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Our Latest Rural Business Opportunity:
Beautiful Hotel in Orleans
Just Listed in Orleans, NE
Our Latest Rural Housing Opportunity:
Along Sappa Creek
Just Listed in Beaver City, NE
Rural Success Stories: Prairie Sunset Farm
Family finds diversification is key to making a living on 160 acres
Raising healthy and responsible children while leading community projects, starting new businesses and managing a family farm require megawatts of physical energy plus the imagination of a Disney World executive, the skills of a plant biologist, veterinarian, business and marketing specialist, mechanic and nutritionist — at least the way Leah tenBensel and her husband Eric go about it. more...
Rural Success Stories: Hawkins Manufacturing
Hawkins Manufacturing carves out a niche in the ag industry
The specialized tools used by farmers are a little baffling to the rest of us. What in the world is a “crust breaker” or a “row crop ditcher” or a “corn reel”? Why would someone need a “bale flipper”? Actually, each is a carefully-engineered piece of equipment designed to do a particular job in the field, and all are manufactured by Hawkins Manufacturing, Inc. in Holdrege.more...
Rural Success Stories: The Pavelka Siblings
Home-schooled kids learn entrepreneurship along with 3 Rs
Talk about a well-rounded education. Janita and Tim Pavelka home-school their children in more than reading, writing, math and history. Janita, an entrepreneur herself with classes in an innovative method of piano instruction, teaches her children about entrepreneurship - and boy do they take it to heart. more...
Rural Success Stories: Rural Nebraska Telecommuters
Telecommuting combines the best of both worlds for many rural workers
Eileen and Rod Golus moved to Phelps County in June after researching areas with Internet connectivity options. Their new home is halfway between Rod's parents in Loup City and Eileen's parents in McCook, so their two young boys get to see a lot more of their grandparents. more...
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Articles & Essays: The Idea of Things
St. Mary's Catholic Church , Orleans by Betty Sayers
Betty Sayers’ search for migrating warblers led her to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the Village of Orleans. “The architect grasped the prairie landscape and the courageous, hopeful and stubborn people who made their life and living on it,” she writes. more...
Articles & Essays: Leaving home to grow, coming home to GROW
by Pat Underwood
Janell Anderson Ehrke believes it is good for young people raised in small towns to go out into the world to gain broader experience and education. She believes it can be even better when they bring those things back home and put them to work for their community. more...
Articles & Essays: Jon Chandler
Holdrege's Christian Orphan's Home is an important piece of songwriter's history
by Betty Sayers
Jon Chandler is widely regarded as one of Americana music's premier singer-songwriters as well as being one of the country's best western authors, with his work appearing in publications such as American Cowboy, Persimmon Hill and True West in addition to several novels. Jon's western novels, songs and poems share an historical perspective about the American West and the value of the frontier spirit. more...
Articles & Essays: Massacre Canyon Monument
Massacre Canyon saga is just one story in a rich Native American history in Nebraska
by Pat Underwood
In 1873, a battle in what is now known as Massacre Canyon in southwest Nebraska occurred when several tribes were off their reservations at the same time to engage in their annual summer buffalo hunts. more...
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Rural Foodies: El Rinconcito
El Rinconcito is a “little corner” of El Salvador in Lexington
by Pam Soreide, Betty Sayers and Phil Soreide
We had come to El Rinconcito – the “little corner” of El Salvador in Lexington. Recommended by one of our readers, we were warned it wouldn’t be fancy, but we were promised a food experience that would be interesting, unique and delicious. more...
Rural Foodies: Jane's Tavern
Lobster Capitol of Nebraska is a surprise in more ways than one
by Pam Soreide, Betty Sayers, Phil Soreide
Lobster is one of those dishes one associates with silver platters, fine crystal, waiters in tuxedos with vaguely French accents and perhaps a little Mozart from a string quartet in the background. Alternatively, lobster goes with a weathered-wood shack on a Maine pier with picnic tables covered in newspaper and a chef in a white apron that doesn’t say much beyond, “Ayuh”. more...
Rural Foodies: China Hy Express
Good food artfully prepared is philosophy of Lexington's China Hy Express
by Pam Soreide, Betty Sayers & Phil Soreide
We may not be expert in Chinese cuisine, but in our travels we have learned that most of what passes for Chinese food in America wouldn't actually be served in China. Ethnic Chinese who come to the U.S. — even those who may have been expert chefs at home — go to school to learn how to prepare sweet and sour chicken or sukiyaki or egg rolls for the American palate. more...
