Acreage

For those of you who currently or have previously lived on acreage in rural areas, can you tell me what it's really like?

I mean, how do you keep the grass under control? Do geese and ducks make your dams get all revolting? What's the postage system like? Can you get tradies to come out? How do you decide what to do with your land? Do you have a generator, and how does that work? That sort of thing.

I have this slightly mad idea, you see, and I'm trying to figure out if it's just a bit 'outside the box', or completely demented.

Where do I start Zoe, with you or the acreage,

Hahaha I know. My poor husband!

muscovyduckling wrote:For those of you who currently or have previously lived on acreage in rural areas, can you tell me what it's really like?

Awesome.

I mean, how do you keep the grass under control?

Big ride-on mower. Plus a whippersnipper.

Do geese and ducks make your dams get all revolting?

They could - especially if in drought and the water level is dropping. Our ducks certainly make a mess of the water basins we supply...

What's the postage system like?

Well, depends a little on how *far* you want to go from anywhere. That said, AusPost is doing it's best to be lazy sods now.

Can you get tradies to come out?

Probably as much as anywhere? Some are slack and others are okay. Couriers on the other hand....

How do you decide what to do with your land?

Depends on a) what you want to do; and b) what suits the land.

Do you have a generator, and how does that work?

No. But it might be handy...

Important considerations: access to power, access to water, access to services (including Fire Brigades), soil type.

We have a ride-on mower, plus a push mower, plus a whippersnipper, plus a 100 litre spray apparatus that fits into the trailer of the ride-on mower.

We don't have a dam - we're on mains water and we have 37,000 litres of tank water with a Davey pump on it for when there are water restrictions.

We have normal postal deliveries. We're only two kilometres out of our local town.

We don't use tradies. Tony can do anything. (sigh)

Our land is all garden around the fencelines, with lawn in the centre.

We don't have a generator - we have gas, water and electricity.

In my opinion, it is worth nearly any sacrifice to achieve the lifestyle. We love it. I can't imagine ever living in suburbia again. We first moved onto 7 very steep acres in Warburton. Ash Wednesday burned all we had except our house. We've now ended up near Frankston on 2½ flat acres and it's perfect for us. Big vegie gardens, orchard of fruit trees, rose gardens, lawns and our beloved dogs. We're getting older but we've made it as easy-care as possible.

Barbara B wrote:

We don't use tradies.  Tony can do anything.  (sigh)

Hahahahaha! I'm sorry, Barbara, I shouldn't laugh at others' misfortunes. But that is hilarious.

This is all very good info folks. Wendy, how much land are you on?

Ok, a few more questions - how much land is too much land? 

And what if you didn't actually live on your acres? Just, sort of, went there every few weeks for a bit. Would it still be possible to maintain?

Have you guys ever done anything "off the grid", so to speak?

Err, I'm sorry I'm so vague.

Too much land is land that you can't keep clean and free of weeds, pests and fire risks.

Ha, looks like I need to downsize then, not upsize! Damn weeds...

Barbara B wrote:Too much land is land that you can't keep clean and free of weeds, pests and fire risks.

We have 7 acres  a few minutes out of a small rural village that has everything we want though if we want more we are only 20mins from Caloundra and Maroochydore.

We have electricity and telephone, a tank for drinking water, a bore (not a real good one) and a dam for the garden. We have the usual ride on and hand mower etc. Oh and there is the Arab (BG is his name) "ride on" that never gets ridden anymore. We have 2 acres of garden, 3 areas of paddock for BG and the rest is that rainforest stuff Queensland is famous for.

The land is relatively steep in places though not a cliff face. Steep enough to annoy the crap out of you when you get to the bottom of the garden and realise you left something up the top. I probably should saddle up BG and gets some use out of him.

There is one problem with the place though. The bloody noise. Can't sleep past 5AM at present with the Kookaburras cracking jokes at first light, followed by some birds doing their bit of kinky stuff with their whips, others ringing bells, the wild ducks landing on the swimming pool outside our bedroom window, the lorikeets picking on the flowers in the gum trees and the bloody young dog playing with the older dogs food dish.

Actually we love it and wouldn't move.

Yeah! We don't get road noise here, but the bloomin' "spring chorus" can be hard to take at 5am....and the willy wagtails that call all night.

A checklist from my friend Gail. She and her husband just moved off of 123 acres to 6 acres. I myself have a smaller country property but not truly deeply"rura", and dont need any of the things listed below, but if you go Rural For Real you most proibably will consider the following

A ride on vehicle like a Mule (liek a golf cart-cum-small trailer) for moving self and things around the property. Runs on gasoline

You will need a ready supply of gasoline for many things, inlcuding generator(s)

A tractor for the heavy duty stuff like slashing paddocks. Otherwise your place will probably be overrun by Bad things, and your property value will drop .

