The histories of six Quabbin Region farms show us how people have coped and changed and continued to find ways to stay on the land--or to return to it as new and experienced farmers have done again and again. These local stories of food and farming also show us what it means to work within finite resources and what it takes to create new opportunities at a small but sustainable scale that's rooted in community. The stories remind us that both food and energy ultimately rely on a natural world with considerable limits, something we often manage to forget in an era when fossil fuels have let us live well beyond our ecological means.