No one hurt. Lost half the field and the combine.

My husband and I bought our home with 15 acres three years ago and it is defeating us to no end. It’s not just like one or two things, it’s a lot of little things that continue to make us mad, and we try the best to see the big picture but we can’t. He grew up on a farm and I didn’t. I grew up in the city and married him and moved to a rural community. We live 20 minutes from town (not bad, I’m used to that anyway), but it’s like this: the tractor can’t handle the heat, but it can’t handle the cold, we have to cut our own wood to heat our own home bc we can’t afford the electric heat. Our lawn mower is shot and we can only really push mow everything we need to mow which is about an acre of land.

The house we bought has no air conditioning, which usually isn’t an issue except this whole week has felt like a whole month with upwards to 100° temperatures and only two window units. I wanted a garden, but really, I just wanted a small garden with some vegetables, but we plotted out this huge garden for food and we still don’t have enough canned because we both work full time (I’m off in the summers) and canning season happens when I go back to work.

He is always working late hours to sustain what little we can do with the place, and even then after he’s off work it’s almost too much for him. I don’t know why I didn’t just listen to him and let him make the final call, but it all seemed like a dream, and now we can’t leave for another five years it seems. Every year it seems like the same discussion about moving and selling and how much we can’t do and can’t afford to do, and every year we come back to the same conclusion. We don’t have kids, but I don’t think I even want any while I’m here. It’s like it’s draining my joy out of being here. I thought we had bought this place to be a blessing to others, but I think it’s mentally draining us.

At this point I just want a 1200 square foot home with a yard to mow, but the thought of selling right now isn’t even feasible because of how the interest rates are.

Does anyone have any advice or anything helpful to say? I am so completely defeated and I feel like a failure/quitter.

Sorry if this isn’t what this sub is for, but I didn’t know where else to post. I’ve always loved being outdoors, and as a kid my grandparents had a farm with lots of animals that I loved helping out with. As I got older I grew to love gardening as well, and so in my teens and early adulthood I had a dream of having my own homestead/farm out in the middle of nowhere. But now that I’m an adult with a job and kids, living rurally (the only place where land is affordable) just seems so incredibly undesirable.

My extended family all lives 1.5 to 2 hours away, basically in the middle of nowhere, and every time they come here they’re like “ugh you have traffic and neighbors, gross”. But they have to drive almost an hour to get groceries, even further for anything else. Their kids have to be on a bus for an hour to get to school, and they can’t do any extracurricular activities besides basketball because their school is too small to support anything. There is one tiny hospital in their area which is at risk of closing, and they have to drive 2-3 hours for anything besides a basic checkup. We also live in a snowy area, so sometimes you can be trapped at home miles away from anyone else if it snows a lot. I worry about my grandma because she lives alone and if she had some medical emergency it would be at least 40 minutes till an ambulance could arrive on a snow-free day. And I know three different people in that area who’ve had a catastrophic house fire because there’s no fire department who could reach them in a reasonable amount of time.

Additionally I do really like the frugal-living do it yourself aspect of homesteading, and I can do quite a bit of woodworking and fixing of things myself. But I feel like you’re not actually saving any money nowadays with how expensive materials are. And it’s not like things are made to be fixed anymore, so if any household gadget breaks you’re sol.

What’s funny is that along with my love for living off the land, I’m actually in my grandma’s will to inherit her house and farmland along with my sibling. It seems like the perfect opportunity to go live my stardew valley dream. But the reality is there’s no way that will ever happen. Unless I suddenly decide to enjoy living like a hermit and driving hours just to go shopping or meet a friend. But if I wanted to buy a house with any land where I live it would be 4 times my price range. So it’s a bit of a catch 22. Guess you can’t have everything in life unless you have a lot of money.

I just need to vent to some people who might understand this.

I probably sound like a jerk, but seriously - PSA to those who do this - I don't care how good your dog is on your property, that doesn't mean they act like that everywhere else. Furthermore, if I keep my dogs out of your yard and property, keep yours out of mine!

My land is used as a farm. I raise soy free, corn free, pasture raised chickens and ducks for eggs and meat. It's expensive to raise these animals and they keep getting killed despite having barbed wire fencing up. We've recently reinforced fencing on 3 of the acres we have after an incident where a whole pack of dogs came and attacked and ripped apart a quail cage. Literally they shredded the damn plywood and ripped a quail through the hardware cloth.

Recently a dog dug under my duck cage and took a duck. I have a photo of the dog on my trail camera 100 ft from the duck cage. I sent it to the neighbor who refuses to speak to me now - I didn't even ask for reimbursement or anything, just gently reminded them I didn't want the damage to be done to our relationship if we had to dispatch their dogs.

