Anybody here interested in homesteading?

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I actually don’t believe in evangelization. Why does the Catholic Church position on having so many children stand. It is to create lots and lots of followers.
How has no one called you on this yet? Evangelization is crucial for Catholics. See Pope John Paull II’s Redemptoris Missio.

Moreover, the Church doesn’t really have a position “on having so many children.” She teaches children are a blessing and that big families are a blessing and joy and that couples must have serious reasons for avoiding, but she certainly doesn’t specifiy that we must have x number to fulfill our duty to church and the world.
 
There had been an amazing place like what the OP described in eastern South Dakota. It was a Benedictine monastery called Blue Cloud Abbey. It was a group of monks so did live off the land and were as self-sufficient as possible (yes, they did have to buy some things from the outside world). But they had livestock, an enormous garden and lots of young men with strong backs . . . . and then those young men became old men and the Abbey closed last fall. What a shame!
 
Sounds romantic, but no thanks. Ag land is incredibly expensive, the work is back-breaking, and unless you plan to farm as a business - you’ll still need another job to pay your bills, insurance, and other expenses. I prefer not to be too far from a major hospital and other resources… Maybe someone could come up with a Catholic suburban town.
 
Sounds romantic, but no thanks. Ag land is incredibly expensive, the work is back-breaking, and unless you plan to farm as a business - you’ll still need another job to pay your bills, insurance, and other expenses. I prefer not to be too far from a major hospital and other resources… Maybe someone could come up with a Catholic suburban town.
I could be on board with that, as long as there is still evangelization.
 
I live in a rural area up in Maine and it seems that I see more and more people who are getting into this. Not full on homesteading but just trying to be more self sufficient. Almost every other house I drive by has chickens in the yard, if not some other kind of live stock, and I just got some hens myself. I would love to live “off the grid” but like someone already said its crazy expensive. I have a deep well and I just kind of half heartedly looked into getting a pump put in where I could manually pump water for when the power goes out and it costs thousands of dollars. I also tried cutting my own firewood a couple years ago. I think my back is still sore. Good luck to you though I hope you do it!
 
My friend with the goats also raises chickens and turkeys for sale and personal use. She is in the process of looking at cows and I’m not sure how you are coming up with the 100 number without even knowing how many people are involved.
I came up with the 100 number on the assumption that’s all a person would be doing. I’ll agree that if one gets into poultry, you don’t need any cows at all. Lots of people around here do the poultry thing. You only need a minimum of 10 acres for it, a $30,000 well and about a million dollars worth of buildings and equipment. However, the integrator (buyer) will guarantee your loan for the buildings and equipment, provide the feed and give you a check for each flock less the cost of the mortgage and the feed. Normally, if you’re a good operator, you’ll make about $35,000/year for the first five to seven years. After that, you refinance your mortgage and make VERY good money. You will generate a lot of chicken manure and what they call “cake” which is manure saturated wood chips. Farmers and ranchers will buy that from you, which is good because you have to clean out and disinfect the houses after each flock to prevent disease. Turkeys work about the same way. You do need a tractor and a front-end loader.

Back to the 100 number. I started to detail how you could maybe make about $35,000/year with that number if you are in the right place (a long story by itself) and own both your land and your cows. But it grew too big for this post, so I deleted all of that. If you don’t own your own cows and are not in the right area, it will take you seven years to break even no matter how many or how few you have, if they’re good stock. A lot of poultry folks around here do both poultry and beef, and use the proceeds of the beef operation to pay off the “rest of the land” mortgage. There is usually some amount of “inter-generational help” with all of that.

Of course, if you don’t care whether you make a living wage or not, or have supplemental income or have some specialty and people nearby who will buy it for a lot more than they can buy it for in the store, it’s different. Some people make that work. But I think you would have to be selling to city folk. Around here, for instance, so many people raise egg-laying chickens they often give them away during peak laying times. And those are “organic” eggs. Just outside a wealthy suburb might be quite different. Probably is.
 
