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Around here land goes for $15K/acre. Water is becoming a problem too.
Maybe you should look elsewhere (?). Not all land is so expensive; not all areas are in a drought.
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Originally Posted by LordyLordy
Joel Salatin and people who follow him make the same claims - if you want to farm, DO NOT buy land first. Rent it, get experience first and then rent it, whatever.
We are about to sign a lease on some land to use as pasture. It has sat vacant for many years. We plan to expand our poultry operation next spring, beyond the cleared areas of our own land. We could have bought more land, but why buy when you can rent cheaply? This gives us more time to clear our own land.
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Originally Posted by LordyLordy
...anything is apparently better than the back breaking farm labor that barely pays off and depends on so many things you cannot control.
I think you could call what we do "farming", at least on a small scale. But I would hardly call what we are doing "back-breaking labor"! What I USED to do, as the owner of a trucking company, well...THAT was "back-breaking labor"! This? It's like a walk in the park!
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Originally Posted by LordyLordy
For the rest of the crowd who doesn't love farming, there is always corporate grown food...
...yes, and we are thoroughly sick of it! Our own birds are so much more tender, flavorful, and juicy than anything we've ever bought in a store. Our eggs (just now coming from this years pullets) are bright orange and scrumptious. Own own carrots and turnips are far tastier than what the store sells. And don't even get me started about our tomatoes and peppers. No comparison. We all choose our poison!
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Originally Posted by LordyLordy
If you are 40 and late to the game, you better have no debt, a big bank account and the ability to support your "farm" for the first 5 years...
How about being 67 and VERY late to the game? We had no debt (a decision anyone can make), not a very big cash stash compared to many people, and being retired, we have enough to support our little venture until it turns a profit, which it may or may not ever do. Meanwhile, the eatin' is awfully good at our place.
Seems to me, the real trouble comes from folks wanting to farm, yet draw an income like their city friends do. Ain't happenin', dude. The upscale life won't be found down on the farm. You can have your cake or you can eat it, but not both.
Maybe you should look elsewhere (?). Not all land is so expensive; not all areas are in a drought.
Where? Maine - where summer lasts 2 months and the rest is covered in snow year round? When we talk in these forums, we talk about ALL of USA, not just one place. Or would you rather millions of people from Texas up and move to Maine and start buying up all the land. Let's see how cheap that land is then (with all the demand), how clean the water etc.
You usually should farm where you are close to a metro area where you can sell your produce fresh. If you have to truck your produce 100s or 1000s of miles to market, you are now burning fossil fuels to make that happen, you have to refrigerate etc. Not a good deal. So, the question becomes: who will feed a place like Dallas or Austin or Phoenix, AZ or Las Vegas or...?
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Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
We are about to sign a lease on some land to use as pasture. It has sat vacant for many years. We plan to expand our poultry operation next spring, beyond the cleared areas of our own land. We could have bought more land, but why buy when you can rent cheaply? This gives us more time to clear our own land.
Again, this is where - Maine? You couldn't do that here and break even with your farm. In fact, you probably couldn't do it anywhere near a really big city (Atlanta, Boston, DC, LA etc.) because land is in huge demand there and if you live 300 miles out, who knows - it may not pay for you to grow anything since you have to truck it into town. Majority of people live in cities/urban environments.
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Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
I think you could call what we do "farming", at least on a small scale. But I would hardly call what we are doing "back-breaking labor"! What I USED to do, as the owner of a trucking company, well...THAT was "back-breaking labor"! This? It's like a walk in the park!
Yeah, but do you depend on this to survive? is this your ONLY income? Do you have NOTHING in the bank?
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Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
...yes, and we are thoroughly sick of it! Our own birds are so much more tender, flavorful, and juicy than anything we've ever bought in a store. Our eggs (just now coming from this years pullets) are bright orange and scrumptious. Own own carrots and turnips are far tastier than what the store sells. And don't even get me started about our tomatoes and peppers. No comparison. We all choose our poison!
No argument here, I was just trying to portray to you how most people think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
How about being 67 and VERY late to the game? We had no debt (a decision anyone can make), not a very big cash stash compared to many people, and being retired, we have enough to support our little venture until it turns a profit, which it may or may not ever do. Meanwhile, the eatin' is awfully good at our place.
