Techie wants to live the simpler life

[mhorn]

So, I am a computer programmer living in the Texas hillcountry. I want to get into some land (approx 20-40 acres).

I want to become self sufficient on the land so that I can eventually stop my technology ridden lifestyle and start living off the land. I also see the writing on the walls and see a time in the not so distant future (~4-5 years) that the US and World economy will be devastated and the only ones who will be able to support themselves are those living off the land.


The way I see it, I have a couple of hurdles:

1. Land is WAY overpriced in the Hill Country. I could move to where land is cheaper, but I have 3 years before my kids are out of school, and I don't really want to take them out of school in the middile of thier HS careers.

2. I have no idea what I am doing. I have never lived off the land. THis is the main reason I am here, to learn about how to do things like that.

3. I have no capital in reserve to buy land even if it was $1K per acre. I was thinking about leasing a farm maybe with a lease option to buy. I have to pay for rent anyways, why not rent a farm?

4. The biggest hurdle is that my wife is a Type I diabetic. Her medical needs are pretty substantial. Without medical insurance, her needs would be catastrophic to a self-sufficient type. If I work to have medical insurance, would I have the time and resources to tend to my daily farming duties? What are some ways you homesteaders get medical care for serious illnesses?



HOWEVER,

I have some distinct advantages as well.

1. I am a computer programmer, so I can really do my job from anywhere. All I need is a satellite internet connection and I can make money.



My question is this:

Are there any here that are in my similiar situation that have managed to homestead successfully?

Any of you experienced homesteaders have any advice for someone in my situation?

Thanks

[Maura]

If you don't already have a vegetable garden, start one this year where you are living. If you can't create a garden outside you can create one inside, on a porch, on a roof. Tomatoes are pretty easy to grow, as are green beans. Learn how to compost.

I don't blame you for wanting to leave your kids in school. Are they each only a year apart? That's the only way I can figure you'd have three graduated in the next three years.

[wwubben]

tO MAKE A LIVING FROM A FARM REQUIRES A BIG INVESTMENT------EVEN IF YOU RENT.IN OUR AREA HERE IT WOULD TAKE $250,000

[mhorn]

I have one junior, so one year to go on her, and I have one Freshman, so 3 years to go on that one, but since they are simultaneous, the Freshman is the limiting factor.

[mhorn]

By way of some more information:

The land around here ranges from flat grassy pasturelend (~$20K-$50K/acre) to rocky/hilly scrub brush covered (~$1K-$5K per acre)

I figure that I can use 20 acres like this:
2 acres in wheat (human consumption)
2 acres in corn (human/livestock consumption)
some in pasture for cattle/goats/sheep/other tasty indiginous quadrapeds
some in orchards (peaches/pecans/olives etc)
some in hay to suppliment livestock feed
some in garden for fresh produce / canning
some in a possible rock quarry

I have been thinking about possible monetary uses
goat milk soap (very good for the skin)
alpacas
hunting leases (one of the most common land uses in the hill country)
mohair
nursery ( start seedlings / saplings from orchard operation and sell them to local stores)
cattle (allthough I dont think less than 20 acres would be enough)
jams/jellies
Biofuel (allthough not sure how many acres I would need to make any sort of yield)
Leather goods

[mhorn]

Originally Posted by Wind in Her Hair

oh mercy, the Hill Country - real pretty but not the most fertile place to start a Homestead - summers can be mighty thirsty unless you can irrigate from the river...are you sure you wanna do this?

I mean, historically, the German settlers enjoyed some success farming there - but mercy. Thats a rough row to hoe.

Better make sure whatever property you consider purchasing has an impeccable and plentiful water source.

I hear that... That is why I was thinking that I could save up for 3 years until my girls get out of HS. THen I pretty much open to any areas. I keep thinking areas like KY, TN, AL, GA. I even like the areas around the great lakes, rural NY sounds nice as well as MI, MN.

I lived in ID for about 6 years and really liked it there.

[mhorn]

Something else I have been working out. When I lived in ID, a lot of people had grain silos.

According to:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/US_GR110.txt wheat prices in TX is like $10.36 per bushel (and divide that by 60lbs per bushel) or $.17/lb.

