posted 3 hours ago
On our remote 11.5 acres in North Idaho, I'm starting to realize that not everything about our lifestyle is particularly permaculture friendly. The biggest thing is the distance and being dependent on driving, especially a far distance. Walmart, for example, is a bit over 40 miles away, and 10 of those are gravel.
We do have our goats on about 1.5 acre fenced, chickens, and our garden is looking decent this year (other than what the late frost killed.) Surrounded by trees that seem like an absolute wildfire liability (even with some reasonable spacing from the house.) I'm realizing that to cleanup this much timber and burn it out regularly, it's going to be a ton of work.
We also now have both sides of our family about 40 miles away (in the region of the Walmart) and though we'll probably always have to drive, if we were at least close to something (ideally, walking or bike riding distance) not burning fossil fuels seems like an improvement.
One thing that I like about this setup is that I have all of the fuel and timber I could ever need on the property. I don't have to go anywhere for it. Other than fuel/timber, we could have what we have on 2-3 acres. It'd be less private, but a lot less to maintain and less fire concern. Coming from a die-hard freedom background, I'm ironically starting to have some appreciation for zoned counties.
I stumbled across a new development that describes itself as "new urbanism." Everything is designed to be walkable, including cafe, stores, etc, with houses around it. In some ways it seems like a step in the right direction. To me, it looks very crowded and like it lacks a lot of independence capability.
A common model, the one we have employed, seems to be that everyone buys 5-10 acres and tries to duplicate a lot of the effort. Now I have a friend about 7 miles away (practically a neighbor!) who's done well with pigs. And we've finally started selling some of our goat milk.
Ideally, we'd have some kind of regenerative setup with the goats, rotating from pasture/browse to another. We could do this with enough fencing work. And it might be possible to feed them year round on this size acreage, which would be great. Probably an acre or two would be set aside for haying, though I'm not 100% sure that's even enough.
I know this is a bit of a ramble. I remember my grandma's place. It was a few acres, I think. Very narrow strip of land that eventually went up the mountain. Seemed very usable and practical. Neighbors could still be close, but you still had a good bit of land. These 1:2 or so rectangular 5 acre lots are nice for privacy, but not practical for walking to neighbors. Of course some notion of a trail or sidewalk would help a lot, and not an active, gravel logging road...
I think there have been a few attempts at eco-village models. I guess we're thinking about moving into something smaller to be closer to family, while retaining some capabilities. I absolutely love being able to have my water solar powered and off grid, but I can do that on an acre with a well. The wood for fuel... maybe if the land is near state ground.
I guess I'm wondering both what makes sense for us, and what sort of model an intentional community might develop. Obviously, land shape impacts a lot, and causes some limitations. I just feel like I have been investing a lot into something that doesn't fully make sense. I think I'm not the only one.
Anyway, thank you for reading my ramble!
(Speaking of, if you want 11.5 acres with a not fully finished house, somewhat of a shop, a barn, and fencing mostly good enough for goats, let me know...)
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