…A Soldier’s Unexpected Journey to Stewardship…

Plainspoken Books | Fall 2027

A true story of land, legacy, and the challenge of restoration. In his debut narrative non-fiction book, retired Colonel Bradley Pippin explores the half-century journey that led him from an abandoned childhood home in North Texas to a 240-acre wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Kansas Great Plains.

A Narrative of Stewardship, Restoration, and an Endangered Prairie Ecosystem

From the Edge of the Great Plains is the true story of one man’s transformation—from a lifelong hunter seeking a piece of land to call his own, to a devoted steward of a fragile, recovering ecosystem. This Narrative of Land, Legacy, and Stewardship is the true story of one man’s nineteen‑year journey restoring a forgotten piece of Kansas prairie—and, in the process, reshaping his understanding of nature, responsibility, and what it means to belong to a place.

When Bradley Pippin first purchased 240 acres of overgrown farmland and timber, he imagined a hunter’s paradise. What he found instead was a wounded ecosystem: invasive weeds choking out native grasses, poachers slipping through the timber, drought killing wildlife, and a landscape long stripped of its keystone species. Armed with determination, research, and a stubborn willingness to learn by failing forward, he began the slow work of healing the land.

Across nearly two decades, Pippin establishes food plots, plants thousands of trees, battles invasive species, builds a lake during a generational drought, and witnesses the return of deer, bobcats, otters, eagles, and—eventually—monarch butterflies. Along the way, the land teaches him its own lessons. What begins as a quest to create better hunting becomes a profound epiphany: the land is not here to serve him; he is here to serve the land.

Blending ecology, personal memoir, natural history, and vivid storytelling, From the Edge of the Great Plains explores the ancient rhythms of prairie and woodland, the fragile balance of modern ecosystems, and the urgent need for a cultural shift from Dominion to Stewardship. It is a book about mistakes, persistence, wonder, and the redemption found in restoring what was lost.

Part adventure, part ecological meditation, and part call to action, this narrative invites readers to reconsider their relationship with the natural world—and to imagine what might be possible if each of us tended our own small corner of Earth with humility, curiosity, and care.

It is a book for hunters, conservationists, landowners, naturalists, and anyone seeking a hopeful path forward in a changing world.