 acres, $36,000.
* Idaho: 20 acres, creek, trees and pasture, mountain views. $52,000.
* Illinois: Own your own island: 7 acre island, 2 cabins, great fishing. $28,500.
* Kansas: 157 acres, some tillable, some timber, rural water available. $65,000.
* Kentucky: 185 acres, rolling hills and hollows, hardwoods, some open. $59,500.
* Michigan: 40 ac., 3 BR, custom barn w/box stalls, indoor arena. $152,900.
* Minnesota: 16 acres, 4 BR 1 3/4-story, great outbuildings, fruit trees, $84,900.
* Montana: Cabin, 2.5 acres, over 400' creek frontage, remote setting. $49,900.
* Pennsylvania: 89-acre farm, 4 BR & 2 full BA. Barn & 2 outbuildings. $180,000.
* Rhode Island: 105-yr-old Colonial on approx. 2.01 acres w/pond. $89,900.
* Virginia: 84 acres, woods, springs and creek, wildlife, 3 room cabin. $58,500
* Wisconsin: 158 acres, abandoned farm house, barn, 40x90 shed. $59,500.
* Wyoming: Ranch land 20 miles west of Rawlins. 640 acres for $41,600.

Californians are currently in love with the Rocky Mountain states. Prices of highly scenic land in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado are being driven up by the demand. Newcomers often bring with them the paradigm of buying homes with property for investment. Some longtime ranching families are selling out for premium prices, then buying much larger acreages in less scenic places. Dr. Tom Carlson, a veterinarian and rancher, sold his 600-acre horse ranch in Shell at the base of red cliffs in Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains. He then acquired 16,800 acres in the high plains near Medicine Bow and had money left over (The New York Times, 5-7-95).

Future prices

Guessing the speed of real estate price movement is a high-stakes game intensely played by investors, bankers, developers. For instance, huge acreages are being purchased in parts of the West on speculation that land prices there will escalate. Heavy hitters might figure that Tarzan Ted Turner bought his 140,000 Montana acres with more in mind than just privacy for playing with Jane. My bet is there will be a ten-to-twenty year period of undulating adjustment while inflated urban prices meet the effect of rural migration, immigration, and the reality of global economic forces. Until NAFTA, GATT, the EC, and other alliances have shown their influence on American jobs, predicting urban prices is a crapshoot. What's the future for rural real estate prices? Part of the answer can be found by studying the census reports of the last 30 years. The 1980 census showed that the 40-year movement from country to city had reversed. Now in the last part of the 20th century, Americans increasingly find cities unhealthy, unsafe, too expensive. In "Rural Rebound Revisited" Kenneth M. Johnson and Calvin L. Beale note that rural residents are typically staying put while metropolitan residents continue the migration to rural places (American Demographics, 7-95). It is reasonable to predict that the migration to rural America will continue. I believe that it will accelerate due to the factors outlined in the Introduction and in Chapter 18. The picture of population migration from city to country has become clear. The movement is incremental. Central city dwellers move out to the suburbs. Suburbanites move out to small towns or to real country. Like the circular wave created by a disturbance in calm water, the movement is outward, ever outward. University of Washington real estate professor Jack Lessinger studies these things. He predicts:

Prices will rise in penturbia. They must, to reflect growing populations. . . . In newly developing counties, land values will rise, in metropolitan counties they will fall. Gradually, the two will become more equal in value.

Anticipating the demand for rural property, many people are now buying second homes as a hedge against higher prices and as a way of more easily making the city-to-country transition. Baby boomers are turning their backs on faded corporate dreams and are converting big-city equities into small-town cottages and rural businesses. Legions of ex-Californians are already growing gardens in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Texas. East Coasters are filling Maine, Vermont, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Midwesterners are migrating to Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas. So-are country prices going up? Do politicians break promises? Does a goose go barefoot? (For urbanites who have never seen a goose and are therefore unsure whether they go barefoot, please see picture following.)

pp 296-297

Military installations
Military bases are often major polluters with no one to keep them in line. A case in point: Time, 2-12-96, under the head "Chemical Time Bombs," noted there have been 2,100 reported incidents of leakage inside the chemical weapons "igloos" used for storage on military bases. In 1995, 60 workers at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama were evacuated and one was hospitalized after the nerve gas sarin leaked from an M-55 rocket. Military bases should not be considered a stable employment base. And their male personnel should not be allowed near your daughters without a chaperone. (Just kidding-I was one and I was nice. Honest.)

Flight paths-the invasion of paradise
Modern jet airports require large amounts of space. New ones are typically built away from cities in sparsely populated areas. Living under a designated flight path is enduring a sound track from hell. As you narrow your search you will want to determine if your chosen area includes airports and their attendant flight paths. I recommend you make a very thorough investigation. is located. Find someone there who can show you on a map where the local flight paths are.

Talk to your potential neighbors. Contact the Federal Aviation Administration. If you can't get the information you need, call your congressperson. Call the President. Unless you love airplanes more than life itself, call God if necessary, but do get the facts on all flight paths in your chosen area, including those used by military aircraft, upon which no requirement for noise control is imposed, so their roar is greater than that of commercial aircraft. It is that important. While my experience is out of the ordinary, I have visited people who live under flight paths and conversation necessarily stops when a jet goes overhead. I like airplanes. They are a safe, efficient way to travel. But over a residence and a garden they are noise pollution and air pollution.
I had lived on my place for several weeks and was working in the garden one morning when an earthshaking roar came up the hollow. The hair on my neck stood straight out as the roar materialized into a very-low-flying bomber painted a dull gray with no identifying marks, with what appeared to be metal shutters covering the windshield. It came directly at me. I staggered, my intellect did a full stop, I braced myself to die. A cerebral neuron finally fired and I realized that I was experiencing the beginning of the end of the world. This Darth Vader-like apparition was from the evil empire, sneaking in under radar, committed to vaporize some nearby secret military target. My world would end with a blinding nuclear explosion. The monster thundered by directly overhead, its bomb doors clearly visible.

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