Yep me too. Would really like to employ some permaculture farm principles and make a fully sustainable place to live.
My folks experimented with self-sufficient farming on 25 acres for 15 years after WWII.
For a family of 4 the cow gave way too much milk and had to be milked twice a day - Mom was forever making cheese that was coming out of our ears and when it was more dairy than could be sold or given away the cow was sold. Same with sheep and goats who were honery critters and ate shirt sleeves off the clothesline. Fences wouldn't keep them in and very secure fencing is cost-prohibitive.
The horse ate like - well - a horse! Pop sold him and got a WWII surplus Caterpiller to plow with.
The citrus, avocado, and fruit orchards cost more money to irrigate than any profit of selling crops to Sunkist. Because fruit always ripens in summer we spent long hot days canning bushels of fruit over a hot stove for what condensed to a very small harvest after all was canned or pickled.
The beehives were good for pollinating crops but I'll never forget the nasty critters flying loose stinging everyone in a 10 acre radius.
The organic garden brought no money as it was a losing battle against bugs and diseases and critters like farm animals, rabbits, and gophers breaking in to eat it.
The poultry had to be fenced expensively to keep out wandering neighbor dogs and aerial predators. There were ducks, geese, and chickens. The ducks gave bigger eggs than the chickens so the chickens went to the freezer. The ducks were smelly and made a mess of water so they were the next to go into the freezer. Kept the geese for food and big eggs as their meat was less greasy than duck and the live geese were good mean watchdogs. But as all the experiments wound down so did the geese til there were none left. After 15 years of self-sufficient farming the land lay fallow for another 2 years and ultimately rented out.
There was no self-sufficiency on our folks' 25 acres as Pop had to have a civilian job to pour money into the farm. The farm was paid for but constantly increasing taxes and farm needs kept costing more every year. There was more pouring into self-sufficiency then coming out of it and Pop worked hard at his day job that there was no energy for chores and Mom carried the brunt of farm work.
I wouldn't trade my first 15 years of life on a farm and still consider myself farm folk but it's not a practical reality in this economy (or even WWII economy either).
About the best way to farm nowadays is after working for a nice nest-egg retiriement and retire on a little acreage. And if you're lucky enough as a senior to upkeep the chores.
I've retired in a small city cottage with a small yard and bring as much gardening and chickens as space allows to bring back a few memories. I would never recommend self-sufficiency full time however. Yes - it's organic and yes, it's healthier, but there is a high price for it. That's why we like to support the local farmers' markets for those people who work so hard to grow the good stuff - but even those folks have to have paying civilian work to support self-sufficiency (ironic term for something that really isn't self-sustaining LOL).