What if I bought enough bushels to fill up a grain silo (forget about growing it myself) and if the prices here http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/bro...eat-50-LB.html are indicative of the market why couldnt I buy wheat at about $0.17/lb and sell it for ~$1.00/lb

Of course, one would need the packaging materials, mylar bags, buckets etc... but why not?

[Farmerwilly2]

Have you ever done anything like this before? Have you ever had blisters on your hands? I think you'd be best served to find some place you can get your hands dirty and see if it is something you want to really do. Seems a lot of folks like the dream but when the work starts they pull up short. If that's not a problem then I say go for it friend. Fire away with your questions and start doing instead of dreaming. Fully self sufficient is a stretch, but taking more responsiblity for your own keep is possible for just about anybody, just about anywhere.

[wewantout]

Talk with Brenton and Beth Johnson at Johnsons backyard garden in Austin. They are great people and started in an Urban setting and now have like 10 acres near the airport off Heregotz Lane. There is some great property to be had in and around Austin.


http://www.johnsonsbackyardgarden.com/index.php

Cheers
WWO

[MariaAZ]

Hi from another city-based techie! One thing I've learned from this awesome group is to live by the "bloom where you grow" credo. I've wanted to be a farmer since I was a kid, and even got an ag degree to help attain that goal. 20+ years later I'm still in the city and won't be leaving anytime soon. I live up the street from my elderly mother who doesn't want to leave the house she and my father lived in for almost 40 years, and I'm not going to leave her alone (we live 1/4 mile apart and I visit twice a day to make sure everything's ok.) So, despite both hubby and I really wanting to make the jump, it's something that has been relegated to the "probably someday" pile.

However, there are a lot of "urban/suburban homesteader" sorts here that are doing absolutely amazing things with the property they have. If you visit the thread I started asking the city dwellers to raise their hands, City/Suburban folks, are you out there? I think you will see some inspiring efforts. I am sure that many of these people will be able to weather economic storms pretty well on their little corners of urban paradise

With that in mind, I think Maura and FarmerWilly2 have excellent advice. If you don't already have a garden, put one in and teach yourself good stewardship of the soil. Try growing rabbits, coturnix quail and chickens, if you're allowed to. I've raised all kinds of animals in my day, but there's a world of difference between raising pets and raising food. It's the same with the garden; I find myself a lot more serious about it if I look at it as being my own test; if I can keep a small garden alive and thriving, I might just have a chance at keeping a small farm alive and thriving.

I figure we have several years before we can even consider moving, so rather than spend the time dreaming about a future farm that may or may not happen, I've pledged to see how far I can go with what I've got. It can't do anything but help me if/when that farm ever becomes a reality, if for no other reason then I'll have learned from my mistakes. Besides, if things should really get bad before I get my farm, I'll be in better shape then if I hadn't done anything at all...

[alpacamom]

We're just a little bit ahead of you on the journey to living off the land. My dh is a techie, too, and we were in the NW 'burbs of Chicago when we started planning our future. We homeschool our kids, so we didn't have that obstacle, but the whole money thing...yeah...

DH bought an alpaca for me for Christmas in '05...a pregnant female. We looked all over the far suburbs of Chicago for a farm we could afford, even just a couple acres, so we wouldn't have to board our girl, but it just wasn't meant to be. He put out his resume because he was fed up with his commute (23 miles taking over an hour to drive), working 70 to 80 hours a week, and his health was starting to suffer. He was only 30 years old and he felt like he was 80.

A job opportunity opened up for him in Iowa City, Iowa (we were like, "Where??") and after all of us came out here and checked out the area, we made the move. Well, HE did. The boys and I moved out here about 6 months later. We found a small farm (12 acres) about 20-25 miles from his job (only a 25 to 30 minute commute) and now have 6 alpacas with a baby on the way in May, 12 chickens, 4 dogs, 9 cats and an umbrella cockatoo. We tried to have a garden last year and failed miserably, but we're not going to let it deter us this year and we're going to try again. We did get some peas out of the garden last year and they were good! We are also composting. We have 8 acres that we don't use, so we have someone hay it for us. We pay them and keep all the hay so far (that might change this year) and don't have to buy hay for the alpacas. We do have quite a few large round grass bales that we want to sell before this year's haying starts.

