No Place like Home

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Kate Will

Yes, it’s true, there’s no place like home, and no matter how I slice it, Kansas is now my home.

Back in New England, when I first mentioned that I was heading back west (deep into fly-over country) to be Grit’s new editor, more than one of my coastal-minded friends wondered why on earth would I ever do that? What they didn’t know is that to me, Kansas is an ultimate destination – not like some reality show’s island of delight, but a place that a cattle-loving boy from North Dakota can believe in and dream about. And I most definitely dreamt about life in Kansas when I was young – and even when I was not so young.

It wasn’t Dorothy or her little dog Toto who first turned me on to Kansas. It was a romanticized boyhood notion that the center of this country’s cattle industry was in Kansas. In my mind, Kansas was a mystical state where real cowboys drove real cattle on real cattle trails to railheads like Wichita and Kansas City. Kansas was the closest thing to heaven that I could imagine other than perhaps Texas.

Fast-forwarding through a few decades, I definitely feel a little like Dorothy now because I’m not sure just exactly how I got here. But I do know when I accepted the position with Grit in March, I felt that I was finally headed home. Just last weekend, a semi-load of my most cherished machinery arrived at my wife’s and my Osage County farm. Now I know for sure it’s no longer just a dream.

You’ll notice that we devoted quite a bit of space in this issue to cattle: Kansas and cows – just imagine my smile. Our readers asked for more information about livestock, and this is just the beginning. You also told us that you wanted more product reviews and articles about topics like converting barns into homes or hands-on cheese making. Stay tuned: These and many other suggested articles are already in the works.