What would you do with 30 acres?

[Redneck_Crow]

I've had a pipe dream like that for years. My dream place would feature:

1) Concrete block house, earth banked on 3 sides. Cuts utility bills and maintenance. Light tubes (nifty things) could be used to keep the inside reasonably bright in the daylight.

2) Much of the gardening via raised beds. You can grow a heck of a lot more per square foot and it's a lot easier on you to pick and weed. For weeding, a good mulch, and even old carpet scraps can be used. Raised beds require less tilling because the ground isn't compacted by your feet, and you can minimize watering and fertilizing. (see rabbits and chickens) Also, as you age, and we all do, it's one heck of a lot easier to plant and harvest.

3) Carefully selected farm animals. A regular full sized cow is overkill for the milk needs of most family, but there are minature breeds. Goats are also a good dairy animal and require far less feed and produce more in line with a family's needs. There are several chicken breeds that are dual purpose--they produce meat and eggs well. Raising beef cattle is a lot of work, but rabbits aren't that bad and they can recycle some garden wastes. Their manure makes good fertilizer too. A big plus with chickens and rabbits is that one person can slaughter them safely and easily. The same cannot be said for a steer. Forget about turkeys. Their main goal in life is to die horribly before you can harvest them. If you want to get into bigger livestock, some heritage breeds of hogs like the mulefoot are good pasture hogs, which reduces the amount of feed you have to buy to produce meat. But you're going to need help to slaughter and butcher them.

4) Carefully selected fruits. Dwarf fruit trees and semi dwarfs bear early and don't grow so large that you can't harvest them easily. Grapes, blackberries, strawberries, (in raised beds) blueberries and the like are easy to harvest. You can preserve them by letting them ferment in a crock then bottling the resultant elixir. Or you can just freeze or can them, which brings about....

5) A large freezer. Ample canning shelves. And if you can swing an outbuilding, a second hand stove outside in that building is a lifesaver--keeps you from having to turn your house into an appoximation of hell in canning season. Canning is terribly hot work.

6) Be very good friends with your neighbors. A few dozen surplus eggs passed their way can reap you melons when yours die, a dressed rabbit might be paid back somehow in the loan of equipment or whatnot. Being a good neighbor always pays off and I don't know how it happens but everyone seems to get back more than they gave.

With 30 good acres, you could have quite a grand little thing going. I'd leave at least part of it as woods. What good is living in the sticks if you can't see 'coons and 'possums and the occasional fox?