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Thread: Why Wilderness???......Why NOT a FARM???

  1. #21
    reclinite automaton canid's Avatar
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    i love growing my own food with the same passion i feel for making my own things, and the constant learning process helps keep me as busy as the work.

    it hasn't taken me much work at a time this last year and a half to build a productive garden, and almost every cent of it, plus my tobacco for the last year have been paid for by recycling the beverage containers from my clean-up of nearby roads.

    i love it, and while i'd like to get out into the wilds more often, and/or live closer to them, i'm addicted to both cliches; the self sufficient homestead and the wilderness eden.
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  2. #22
    Junior Member WildHog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lorna View Post
    My dream is to have a homestead and be self sufficent. It's something I've wanted all my life. Yes, it will be alot of work but anything worth while in life is. I agree with Winnie it would be alot easier with a partner, but it can be done on one's own.
    I have seen a lot of people realize the misconception of being self sufficient. After 15 years of farming and being 85% self reliant I can tell you if you don't like to work outside from sun up to sun down just to survive reconsider another lifestyle. Maintaining 1000+ acres is not a career its a lifestyle IMHO

  3. #23
    reclinite automaton canid's Avatar
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    i work on a much smaller scale, and so i have to have other endeavors aswell. it's a lot easier to grow the majority of your own food than to pay all your bills with it.
    Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law.
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  4. #24
    Junior Member WildHog's Avatar
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    I can definitely respect that.

  5. #25
    Senior Member Winnie's Avatar
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    Doh!(slaps forehead) I think I've got it! Reading the posts on here, has made me realise it's not so much a self sufficient lifestyle as self reliant. Realisticaly speaking it's nigh impossible to be self sufficient in everything, I know, I've tried. But you can be more self reliant I've given myself a headache now from thinking too much
    Recession; A period when you go without something your Grandparents never heard of.

  6. #26
    Junior Member WildHog's Avatar
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    Exactly. When the SHTF you will be less reliant on others, but that only happens with hard work and good planning.

  7. #27

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    During the 70's there was the whole "Get back to Nature" thing going on. My parents bought into it as much as they could. We'd buy-in halfsies with a neighbor on a cow and a pig at the local abattoir every year. That would go in the freezer. We only had 1/3 of an acre of land but you'd be surprised what you can get out of a relatively small but well managed plot of garden. Mom did a lot of canning and freezing. We also did the Pick-Your-Own stuff (apples, raspberries, peaches, pears) back when they didn't charge extra for the 'novelty' of it.
    At the time it wasn't so much being self-sufficient as it was to save money.

    After years of being away from it, I've gotten back to being a little more practical, a little more living with the land (not off of it). I'm living on just under an acre now and slowly getting the garden up to speed. I'd love a place that was maybe two or three acres of good land in a zone 5/6 on a southern exposure. Looking but if I have to stay here, that's ok too.

    You don't need to have the acres and acres of land to live the lifestyle if you can find the right resources. Farming is a lot of work. Living closer to the land is also a lot of work. It seems that here in this forum there are a lot of people who would like to be off on their own, others who like other people around, just not so close, People who need lots of open space, and a few who either make do with what they have or just don't need the isolation.

    I like coming here for this peculiar blend of the survivalists and the pragmatists.

    Question, how does one pay their taxes on the land they own if they are living subsistently?

  8. #28
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    I don't know of any person in history that was self sufficient. Whether it was a clan, a tribe or a community, they all relied on each other to perform some piece of the overall work. Today's cities are no different just on a much larger scale.

    If you needed flour in the 1800s you saw the miller. If you needed shoes for your horse or nails, you saw the blacksmith. And on and on. We can all be self reliant. I'm not sure anyone can ever be self sufficient and produce 100% of what they and their family need.
    Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.

  9. #29
    reclinite automaton canid's Avatar
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    ishi made it a good while, but it drove him ultimately to enter American society against his worst fears.
    Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law.
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  10. #30
    reclinite automaton canid's Avatar
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    shoes for your horse or nails
    come on sir, who puts shoes their nails?
    Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law.
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  11. #31
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    Oops, my bad. That should have been snails.
    Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.

  12. #32
    Senior Member Ole WV Coot's Avatar
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    Why Not??? Because it's hard work, 24/7 and trying to make a profit is a big gamble. Most folks are spoiled by the 9 to 5 bit. At the present time it's a lot easier to work at Mickey D's and buy food than work the land, not to mention flipping burgers usually pays more.
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  13. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by canid View Post
    come on sir, who puts shoes their nails?
    No Rick had it right the first time in the old days Blacksmiths made NAILS. you didn't get them from the hardware store until fairly recently like maybe 100 years ago.
    Now canid if you were just picking on Rick then I'm sorry for interfering and please continue.

