Farm Crisis Update

This might be a little long, but if you want to know what’s going on around here..

Land Rich, Cash Poor

Some of you, very justifiably, might wonder why people who own 760 acres of land in Southern California need your help keeping their business afloat.

The first answer is very simple:  California doesn’t make it very easy to do anything useful with your land.  Our governing authorities basically hate human life, and they value endangered rodents more than they do new little families building their own little cottage.  They want expensive studies to make sure your plans don’t interfere with some weird weed or some fish so rare no one has a picture of it.   There’s also a dimension of pure selfishness in the equation.  It is expressed in this undeniable truth about Californians: “the most ardent environmentalist is the last guy to build a house.”  Think about it.  You build a nice home on a California hillside.  You love the downstream meadow views, so what do you do?  You make sure the guy who owns that meadow can’t build a few homes just like yours.  You don’t “own” the view, but you feel entitled to make sure it stays just the way it is.  You style yourself a “conservationist,” even though you built a home in the very same neighborhood. (“Hypocrite!” Says Jesus)  I have some friends who wanted to keep a vacant lot a garden, and a kind of park.  They got together and PURCHASED it.  That’s the honorable way to conserve land, but very few people “get” it.  If you ever wonder why there are so many homeless in California, you need to remember that existing homeowners make it difficult for anyone else to build.  The people you see on the street might actually be into drugs, because they can’t afford to be into a home.

The second answer has to do with financial complexity: Banks do not like to loan on large rural tracts of land.  They understand single family residences and apartment buildings and small retail structures.  They do NOT understand a single home on 26 acres.  Mary and I had to make application to 19 different banks to secure our construction loan in Oak Glen, and we only achieved success, finally, by virtue of our parents agreeing to encumber their own homes.  I don’t blame banks, by the way.  They need to recover their assets if someone defaults on a loan, and who can blame them for not wanting to figure out the price of an apple farm?

Who knows the price?  It’s terribly difficult to appraise the market price of a property like this before an actual buyer agrees with an actual seller.  Our 76o acres in Oak Glen features several water wells, 150,000 gallons of water storage, four single family residences, dozens of barns and outbuildings, more than 2,000 fruit trees, public restrooms, two banquet facilities, county approval for development (A conditional use permit), and a business that sees millions of people a year.  What is that worth?  It’s anyone’s guess.  It’s a range so wide, and preposterous, that I hesitate sharing it with you.

Our promise:  if we ever did sell this place, at our price, we will pay all of you back for your help.  It only stands to reason.  We would rather stay, and provide apples, living history, and good music forever, but if we had to move, our “dirt rich” would be shared back with the people who valued it.

Why I Reject the “Non-Profit” Model

I have many good friends who work in civil service, churches, and non-profits, so don’t take offense, but a lot of “charity” and “public service” groups go completely crazy after the first generation’s good intentions.  With every new hiring season, college graduates bring the latest identify-studies nonsense into the organization and insist that all of the programs be upgraded to please the various versions of “pronouns-du jour.”  (Honestly, can any of you fellow heterosexuals even imagine a parade where we glory in our orientation?  Doesn’t “identity” at some point become a little cloying?)

I know lots of living historians who cringe, lately, at the contemporary incarnations of Williamsburg, Gettysburg, and Plymouth. Most of the social media posts seem to be about people who were “enslaved” or about the glories of Native American culture.  You can tell those stories, of course, but what’s wrong with telling the story of a people who braved oceans, and disease, and death, to create a culture of freedom in a New World?  (I also know a pioneer living historian who was asked if there could be no “gender-specific” activities in his programs? Where in the world does this come from?)  Is there something about a “City on a Hill” that requires apologies?  Why are the glories of true progress dismissed, entirely, because history, and people, make mistakes?

I will DIE before some blue-haired, progressive weirdo allows revisionist, CRT history to be prominently displayed here.  If some bearded man in fishnet stockings demands to be considered a male redcoat, with mascara and false eyelashes, I will tell them to get help. (Wouldn’t Steven Spielberg do the same?  Why should a conservative artist–like me–be given the same courtesy?)

I HATE most of the non-profits who bow to different versions of this nonsense.  They never deliver real history, because, in the end, they please the donors and not the customers. There needs to be honest, heroic, grateful living history somewhere in the world, and I take that obligation seriously.

The Exponential Dimension of Advertising: why 20,000 means nothing.

I am running an ad for our summer programs right now on X.  It’s a little discouraging for us small business types.  Riley’s Farm has 27,000 on our email list, 40,000 Facebook fans, about 19,000 Instagram fans.  Guess what?  With the exception of the email list, that means not much at all.  You need MILLIONS of subscribers to take advantage of the math.  Think about it: on some campaigns, one percent of the impressions get a click and one percent of the people who click make a purchase.                                                        .

If we want to stay in Oak Glen, we need you to turn that 20,000 into 20 million.  Share our content! and book a visit here.  If you can’t do that, consider helping us with a donation.

If you are still reading, know this:  we love you folks.  If we make it, it will be because of people like you.

Categorised in: Summer

This post was written by Jim Riley