How would you use this 20 acres of raw rural land?

[dewey]

Nice flat land but there's NO utilities on it, although it has a septic, and electric is nearby but not on the property, and water would have to be hauled, it's rural, about 25 minutes from a major city, good roads, has a large log cabin shell on it, and it's only cattle fenced. Any ideas?

 

[redhen]

Put a tailer on it and live cheap until you can build a house on it..

 

[CoupDePoop]

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Solar panels on the roof for limited power. Bee hives in the yard and a helluva garden.

My idea of paradise. Are you willing to take on squatters, as I can put in a wood stove (deadfall on 20 acres will keep me warm into perpetuity), get the septic hooked up, and I come with my own bees, seeds, compost secrets, and chickens and goats.

Land... the only thing God is not making more of.

Pricelesss.

 

[Dunkopf]

That's what our real estate agent said. Only thing in America that can't be made in China. Might be able to grow hay or something for a while. Let someone graze cattle on it maybe.

If you have a septic system, you're halfway there.

 

[breezy]

Id start building my compound

 

[ndemerly]

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[txhomegrown]

I am in a similar situation. I have 5 acres of flat land that has been used for hay for a long time. It was part of a dairy farm. It has an old galvanized metal 30 x 60 barn on it. So there is a lot of potential for inside coops and pens. There is power close and water that has to be run about 1000 feet. It will be hooked to a private well and I will have unlimited water for $25.00 a month. I am looking for an old camper to put in the barn. That will do to live in for a while. It is driving me crazy trying to set up temporary housing for my chickens at this rent house. I hope to get out there once the weather starts to warm up a little this Spring.
My advice is to get on your land as soon as you can, any way that you can. If you have to haul water, do it! I had to do it for 12 years at one place I owned. You can always collect rain water to use for a lot of things. You can bathe with it or water the garden.
Hell, I may pitch a tent in the barn if I cant find a camper cheap enough. The sooner I get out there, the sooner I can get more chickens, get my goats and start a garden.
There are a lot of options for generating electricity. I am looking at a combination of solar and a methane generator. The solar would provide some juice to the batteries and then you would power a small generator with the methane to keep the batteries topped off. You would probably only have to run the generator a few hours a day.

 

[Baymule]

A little more info please? Are you single? Kids? Pets/livestock that require fencing? While I would happily pitch a tent and potty in the woods, my DH takes a dim view of such shenanigans. LOL Do you have a "dream" farm vision? Any favorite animals/garden you want to raise? What kind of soil, sandy or heavy clay?

I would fence the outer perimeter with 5' horse fencing, then in 4' horse fencing, cross fence into several pastures so I could rotate my livestock. I would prepare 3 fenced garden spots, 1 to plant a spring/summer, 1 to plant a fall/winter and 1 to lie fallow. I would then rotate these accordingly. As 1 garden spot wound down for the season, I would turn in the chickens, ducks or small livestock to eat the leftovers and enrich the soil with their droppings. I would plant fruit and nut trees suitable for the area and berry vines.

For housing, I would finish out enough of the cabin shell to make it livable and move in. Finish the rest as you go. Build a 3 sided shelter for animals and a chicken/poultry coop. Get something growing to feed you/your family. I would build a tire (think earthship) root cellar banked heavily with dirt to keep my vegetables in through the winter. And to store mangel beets, pumpkins and hubbard squash for winter livestock feed.

It sounds like you are about to get started on the dream that many of have or are now living. I wish all the best to you.

 

[heathersboers]

Goats!!! the price of goats is so high right now and there is a shortage- run electric fence around with the cattle fence- I would buy mixed up goats and nothing purebred boer (maybe just the buck boer) -We did this on 10 acres of woodes, and they are thriving, and kidding with ease- a 60 pound kid is bringing at least $2.00 per pound at auction. With that much land-very little feed will be neccessary and in the spring -NONE. A great way to make a little money with livestock- I would also buy a mobile home and set it up to live there. PM me if you want me to tutor you on meat goats.....

 

[Rozzie]

How much of a shell is the log cabin? Are the walls & roof complete? If not, what would it take to get those complete? How large is it? (There is a great variation in what people mean when they say cabin. Some people use log cabin to mean the structures pioneers built -- a hundred or two hundred square feet. I've seen other people say log cabin when they mean a 1500-2000 square foot log house.) If it's a small cabin, get it into shape to live in it and install a heater. If it's small this shouldn't be too difficult or expensive, especially if you do it without electric / plumbing. If it's larger and roofed, get a section of it weather tight and finish off a couple of rooms to live in. Install a small heater for that area.

In this situation, I wouldn't go whole hog on solar panels, etc. They are atrociously expensive. However, I probably would look for enough of a solar setup to charge my cell phone & other small electronics. You could probably charge a laptop this way, too. Buy a small generator for the time being for other things that you may wish power for from time to time. In the long run, you'll want a different source of power, but this should work for a while.

Consider it a sort of long term camping and set things up to make this simple. You can do a lot of cooking on a couple of propane burners. You can do without electricity for a long time. Use nature's refrigerator in the winter, and alter your cooking / eating habits in warmer weather until you bring in electricity (if you choose to do so...)

If you have kids, rethink the whole option. Someone will probably end up deciding that though half (totally made up statistic) the world's people don't have electricity, children cannot survive and lead a normal, healthy life without it...