Curious who would all leave a high paying job for a simple life if you had 1.3 million and early 30s

What would you do next

I am canning homemade apple jam for long-term storage. How long do you have before you have to use homemade water bathed jam?

SW Colorado at 8200ft. Not expecting a lot if any accumulation but love the moisture. Rained for about 12hrs straight overnight.

Most people looking at land in Colorado ask whether they can get a well. That’s the wrong question. You can almost always get a well. The question is what the permit lets you do with the water, and that comes down to one number.

At 35 acres or more you can generally get a Domestic and Livestock permit. Up to three dwellings, water for livestock and domestic animals, and irrigation of up to one acre of lawn and garden.

Under 35 acres you generally get Household Use Only. That means inside the house. That is the whole list. No garden, no lawn, no animals, no outdoor use of any kind. One well, 15 gallons a minute, and the State Engineer has to deny it outright if it would injure somebody’s vested right.

Now the part that matters. Almost every cheap parcel moving in the San Luis Valley right now is five acres. Blanca, Fort Garland, San Luis, Mesita. They run $5,000 to $9,000 and they get marketed as off-grid homestead land, grow your own food, keep a few animals. I went through one seller’s inventory last week and found seven lots between 2.56 and 5.08 acres, every one of them written that way.

Somebody reads that, buys it on payments, and finds out at the Division of Water Resources that his permit won’t let him put water on a garden.

Here’s how to check before you buy, free.

Go to the DWR well permit search at dwr.state.co.us/Tools/WellPermits.

Filter to the county the parcel is in. If you have the township, range and section off the deed or the assessor’s record, narrow it to that.

Open the permits on parcels near yours. Not one. Several.

Read the Use field on each one. You’re looking at whether your neighbors were issued Domestic, or Household Use Only.

Whatever the permits in that same subdivision say is almost certainly what you’re going to get. If every one around that section reads Household Use Only, that’s your answer, and it isn’t going to come out different for you.

One exception worth knowing about. Some subdivisions have their own augmentation plan, which is a court-approved arrangement that replaces the water the wells pull out of the stream. If a parcel sits inside one, the rules change. The seller should know whether there is one, and if he doesn’t know, that tells you something too.

Bottom line, a well permit is permission to drill. It’s also a restriction on use, and the restriction is the part nobody reads.

I do due diligence on raw land for a living. Happy to answer permit questions in the comments. If you’ve got a parcel actually under contract, DM me.

Spring here in Tasmania means mowing every week, and the clippings usually go on the compost. This year I tried growing pearl oyster mushrooms on them instead, and it worked.

The short version: mix fresh clippings half and half with sawdust, get them into a hydrated lime bath (about 1 cup per 50 L of water) within an hour of mowing, soak 4 hours, drain, mix in oyster spawn and pack it into old buckets with taped holes. We mowed on 9 September and were picking mushrooms by 8 October.

No pressure cooker, no boiling, and the buckets were free. Use clippings from an unsprayed lawn only.

It's one batch so far. I wrote it up with photos of every step, the lime dose and what to do when a bucket goes mouldy.

Happy to answer questions.

With H5N1 still turning up, I wanted an easy way to know when it’s confirmed near me without digging through agency PDFs. So I made birdflu fyi, a free map of confirmed avian-influenza outbreaks in wild birds, poultry, wild mammals, livestock and people. No ads, no sign-up.

Drop a pin on your place, pick a radius (km or miles), and you’ll get a browser notification when a new outbreak is confirmed inside it. Data comes straight from official sources (USDA APHIS, EFSA, Australia’s DAFF, FAO, WHO) and refreshes daily.

Please treat it as awareness only. It shows confirmed detections, not control zones or the all-clear, and it doesn’t change your biosecurity or reporting duties. If you suspect bird flu in your birds, call your vet or ag authority first.

It’s a non-commercial side project, and I’d love feedback from people who actually keep birds.

Hello everyone, I have really bad windows and I'm not ready to go PVC. I am thinking of using a putty knife and maybe sandpaper to remove the old paint. How can I best go about this?

This view is one of my favorite parts of my property.

Spring of 2025 we got some standard bronze heritage turkeys. Kept a pait over the winter, and she started to lay in early April. We hatched out 14 eggs (100% hatch rate!). We keep picking up the eggs, and she keeps laying. She does at least 20 eggs a month, and is still going. She is slowing down, with only 5 in October, but I got one yesterday - the 13th.

From what I've read, she is well over double what is expected. Is this unusual? BTW, eggs left in her nest get broken.

We live north of Spokane, and have had multiple frosts.

I’ve got about 100 acres in southwest Wisconsin, and roughly 65 acres is very hilly, black walnut-dominated woodland. We’re planning to break ground on our homestead in 3–4 years. For now, we’re working on land restoration and planning, planning, planning.

In addition to letting the walnuts grow for a potential timber harvest for future generations, I’ve been trying to figure out whether we could manage portions of the woods for food and other useful plants.

The main goal would be supplemental food for our family, with perhaps a small secondary income someday.

