The following is a situation that I would like to work toward. Some of the things said in this section are rather specific, but I include these simply to further a sense of the circumstances I would like to achieve.

GENERAL

• A 100 acre (40.5 Ha) farm.
• As self-sufficient in food as possible.
• As technologically advanced as possible.
• As energy efficient as possible.
• As labor efficient as possible.
• As environmentally sound as possible.
• Will support 50 people at maximum output.
• Would be at a place with 4 definite seasons, including cold, snowy winters, which I like.
• You, our children, and I would live on the farm.
• This would not be viewed as a place in which our children would grow up and then leave upon reaching their majority.
• Rather, it would be a permanent home for them, for their children, and for their children, and so on.
• When our children were grown, another 100 acres (40.5 Ha) would need to be added,
  hopefully bordering the first farm.
• When our grandchildren were grown, and because of the expansion of the family, another 200 acres (81 Ha) would need to be added, again hopefully bordering the other two farms.
• And so on.
• Or, an original purchase of an entire section (640 acres/259 Ha) of good land could accommodate our family for 4 generations.
• Any time land bordering our land came up for sale, and if we could afford to do so, we would buy this land.
• The architecture of our house (later houses) and structures would have some charm.
• In later times, houses would not be built here and there across the property, but would be concentrated in one place, something like a European village.
• In still later times, there might be several such 'villages'.
• The more independent we were of the larger society - this independence made possible by our farmland - then the less emphasis I would place upon our children's gaining educational credentials.
• In fact, since they would be spending their entire lives at the farm, then no educational credentials would be necessary.
• What would be necessary would be for them to learn their 3R's. With this base, they could go as far as they desired in regard to scholastic learning, and they could do this on their own. I would encourage them to pursue this learning and help them all I could in this.
• It needs to be noted that I would not try to hold our children 'captive'. If they wanted to attend regular school, attend college, leave the farm upon reaching adulthood, they would be free to do so.
• We would strive to create a world in which there were real fulfillment, as compared to the promises made by the larger world - promises that are generally either false or improbable. It would be this that I would hope would keep our children in our world, or if they left, would bring them back.

SHORT STATEMENTS TO ILLUSTRATE THE IDEAL SITUATION

The following short statements may give an idea of what our lives might be like in the ideal scenario, though many would apply to our lives otherwise:

Around the House and the Farm

• On the farm, we would have to work hard to provide the basic needs for, say, 16 - 22 people, which would be about the number present when our children were growing up.
• At the same time, I would want to maximize leisure time.
• I am more than willing to do the work that is necessary.
• But I am not a workaholic.
• After morning chores, breakfast, and straightening up the kitchen, we could sit, have coffee, and talk for a couple of hours. This would be primarily in the winter months.
• The children who were home-schooled would need to begin their lessons sometime after breakfast.
• When they finished their lessons for the day, they could play.
• Other children may attend regular school, public or private, in town.
• Some of you may have regular jobs.
• Our place would be neat and well-organized.
• Our house (the first house) would be large and would have many rooms, but it would also be cozy, warm, and livable.
• Each of us would have a room in the house where we could go if we wanted to, and thus balance gregariousness and solitude.
• The first thing in the morning, the children and I would milk, take care of the animals - one or two milk cows, a few beef cattle, chickens, perhaps pigs, and maybe a few sheep - and collect eggs. (I realize that animals are a great inconvenience, but they are probably necessary for sufficient caloric intake. Of course, the children would probably want some pets also - a dog or two, some cats, two or three horses maybe.)
• I would place that day's milk in the cooler, then separate the cream from the milk of the previous day and begin the pasteurization process.
• Every few days, we would make butter.
• We would also make cheese occasionally.
• Our tractor(s) would be big enough for our needs and no bigger.
• Our tractor would have an enclosed cab.
• On the farm, I would have to work on our machinery from time to time, and I can do this.
• However, I am not obsessed with machinery, and especially working on machinery.
• In this regard, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
• There would be a work-sink in our shop.
• Harvesting our wheat, beans, and potatoes in the fall would require a lot of work, but I think we could do it.
• When our children were growing up and there were 16 - 22 of us, we would need to utilize the following areas of land to meet our own needs:
• Wheat, beans, potatoes - 4 acres (1.6 Ha)
• Hay, pasture, grain for animals -
  • 1 milk cow, 6 beef cattle (2 mother cows, 2 yearlings, 2 calves) - 40 acres (17 Ha).
  • If we have 2 or 3 horses, add about 25 acres (10 Ha).
  • Total for hay, pasture, and grain for animals - 65 acres (26 Ha)
• Garden - 50' x 90' (10 m x 45 m)
• Approximate total hours labor required annually for wheat, beans, potatoes, and garden - 300 hrs.
• Estimated total hours labor required for farmwork each week, April thru October - 60 hrs.
• Estimated total hours labor required for farmwork each week, November thru March - 30 hrs.

Miscellaneous Activities

• Once a week, we could have a family meeting, involving everyone -
• To discuss concerns,
• To make up a chores schedule, and
• To talk about family activities for the coming week.
• In much of my leisure time - mainly in the winter - I would work on my ideas, read, study, and write.
• Also, while I would get a great deal of exercise working on the farm, I would also exercise recreationally occasionally - again, primarily in the winter.
  