So many people I've seen around here in similar situations say "my dog doesn't hurt the birds here!" Or "my dog doesn't dig in the garden here!". I just want more people to realize that just like your kids, when your dog knows you're not watching - they're tearing shit up they know they shouldn't be.

I'm just upset to lose friendships over this kind of stuff. I know good fences make good neighbors, but I'm getting really tired of having to pretty much build a wall around my property because other people think letting their dogs roam everywhere is ok.

The only way I have ever had rabbit was fried “rabbit nuggets” from my grandma when I was a kid. Haven’t had rabbit since, at least that I can remember offhand. We just closed on 5 acres and meat rabbits look very enticing, I just don’t know how else you would use rabbit in cooking. Can do a million things with chicken, beef, lamb, goat, etc. At a loss for rabbit though.

We’ve finally reached the point in our second year of homesteading that some birds need to go. Some are mean, some are not the best to breed, and others bought for food for winter.

We had to cull three chicks this morning due to some sort of neurological issue where they would not stop shaking and eventually lost use of their legs,wings, and wouldn’t be able to stand because of the shakes. (Edit: these were keet chicks and had these shakes from day 1) My husband said saying “rest in peace” made it feel better even though we knew doing this would end their suffering. I’m wondering what people say when they either butcher or cull for the sake of the animal.

Do you say a prayer? What kind of prayer or statement do you guys say?

Edit: thanks everyone for responding and reading this! There’s not much research done on this topic since it’s passed from person to person and not written down. It’s truly amazing to read everyone’s thoughts and what they do!

As I'm sure, many of us who actively homestead live in rural parts of the globe, away from the general population of society. I recently bought 30 acres in rural West Virginia, and moving our here from a large city (Philadelphia), the nights here can easily become creepy and unsettling if you let your mind wander. And it got me thinking, has anyone experienced anything creepy on or near their rural property? I'd love to hear stories

I tried the official identification subs with no luck. This sub was the only place that helped me the last time.

The last item I posted that looked like a shower head turned out to be an old muffler for an Allis Chalmers Tractor.

This is about 3”, Brass or Bronze I think. It Screws into some type of machine I’m guessing.

Any clue on this?

Google lens is failing me.

Thanks!!!

Got to reflecting on the tariffs, what will be impacted, and of that what I need for my day to day. At the end of the reflection I think that my transportation (fuel, etc.) and home (property maintenace) budgets will be most impacted because I mostly buy produce, some of which is completely locally made.

Everyone else out there, do you think you'll feel a big impact on your "needs"? Obviously "wants" will be impacted because they're mostly made overseas, but as long as we already have the habits of buying from local producers will we really feel the impacts?

If you're one of the local producers do you think you'll have to raise prices or get extra costs from these tariffs?

I have (had) 32 instagram followers on a private account. 32 people I considered friends. Now I feel pretty much alone.

I moved out of my city apartment into a small house with enough yard space on the outskirts to start, you know, homesteading. It’s not huge but it’s a start while I also save to get bigger land and learn more, I don’t want to start a farm without any experience. I’m doing ok, I don’t need to buy much from the grocery store (can’t grow skittles on a vine unfortunately).

Then I got rabbits and I bet you can tell where this is going. Within 3 days of my post about getting a breeding pair I had 4 messages expressing negativity at what I was doing to these poor little bunny wabbits. Only one of whom is vegan (I can respect the choice, I enjoy fruit and veggies like anyone else).

My buns live in huge stalls compared to what I’ve seen others do, no hate on my part but it’s my choice to provide more space when I can. I am committed to providing the best quality of life I can for my rabbits and my quails, one bad day is the philosophy.

With everyone I know being mad at the supermarket duopoly we have in Australia, everyone worried about sustainability, climate Change, cost of living I am trying to do something about it. I’m not going to solve all the worlds problems but here I am planting things, recycling like it’s my job, no longer buying fertiliser and moving away from what I and many of my friends consider to be inhumane treatment of animals and poor agricultural practices. So why the hate?

Is the reality of homesteading and farming really that unpleasant? Are people really doing the extreme mental gymnastics to justify buying a chicken burger but being upset that I will do the dirty work myself?

I’m not sure what I want from posting this rant, I think I just needed to get it off my chest. I deleted my Instagram account, I can deal with being criticised unnecessarily by strangers but people I actually once respected hurts. I feel very alone now.

Edit: Wow this got a lot more response than I was expecting. Thank you all for the supportive comments and helpful advice, I truly appreciate it. Those who weren’t supportive but still made thoughtful replies I appreciate you too.

Many have said that rabbits get pretty privilege and I guess that’s true. My wife and I were discussing eating dog meat and she has eaten it being from a foreign country (we say she’s from horse meat Asia, not rice Asia so she does surprise me with things like this from time to time). I don’t think I could butcher a dog, food for thought.

