Who are the one acre homesteaders?

[mabeane]

Oh dear...we are old farmers who have been trying to sell our farm to move to a more manageable place acreage wise. Our herd is a small ND group of five does and a buck. We are waiting for our first kids this year. I am embarrassed to tell you all of you could fit on our acreage and then some.
At our age we are only using one side of the street (farm straddles a small rural road) plus the wood lot for firewood.
This side has 13 acres, our house, barn and garage as well as our raised gardens. The other side has 60 acres or nice rolling landing as well as a large woodlot.
I wish we were 25 or 35 or 45 and could make use of this wonderful asset :/
but alas we are in our late 60s and I experienced a 14 month near death illness and am thankful for what I can do.

We would love to be nearer our children on a two to five acre place (I need my goats and gardens) with less to think about and less work to do.

 

[chandasue]

This side has 13 acres, our house, barn and garage as well as our raised gardens. The other side has 60 acres or nice rolling landing as well as a large woodlot.

I wish you were in MN! I'd trade houses with you. We want a place with more land that my parents could maybe build a small retirement house on. sigh Seems like we're always wanting something different than what we have. :/

 

[Oat Bucket Farm]

One day we will find a place with 2 to 5 acres to settle ourselves on. Right now we are just very thankful we can have our little in homestead. We are within the city limits of a small town and we really have to work to keep our barnyard quiet and are really restricted on how many goats we have. There are other people in town with livestock. There are horses,donkeys,cows,llamas, and even one other place across town with goats. Luckily I have good neighbors, most of whom don't mind the goats and the others actually enjoy seeing them. The idea of moving to two or three acres is such a dream. I can hardly imagine what having so much room must be like. And to have 13 acres with another 60 across the road...all I can say is wow! I wouldn't know what to do with so much land.

 

[msjuris]

One day we will find a place with 2 to 5 acres to settle ourselves on. Right now we are just very thankful we can have our little in homestead. We are within the city limits of a small town and we really have to work to keep our barnyard quiet and are really restricted on how many goats we have. There are other people in town with livestock. There are horses,donkeys,cows,llamas, and even one other place across town with goats. Luckily I have good neighbors, most of whom don't mind the goats and the others actually enjoy seeing them. The idea of moving to two or three acres is such a dream. I can hardly imagine what having so much room must be like. And to have 13 acres with another 60 across the road...all I can say is wow! I wouldn't know what to do with so much land.

We dream of a few extra acres too, however, we love our house so much that we can't leave it. We are also on the outskirts of a small town and have learned that distance is our friend. Our zoning officer retired last year and so long as we keep our head down and our animals contained, no one notices. We are in an agriculture zoned district, but don't have the requisite 3 acres to have livestock So we keep a low profile.

I don't know what I'd do if I had as much space as mabeane. I'd probably have so much work to do that I'd have not time to enjoy it.

 

[RoeDylanda]

We're on a shade over one acre, but the whole town is zoned farm residential. Unfortunately, quite a lot of the property is a 40-55 degree slope! That's one of the reasons goats appeal-- they won't mind, and as long as I can fence in a way that keeps the dogs and foxes out, we're good to go.

 

[Oat Bucket Farm]

One day we will find a place with 2 to 5 acres to settle ourselves on. Right now we are just very thankful we can have our little in homestead. We are within the city limits of a small town and we really have to work to keep our barnyard quiet and are really restricted on how many goats we have. There are other people in town with livestock. There are horses,donkeys,cows,llamas, and even one other place across town with goats. Luckily I have good neighbors, most of whom don't mind the goats and the others actually enjoy seeing them. The idea of moving to two or three acres is such a dream. I can hardly imagine what having so much room must be like. And to have 13 acres with another 60 across the road...all I can say is wow! I wouldn't know what to do with so much land.

We dream of a few extra acres too, however, we love our house so much that we can't leave it. We are also on the outskirts of a small town and have learned that distance is our friend. Our zoning officer retired last year and so long as we keep our head down and our animals contained, no one notices. We are in an agriculture zoned district, but don't have the requisite 3 acres to have livestock So we keep a low profile.

I don't know what I'd do if I had as much space as mabeane. I'd probably have so much work to do that I'd have not time to enjoy it.

Our city council passed ordinances about livestock basically making it impossible to keep livestock in town. Unfortuantely for the city council, nobody paid any attention to them at all. Its been over two years and everyone still has all of their critters. Although from what I have heard, it was started because of some people keeping three very skinny horses in a 20x20 pen. So they passed the ordinances so if someone is keeping a really nasty place or doing something like three horses in that tiny of a space or some such, then they have something to make them either fix it or get rid of the animals.

Still though, when we can find our couple of three acres outside of a town instead of in it, I will breathe a sigh of relief.