We are Todd and Julia McDonald. In a frantic spring of 2007, we moved from the city of Chicago to a 20-acre farm just 50 miles south of downtown. We bought a trailer, grew some vegetables, got married.
Manteno is a small town built around agriculture, a grain elevator, and a railroad line. Maybe it is most famous for a its State Mental Hospital, a now defunct compound which has since been remade into a lovely home and business development.
You will know Manteno by the high-beam searchlight indicating the McDonalds just off Interstate 57. Driving west, there is not much beyond flatness, with corn and soybean fields sprawling for miles in all directions. Many have signs for sale. Among these grain fields is one narrow plot with two new starry-eyed homesteaders and a plan for a different kind of crop.
