Place

Let the land and the life determine the scale.

Land ownership is a priority. Everything beyond that is still allowed to move.

Not one inevitable farm

Smiths Meadow might be a five-acre diversified micro-farm with modest numbers of animals. It might become a premium livestock operation. It might someday involve a much larger grazing landscape. The natural progression of life should reveal which alternatives are truly feasible.

The point is not to maximize acreage. Bigger is not necessarily better, even with abundant resources.

Embedded, not isolated

The more realistic picture is not an intentional community separated from the world. It is a place inside an existing community: participating, producing, learning, helping, and becoming a good neighbor over time.

Smiths Meadow is a place first. Businesses, practices, projects, and programs may grow from it, but the place does not need all of them in order to be complete.