Seems to me, the real trouble comes from folks wanting to farm, yet draw an income like their city friends do. Ain't happenin', dude. The upscale life won't be found down on the farm. You can have your cake or you can eat it, but not both.
Nah, the real problem comes from the fact that to farm, you have to love to farm. Most people don't. I do and one day I intend to have a large organic farm (that others will work). Until then, I grow a lot of the stuff we eat at home but I am not a farmer, I am a gardener
Where? Maine - where summer lasts 2 months and the rest is covered in snow year round?
???
That does not describe any Maine I am aware of.
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... . So, the question becomes: who will feed a place like Dallas or Austin or Phoenix, AZ or Las Vegas or...?
When I gaze at the top of the page I see: "Self-Sufficiency and Preparedness" and "Can you be a "prepper" if you DON'T have / make a lot of money?"
Now you want to discuss feeding the world?
A prepper setup for self-sufficiency is NOT concerned with feeding the world.
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... Again, this is where - Maine? You couldn't do that here and break even with your farm.
Yes, we know.
Over and again you tell us that you live in a high cost area subject to drought. Yet again we remind you that there are places that are not high cost and subject to drought.
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... Majority of people live in cities/urban environments.
It would suck to be an urbanite when the grid goes down.
Please - I have heard all about Maine's banana belts. There is no such thing - it is bone freezing cold there and you get tons of snow. When is your first frost and last frost date?
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Originally Posted by Submariner
When I gaze at the top of the page I see: "Self-Sufficiency and Preparedness" and "Can you be a "prepper" if you DON'T have / make a lot of money?"
Now you want to discuss feeding the world?
Somehow this discussion strayed into farming, that's what I was talking about. Feeding yourself and your family is NOT the same. I think you can do that anywhere, even in the desert - 2-4 people are much easier to feed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner
Over and again you tell us that you live in a high cost area subject to drought. Yet again we remind you that there are places that are not high cost and subject to drought.
Yet again I tell ya that those places are cheap for a reason. You can get plenty of land in Hudspeth county TX at $300/acre but it will be flat, dry desert. Could you drill a well (at a cost) and grow a garden off it for 2-3 people? Sure. Could you collect rainfall and build a greenhouse and use micro-drip systems to grow veggies and other food there for 2-3 people? Sure. But there is a reason why land there costs $300/acre. Same with Maine - most people see it 2 months a year as a vacation spot because summer is the only time of year most people think it is habitable. If the climate was conducive to more widespread human habituation - don't you think EVERYONE would be there and the price of land would be the same as around here?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner
It would suck to be an urbanite when the grid goes down.
Yes it would. But then again, we are 40 miles outside of a city, we have 6 acres, we grow a lot of our own veggies in season, we are on solar, well and septic. There are guys I know in the city that grow food in their backyards too and have solar on their roofs. Not everyone has made the wrong choices.
Yet again I tell ya that those places are cheap for a reason. You can get plenty of land in Hudspeth county TX at $300/acre but it will be flat, dry desert. Could you drill a well (at a cost) and grow a garden off it for 2-3 people? Sure. Could you collect rainfall and build a greenhouse and use micro-drip systems to grow veggies and other food there for 2-3 people? Sure. But there is a reason why land there costs $300/acre. Same with Maine - most people see it 2 months a year as a vacation spot because summer is the only time of year most people think it is habitable. If the climate was conducive to more widespread human habituation - don't you think EVERYONE would be there and the price of land would be the same as around here.
Vermont has winter temperatures as low or lower than Maine; it's a very expensive state. Vermont does have skiing, but the whole state is expensive. Perception plays a large role. People see Vermont as a wonderful place to live, but they ignore Maine. Neither state has much crime. Vermont has better gun laws although Maine gun laws are acceptable to many. We know that people would kill to live in Vermont but not Maine. I can't believe that it's just because Vermont has Stowe.
You'd probably love Vermont. I could handle it. It's extremely leftist, but open carry as well as concealed carry require no government permission slip and never have.
This has always been my first requirement. The areas that fit this requirements are the best places to live too. Does anyone really desire a hurricane, a tornado, or a race riot? They're all very easy to avoid. I could say the same about heavy traffic or corrupt officials.