I agree with the others...do what you can now. Learn to garden. See if you can have a couple chickens. Start changing your lifestyle to how you'd want to live as a homesteader. I don't know if you eat out much now, but if you don't plan to do that on your farm, start eating at home more..that sort of thing. It has been an adjustment living here, 15 miles from the closest town. I can't just run out for a gallon of milk anymore (unless I want to pay through the nose at the c-store that's about 5 miles away). We keep an ear to the weather reports and if bad weather is coming in, we hit the stores so we know we'll be prepared. Buy things to stock your pantry so you'll be able to feed the family for a month (or more?). When you find good bargains on non-perishables, buy extra to put on your shelves.

I am no where near as experienced as most of the people here, but they have all taught me so much already. Keep reading here...you'll learn lots, too! Good luck to ya!

[OUVickie]

You can lease land and work from home when you have programming talent. I live in the country and work for a University. We have people on our team who rarely come into the office, they do all their work on a VPN link and conference in for weekly meetings..
If you prefer not to move right now, start out small and learn. You can do anything you put your mind to. Try some container gardening and/or a small plot in your backyard.

[mhorn]

With regards to the homeschooling thing:

I love the idea of home schooling, we even did that for a semester while the kids were young and we lived in a pretty bad part of town.

Now that they are older, I guess we are not sure we can teach them as well as a professional teacher.


I love the advice to do the garden and will be talking with the landlord aboutthe possibility.

Thanks for the help

[MariaAZ]

If your landlord nixes the gardening idea, I suggest looking at "Earthboxes". It's a brand name for a self-watering container system. There are plenty of websites showing how to build them yourself for a fraction of the cost the Earthbox company charges, but the concept either way is pretty awesome. I inherited my father's Earthboxes, which are a little larger than a standard window box. Mom had bought them for Dad because in addition to the garden he loved growing veggies in containers. He had several Earthboxes and experienced quite a bit of success with them. I pretty much just got started, but I DID plant strawberries in one box last fall and they are doing rather well now; better than any plants we ever put in the ground. In fact I'm planning on building more once I locate the plans I found online, in order to supplement the rather small garden space I currently have. Nice thing about the boxes is, you can put them anywhere as long as the surface can't be damaged by water that might drain out when you fill them up. I keep mine lined up along the carport, allowing me to utilize a narrow strip of concrete between a car being stored in the carport and my garden.

[Terri]

I am not going to give you long-range plans: I am not qualified. But, you might like to hear what MIL did with her city lot!

1. She had a LARGE tree, and to her great good fortune it was an avacado tree.

2. Under the tree, in the shade, she had raised pens of chickens and meat rabbits.

3. Under the critters, she raised fishing worms and made compost out of the lawn clippings.

4. In the flower beds, she raised carrots and such and fed them with rabbit poop.

So, she had SOME meat, fruit, and vegetables from her city lot. She BOUGHT feed and grain. She served her family rabbit a couple of times a month, as many eggs as she wanted, and carrots whenever she got the desire. When the layers quit laying she ate them as well.

[Rickstir]

Find the book 5 Acres and Independence. Read it and then take a hard look at yourself. You have 3 years to soul search. But you are going to have to move somewhere to find land that is affordable. Here in NE MO, they are asking 2 to 3 thousand an acre for land not devoted to agriculture; in other words scrub land that will take some work to fit into your plans.

Land around Falls County, Texas sells for around $1000.00 per acre. Doesn't sell for much, because it is mostly for farming since there is very little industry in the area. Nearest city is Waco, about 30 miles away.