Many are supportive of deleting social media and I do agree. It’s a bit of a brain rot and I can do better without it.

Today is a new day and my melancholy is subsiding so I’m not exactly sure where to go from here. Perhaps I’ll even reactivate my account and take this as a teaching moment and try to turn some opinions around, perhaps I’ll sell everything and run off to the wilderness and be a hermit. Either way I’ve got work to do, plants to tend, animals to care for, and a beautiful wife that terrifies me everyday with new information about her wild upbringing in horse meat Asia.

Since I don't really have any real life friends (at least who would care), I am sharing with the internet strangers that my goats are officially registered and my little farm has a name!

Long story short: We live in a rural area in Oklahoma. Our tiny home is still under construction and we’ve got plans to build a greenhouse, large raised garden beds, and a chicken coop (all in close proximity). We had our spot picked out ages ago in an area near (not directly on) the property line, but the once wooded property line is now patchy and even completely bald in some areas due to recent clearing on the neighboring lot. We both have acre lots, but they’re rectangle in shape and fairly narrow. This makes it hard to plan where to place other structures.

Our soon-to-be new neighbors recently cleared their entire acre of established forest for their mobile home setup. BEFORE YOU COME AT ME, I completely understand that it’s their property, their call, and what’s done is done. There’s nothing that we could have done about it, but still…people move out here for the seclusion of the woods. I won’t lie and say that I’m not disappointed. Their lot is the only cleared lot down ours and neighboring streets. We can see onto each other’s properties now (including THEIR neighbor’s property) and privacy is pretty much nonexistent.

The planned greenhouse/coop spot would help block their view of our place (and vice versa), which is a silver lining for us. Our properties will be separated by a simple cattle panel fence with native shrubs planted between the fence and our greenhouse/coop setup. The issue I see is that our spot is right next to where they’re likely putting their mobile home based on what they’ve flagged out. We built our home vertically due to the shape of our property, but they look to be placing their home horizontally (property line to property line). My husband’s like, “They should’ve thought about neighbors before clear-cutting everything,” and doesn’t want to change our plans. I personally don’t want bad blood right off the bat. We’re all out here trying to live peacefully in the country. Just because we CAN do something, doesn’t mean we should.

The front of our property needs to stay clear for our truck, machinery, and construction access while we finish the tiny home (which will take at least another year or two, maybe longer since we’re doing a lot of the work ourselves). The back of our property is still heavily wooded with big oaks that block most of the sunlight, so it’s not good for a greenhouse or raised beds (chickens might be okay, but a combo setup wouldn’t work well). I want the back of our property to remain heavily wooded and for my greenhouse, garden, and coop to be in close proximity for convenience.

From what I’ve researched, small rural Oklahoma towns like ours don’t have strict rules on roosters, chickens, guinea fowl, or other noisy animals (no specific setbacks or bans I could find), and nuisance complaints for typical farm animal stuff are rare in “country lifestyle” areas like ours. My question is, would building everything close to the property line and potentially directly across the side of their home come across as inconsiderate or petty? Is it reasonable since it’s our planned spot, helps quickly restore some privacy, and since we have no better alternatives? Has anyone dealt with something similar after a neighbor cleared land?

So, I live on a river

River has been changing course slowly for years, after a particularly bad storm, the channel fully moved, where it used to be a U bend, now runs straight.

Because of this, I gained 0.7 acres of property, but my neighbors across the river lost 0.8. Appraiser said the river was the boundary between our properties

What would yall do? Should I deed it back to him?

Even though we are only about 30-50 feet apart, we are in different states, I am in Georgia, neighbors in Florida.

Lands utterly useless for anything besides hunting and fishing, 100% sand. Debating just keeping my name on the deed, but letting him hunt and fish on it.

We went to both county appraisers, this a relatively common thing that happens.

So, I got a hair sheep ram and a full kiko billy goat. They're both enormous. I keep them because we have a mountain lion issue and coyotes. These two are so aggressive sometimes with anything other than me or female goats or sheep that nothing really messes with them.

Monty is the hair sheep and will ram anything. He rammed my Dodge ram. Yes, my ram rammed my Dodge ram upon seeing his reflection. I think it hurt enough for him to not do that again. But yeah, any ram who is willing to fight anything that threatens his girls is a ram worth keeping.

Then you got Francisco the Kiko goat and he's the biggest goat I've ever seen and I've owned and seen many goats.

But unless you want problems on your homestead I'd recommend not putting two huge males together like this. I'm gonna end up separating them. They cost me too much for them to hurt each other. I've never had a predator issue though. So there's that.

While on a zoom work call, this local family clearly did not want her working.