What Are You Guys Thinking?!

When I first started thinking of my Chazown I thought that we’d settle on an acre or two. Eventually I upped it to about 5 acres and maybe as much as 10 but never thought seriously about more than that. What’s the point? I’m not going to be farming for anyone else but our family so why have that land just sitting there?

When Gary called me and said that he was interested in actually going through with the Homestead Project, he told me he wanted to look for something larger, like 600 acres! I thought, “What in the world are we going to do with that!” Even if we parceled that out evenly with ten families that’s still 60 acres, way more than we need. But his point is simple.

Hypothetically, say we get six families who are serious about uprooting themselves now and moving out to the middle of nowhere giving the Deerings 100 acres, if split evenly. My brother and family want to join us only can’t right at the moment but in ten years decide they can. We can sell them, say 20 acres. Soon after my Mom wants to move too but only wants a house and a yard. Sell an acre. You get the idea. Part of that  whole amount too would be designated for community use. Maybe have a park of some kind and a meeting hall and/or a restaurant.

Ideally speaking, I would love to have my family and friends from all over move to where ever we end up, currently I’m thinking of people from FL, TX, KS, LA and NM. That’s not even to mention the people that Gary has in mind. Then you add on the people we haven’t talked to yet. Then there is the friends of friends who hear about it and want to join. That acreage can be eaten up pretty quickly. Granted once some of us move to an area we can be on the look out for acquiring more land nearby but still.

So we’re thinking a large plot of land, which means a large sum of money. We’re talking potentially in the millions and that’s not even counting a house for every family. That thought alone is enough to scare some people off. I’m not worried because the God Plan is in play.

So what about the When? Well that too is still up in the air. Ideally speaking, all of the cogs fell into place and we won the land lotto or something, we’re thinking five years. More realistically it’ll probably be closer to ten years when we’re all ready to make the leap forward. I’m not able to retire for another 11 years at the earliest but Holly and I have spoken and made the decision that if God were to present our group with an opportunity to invest in some land, we would jump on it regardless of if we were able to move there or not yet. Who are we to question the Almighty?

Right now we’re still in the recruiting stage. We’ve begun the narrowing process for tracking down what state we want based on laws and such. I’m working on a spreadsheet that will help us look at the pros and cons of each state and a mutual friend of ours has an interesting prospect that I’ll elaborate on later. Right now we are just trusting in the Lord that He will provide what we want, whether we know we want it or not yet.