California crime sends them to Mississippi.

Two burglaries, a mugging, a robbery and a stolen car in Hollywood turned me into an avid homesteading advocate. As a result, my wife, teenage son and I obtained seven acres in the Appalachian foothills of Mississippi. We've been living there a few weeks twice a year, but our plans are to occupy it permanently as soon as possible.

When we bought it, the land already had a 6-room dun brick modified Tudor-style house with a big corner chimney. It is situated on a knoll overlooking the public road just outside the village of Mantachie, population 700. The road, paved for a half mile outside town, continues through lush vegetation beyond our house, winding the rest of the way unpaved through a few miles of nearly unpopulated countryside.

Last summer we had a pond turned into a small lake with a year-round stream flowing into it and it was stocked with three kinds of fish, including five pregnant catfish. We had an eighth-mile nature trail cut through the back five acres. We built an arched wooden bridge over the stream that leads to a fresh water spring at the base of the bluff overlooking the rest of the property. We put up a little red barn complete with a weathervane and a connecting greenhouse on a cleared acre behind the house. To avoid felling any more trees, we designed a small corral to fit in the space outside the stable in back of the barn and set out 24 fruit trees, a grape arbor and a manageable vegetable garden fenced in by railroad ties to prevent erosion.

The surrounding woods and roadsides are heavy with dogwood so we've named our little shangri-la Dogwood Acres. In addition, the surrounding forest is filled with oak, hickory, pine, sassafras, cedar and several other local trees. Just about everything grows here and the woods are teeming with wild creatures. Deer, foxes, possums, squirrels, raccoons and rabbits are common and an occasional coyote, armadillo and snake can be seen. Wild turkeys, quail, partridges, owls, mockingbirds and numerous other flying creatures inhabit the woods. There seems to he some kind of songbird nearly year-round. When the mockingbird is quiet, the chickadee and woodpecker can be heard. During an early summer evening the whippoor wills call and an occasional screech owl shatters the peace.

Most retired people here live on their Social Security incomes. Very few are without some fruit trees and a vegetable garden, producing apples, pears, peaches, cherries, grapes, berries and melons of all kinds. There is practically no limit to the kinds of vegetables that can be grown here. Legumes, such as field peas are especially popular. Local people devote entire patches to them and three miles away is the smaller village of Peppertown, famous for its folk pottery and where the national pea shelling tournament is held, dubbed as "the most unique folk event in Mississippi."

Two bedroom red brick houses on two- and three-acre wooded lots have been given up in recent years for as little as $26,000. After we paid for our house and enlarged it to 3,000 square feet and a paved courtyard overlooking the lake, an abandoned 120-acre farm nearby came up for sale. We wanted it more than anything, so we scraped up enough to buy it at $72,000. We have already been offered $60,000 for just the timber on it, but we aren't selling a single tree. Instead we're turning it into a refuge for wildlife. Beavers have already dammed up a stream on the property and a three-acre pond has developed. Several deer and a flock of wild turkeys were seen on the property recently.

Our house is not within sight of another dwelling, but it is within walking distance of the village commercial center that includes more than a dozen stores, two restaurants, the last remaining cotton gin in the county and a school with an enrollment larger than the town's population. Students are bused in from surrounding rural communities.

During the town's annual weekend fall harvest festival, its population swells ten-fold. Individuals and clubs set up rent-free booths during this busy weekend, selling everything from local arts and crafts to sorghum molasses.

The county historical museum is located here along with an authentic general store that sells such things as turn-of-the-century washboards. An active saddle club holds an annual horse show and some of its members ride in covered wagon caravans on weekends. A garden and several quilting clubs meet regularly. The nearby community of Houston sponsors an annual bluegrass music festival and mule pull. Others hold greased pig catching contests, antique car shows and exhibitions of old-fashioned skills such as lye soap making, whittling, tatting and folk pottery. Surrounding communities have such names as Fawn Grove, Friendship, Maple Springs, Oak Grove, Ozark, Palestine, Peaceful Valley, Pleasant Grove, Pleasant Hill and Unity.

Rainfall here can be as much as 50 inches in a year, with March being the wettest and October the driest. Elevation around Mantachie ranges between 400 and 500 feet. The village is 20 miles from Mt. Woodall, elevation 817 feet, the highest point in Mississippi.

Mantachie is located in what was once the heart of Chickasaw Indian territory. It is in Itawamba County, population 20,017, once the poorest county in the state. Seven miles away is the county seat, Fulton, population 3,000, where a community college is located. Fifteen miles away is Tupelo, population 45,000, which has emerged as the second furniture manufacturing center in the country and has the college's vo-tech center along with a community symphony and ballet. The county is divided in half by the Tombigbee River and the recently developed Tenn-Tom canal that connects Mobile, Alabama, to the Tennessee River and beyond. Both commercial and pleasure boats ply this waterway. Several lakes dot the region and it has become popular among the more affluent to have a lakeside cabin or house overlooking the water.

The growing season extends from March to November. A few inches of snow fall once or twice a year, lasting no more than a day or two. If one is not accustomed to it, the July and August humidity, combined with temperatures in the 90s, can be wilting, although the average annual temperature is 65. The pace is extremely slow and the people are generally friendly, although there remain a few who have not learned to accept outsiders.

The biggest drawback, in my opinion, is the late summer prevalence of mosquitoes. However, we're putting up bat houses and purple martin condomimums to attract these winged creatures. It is said that just one of these birds can devour up to 6,000 mosquitoes, barn flies and wasps in a single day.

We intend to start some plants early and grow a few vegetables during the winter. Some bantam chickens and guineas will be kept to pluck ticks and undesirable insects from the grass and garden plants. We're even considering a Dutch gander for the pond that can help our dog guard our place and chase off undesirable creatures.

I grew up in this area, so I know the people and how to fend for myself. We aren't able to live here full time yet (must work two more years as a teacher and consultant before I'm eligible to retire), but we are anxiously looking to the day when we can escape from Los Angeles for the freedom of Dogwood Acres, where the air is clean as a whistle and, outside the caprices of songbirds, cicadas, crickets, katydids and croaking frogs, seldom is heard the sound of an air-polluting automobile. We want to experience that final peace at the end of this millennium in the quiet hills of northeast Mississippi, the area Tennessee Williams, Elvis Presley, Bobbie Gentry and Tammie Wynette moved away from. I also left 25 years ago in search of fame and fortune, but now I'm eager to return so my son can go outside into the tranquil night to look at the stars without getting clobbered.

We invite other like-minded people sick of urban life to join us as peaceful neighbors in this woodsy countryside.