I live in a rural area up in Maine and it seems that I see more and more people who are getting into this. Not full on homesteading but just trying to be more self sufficient. Almost every other house I drive by has chickens in the yard, if not some other kind of live stock, and I just got some hens myself. I would love to live “off the grid” but like someone already said its crazy expensive. I have a deep well and I just kind of half heartedly looked into getting a pump put in where I could manually pump water for when the power goes out and it costs thousands of dollars. I also tried cutting my own firewood a couple years ago. I think my back is still sore. Good luck to you though I hope you do it!
My daughter in law was brought up in Maine. We went there for hers and my son’s wedding. I was astonished at how little farming goes on there. Of course, I guess the growing season isn’t very long and it seems a good part of the state is composed of very steep hills with narrow valleys in between. She told me there used to be local farmers who would sell milk and eggs and such to people, but they have pretty much gotten old and quit.

I can sympathize with wanting one’s own chickens. The eggs are great, but they’re more expensive than in the store when one considers the cost of feed and all. And butchering chickens is beyond nasty. It’s a matter of what a person wants, though. My wife and I have considered getting some even though it’s not economical. But where we live there seems to be a hawk on every tree in the daytime and an owl on every tree at night. So I don’t think they would last long unless we had a very good enclosure.
 
From what I’ve heard, Ave Maria in Florida comes close.
I think that’s very much correct. Now and then I see some of their ads, and I’m guessing it’s an overwhelmingly Catholic place to live. I think it’s mostly a retirement town, though there are shops and restaurants and places where people might find a job. Well, and the university is there, and undoubtedly there are jobs there too.
 
Come on guys!

Sore backs? Butchering animals is nasty? That’s what you guys are afraid of???

I would expect people with traditionalist beliefs would have no problem with traditionalist lifestyles.

The food we survive off of doesn’t come from nowhere. Someone’s got to do all this stuff.

The economy is tanking. We (Americans) are on the verge of a major economic collapse. For the very conservative, traditional members of this forum, I know how you feel about Obama’s aggression against Catholics and Christians. Imagine him or Hillary making some deal with the People’s Republic of China…
 
The economy is tanking. We (Americans) are on the verge of a major economic collapse. For the very conservative, traditional members of this forum, I know how you feel about Obama’s aggression against Catholics and Christians. Imagine him or Hillary making some deal with the People’s Republic of China…
But is this truly a just reason to withdraw from society in such a fashion as the one you have proposed in the previous pages?
 
I’m just telling you guys, if things keep going in this direction, things are going to be a cesspool.

As for whoever said something about the Federal government and healthcare, and land rights, I personally believe that the country is too unstable to continue maintaining this huge Federal government that the Bush and Obama administration created, and all that will render obsolete. I also believe that the US will make some deal with Chinese corporate elites, and our markets will be completely controlled by them.

Imagine that kind of society. People’s Republic of China meets American postmodern secularism.

Basically there should be a small Catholic self-governing sovereign state in America, within the next 15 to 20 years.
I’m all for making a ‘catholic city’ but honestly if your going to make a secular cloisitor I’ll be the first in line to see it destroyed as legally as possible.
 
What’s your idea?
My idea, even though you didn’t answer my question, is to grow in greater holiness. Hearken back to the good Father Peyton and sanctify the family. The family is the foundation of evangelization; a notion with which I am sure you agree. Individuals must grow in holiness and love for our God and our country. We must be loyal Americans by being Faithful Catholics. This is no easy task, but it will bare more positive fruits than to subscribe to a defeatist approach and resign into the shadows of society and surrender to a life unfit for a civilized people: a life of fear.

Furthermore, if one saves the liturgy, one saves the world. We must, as Catholics and as Americans, fight always for the right for the Church to continue her Divine Mission; to pray for the liberty and exultation of the Holy Mother the Church. This is not done by joining the ranks of the fringe, but by pursuing vocational awareness and by being active in our communities and by furthering the campaign for LIFE.

In short, my idea is founded on the notion of personal, familial, and communal sanctification.
 
Come on guys!

Sore backs? Butchering animals is nasty? That’s what you guys are afraid of???

I would expect people with traditionalist beliefs would have no problem with traditionalist lifestyles.

The food we survive off of doesn’t come from nowhere. Someone’s got to do all this stuff.