You could add earthquakes to your list. I've experienced several hurricanes, a handful of tornadoes, the Rodney King riots, and the Northridge earthquake. None of them are fun.
Heavy traffic? For better than 25 years I have lived and worked in the greater Lost Angeles area (from whence came my race-riot and earthquake experiences).
Corrupt politicians? I was born & raised along the central Gulf Coast (from whence came my hurricane & tornado experiences).
Because of my age and medical status, even in the best case I will probably live no more than about six months after my medications run out (about 18 months post-EOTWAWKI). This realization caused me to view things in an entirely different light, and to plan accordingly. During that time I plan to be passing along as much of my accumulated knowledge, skills and experience as I can. I've already done a pretty good job of this with my son, so I'll be trying to spread the wealth among friends and neighbors.
So, my "prepping" deals mostly with short-term calamities, and in maintaining a few critical things for the longer haul.
I prep by knowing another language than English, so if things get bad, I immigrate out :S Sure, I might have to leave poor but I have enough skills to etch a life out somewhere else, at least as much as if I had to be farming the land and killing wild game and pissing in a hole in the ground
Other than that, my investments will hopefully prep me for most other things
Where? Maine - where summer lasts 2 months and the rest is covered in snow year round?
It's a Sunday, and I am sitting here in the kitchen with my wife and BIL, and we are all in stitches at what you just wrote! ROTFLMAO! Do you really think that Submariner and I chose to bring ourselves and families to the equivalent of Siberia because we are too poor to afford any better? Have you ever even been to Maine? I look out the window at this land...that is "covered in snow year round" (except for 2 months of "summer") and I can't see ANY snow...on the 21st of December! I was out with the dogs this morning, and it was NICE!
Mebbe our wood stove is turned up so high, it melted all the snow around our house for a quarter-mile circle, I dunno...
In my experience, it seems as though survivalism is subject to the "American way" just as everything else is.
If you don't have money, you can't get land upon which to homestead. (Amplify this with "if you don't have A LOT of money, you can't get a decent enough amount of land in a decent area for homesteading".) Back in the day, people used to be given free land for homesteading. These days - you have to BUY it.
Nobody knows how to make anything anymore. If you want anything, forget being adequately taught how to make it. You have to BUY it. And anything that is decent for survival is going to be outrageously expensive. Guns, ammunition, off-grid cooking utensils and appliances, etc.
So really - if you don't have a lot of disposable income, how exactly can you "prepare" adequately?
Another question - Is there anywhere in this country where small tracts of land, perhaps by the acre, are available for <$1,000 per acre? I'm not interested in huge tracts that'll cost >$10,000 because they're 50 acres at $200 per acre - I want to know about small parcels of 1 or 2 acres where they can be bought for less than the cost of an operable used car.
I really don't relish the thought of having to work my butt off at a soul-killing but high-paying job just so that I can prepare to live an agrarian life. Back in the day, people just lived agrarian lives and didn't have to be independently wealthy in order to do so.
Or is it better to look outside of America if we want to "bug out" without being "wealthy"?
Since this is America, having the American Way seems to be logical. Why would a country just give anyone land? We aren't trying to persuade people to come here. If a person doesn't want to work, why would they expect to be given land or land at bargain prices? Back in the day, things were vastly different than the here and now.
These dates vary by year. Some years we may get our first frost around Halloween. "Frost on the pumpkin" as they say. Other years it will be Thanksgiving. I brought our citrus and fig trees indoors this year in October just to be safe [I also had cancer surgery planned and did not want to be moving fruit trees post-surgery]. Snow began to show early this year, at around Thanksgiving, other years we do not see snow until Christmas.
Every spring I usually prune fruit trees the third week of March, the snow is usually all gone by then. There may be occasional frosts as late as mid-May. Memorial Day is the traditional date here for spring garden planting. I can take our lemons, oranges and figs outside in mid-May without any problems.
Frost is 'possible' from 31 October to 30 May. Snow is likely from late December to early March, though there is always a chance of a snow storm as early as October, or as late as June.
I have never heard any local here talk of any summer that was only 2 months long, nor snow for 10 months.
We consistently produce annual crops that can be harvested within 120 days. Through-out all of the variations, we can usually count of getting at least 120 days of growing weather every year.
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