Howdy from North Texas

Well.... I am in West Texas at the moment for work haha. Anyway I reckon I should start out by telling yall my goals. My goal is to one day be completely self sufficient and to own at least 30 to 50 acres to house my entire family on. That dream is a little ways away but I get a little bit closer every day. I currently rent 1.5 acres and we have a small herd of boer goats and I raise TAMUK rabbits. I also vompost all of my manure and table scraps using blacksoldier fly larvea. I have plans to have 2 bee hives and 2 red wiggler worm bins and 3 more BSF bins by spring. If feasible I would also like to get my aquaponics system going by then.

Hi Tommie! Welcome to Permies. Glad you are here.

You say you're in Texas for your work, when you consider purchasing your own land, where are you thinking of moving to? Would you stay in Texas?

I'm an accidental BSF composter myself. They show up each year, do some fast work while they're here and return each year. I don't do anything, but feed them. I have to admit, I was not sure what they were when they first started showing up, several years ago. I had to research them. Now, they're my helpers.

There's lots of great information on this site. It has a forum for just about anything you'd need to become more self sufficient. I consider it one of my most valuable tools and I use it as such often. Hope to "see" you around the forums.

Howdy Karen
Yes ma'am I work in west Texas but I live in North Texas. When I do buy land my wife wants to stay in the same region that we currently live in ( Callisburg Tx, it is about 2 hours north of Dallas right on the Oklahoma border). The only problem with that is land is EXPENSIVE here.  We are smack dab in the middle of horse country so it goes for arpund 7 or 10 grand an acre. I would personnally love to mpve to Arkansas maybe around jerusalem or clinton but we have roots where we are so I will continue to save my money until we can buy some land and then I will build our house. I am thinking cordwoid cinstruction or maybe a mixture of that and rammed earth bricks. And you most certianly will see me around and thank you very much for the warm welcome!

Howdy Tommie, and welcome to Permies!

I'm not too far from you, just the other side of Gainesville if memory serves. Permies is an incredible resource for rabbits, goats and aquaponics. Hope you find some great insight hear, and that we get to hear how things go with those TAMUK rabbits. Glad to make the acquaintance of a fellow permaculture goofball in the area!

Cody DeBaun wrote:Howdy Tommie, and welcome to Permies!

I'm not too far from you, just the other side of Gainesville if memory serves. Permies is an incredible resource for rabbits, goats and aquaponics. Hope you find some great insight hear, and that we get to hear how things go with those TAMUK rabbits. Glad to make the acquaintance of a fellow permaculture goofball in the area!

Yes sir good to meet you. I love talking to like minded people. The nearest person I know that shares our lifestyle lives in Mesquite Texas. That's a heck of a drive.  So where abouts are you from. Oh and sorry yes sir you are correct Callisburg is just the other side of Gainesville. Just head north into the woods a little bit haha.

North Texas? You could always opt for the Panhandle. Prices up here are still good (I sit over the Texas panhandle at the end of the OK panhandle.)

I can say where I live, I have found where the weather isn't as bad, the tornados usually miss us, and I can tell you the hail belts. Land can run as low as $400 an acre, maybe hit $1000. We are aquifer well, at most 210 feet deep, so you can afford a well.

Property taxes can be cheap. Zone 6a to 7b depending on where you want to settle (from NW corner of OK down past Amarillo a goodly ways). People are great here. They have a common sense missing some other places. There's some stuff open up this way right now, if you want I'll leg it for you (some is auction and soon). A quarter would not be difficult to pick up. Or a farmstead with well already and some buildings and acreage.

Welcome to Permies.

Wow Deb that is very generous of you. I really appreciate it but will sadly have to turn you down. We are probably going to stay in the Texoma area. Plus even a small bit of land I need to do more saving.... although 400 an acre is really dang tempting!

It's the time of year too when some stuff trades hands because of tax/sheriff sales.

We need good people. Only downside is literally 'bring your own job' as employment can be a little lacking.

Only down is that that $400 an acre might be 160 acres, so you have to buy the whole piece.

Deb Rebel wrote:It's the time of year too when some stuff trades hands because of tax/sheriff sales.

We need good people. Only downside is literally 'bring your own job' as employment can be a little lacking.

Only down is that that $400 an acre might be 160 acres, so you have to buy the whole piece.

That is about how it is where we are. Since the biggeat factory around basically closed up shop. You either work at a smaller factpry or something to do with the oilfield.
I will keep that in mind though what is the land like out there? Lots of trees, no trees, sand or clay or black dirt?

We are the original dust bowl, ranching and keeping the ground cover are a way of life.

Not many trees, there are some places that have some. You can plant them and get a stand going however. The issue here is wind, we have a lot of it. It goes in green/drought cycles, of roughly 10-15 years dry then a decade or so of 'wet'. It has shifted into wet, a few years worth so far. There is plenty of water in ground, wells are not hard to get, deepest in this area is about 210 feet.

Where I'm at is clay, I could make adobe bricks. There is a lot of blowsand and that will pack into cement hard. The soil is pretty good if you mix a little amendment in to get the organics up but there is an issue where I'm at with low calcium so gypsum helps. There is caliche down there in a lot of places, so if you want to plant trees you need something with a strong taproot or you may need to dig and break that. Some do circle pivot and grow corn and milo around here, winter wheat...  Down near Cactus TX where the meat plant is, they also have a cotton gin (there you're getting into 7a). Amarillo there is a full mature palm tree (starts with a T, I want to say Tengen) and a Tulip Magnolia growing in select microclime areas and a nursery on the SE side sells Sago palms, they are at the edge of growing in that area. Cactus had a pretty bad tornado hit them several years back (we saw the TIV in the area) and Amarillo can get bad weather a lot, on the storm track a lot goes through that area.

Farmsteads do come up with buildings, well, and a few acres, someone that wanted to go back to the land, this would be perfect. They've often got some established trees. Due to late frosts where I'm at, you get peaches about once every three years and almonds about one in ten, same for pecans. A few years ago we had one of those years and got all three. Apples will grow here, macintosh won't they just want to go straight up.

This area is going into windfarming. I don't know of code issues off hand, but I've got land in town not out.