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Dear Friends of Riley's Farm,
Sleepy Hollow: Every year, people tell us they couldn't make Sleepy Hollow because they tried to purchase tickets too late, so, fair warning: October 23 & 24 are now sold out, and some of the Friday and Saturday performances are edging closer. A few big charter schools have purchased quite a few tickets, so get your reservations in soon.
Our Crisis: You have two different ways of supporting us these days: A Donation or.. A 10% 5 Year Loan (invest as little as $100, or as one Texan did, $1,000). Details are at the link. We are just over $26,000 and we have 28 days to make $75,000, so if you believe Fort Riley belongs in California, we need you to grow with us. I need to blow past this goal and raise at least $200,000 in order to get us on a stronger footing.
My Balancing Act: For the last several years, I have had to walk an almost impossible high-wire. I need to remind you we are growing again (we are), but that we are recovering from years of high-ticket business necessities (property tax, liability insurance, workers comp, debt service) that were made VERY difficult by bureaucrats who locked down the nation, while they continued drawing salaries. (A family member advised me it would be the perfect time to sell the farm; everyone would understand.)
But with encouragement from all of you, we plowed on, and yet it's been very hard on us. My doctor told me I need to reduce stress. (I asked him "how do you do that?") Someone I love very much sat on the couch the other night and shook like a leaf. ("I can't take it anymore.")
So.. we MUST solve the problem, and we have a plan. You can read about it here, but it's fairly simple: "Soar or Sail (away)." We can't just grow by a little. We need to grow by a lot. If we have trouble selling events like Ragtime Medley and if our crowd-lend doesn't blow past our goals, and if there aren't enough people in Southern California like ALL OF YOU, then we will sense God is giving us a nudge. If that happens, no worries. I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking for a market that isn't there. I want to build Emerald City somewhere, and, believe me, I know there are people with far worse problems.
But consider the bright side: suppose our capital raising plans (both crowd-lending and crowd-equity) begin to work. We build cottages, a meeting house, craft buildings, a few period villages (where families live upstairs and pursue old world crafts on the first floor for public view), and we create a world of retreat from the insanity of our times. People could participate at all different levels -- club members, full time living historians, vacationers, educators, homeowners. The retreat we create would be an ongoing celebration of American history, and a celebration of the American experiment, woke-weirdoes be damned. If we blow past all our sales and capital-raising goals, then people "out there" have a winner's story to give them heart. Think about it: "California farm who doesn't mind defying leftist orthodoxy RAISING MILLIONS." Can we do it? I think we can, even if no one gets through to Donald or Elon.
The sky is still blue: On this crisis front, a family member observed cultural and political commentary, and conflict, would not be their first choice. Staging a First Amendment fight, inviting the crowd's animosity, seemed counterproductive. I understand that. We all want to "keep it light," but I'm reminded of something spooky a wise man once reported: even in VERY darkest chapters of world history (Hitler's Germany, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia), the daffodils still came up. The sky remained blue. Young men still got dizzy looking at pretty girls. God provides "normalcy" through dangerous times indeed. Only filmmakers give you a somber color palette and a creepy musical score to let you know doom is everywhere.
That very "normalcy," however, can make the "conflict-free" crowd feel safe in ways they aren't. Mao doesn't happen all at once. He winds up starving and torturing his people because not enough people got vocal, and enraged, soon enough. If you send your teenage boy to public school and you get a call from the hospital telling you there's been a snag in his sex-change operation (the one they never told you about), you can rest assured the inmates have taken over the asylum. And why? Because no one got bat-sh*t angry early enough. Everyone was trying to keep it "light," "stress-free," and "apolitical."
"Don't talk about politics, Mr. Riley."
And leave that discussion to the politicians and the pastors and the media?
How has that been working out for us?
See you soon!
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