(This post grew out of my response to someone in the Deep Adaptation group who posted that they have basically given up family proximity for land. It’s a common thing in capitalist culture for people to think they need a bunch of land, and lots of people in the collapse-aware circles have gone to drastic extremes, moving away from strong community and close-by jobs to secure “ownership” of large pieces of land. This mother feels like she has to sacrifice the present to secure her children’s future.)
7 acres sounds really daunting and lonely, especially if it’s only going to be you guys having to do all the work. 3 acres sounds a little less daunting.
And the “eye-watering mortgage,” I’m so sorry. <broken-heart emoticon>
I sometimes feel that places like that are really unsafe compared with the safety of the people we love, and also of neighbors who can share the load. Also, loneliness and isolation are way underestimated as a factor in failure to thrive.
Have you met any of the neighbors? Do they have kids? Will you be homeschooling /unschooling? (Actually although I’m a city dweller, if I had kids right now I would totally want them to be unschooled, with various elements such as neighborhood service projects, working at family business, and online courses.)
I always worry when people who have not grown up in rural areas suddenly move out to rural acreage. Feels like having no other contact or minimal other contact with other people.
But, I recognize that people have different levels of wish for community / social interaction. I’m actually an introvert and yet I could never thrive in a suburban or rural area. I would actually feel more scared and vulnerable. Plus the sheer amount of work, And having to reinvent the wheel, such as teaching yourself how to grow everything, and failing by trial and error when people have been growing food, fiber, fodder, and fuel in community for thousands of years.
Well, I do know that people find a way. And I wish you and your family much joy, abundance, and beauty in your daily lives. It could be that you will find some elders and other community in your new place.
I do feel like our hyperindividualistic western industrialized culture underestimates the importance of community in resilience. And we seem to have maybe some ancestral programming regarding the idea that we can find more safety by moving out onto acreage. It’s the pioneer mentality, and I feel like we are doing a second injury on top of the injury we already did by colonizing this country. We are basically re-colonizing rural areas.
By the way, everyone in this group, whether or not we ever meet IRL … I so appreciate you all for the deep, authentic conversations we have in here on a daily basis — conversations that as we know are not to be taken for granted, as we can’t necessarily have these conversations with the people in our immediate IRL circles. I consider you all part of my wider family and community, and I wish you all health & joy as we stumble & experiment toward building resilience, whatever that looks like for each of us!!