When I was a kid, little little, my family trained horses.
Grandpa and one of the uncles was a Jockey. Pops was a bull rider, auntie was barrel racer, another uncle was a quick draw guy. So rich folks would bring their horses for training and stabling. The farm was built over 100 years ago. Grandma and Grandpa, an Italian woman and an Irish boy, bought the farm in the 50's after Grandpa got out of the military. He was pistoleer. Could hit a playing card dead center and a hundred yards.
Now, I thought this story was bullshit until one day when he was starting to get sick he saw a skunk out across the road. About 50 yards out, he told me to go ask Grandma for his pistol and to bring it to him.
He leaned against the house and took a single shot, severing the skunks spine so it wouldn't spray.
No joke.
Anyways.
The farmers around here always helped each other out. Hell, I was bucking hay at 7 years old. Pushing hay bails bigger than I was across the hay loft to the big guys so they could stack em.
Well, some of the farmers started to get old and passing away. And they had a deal setup with each other where they'd auction off their land so it would be fair to all the neighbors.
Well, first the horse pasture went for up for auction.
And some rich prick rolled in and put more money on the table than the farmers could pull together. He put a house on it. So with no where to pasture the horses we still did a little bit of care, stabling of the family's couple of horses, but that was it.
Then the well water became undrinkable because these big factory farmers started spraying so much pesticide it poisoned the groundwater.
The farm aged with Grandpa.
Not well.
So pops made a deal with one of the neighbors that owned the hay field for half of it in exchange for working on the property. They built up a water shed to feed a new well system. Pops built a garage and he and the rest of the fam moved into it and lived there for nearly 10 years while they saved the money to build a house while I was off playing super hero.
Well, the neighbor died of cancer, the land went for auction.
Same thing happened.
Except this time an old rich dude bought the land and just started dumping old cars out there and letting the property go to trash. We cleaned things up, cleared his field of thistles so it could be hayed. Etc.
Then he started getting sick and we were like "yo, we want to buy the property." instead he fenced the fishing pond off so a different neighbor could let their cows roam on it. Problem is, those cows are now shitting in the water shed that feeds the drinking water.
So we'll be back to hauling water soon because of it.
Grandma passed away this last summer. Grandpa about 15 years ago. And now grandma's house is going up for auction in August.
My hope is that I can come up with $10 million. So I can buy grandma's house on auction and restore/repair/update it. And partner with the local colleges to turn it into a vet school. Kansas State is an Agricultural school. Kansas University a Medical school, Emporia a teaching college, and Washburn a Law School.
So I'd want to staff it with students after all the work is done.
Because when the railroad tracks came out the rail road land was supposed to revert back to the surrounding farms, but instead the county turned it into a walking trail. So it's in a perfect place to act as a trail head for riders and people with pets.
That crazy plan and budget I outlined in the first few months of being back in the area, is a build plan for if I can get the farm and the fields near it.
I want to turn them into an agricultural campus that partners with those four universities.
Imagine that dude.
A vet's office for horses and other critters on the old farm, then taking a field that poisoned the drinking water and turning it into a working farm/festival grounds with a year round farmers market.
The jobs it would make, the history it would teach....
Anyways.
That's my mad plan.
To restore the land to it's farming roots and teach future generations about what it takes to run their own farms.
A market/diner in the old farm house fed by the farm. The old stable barn turned into the vet's office. The old hay barn turned into dorms. And the old grain silo turned into an observatory for astronomy classes.
Then out in the field a permeant structure renaissance festival that is a working farm with weekly markets and seasonal events.
On property housing for staff when they're working, classrooms for teaching about how the farm works, theater classes, concerts on the decks of pirate ships, markets under a small castle and inn and a tavern for guests. And all of it feeding people and teaching them the skills to carry into their own lives and projects.
Then, if I can pull this one off, I have plans for the local speedway that was shut down because they built a new on in Kansas City and moved everything there.
But yeah.
First though, I have to buy the farm, because Grandma put it in the will to sell so her kids wouldn't fight over it.
Then the field(s).
Crude markings on the maps because I just pulled them together, but they go along with this more detailed explanation and the budget proposal for construction.
The plan to fund the fair ground construction is to partner with Movie studios to build different parts in exchange for filming rights for what ever projects they want to film there. (personally I want to make a another D&D movie) but that's the rad part about filming. Is that you can use the same locations over and over for different projects as long as you film it from different angles.
That's what the "backlots" in Hollywood are.
So I'm literally wanting to build a backlot for fantasy shows and movies that's a working farm.
