Rich Rayburn

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: when you hit a sort of equilibrium, where the land is able to give you what you need -- and you are able to give the land what it needs. Ideally, there is a sense of partnership.

Beautifully written Douglas,
If the human species had followed that philosophy we might be living in Paradise! 🌴

Patrik Schumann wrote:Ever less land, more demand, higher prices, poorer condition, more work, less stability, higher risk, & that's if things don't go really bad.  The extinction crisis includes horticultural varieties, traditional/ historical/ heirloom cultivars, local land races; I started my work on that long before I had any land to call my own & I'm still collecting, learning, losing.  Self-sufficiency in biomass & nutrient cycling + water availability are additional constraints which took years to decades to secure, & the latter is diminishing for us again.

There's a saying, "The key to our future lies in our past"
People have been living simply, without technology or electricity since there have been humans. I don't believe that over analyzing a situation or adding high technology leads to a better solution, you could probably ask any peasant farmer from the Middle ages. Those people provided almost everything they needed including clothing for themselves.
Now that most of the worlds population is stacked up in large cities there is quite a bit of land available for those ambitious enough and resourceful enough.
In several Midwest states you can pick up land for one or $2,000 an acre, and that land may have heavy woods, some arable ground and even one or more water sources.
What most people lack is the information and the self-confidence to proceed. Personally for information and some self-confidence I would recommend Books over the internet, the internet often has too much information, and there is another old saying" Too many choices is like having no choices at all"
If you're trying to live in the California Central valley you might have a problem or if you want to try and live in the Rocky mountains, much of that major agricultural and "scenic" land is being brought up and in high demand and very expensive.
However in the state I live in a person can pick up 40 acres of land with a shallow water table and probably some swamp, but also plenty of woods and patches of high ground for building and gardening purposes.
All you have to do is a little research and I think you'll find that self-sufficiency or close to it is quite attainable for many people well into the future.

Patrik Schumann wrote: I am ever more concerned, somewhat less for us but very much for others.

Patrik, could you expand on what's your concerns are for others?.
Thanks.

Jay Angler wrote:
In the Province of British Columbia, we have very limited arable land (our mountains are very pointy and prolific). Wealthy people have been buying up huge swaths of farmland inflating the price and crowding out genuine farmers. .

Jay, the problem you describe has also happened in the United States in a lot of the mountainous areas or areas with high scenic value.
It's hard to tell what these corporations are planning with their land purchases and I see that some of them are actually developing the properties.
I also noticed that in Quebec they have land use laws that prohibit out of province ownership of certain types of land especially agricultural.
        Being that the original posting was how much land does the good life require I would again say buy as much as you can afford thereby having the ability to protect as much as possible. And the folks that we are talking about buying the land would be homesteaders and hopefully they would have only good land stewardship policies in mind.

How much land does a person need?
Well a person doesn't need much, even a small family. On a couple of acres you could probably provide most of your food. If you live in a colder climate and need to burn wood for heat probably 10 acres maybe 20 for wood and a little scenery.
Needs and wants are two different things, and wanting land sounds a little possessive to me.
This is my two cents worth:
Acquire as much land as you can afford, you can develop the small part you  NEED and then become the steward of all of the rest, you can keep it from being developed, clear cut and otherwise abused.
You can possess a thousand acres and it's no problem because you don't have to do anything with it the land will take care of itself.
If a person who is concerned about the land owns title to it that person can then protect the land .
And in my opinion protecting the land is the ultimate responsibility of those who can.

Christopher Weeks wrote:They start running around the time the maples stop. When it's 30 at night and 50+ during the day. And I think they last about two weeks.

Okay that's interesting because with those temperatures the maples should keep running, that is 30° at night and 50° during the day. It may be that your maples are "budding out", because when they begin to swell their buds they usually stop putting out sap. The term "buddy sap" refers to the brownish colored sap that is produced when the trees are swelling their buds, usually right before they stop running.
It may be that the birch trees put their buds out later and that's why they keep running when your maples have stopped.
I might have to tap a birch tree just to see what happens here.

So Christopher, does the Birch season continue beyond the maple season? I've never tapped birch trees.

It looks like Maple season might be over in East Central Minnesota.
   Weather's been in the 50s 60s and 70s and not cold enough at night.
 So just in case anyone's wondering, here's what my totals look like.
   40 trees tapped.
 288 gallons of sap collected.
      6 gallons of syrup made.
      4.75gallons of sugar made.
That comes out to approximately a 27 to 1 ratio of sap to syrup and sugar.
     Looking at other years the ratio is right in the ballpark although the total yield was somewhat less this year than the last few years.
     It would be interesting to know how you other folks that were tapping ended up if your a season is finished also.

Craig,
From my experience and what I've heard,  the longer the syrup is boiled the darker it becomes due to carmelation of the sugars. Prolonged boiling usually leads to a stronger flavor also.
Therefore if a person keeps adding sap to his pots while he's boiling down, which may take several days before a sufficient batch is acquired then that syrup will usually be darker and have a sweeter stronger flavor due to the boiling time.
A friend of mine built a fancy evaporator where the sap is trickled in one side and travels through a series of baffles and comes out the end side almost as finished syrup, the final finishing is in the house on the stove .. the point being his syrup is always very light color and has a mild flavor apparently due to the rapid rate of boiling down.
Oftentimes late season sap is tinted brown or reddish and that also produces a darker syrup, although that syrup oftentimes has a slightly acidic or very strong flavor. Probably not the nice flavor of your talking about.