[SimplerTimez]

Mhorn, you're at the same place kind of that we are. I can work anywhere that there is DSL/Cable, but I am finding this is ONE thing that really doesn't match up with locations of affordable land as we define it (except for one place in Maine that we're still considering). About the time I find someplace affordable and with high-speed CONSISTENT 'net access, poof, it's gone - bought, owner changed their mind, etc. I don't make the $$ that you do as a programmer, but, we could live off of my salary for the duration of homebuilding once a few things are paid off - or use my job as base and MrST could do whatever is around (he's in IT too, not much demand for that in rural areas that I've seen so far).
The tediousness of trying to FIND a place to live that meets our requirements is very trying.
We're doing the things that we can now (gardening, composting, reducing, budgeting) to see what we're capable of on a small scale before we make the big leap.
I wish you the best, and maybe we'll end up neighbors (although not in Texas, we took Tx off the list for water and immigration reasons). Press on, we'll all get there some day, even if we're just wanna-be's at this point

[turtlehead]

We left Atlanta about two and a half years ago, for the reasons you mention. We brought our telecommute techie jobs with us.

Originally Posted by mhorn

1. Land is WAY overpriced in the Hill Country. I could move to where land is cheaper, but I have 3 years before my kids are out of school

The only options I see are:
- You can buy expensive land now and then sell and move somewhere cheaper in 5 or 10 years.
- You can interrupt the kids' education.
- You can wait to move.

2. I have no idea what I am doing. I have never lived off the land.

You've gotten great advice about this topic already. Make a garden. Learn to can/freeze/dehydrate your produce. Raise rabbits or chickens. If your landlord won't let you put in a garden, maybe a neighbor will if you give them half the produce.

3. I have no capital in reserve to buy land

Lease with option to buy, or owner financed, are both good ideas.

4. The biggest hurdle is that my wife is a Type I diabetic. Her medical needs are pretty substantial. Without medical insurance, her needs would be catastrophic to a self-sufficient type. If I work to have medical insurance, would I have the time and resources to tend to my daily farming duties? What are some ways you homesteaders get medical care for serious illnesses?

To qualify for benefits, you have to work full time. My DH and I work full time and we have a garden, chickens, and rabbits - and that is ALL!! We bust our tails as it is. There is NO time for anything else.

If your wife doesn't work outside the home and is able to garden and tend the animals it should be very do-able. If you have to do it all, I'd say a small garden and some chickens would be about the limit. If you invest much of your time and energy into caring for your wife, I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration.

Medical insurance for us *had* been through my full time job. That changed recently and now we're looking for some catastrophic-only (high deductible) insurance that we'll pay out of pocket.

1. I am a computer programmer, so I can really do my job from anywhere. All I need is a satellite internet connection and I can make money.

Get the telecommute job first, then move. It's a lot harder to find telework than folks think. There are lots advertised, but when you call or interview, they're "telecommute until you can move here" or "telecommute if you're within a 45 minute drive in case of emergency" or "telecommute but be in the office one day per week" -- stuff like that. It's depressing.

Are there any here that are in my similiar situation that have managed to homestead successfully?

Define "successfully". We think we are. We buy lots of groceries at the store, we buy feed, we have an electric bill. BUT we grow at least a third of our veggies, and we have chickens and rabbits. We hope to add a milk animal but not while we're both working. We simply don't have time.

Any of you experienced homesteaders have any advice for someone in my situation?

Look for a place with free gas. Texican has free gas so you could PM him about places in TX with free gas. You can also find places like that in WV, PA, and NY.

Figure out if you want to make a living farming (will need tillable land and equipment, very hard to do) or if you want a self-sufficiency hobby farm. If the latter, you can go where land is much cheaper. In WV land is about $2K an acre, sometimes with dwelling and free gas. The land's not tillable, it's too steep and rocky. But you can graze a few sheep, goats, cows, or pigs on it, and you can find some land flat enough to garden.

Middle TN is affordable and the land is more usable. No free gas though.

PA and NY have good land but it's more expensive; it's still nowhere near what you're looking at in the hill country.

[mhorn]

Originally Posted by SimplerTimez

Mhorn, you're at the same place kind of that we are. I can work anywhere that there is DSL/Cable, but I am finding this is ONE thing that really doesn't match up with locations of affordable land as we define it (except for one place in Maine that we're still considering). About the time I find someplace affordable and with high-speed CONSISTENT 'net access, poof, it's gone - bought, owner changed their mind, etc.

Have you looked into satellite internet? It is getting much faster than it used to be it is now two-ways. I have only read about it and not actually used it, but I know that it is now an option for "remote techies"