Live in a farm?
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albaricoque426
Tourist
I have always been in the city, going to the farm would have its advantages and I could get used to it, but I still like the city more
I wouldn't live in a city if my life depended on it.
Dungeon_Daddy
Tourist
I always hated the city. It moved to fast for me and I just didn't jive well with it. I moved the country recently and I'm much happier. It's slower. I have a barn and space for animals now. It's a whole dream come true. As far as money goes, there are plenty of okay jobs around and there is always a factory. Plus remote work is still a thing if you're lucky.
OffgridK9lover
Prized Citizen of ZV
Sheep, dogs, still to close to other humans sadly, want to be farther away.
OutFarming
Citizen of Zooville
I live in the rat maze people call a city for 16 months once.
Worst time of my life.
Worst time of my life.
feralpixie
Tourist
Honestly I've grown to hate the big city. London was so big and exciting and new when I came to uni, and now it's just stress and so expensive and oppressive. Even if it was just for a year or two I'd love to go live and work on a farm. Especially a zoo friendly one!
Mosteel
Citizen of Zooville
I live in a rural area now after growing up in a city. Lowkey, it's boring as hell even if you like the woods.
Like, i've been building a cabin with my friends, and thats pretty cool, but i miss, say, being able to take a day trip to the zoo, the mall, and
Up here, you either go outside, go to walmart, or drive 2 hours to the nearest urban anything.
There's no adult sports teams, no community clubs ( i miss robotics), the beach is miles away, the library sucks (one shelf with zoology books and it's all hunting bs ), job opportunities are nonexistent, etc etc.
The great outdoors is great, but, it does get just a tad dull over time. I've been getting more and more into bushwacking and survival, which has been cool i guess..
I guess it would depend on the farm really. I wonder if i bend this to be more of a sanctuary to help rescue the species i love.
A sanctuary dedicated to coyotes and turkeys and even deer would be totally worth it...
Like, i've been building a cabin with my friends, and thats pretty cool, but i miss, say, being able to take a day trip to the zoo, the mall, and
Up here, you either go outside, go to walmart, or drive 2 hours to the nearest urban anything.
There's no adult sports teams, no community clubs ( i miss robotics), the beach is miles away, the library sucks (one shelf with zoology books and it's all hunting bs ), job opportunities are nonexistent, etc etc.
The great outdoors is great, but, it does get just a tad dull over time. I've been getting more and more into bushwacking and survival, which has been cool i guess..
I guess it would depend on the farm really. I wonder if i bend this to be more of a sanctuary to help rescue the species i love.
A sanctuary dedicated to coyotes and turkeys and even deer would be totally worth it...
TropicalCritter
Zooville Settler
Living on an acre away from everything is my main goal and what I have been striving for every day for years. Maybe in a little more than 5 years I will achieve it and then I will live on my investments.
Regarding species, I am currently in charge of two female dogs. I would like to live with them there, and perhaps when the time comes with a third.
Regarding species, I am currently in charge of two female dogs. I would like to live with them there, and perhaps when the time comes with a third.
The Obscured Black
Tourist
I'd take this opportunity in a heartbeat.
Admittedly, I'd probably have a lot of dogs, horses, and other larger animals. I am preferential to size and would likely enjoy them myself.
Daedalus
Zooville Settler
Mosteel makes some good points. I was once an avid reader too and I do miss the libraries, but its not like I have time for books anymore anyway. And yeah its easy to get in a rut out here. Boredom, burn out, disillusionment, overwhelmed, perennially cash-strapped, and second-guessing one's life choices are all familiar sentiments in country living. Hell, that's the rut I'm in right now! That's why life out here is a challenge. Also why we drink! haha
At least Mosteel's lucky he even has friends who come over and build. I have to do everything solo. I leveled, framed, roofed, subfloored, sided, trimmed, windowed & doored, wired and plumbed, an old condemned shanty of a 1200sqft 3/2 house by myself entirely. Army of one. And I had to be off working construction jobs full-time M-F a few years first before I could even learn how and get started. Ditto everything else, alone. From clearing woods to building fencing, to starting cattle and hogs and dogs and equines, to rebuilding a wrecked vehicle. You've got to be a jack of all trades. I wish like hell I could meet a kindred handyman homesteader zoo. Someone who liked building and fixing with me.
