We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
……………………….Arthur O’Shaughnessy
In the 1970s my husband and I – and many like-minded people – moved to a rural part of New York State called The North Country, intent on going “back to the land” and becoming self-sufficient. We’d lived through the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, the murder of four Kent State students by National Guard troops, Woodstock, and “Tricky Dick” Nixon’s resignation. We’d seen the ugliness of people in long lines at gas stations. We had concluded that the country was going to hell in a hand-basket.
In the 1930s, Scott and Helen Nearing had moved to Winhall, Vermont, built a stone house, and grown their own food. We read their book, Living the Good Life, and we decided that was a path worth taking.
As it turned out, we weren’t alone. Some of the cheapest farm land available anywhere in the U.S. was north of the N.Y. State Thruway between the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondack Mountains, and dozens of like-minded young people from far and wide were making that North Country home. We had ALL read the Nearing’s book, most of our personal libraries contained How to Build Your Low-Cost House of Stone, Five Acres and Independence, and Grow It – and we all had copies of the Strout Realty and United Farm real estate catalogs.
In December of 1975, we bought 90 acres of land for $10,000. Some months later we traded a comfy apartment in one of the nearby college towns for a used mobile home that enabled us to live on our land. We’ve lived on it ever since.
Recently there has been a new wave of people seeking the imagined security of rural living. Although it started a few years earlier, politics and the pandemic have increased interest in a life of self-reliance, and it’s evidenced by a FaceBook page called, “Homestead Properties for Sale.” There are some 37,000 members of this group, and my curiosity led me to join it.
The real estate offered by that page differs from what we and others had sought during the 1970s. There are very few actual farms for sale, probably because the lands offered were never suited for farming, or because the farms that remain are behemoths that have gobbled up cropland and built huge free-stall barns where cows spend the entirety of their 3 or so years of life, never to graze or feel the sunshine. It’s a far cry from the 2-300 acre, 40 – 50 head, pastured dairy farms that used to support rural families.
Instead of these, “Homestead Properties for Sale” entices the seeker of a safe, rural life with posts like, “If you’re looking to start a homestead or build a dream home in the country while still being less than an hour from Dallas, then you’ll want to check out XYZ Estates!” or “On 2.06 acres, create the life you’ve always wanted and build your dream home!” or (and this one’s my personal favorite) “Start your small farm on 1.18 acres in Clay County, Fl!” Small farm indeed!
Start a farm on 1.18 acres?? That was good for a laugh, but then I thought about my grandfather. He moved from a farm in rural Canada, across Lake Ontario to Chili, N.Y., a mile from the Rochester city limit. Grandpa found work at Kodak and supplemented it by driving a trolley some nights. In addition, he raised chickens (and sold eggs), developed a long grape arbor beside the driveway, tended a large vegetable garden, and planted an apple tree on which he grafted five varieties of apples. And he did this on one acre of land.
Wizened Wizard 