My family just thinks I'm nuts. I have always been different from the rest of them. DH and I just bought a house on 8 acres and we are so excited to be moving. But no one in the family acts like your family does to you. My family might think I got switched at the hospital, but they love me and support what DH and I are doing. My DH will be 70 in a few weeks and I will be 60 shortly after. It is beyond fabulous that you and your wife are realizing your dream while you are still young enough to chart the course for the rest of your life.
About the naysayers, just shrug them off. It's you and your wife's life, not your family's. Sounds like your MIL is the most rational out of the bunch, just make sure she gets a good long look into the beautiful eyes of your first calf. She will fall in love and maybe you can get her a goat later on. It seems that everyone else has their own agenda and thinks that you should adhere to their version of what's right for them, not you.
DH and I had bought 16 acres and people hit us up to hunt on it, put their horses on it, and on and on. Really? My feeling is they should go buy their own, make the payments and then they can do whatever they want on it, and I pretty much told 'em so. Sooooo suddenly you're my friend?
People can only run over you if you let them. Whether family or friends, if they act that hateful to you and your dreams, to heck with them. Dirt house? I bet you aren't making a $1000 monthly payment on it. And I bet you won't have a $600 utility bill either. So who's the smart one here?
Feel free to come vent any time. You can pick your friends but you're pretty much stuck with your family.
It certainly is a bonus to have a like-minded and willing partner. My DH was a city boy when we met and for the first year or two he tried a couple times to get me into suburbia. I finally told him that if it was important to him that he should go on back to suburbia, lol. Country life grew on him and now he loves it here as much as I do. We wouldn't trade our country home for a big ol' mansion in any big ol' city.
At one time we talked about moving to a bigger piece of land closer to DD when she was in the Austin area. We seriously considered having a house built into a hillside. Went as far as talking to the contractor and having him inspect the land when DD decided to move to Dallas. Can't tie that girl down and Dallas is a little too far for me to get from my aging parents. But, there's no such thing as 'never.'
You have to be true to your vision for your place and it sounds like you are.
No haters here. I didn't realize how nice that is until reading your post.
My parents were small-time dairy farmers (went broke, sold out). DH grew up rural ag life. My brother is on this forum. My sister is dreaming of getting their farmstead started, just finally moved from apartment complex to a place with a yard and is all excited about gardening! My bestie is also dreaming of getting out of the city and starting a homestead someday. My family is my biggest cheerleader, DH's family very supportive of my big ideas too. DH is the reality-check. (bummer, LOL)
Tune out the naysayers, it's just not worth it. Your life, your dreams, your choices. Enjoy the ride!
We had a great neighbor a little while back. A self-proclaimed redneck hippie. We had a lot of fun. Our redneck party invite was a shot from a 45 with a responding shotgun blast, then head over for beers.
Oops, my computer hadn't regenerated and my post was about a page 1/2 late.
I need to contact the well guy in town. Our place has very high suspended solids. We are using a Zero-Water pitcher for drinking, but I can't stand the yellow scum on everything.
This is going to sound realy wild, but my mother has a close relative that just so happens to be one of the wealthiest people in the country (no joke) and when Momma died, her cousin came to her wake and funeral. She, of course, knew me because we used to live very close when I was little. So she asked me about how Momma died and when I gave the story, it required me telling her how I discovered Momma to be sick, that she wanted soup, but the Chinese restraunt was closed and I told her I had an old rooster in the sink, that I had put to defrost, but DH hadn't tended to it and it was still there, so I would cook her a soup and Momma tells me 'If its an old rooster, you need to cook him a long time....and don't cook him like Mawmaw and Grandpa (I think she had forgotten her parents were both dead), because they always cook the rice until its done and it continues to swell up until you have a pot of rice!!!", so I let Momma tell me how to cook the old rooster, but I put every healing herb I had in my cabinet and I name off all the spices I put in the soup .....and cousin stops me and asks me if I'm serious about the old rooster and how did I know he was old and I say because I raised him and my records indicated he was almost 3 years old and he had spurs, etc.....and in the meantime, my daughter and sister are on each a side of me, smiling because they see what I am saying and they see our cousin's reaction, so this goes on and on and another cousin is also in the conversation and they ask me how I kill them and mention that their grandmother (my great-grand) used to wring necks, but I tell them I am not good at that and the meat taste funny to me if they killed like that anyways, so I just slit their throats and my cousin looked like, The Mirror Cracked. She put her hand to her own throat and her eyes bulged. And one thing led to another and we spoke of the orchard and I mentioned that I am feeding lots of raccoons because of the orchard, but need to set traps or send hunters in and she asked me what I did with the coons after I catch them and I simply tell her, "I serve it over rice." and she is completely freaked and she asks me if I kill them the same as I do the chickens and I tell her, "Of course not. That would be dangerous. They are too wild and I'd get bitten or scratched....we shoot them, skin them and cut up in pieces. The thing about them that bothers me the most is that they have little hands." My sister and daughter are having a hard time not laughing and when the cousins look to them, they just nod their heads, agreeing thats how we do it. So there she stands, wearing the most enormous pearls you can imagine, Wilma Flinstone's mother wearing, and she finds out I make laundry detergent, line dry my clothes, make herbal medicine, tend bees, slaughter and plant vegs. It was priceless. I could almost imagine Momma laughing at the whole incident.