Whirlwind,
We live probably pretty near the area in TN where ya’ll are talking about moving. We are living on 16 acres out in the sticks; having built a house 23 yrs. ago, and we have very much liked living out here. We’re about 12 miles from a small town where we can get anything we need as far as supplies go, groceries (though we have a fenced-in garden spot where we raise vegetables and some bit of fruit as well). I don’t want to can, so we just have fresh vegetables in season and I freeze a very few in a small freezer where we also keep extra meats for when we don’t get in to town often. Our garden is raised beds and small and manageable in size. Bigger and it becomes a burden at times - you’ve almost got to fence in a garden here as the deer are plentiful; they’ve so far been sort of pets at a distance, but we may have to view them as food later on - and they understand this though we, the deer and the dogs have fun gawking at and chasing each other.
Reality check here - the weather here is generally okay and mild, but we DO occasionally have some pretty cold winter days as well as some hot summer days some years. It varies. If you want to try out camping in Tennessee, I’d suggest visiting, going to a campground and sampling being in close quarters for an extended period of time and roughing it. At first out here, we built a medium size shed and stayed out here comfortably in the simple shed and worked. It was a cheap, self-built shed, and we could have made it permanent, but opted for a larger house though we didn’t really have to.
We live fairly cheaply here,on a river and are able to fish, but don’t all that much, dug a well back at the first, but have to filter it as it is sulphur, so water is free. Of course, everyone’s electric bill is going up if Obama gets his way, but we built our house to conserve energy. We built a house with two bedrooms upstairs, which saves on electricity because we don’t have to do much heating or cooling to the upstairs - we use ceiling fans and room A/C’s up there when needed. Our master bedroom is downstairs, so we really live on one floor. We have given up very little in the way of comfort; have a single unit washer and dryer (smallish but adequate as we wear clothes more than one day most times).
So far, things are still holding on fairly well here with jobs, but who knows with these jokers in charge. It’s quiet out here most of the time, but we have gained some more neighbors in the past ten years, though none right up on us.
You all will need to find a place to market your products; and that depends on what is available near you as an outlet. People generally aren’t going to come out in the boonies to you, but there are different outlets all over the place to market crafts. We sell quite a bit online, but not crafts as we aren’t very crafty and together with other work manage to cobble together an adequate living, but we are not extravagant people anyway.
The important thing is to love one another and enjoy every minute as much as is possible. Everything else is just roody pooh.
Wish I could think of more to tell you. I guess we’re sort of fancy pants homesteaders. We love Countryside magazine as it is real practical and makes one dream.
Good luck.
Twinkie
Oh, as a P.S., comfort IS important after a while. I would advise against a two-story. I was barely still in my thirties when we built this one and I could skip up the stairs. Now, at 62 (I need to update my info on FR)I can’t any more; so I’d rather have one bedroom downstairs as a guest room rather than two. It hits one quicker than they think as they get older. We also have a central heat and air system and a good wood stove, plenty of wood and sources around that sell wood if we get where we can’t cut our own. It helps whenever money is tight, but it IS dusty, so if a perfect housekeeping system is your thing, be advised. If the electricity goes off, it’s nice, but here our electricity doesn’t go off very often. Always remember COMFORT in all things as it becomes quickly important as we get older, which happens faster than we wish it did!
Thanks for the input.