And that segways us to this: out here, your work and fun have to be woven together to become one and the same thing. You've got to be the man who likes being outside working with his hands. If you sit on your ass playing video games or driving back to the city for fun, you ain't getting shit done, and country life isn't for you. The work, its challenges, its pride & satisfaction has to become your pastime, too. You've got to enjoy all that building, fixing, choring. Its where your satisfaction will come from. Animal chores, land chores, repair chores, improvement projects (ahem necessities), everything's a chore. That's the life. The work is your hobby. So be a tinkerer or a craftsmen at heart, then its paradise on earth. Being financially independent (to a degree), and getting to live life spending time working on your own land, surrounded by the company of your own animals. I might bitch all the time but I'm still here, so I guess I'd take that over city or suburbia any day ?
Mosteel also rightly points out that jobs are scarce, so you can bet you're still going to be commuting back to town/city for income. Me, I tend to work P/T night shift or weekend jobs, to ease the pain of all that commuting. Anything 2nd or 3rd shift so you're against the grain of traffic instead of sitting in it. And we're talking shitty dead-end jobs, nothing glamorous nor well-paid. Once you've got your land and animals, your "career" doesn't matter anymore. The land and its accomplishments make the man now, not the day job. You step back and drop out of the rat-race. You semi-retire and live on smaller income, just doing whatever humble part-time shit jobs you find compatibility with. And me, I treat 'em as seasonal too, whether or not they hired that way. I'll work 6-8mos then quit and spend another 6-8 at home banging out a project, living frugally off the savings. That's how I strike a balance between income work and farm work. Little things can go a long way too, eg. my neighbor has a little 3-man construction crew that I sometimes get called onto for day labor. That's a nice little cash side hustle, but its in no way steady. Here today, gone tomorrow. Very irregular and cannot be relied on for income, but great for keeping my skills sharp or learning new ways to do things -- and coming into free scrap materials!
Offgrid and I are both country yet still living close to other humans, too close. Around me the land is subdivided into 8-10 acre parcels but typical America, its always piano key lots, so everybody's got long narrow rectangles and I've got people on both sides of me that I'd rather not have. Neighbors on one side of me are great folks, neighbors on the other side are complete pieces of shit. So it goes. That's country livin'. Make do. I could have afforded a lot more isolation in a remoter place, but I would've had to go into debt and been paying a mortgage to do that. I'd rather stick to my zero-debt principles, have no mortgage, own the land outright, and be able to take that 6-8mos off and still be solvent, paying my bills with no income coming in.
So overall you have to learn how to make do with less -- a lot less. Every year I learn how to get a little leaner and wean myself more and more off reliance on money or the system. Build, fix, salvage, or just learn to go without. Do all of your own work, because you won't earn enough to pay other men to do it for you. The traditional 9-5 M-F grind or careerist one-job-pays-all model doesn't work out here, so find ways to make smaller streams of income off the land. Cattle and pigs didn't make me anything, she didn't calve for 6 years. Total flop. Freemartin "matriarch" of a herd that never materialized. But what's a zoo to do? I fell in love with her and didn't let go til I had to after 6 years of nothing. So I've only lost money sunk into cows and pigs, nothing's come back out of it yet. I'm trying to finish an apartment out of 1/3rd of my house so that I can hopefully rent to another zoo and have another human out here working with me to bring on another cow, mare etc. and with my friend's bull, try to make them at least break even and pay their own feed. Important too is not getting in over your head like me. Networking is vital. Forge relationships with other zoos so you don't grow old trying to one-man an entire farm alone. Boy I should've done that years ago.
At least Mosteel's lucky he even has friends who come over and build. I have to do everything solo. I leveled, framed, roofed, subfloored, sided, trimmed, windowed & doored, wired and plumbed, an old condemned shanty of a 1200sqft 3/2 house by myself entirely. Army of one. And I had to be off working construction jobs full-time M-F a few years first before I could even learn how and get started. Ditto everything else, alone. From clearing woods to building fencing, to starting cattle and hogs and dogs and equines, to rebuilding a wrecked vehicle. You've got to be a jack of all trades. I wish like hell I could meet a kindred handyman homesteader zoo. Someone who liked building and fixing with me.
And that segways us to this: out here, your work and fun have to be woven together to become one and the same thing. You've got to be the man who likes being outside working with his hands. If you sit on your ass playing video games or driving back to the city for fun, you ain't getting shit done, and country life isn't for you. The work, its challenges, its pride & satisfaction has to become your pastime, too. You've got to enjoy all that building, fixing, choring. Its where your satisfaction will come from. Animal chores, land chores, repair chores, improvement projects (ahem necessities), everything's a chore. That's the life. The work is your hobby. So be a tinkerer or a craftsmen at heart, then its paradise on earth. Being financially independent (to a degree), and getting to live life spending time working on your own land, surrounded by the company of your own animals. I might bitch all the time but I'm still here, so I guess I'd take that over city or suburbia any day ?
