Self reliance in today's economy

I'm preparing to register a few Boer goats with the American Boer Goat Association under the new farm name of R.K. Farmstead and it used to be the Enchanted Farmstead, but that is another story and a very complicated tale at that. It was used in a strategy developed by God to help an old friend out of a tough situation, but seldom do the poor and struggling ordinary Americans have the benefit of a ... vigilante writer to attack their problems with words. Anyway ...

The perfect farm for a family to run for their self reliance would be about 10 acres and that would include a small home based business in whatever their skills and expertise might be.

There is a movement to complete self reliance with either no electricity, a generator for occasional electricity for watching TV at certain times, working on the computer or full time electrical power with either piped in power from the mainline or a home electrical system selling power back to the corporation. Pardon the redundancies.

Next would be water and for some farms, that's irrigation for the crops and a well for drinking water or it might be "county water" similar to city water systems and it's often a good idea to have the water tested too. It might seem like a convenience to have extra limbs on a calf for the meat, but not if they glow in the dark. My late wife always said, "Richard, we're not buying land unless it's got electricity and water!"

Another option would be to buy raw land and build all new everything including fences. It could take years, but you could grow into it ... so to speak.

The perfect farm would have a pond to water the livestock, and hogs with ponds aren't a good idea. Cattle, goats or horses would do fine with a pond. Hogs would ruin the pond and you sure couldn't fish in it. Boer goats are not only fashionable, but very profitable. Cattle panels work best with any goat because they will ruin a good fence. Woven wire is not good for anything but cattle and horses get their legs easily caught in the cheap farm fence. Barbed wire is no good for an expensive horse either and at least five strands with an electric fence are needed for goats if you choose to go with barbed wire. Cattle will do fine on three strands of barbed wire.

There are fence jokes for the farm too: Every farmer has a PhD (post hole digger). Every farmer is well practiced in the art of fencing, just not with swords.

The good news is that if you go with Boer goats, you will do well in the stock market - the livestock market.

It is true that many farms have outbuildings and barns that are better looking than the home that the farmer and family live in and some have fancy trucks and others just have old trucks with excellent running engines and drive trains.

As for all the equipment, it depends on what you want to do, but it's best to start small and work yourself up.

The reason for self sustaining living is pretty evident because highly educated people intentionally destroyed their own companies with their incompetetence and now they intend to move many of their corporations overseas after dumping all of their American employees. Even investors in Scottsdale are investing where the money is because that's all they care about, but what do expect from people who are stupid enough to pay a million dollars an acre in property taxes a year for the privilege of living in worthless desert?

Ordinary Americans need to get back to depending on themselves and not on a corporation because they have demonstrated that the only thing they care about is the bottom line and neithter loyalty to their country or to an employee means anything to them. These nitwits have left us with no choice, but to plan out our lives because if left up to our highly educated leaders, we will all be living on the street in five years.