Did I mention fireweed?

Are you in a paralysis tick region? Do you have pets? Budget for expensive prevention treatments.

Did I mention snakes? Do you or your husband knwo how to wield a snake-killing whip? Better learn.

A BIG generator for the inevitable power outages that mean not only no lights, but no water pump and hence no water, and hence-hence, no flushing loo(s)

More water tanks than you may think you need. Gail and Pete had two huge ones, but needed two more (and they were water-thrifty, and empty nesters)

Buy a place that is accessible by fire brigade trucks, also water trucks if you ever run dry.

That's for starters. Still interested ?)))))))))))))

OK Zoe, lets get serious, Questions are as follows in order,
1. Do you have acreage at present ?
2. Do you want acreage now or in the short term, like next week.
We will start with this.

Zoe is strangely silent. Must be reading product reviews on generators, and practising snake-killing with her new bullwhip

In all honesty Zoe we could go through this properly. Are we talking where you are or something that you are looking at ?
From my point of view, one of the first things I would look at is water. Can it be obtained from the acreage or collected from rooftops, buildings that might be there or new one's.

Hello everyone! Yes, I have been strangely silent because I have been doing my four days at work. I spend 50 hours at work in those 4 days (so no time for internet chit chat!), and then I have 4 days off. This is pretty standard in the Emergency Services, and sometimes I forget that it's weird for everyone else! Haha.

Anyway, you may notice that I will vanish from the forum for a few days, then bombard you with questions for a few days, and the cycle will continue like that. This is why. I'm not off whipping snakes, hahahaha.

Umm right. Well I don't have any land except the 1/2 acre that we live on. My hubby has a small business here in Melbourne and on the weekend he bought a second business which is great news - long story short, I'm ready to start my own little project too, since I don't feel like working for "the man" til I'm 70yo. Hubby and accountant say we should invest in property. I want to invest in something that I actually want to do instead.

Soooo I want to buy some land in the country. Not to live on, but to grow things on. I don't really have a 'business plan' as yet but I would like to do something along the lines of setting up a permaculture site with edible fruits, flowers and herbs etc. Obviously this will need refining but I just sort of wanted to get an idea if it's even possible to manage acreage if you don't live on it full-time before I get too invested in the idea.

a lot of people here go for the 5 acre hobby farms....

Hate to be a spanner in the works on the idea of "not to live on but to grow things on"... but monitoring and watering will require (in summer, at least) very close attention. Not a visit once a month.
Absentee landholders are more likely to have problems with noxious weeds and overgrown properties that can become a fire-risk.
Just more to think about.

Yep Wendy I know those are the issues I will be facing. I feel like the watering issue would be surmountable (with a timed irrigation system from a dam or water tank), but it's the grass/weeds issue is a real cause for concern.

I wouldn't want to go there once a fortnight just to spend some quality time on a ride-on, you know?

Ok Zoe, where roughly would you be looking at, is it possible it "might" have a house on it. If so you could vet a tenant to care for it to a point.

I don't think it will work either. Better to try for a semi-rural property that you can live and work from. We were able to live at Somerville on our 2.5 acres while we still worked in Dandenong and Rowville. It only took 25 minutes to get to work in Dandenong.

Thanks guys, but I don't want to move. I love my house and I don't want to leave. I might eventually love my future country house more and want to live there, but for now I definitely want to live where I am. Also my other half has a business in Cranbourne and has just bought a second in Melbourne CBD, so in terms of getting to the city I don't think we could realistically live further away than we do now.

David, I would roughly be looking in the Gippsland area - it's dairy country with high average rainfall, and within a 2 hour drive from my place. It certainly could have a house/cottage on the land, but I don't know how tenants would feel about me turning up all the time and fiddling around in their back yard!

They might with you on the project or this could be discussed with an estate agent

Yes, I am wondering about this possibility David.

Now I'm about to say something that some people might not like. If you are a hard core anti-asylum seeker type person, look away now, because I don't feel like getting into any arguments.

One of my best friends is an Afghan refugee, and he's very active in the asylum seeker community in Melbourne. Perhaps I will talk to him about the possibility of opening to project to some asylum seekers, if we could figure out planning something that might give them a helping hand. My only reservation about this is that the only land I could afford is 2+ hours drive from Melbourne and quite isolated, which might not be great for brand new Aussies.

You might be quite surprised Quackie Zoe! Some refugees are housed out in the country, but within reach of town. It depends on how "isolated" you mean. Don't give it up right away.