Mosteel also rightly points out that jobs are scarce, so you can bet you're still going to be commuting back to town/city for income. Me, I tend to work P/T night shift or weekend jobs, to ease the pain of all that commuting. Anything 2nd or 3rd shift so you're against the grain of traffic instead of sitting in it. And we're talking shitty dead-end jobs, nothing glamorous nor well-paid. Once you've got your land and animals, your "career" doesn't matter anymore. The land and its accomplishments make the man now, not the day job. You step back and drop out of the rat-race. You semi-retire and live on smaller income, just doing whatever humble part-time shit jobs you find compatibility with. And me, I treat 'em as seasonal too, whether or not they hired that way. I'll work 6-8mos then quit and spend another 6-8 at home banging out a project, living frugally off the savings. That's how I strike a balance between income work and farm work. Little things can go a long way too, eg. my neighbor has a little 3-man construction crew that I sometimes get called onto for day labor. That's a nice little cash side hustle, but its in no way steady. Here today, gone tomorrow. Very irregular and cannot be relied on for income, but great for keeping my skills sharp or learning new ways to do things -- and coming into free scrap materials!
Offgrid and I are both country yet still living close to other humans, too close. Around me the land is subdivided into 8-10 acre parcels but typical America, its always piano key lots, so everybody's got long narrow rectangles and I've got people on both sides of me that I'd rather not have. Neighbors on one side of me are great folks, neighbors on the other side are complete pieces of shit. So it goes. That's country livin'. Make do. I could have afforded a lot more isolation in a remoter place, but I would've had to go into debt and been paying a mortgage to do that. I'd rather stick to my zero-debt principles, have no mortgage, own the land outright, and be able to take that 6-8mos off and still be solvent, paying my bills with no income coming in.
So overall you have to learn how to make do with less -- a lot less. Every year I learn how to get a little leaner and wean myself more and more off reliance on money or the system. Build, fix, salvage, or just learn to go without. Do all of your own work, because you won't earn enough to pay other men to do it for you. The traditional 9-5 M-F grind or careerist one-job-pays-all model doesn't work out here, so find ways to make smaller streams of income off the land. Cattle and pigs didn't make me anything, she didn't calve for 6 years. Total flop. Freemartin "matriarch" of a herd that never materialized. But what's a zoo to do? I fell in love with her and didn't let go til I had to after 6 years of nothing. So I've only lost money sunk into cows and pigs, nothing's come back out of it yet. I'm trying to finish an apartment out of 1/3rd of my house so that I can hopefully rent to another zoo and have another human out here working with me to bring on another cow, mare etc. and with my friend's bull, try to make them at least break even and pay their own feed. Important too is not getting in over your head like me. Networking is vital. Forge relationships with other zoos so you don't grow old trying to one-man an entire farm alone. Boy I should've done that years ago.
OffgridK9lover
Prized Citizen of ZV
and don't forget, there is a part of animal husbandry that sucks beyond words and cuts deeper than you can imagine, why with a farm you need to view a gun as a farm tool.
shortleash
Zooville Settler
i prefer a small town or a city having done both...
knotsindeep
Tourist
okay, I live not in a city but not in complete bfe. I have to say I hope this is in the right section or is allowed.
If not I apologize, but everyone needs to know this.
I have done much research on this topic, and I will say that everybody better stay figuring out how to grow your own food, and find a local place to buy your meat from. THEY, THEM, THOSE are currently putting anything grown through a process as well as livestock, that will cause your body to manufacture spike protein. please research
If not I apologize, but everyone needs to know this.
I have done much research on this topic, and I will say that everybody better stay figuring out how to grow your own food, and find a local place to buy your meat from. THEY, THEM, THOSE are currently putting anything grown through a process as well as livestock, that will cause your body to manufacture spike protein. please research
TropicalCritter
Zooville Settler
I had a similar dream a few years ago but with maned wolves. I would love to create a Sanctuary for them here in my country, however, for various reasons, it is very likely that this will never happen.
I say "very likely" because life is sometimes chaotic and brings to you unexpected positive surprises.
TropicalCritter
Zooville Settler
I meant that the future can bring both unexpectedly good and bad things to people's lives. Something like a butterfly effect.
What may be unrealistic for us today, may be quite possible tomorrow.
Zooflyer
Citizen of Zooville
Don't know if I'd want to have an actual farm where I have to grow and produce products. But I'd like to have a secluded plot of land a little bit away from everyone else. Not out in the middle of nowhere, hours away from anything. Just maybe 30-40 minute drive inland from where I live now. Maybe a couple of horses/cows and a dog for companionship.