  14. #34
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    He was just picking on me.......again!!
    Tracks Across the High Plains...Death on the Bombay Line...A Touch of Death and Mayhem...Dead Rock...The Griswald Mine Boys...All On Amazon Books.

  15. #35
    Super Moderator crashdive123's Avatar
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    Seems to be the popular pastime of some folks.
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  16. #36
    Senior Member doug1980's Avatar
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    I am guilty of this myself. I grew up on farms worked at several turkey and hog farms and helped out with planting and all that. It was HARD work but was very rewarding. I fanticise about having a huge farm and being a typical farmer, but I also dream about living off the grid and living off the land. Neither will happen of course and deep down I know I would never be happy doing it. Sadly my reality will probably fall into living in some suburb with a 1/4 acre lot in a decent 2,000 sq ft home. Now that is nothing to be ashamed of or to not be happy with but it's not exactly what I want. What I really want is about 20 acres of mixed timber/open field. Would like a nice pond to swin and fish in. A barn and a few out buildings, an old farm house that I can remodel, a couple horses and the wife wants ducks. To me that would be heaven.
    Last edited by doug1980; 09-08-2009 at 02:51 PM.
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    Doug, tried to whip some reputation GREEN thing on you for that post, however it say's I got'ta spread the reputation points. Nice honest post.

  18. #38
    Grubbin fer food Durtyoleman's Avatar
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    A rural lifestyle is the ideal dream for me, but I have to admit I am as guilty as some of the kids of occaisionally romanticizing chucking it all and running off to the wilds to escape from the pressures of life in civilization. Seems to be worst around tax time...lol. In a rural area you can keep to yourself but can find people easily if needed but likewise they can find you, whereas in the wilds you can "hide". It's the ostrich/ head in the sand mentality. Were I a young man in peak health with my current knowledge I'd probably try something like it but now I find it prudent to stay near comfort and medical help. Even if I won the lotto I'd do a small farm and hire lots of help.
    D.O.M.

  19. #39
    Senior Member Thaddius Bickerton's Avatar
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    I was farming since was a kid, ran away to city / corp / moved back n got me a homestead.

    I think it was Five Acres and Freedom that really tiped the scales for me, that and reading Mel Tappan's book Tappan on Survival .

    I now have / will have Mom's place which is a nice half section, but currently just pastured out mostly and also the place I bought which has 15 acres that I work, and the rest is just bottom swamp or small alabama hill / mtn. Over run with game from squirrel n rabbit to deer n turkey n feral hog.

    Even noticed that a covey of quail has moved into the fence row a while back this year, but not sure if they will last till next hunting season since the coyotes are so fierce lately.

    Is a homestead hard work, YES. it is never ending, and if you have a city job to pay the bills it is dang near impossible to really get it working.

    As the kids got older and started to help i moved from just planning / small garden / stocking up to more and more. After the stroke and such I moved a lot of effort (with oldest son's help) into his metal shop on the homestead, and getting as self sufficient as we could.

    IF times get grubby we will adjust pretty easy, but it is a never ending job.

    I think living out in the woods would become work If I did it as a pure life style and it doesn't lend itself to familly. I do the woods loafing as relaxation, and the homestead as a comfortable life style that is good and healthy today and later on if things get grubby we still are pretty well off.

    JMTC< YMMV

    ETA: If you are single or somehow get up a nice nest egg you can make it on a homestead, but it takes thinking out of the box. For example just selling roadside veggies isn't gonna pay a mortgage, but if you weld up farmers disks and such you make good money and only work at your times. Also if you specialize in something like herbs and sell them to fancy resturants you can do well or if you have time and patience, setting up 5 acres with gensing and then harvest / replant a acre each year will get you 50 to 100 k per year if you market it right. (know people doing both those things) Also several of the farm colleges have reports on making small truck farms pay off. Any one will work, but plan on sunrise to sun set ,and nights and weekends for long time. You will understand why a good wife, and large family make or break a homestead. The upside is the kids can homeschool and grow up free and smart and safe and healthy and well educated on how to make their way in the world. Good way to rear a family IMHO.

    Thad
    Last edited by Thaddius Bickerton; 04-19-2012 at 11:10 PM.
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  20. #40
    Senior Member Sparky93's Avatar
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    I haven't seen this thread before, but this is basically my dream. I am not really a big city kind of person, all I want is about 50 acres or more of land that I can have a little farm/ranch setup. A small house or cabin, nice barn, cows, horses, pigs, and chickens etc. Raise my own food and still be close enough to a town where I can work at a machine shop and make some decent money. I don't wish to spend the rest of my days living in a dirt hut, if that were the case why would I be spending all this money getting a degree? The other part of my dream is to setup my future house off-the-grid but unless the price of solar panels and wind turbines come down I am going to need one heck of a lot of alternators and pvc pipe to turn into turbines lol spend the money that would of been spent on solar panels and buy some good lithium-ion batteries (which still aren't cheep by any means)
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