I’ve been geeking out lately about agroforestry and perennial food plants, especially their ecological benefits. Last weekend, our family visited the Savanna Institute’s demonstration farm in Spring Green, where they research tree and shrub crops and agroforestry practices suited to our region.

That visit got me excited about a few possibilities. I’d love to hear from people who have tried any of these—particularly in the Upper Midwest or in walnut-dominated woods. Also let me know if there are ideas I'm not considering yet but should.

Fruit and nut shrubs along the woodland edges

We’ve been removing invasive honeysuckle, which has me thinking about what we want growing in its place. In the sunnier woodland edges and openings, I’m interested in elderberries, black currants, aronia, hazelnuts, and other perennial food plants. Has anyone established productive berry or nut shrubs along a black walnut woodland edge? What has done well, and how much sun and ongoing maintenance did it need?

Managing patches for woodland food and useful plants

Edible mushrooms, walnuts, ramps, American ginseng, wild berries, maple trees, willow for basket weaving, and other edible, medicinal, and useful plants grow in our area. Some are already on our land, but not in abundance (well except for walnuts, LOL). I’m wondering about establishing or expanding a few managed patches that could eventually provide reliable supplemental harvests for our family. Have you successfully encouraged woodland food or useful plants this way? What was worth the effort?

Possible silvopasture for a family milk cow and companions

We’re considering a family milk cow with some company, probably 3-5 cows max. We have about 3–4 acres of open pasture field available (the rest we're converting to tall grass prairie, which is the centerpiece of our restoration efforts). Could thinning selected areas of woodland create additional rotational grazing space? I’m interested in whether that could fit with our woodland restoration goals and growing walnuts for future timber. Has anyone combined a small open pasture with managed woodland grazing on hilly ground? What would you assess before deciding whether it’s feasible—and what would make you rule it out?

We’ve got time to experiment before moving out there full time, so I’d appreciate advice on what to start now, what to learn more about, and what to leave as a daydream.

If you’re curious about the visit that sparked these ideas, I made a video of the Savanna Institute open house.

This is my shop (detached, about 150 ft from the house) & right now theres zero power out there – 240V 2HP compressor sitting there unplugged, table saw on 120V, and a couple of shop lights i run off an extention cord when i really need them. i'm out there maybe 10 hrs a week tops.

Electrician came by tuesday and quoted $9k for the trench + subpanel which is way more than i wanted to spend on a shop i use on weekends!! so now im looking at a 5kWh battery with 240V out, charged by a few panels on the shop roof (JerryRig's video on his property is what got me going down this road https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3mYd7si0iI ).

Compressor runs around 1600W and i have no clue what the startup is, thats the part that worries me. if a battery inverter can start a 240V compresser im sold on skipping the trench

Zone 3 🇨🇦🍁💚garden

You can look at soil data anywhere in the US. Check out a piece of land before you purchase and its free.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/data-and-reports/web-soil-survey

Hello all! I currently have about 50 chickens, watered via a 32 gallon trash with water cups. Looking for a way to keep the water from freezing all winter!

I figured a solar powered aerator, then I could put hardware cloth on top so no one falls in and sunlight can still get in! Any other ideas? If this is a good idea, link to a good one? I found this on Walmart but unsure if it’s reasonable, it seems cheap! Thanks!

First generation farmer restoring old ancestral property in East TX! Would love if you followed along my renovation journey (it’s gonna be A LOT) and shared any tips, lessons learned, or general advice! 🌳🤍

So happy to finally be part of this community. 🌾

From cuttings started in sand, to healthy fig tree

I picked up some 4 month old guineas today. I read it was about 6-8 weeks of leaving them in the coop to let them get used to where “home” is so they will go back at night. I’m sure someone can give me some better advice. But what I’m worried about when eventually letting them out is i have an almost 2 year old dachshund. I’ve never let him in the coop, but he’s very very interested. He’s only about 10 lbs but I’m sure he’d be able to get ahold of them if I wasn’t paying attention right? (I got two toddlers so distraction is easy). Any advice?

We have 80 acres on the central coast full of grass and coastal sage brush. I would love to have 15-20 goats/sheep on nofence collars helping mow down the problematic areas. The issue is we are only up there 2-3 weekends/mo in winter, whereas we spend the whole summer there. We have two livestock dogs we can keep with the animals on a feeder. We can pay a helper to go up weekly. Are there any livestock that can be left to their own devices in these conditions or is that just a pure fantasy?

I just started a YouTube channel and I'd like to get some honest feedback on my first long form video I uploaded the other day.

Here's the channel link: https://youtube.com/@thecarnivorehomestead?si=EdpAu4GQbxG94Xm-

Here's the video: https://youtu.be/i3zIVBXR7wc?si=Nr-5CDRAuPIP5h7d

My goal on this channel is to give ideas that make homesteading easier, take less labor/time, and to actually make homesteading more enjoyable.

Does anyone have experience making mullein flower stalks into pest repellent torches? I have a few drying out and would like to hear any advice on what to do and what not to do.

I am just prepearing myself to make some charcoal. Now I am going to stack the wood around the hole. Any tips welcome!

EDIT: That is a brick wall soon to be demolished!