Rural Foodies: Franklin's Down Home Café
There are two kinds of dreamers in the world — the ones who sing in the shower and dream of standing on a stage and the ones who cook at home and dream of opening a restaurant. If you’ve ever pulled a sublime dish out of the oven — done to perfection, the air filling with the rich redolence of Good Food — and said to yourself, “What’s Wolfgang Puck got that I haven’t got?” you have to appreciate what Alicia and Michael Williams have done.more...
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Livable Small Towns: Oxford
Village of Oxford Proves Good Things Come In Small Packages
Cruise into the small (pop. 900) Village of Oxford in south-central Nebraska, and you’re greeted by a main street broad enough to park cars in the middle as well as at the curbs. The first Oxford citizens designed a spacious community with room to expand. Clean, wide streets and sidewalks with big, shady trees welcome customers and visitors. Twenty-two businesses comprise the business district, first laid out and built in 1880 when the Republican Valley Railway Company (later to become the Chicago, Burlington and Quincey) crossed Harlan County and into the fledgling town.
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Livable Small Towns: Minden
If the perfect small town exists, it just might be Minden
If you could sit down at a drawing board to design the perfect small town, you’d start with a superb education system, then add in gracious and affordable homes. You’d want to make sure you had a prosperous manufacturing sector so there would be good jobs and a sound economy, then perhaps you’d want to add some interesting retail enterprises on wide, safe streets. You’d want to make sure to design in a strong sense of community, with a lot of citizen participation in community decisions, quality healthcare facilities and nearby opportunities for camping, hunting and fishing. Put down your pencil. You’re describing Minden.more...
Livable Small Towns: Red Cloud
Red Cloud is an Historic Treasure...and a Treat For The Eyes
Gracious homes, buildings and more remind visitors of Nebraska heritage. Red Cloud’s place is unique in American and Nebraska history. Celebrated author, Willa Cather’s best-known work, My Antonia, was inspired by the town, the land and the hardy pioneers in Webster County. Cather lived in rural Webster County and the town of Red Cloud until she left in 1890 to attend the University of Nebraska. Red Cloud’s strong literary heritage is juxtaposed with a hunting and farming culture, a theme woven into many of her stories. more...
Livable Small Towns: Red Cloud
Red Cloud is an Historic Treasure...and a Treat For The Eyes
Red Cloud’s place is unique in American and Nebraska history. Celebrated author, Willa Cather’s best-known work, My Antonia, was inspired by the town, the land and the hardy pioneers in Webster County. Cather lived in rural Webster County and the town of Red Cloud until she left in 1890 to attend the University of Nebraska. Red Cloud’s strong literary heritage is juxtaposed with a hunting and farming culture, a theme woven into many of her stories. more...
Welcome to Nebraska Rural Living
Nebraska Rural Living is the brainchild of two sisters who returned to their small town roots after a life pursuing their dreams in big cities. Nebraska Rural Living's mission is to market the very real benefits of a rural lifestyle by highlighting the amenities of rural communities and spotlighting successful entrepreneurs, who make good livings, free of the stress of urban environments. We offer links to a wide variety of sources and resources.
If you miss the safe, quiet streets, the wide-open sky, the sense of knowing – and caring about – your neighbors, we urge you to register and be a part of our community. And perhaps after you join us in spirit, you’ll join us in fact. more...
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What's Going On in Rural Nebraska
Patience, forbearance rewarded with the unique sound of a river full of cranes
It’s a sound that seems as ancient as time itself, as elemental as the breeze in the leaves, as organic as a waterfall, yet, somehow also reminiscent of the murmur of an auditorium full of people before the concert begins.
The unique sound of Sandhill Cranes gathering on the Platte River doesn’t come on all at once, of course— it builds one crane at a time.more...
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Also Featured This Month
For single mom, wagon and buggy restoration is a rewarding hobby
Writer Annette Van Buren never forgot a wooden sleigh she saw once on a trip to Kansas, so when she saw a similar one in an ad for a local auction, she had to go — and when she came home, she had a new hobby. more...
High end kitchen store is gourmet Mecca in McCook
You, as a shopper, know the feeling. It happens rarely; but it happens. It is the sense of wonder and adventure that takes place when you discover a really special store. more...
What I learned in my first 60 days playing golf
“In most people’s minds, golf is a term usually associated with either old men or Tiger Woods,” says Katy Soreide. “People don’t generally think of teenage girls having anything to do with golf. I know I didn’t...until that fateful day when I first stepped out on the golf course.”more...