• We would have an exercise room for this purpose.
• Others could join in this activity if they so desired, including the children who were home. This could involve weight-training, stretching, etc.
  
• If none of the children were home, then our exercises could sometimes take on erotic forms.
• I would have a walking-jogging-bicycle trail around the perimeter of our place. I and others could use this trail from time to time.
• If we had a section (259 Ha), this trail would be 4 miles (6.5 Km) long.
• I would prefer, when we were working outside, that you use such items of clothing, etc. that would prevent you from becoming roughed up and weather-beaten.
• These items of clothing, etc. could include - long-sleeved shirt, long pants, work boots, broad-brimmed hat, gloves (and gloves also when you milk), and sun-block.
• I would also use these items as well as a dust mask and ear protectors sometimes, and sunglasses most of the time.
• I would encourage the children to avoid too much sun exposure by wearing full-cover clothing, though they probably wouldn't always listen.
• I would insist that they at least avoid sunburn.
• The children would help clean and straighten the kitchen after meals.
• I would also help in this.
• Shoes would be left in the entranceway.

In the Evenings

• At night, activities might include the following:
• Sit at the kitchen table and talk and play cards or other enjoyable game.
• Sit around on bag chairs in the living room and play cards or other enjoyable game.
• Irish and/or Scottish dancing by some, perhaps accompanied by live music on the appropriate instruments by others, with the rest of us watching.
• Square dancing or other folk dancing. This would involve just ourselves at times. Also, this could be an occasional weekend activity to which we might invite neighbors and town friends.
• Play parlor games.
• Watch a movie.
  (Certain movies that we would have on cassette or disk could be seasonal traditions. For example, these might include:
• For Christmas - 'A Christmas Carol', the
  1951 Alastair Sim version and perhaps one or two other versions, and 'A Miracle on 34th Street', 1949, and
• For Easter - 'Jesus of Nazareth', 'Ben Hur', and 'The Ten Commandments'.)
• If one of you had a background in, say, ballet, then you could conduct a class in this for us two or three times a week.
• Some perform on musical instruments for the rest.
• All play musical instruments.
• Sing songs.
  (At Christmas, singing, playing, and listening to Christmas carols would be especially important.)
• Go up to the observatory to look at the stars.
• I read aloud to everyone. For example, over an extended period, I read everyone Will and Ariel Durant's 'The Story of Civilization' (10 volumes).
• After the children went to bed, we could talk or do something like listen to Shakespeare plays on audio.
• I have questions about having television. It could very much disrupt the sort of activities mentioned above. However, while I consider most of the content sorry, some programs are quite good. Also, major news events should be seen. As should events such as the Olympics. (Too, I don't know if I could make it through the fall without my Sunday afternoon and Monday night football.) Anyway, one solution to the problem of television might be to have some sort of locking power switch on the set. At the weekly family meeting, using the TV schedule for the coming week, we could decide which programs to watch during that week, trying to keep viewing to a minimum in order to minimize disruption to the other activities. This combination of factors could help to keep the kids away from the television and involved in things that were more constructive.
• We would have computers and be on the internet.

Commerce

Other Matters

• Everyone in the household would keep a baseball bat under their bed to deal with possible burglars, intruders, and trespassers.
• I would recycle all metal and glass and any other throwaways that were recycled locally.
• Food scraps would be fed to the animals or placed in a compose bed.
• All throwaways not recyclable but combustable - paper, plastic, fabric, wood - would be incinerated.
• Our incinerator would have a powerful fan that would force air into the unit while in use. This would aid in complete combustion of our burnable trash.
• When this trash were completely burned, water would be sprayed into the incinerator to prevent smoldering. Then I would collect the wet ashes, mix these with some cement and sand, and form a low-grade cement block. It would be these blocks that I would take to the land-fill.
• The above measures would minimize our contribution to the solid-waste problem.
• Our home and farm would be connected to the regular electric power grid.
• We would have propane for heating and cooking.
• We would have point-of-use, on-demand water heaters.
• We might also try electrical generation with wind and solar cells for certain direct uses or to feed back into the regular electrical grid to cut down on our electricity bill.
• Too, we might utilize solar energy for heating to as great an extent as possible.
• I would like to try farming with draft horses. This is something we might think about and look into at some point.
• We would have an orchard.
• The fruit could be apples, apricots, plums, and pears. In addition, we could have peaches and cherries, climate permitting.
• We could have a greenhouse(s) for winter vegetables.

COMMENT

The above snippets should give an idea of the sort of situation that, ideally, I would like for us to have. Hopefully, we could work toward attaining such a situation, which would be a good one for us, for our children, and for our family for several generations. I wish I could provide this for you right off, but can't. So, we would pretty much have to start from scratch in order to do this; but, with a lot of hard work, I think it could be achieved.

As noted, I do have a house where we could start. And if we did not acquire farmland and stayed in this house over the long-term, I could add a second story or even a third story to the house with relative ease. (I'm a passable carpenter.) This would give us quite a few more rooms.