The economy is tanking. We (Americans) are on the verge of a major economic collapse. For the very conservative, traditional members of this forum, I know how you feel about Obama’s aggression against Catholics and Christians. Imagine him or Hillary making some deal with the People’s Republic of China…
This is not a traditional lifestyle for most traditions. Most of us would rather live in the world than retreat from it.
 
Come on guys!

Sore backs? Butchering animals is nasty? That’s what you guys are afraid of???

I would expect people with traditionalist beliefs would have no problem with traditionalist lifestyles.

The food we survive off of doesn’t come from nowhere. Someone’s got to do all this stuff.

The economy is tanking. We (Americans) are on the verge of a major economic collapse. For the very conservative, traditional members of this forum, I know how you feel about Obama’s aggression against Catholics and Christians. Imagine him or Hillary making some deal with the People’s Republic of China…
Uh, I think what you’re not getting is that very few people have the startup capital or the desire to leave society and “live off the land” (or whatever the rustically romantic plan is.) Why would conservative Catholics want to live like that any more than anyone else? And why would they have the funds to do so any more than anyone else? Frankly, I’d miss my extended family desperately and would probably be bacj in town after 6 months of idyllic homesteading turned into a miserable money sucker.
 
I came up with the 100 number on the assumption that’s all a person would be doing. I’ll agree that if one gets into poultry, you don’t need any cows at all. Lots of people around here do the poultry thing. You only need a minimum of 10 acres for it, a $30,000 well and about a million dollars worth of buildings and equipment. However, the integrator (buyer) will guarantee your loan for the buildings and equipment, provide the feed and give you a check for each flock less the cost of the mortgage and the feed. Normally, if you’re a good operator, you’ll make about $35,000/year for the first five to seven years. After that, you refinance your mortgage and make VERY good money. You will generate a lot of chicken manure and what they call “cake” which is manure saturated wood chips. Farmers and ranchers will buy that from you, which is good because you have to clean out and disinfect the houses after each flock to prevent disease. Turkeys work about the same way. You do need a tractor and a front-end loader.

Back to the 100 number. I started to detail how you could maybe make about $35,000/year with that number if you are in the right place (a long story by itself) and own both your land and your cows. But it grew too big for this post, so I deleted all of that. If you don’t own your own cows and are not in the right area, it will take you seven years to break even no matter how many or how few you have, if they’re good stock. A lot of poultry folks around here do both poultry and beef, and use the proceeds of the beef operation to pay off the “rest of the land” mortgage. There is usually some amount of “inter-generational help” with all of that.

Of course, if you don’t care whether you make a living wage or not, or have supplemental income or have some specialty and people nearby who will buy it for a lot more than they can buy it for in the store, it’s different. Some people make that work. But I think you would have to be selling to city folk. Around here, for instance, so many people raise egg-laying chickens they often give them away during peak laying times. And those are “organic” eggs. Just outside a wealthy suburb might be quite different. Probably is.
The figures you are talking about are for the factory chicken mills. That’s almost the exact opposite of what the OP and I are talking about. You seem to be writing about an attempted capitalist venture…we are talking about homesteading. These are completely different in almost every single way. We are talking about working outside of the mainstream system, not becoming a part of the corruption you speak of.

Also, as I’ve mentioned, I have a dear local friend who is already doing it and she didn’t even come close to spending a million dollars. Things are simply not as you suggest with the kind of operation we are speaking of. We are trying to get away from having to rely on the terror that is the industry you describe.
 
I think a lot of people are waking up to what is going on around us. As sisters and brothers in Christ, we need to warn those who haven’t done so. The US economy is on the verge of collapse and we are seemingly past the point where a solution is possible. We are in too deep. Sounds doom and gloom and conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? Only, it’s a fact. And the most informed and respected person in the entire country has tried to warn us.

Whether you or your children or grandchildren “want” to live off the land or become self-sustainable…you all are going to have to when the collapse happens. This is basic math. It will be happening. It’s time to start preparing in the US, not for a zombie Apocalypse, but reality that massively large numbers of people are going to be without food and care.
 
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