Saving America's Farmland- Butterfly Hollow Farm


	Discovering Nature, Saddles and Solitude in an Old Abandoned Tennessee Farm

Preserving Wilderness and Farm Land

Butterfly Hollow Farm ____ The Path Leading Us Here ____ How The Farm Got Its Name ____ Restoring the Old Farmhouse ____ Where The Beefalo Roam ____ Saddle Up The Horses ____ Saving Wilderness and Farm Land ____ Farm Journals ____ Sharing The Farm ____ Guest Book ____ Site Map ____


	Too often a farm's last crop is asphalt. Every year more than 1 million acres of farmland are lost to sprawling development nationwide. That's just about 3000 acres EVERY DAY! No issue will be more important in 21st century America than how we use our dwindling land resources. It seems like I've always had development knocking on every door that I've called home. From the rustic remote log cabin that I was raised in and the Cumberland Plateau farm that I worked and grew up on, to the forest we lived in in Kingston Springs to the hollow farm we now call home. In fact we weren't settled into our farm for more the three months when a 40 acre farm not far from us was chopped into 5 and 10 acre lots and sold. When I passed the subdivided markers for the first time, I decided then that I couldn't pass this way again without doing something. In my eyes there was no reason for the development. This area was obviously a farming community where almost all of the tracks within a 4000 acre radius are farms on the average of 100 acres and not less than 40 acres. There are plenty of available land sites for new houses and the increased population closer to the city limits. The only good that could possibly come from this one development would only be seen by the one person who made the extra profit from it. For everyone else it will mean an increase in property taxes, land prices, rural traffic, culture tensions, utility costs and a decrease in wildlife, next generation farmers, and a peaceful low cost, low impact way of life. So as a New Years resolution that year I decided to learn as much as I could about this issue and find out what we could do. For those of you that own farm or wilderness land, or enjoy going to or driving through America's green space, or even those that just appreciate the food you eat, I hope this web page will become a stepping stone and provide enough information to spark a desire within you to get involved. The information provided here has largely been provide by the American Farmland Trust, the Nature Conservancy and some other wonderful resources that I encourage you to contact. Also if you live in Tennessee or Smith County please be sure to check out the pages specifically for our area and feel free to contact me. Let's join together and strengthen our knowledge of how we can *Preserve, Protect and Pass on* this wonderful home of ours.