• Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.

Homestead Location Recommendations?

Nope, I've gotta get far enough north to get away from fire ants. Not going to Texas. I was born there, will always be a Texan, but alas, it's going the way of Austin and I'm not putting my roots there.
I agree with you about the fire ants. I hate them. I want to stay North of them.

Unfortunately, I also agree about the direction Texas is headed. The rot of Austin is expanding.

Besides that, most of Texas is too dry for optimal homesteading. The Eastern area Keith mentioned being the exception.
 
Depends on a few factors but I'm guessing some 1 acre plots, 5 acre, and 20 acre. Might be several sizes between depending on layout. I'd lay things out from a holistic regenerative ag / permaculture approach. Ridgeline access roads would set boundaries and thereby dictate plot sizes, nothing would be cookie cutter or square.
I love your thinking @NickF, it's an excellent plan. I'm sure there's sufficient market for this to be an excellent business investment for yourself while helping a lot of people.
Well if that's what you're after you'll have to move to New Zealand :D .
Political trajectory dear... Once upon a time that would have been a good recommendation, but at this stage if we weren't already settled down the recommendation would be for us to move to Tennessee also.
 
I agree with you. That is my favorite part of Texas.
Well, having lived there for 5 years myself, it's far from my favorite part of Texas, Bartato, but, again, other than Montana, there's nowhere else in the country one can go where one can get as far away from strategic bombing targets in combination with being as far away from urban centers and highway arteries that serve as conduits between urban centers that will generate outflow during a SHTF event. I used to sell survivalist maps in the classifieds of The Whole Earth Catalog magazine until it deep-sixed in the 1990s. One showed the likely patterns of nuclear fall-out from nuclear power plants based on prevailing wind patterns in the event of missile strike or plant malfunction. Nacogdoches is in a 6-country region that is the second-largest such region that would likely have minimal impact in the event of nuclear war.
 
Nope, I've gotta get far enough north to get away from fire ants. Not going to Texas. I was born there, will always be a Texan, but alas, it's going the way of Austin and I'm not putting my roots there.
Texas will not go the way of Austin. In fact, I predict Austin will eventually implode as well. And I love Austin but just wouldn't want to live there because of the wokeness even if it weren't so damn expensive. Dallas is liberal, but Fort Worth will be larger within 10 years.

What you should watch out for in Tennessee is that Nashville is on its way to becoming Austin Atlanta or Atlanta Austin, and that will have the same effect on the entire state that Austin and Dallas have had on Texas. Missouri has the advantage of both Kansas City having peaked in its cultural impact decades ago and St Louis having little potential for becoming more powerful. The Ozarks are probably more self-influential on southwestern Missouri, northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma than any of those states' urban centers can ever overcome.

Personally, my focus is on buying land in the Hill Country safely outside the reach of Austin sprawl because of the live-and-let-live attitude that prevails there in combination with my own personal geological and climate preferences, but aside from that, if I were a Torah Keeper I'd probably most likely be looking for land in southern Missouri rather than west central Texas.

My prediction, though, is that Texas will edge out Missouri as the first state to formally decriminalize plural marriage.
 
Fire ants are easier to avoid than gnats.
 
Texas will not go the way of Austin. In fact, I predict Austin will eventually implode as well. And I love Austin but just wouldn't want to live there because of the wokeness even if it weren't so damn expensive. Dallas is liberal, but Fort Worth will be larger within 10 years.

What you should watch out for in Tennessee is that Nashville is on its way to becoming Austin Atlanta or Atlanta Austin, and that will have the same effect on the entire state that Austin and Dallas have had on Texas. Missouri has the advantage of both Kansas City having peaked in its cultural impact decades ago and St Louis having little potential for becoming more powerful. The Ozarks are probably more self-influential on southwestern Missouri, northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma than any of those states' urban centers can ever overcome.

Personally, my focus is on buying land in the Hill Country safely outside the reach of Austin sprawl because of the live-and-let-live attitude that prevails there in combination with my own personal geological and climate preferences, but aside from that, if I were a Torah Keeper I'd probably most likely be looking for land in southern Missouri rather than west central Texas.

My prediction, though, is that Texas will edge out Missouri as the first state to formally decriminalize plural marriage.
Part of what concerns me about Tennessee, Idaho, and Texas is that average Californians might see them as acceptable places to move. Boise is turning into Austin too.

Karen and Chad do not view Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri as "cool places". That insulates them a bit from the decline.
 
If political trajectory is a real concern South Carolina is an excellent choice... We do not have big cities...
 
Not 1000 acres, but, other than Montana, one can't beat Nacogdoches County TX for being off the beaten path, and your representative in Congress is Louis Gohmert. It's one of those areas where staying out of one another's business is the rule of the day. Lots of colorful history. High humidity, but, then again, so are all these other locations y'all are mentioning.

I love saying Naccodoches. It’s a fun word.
 
Fire ants are easier to avoid than gnats.
Interestingly, the fire ants have receded here significantly. They’re still around but greatly reduced. They used to have a mound every ten feet in grassy areas and there was nothing you could do about it. Now it’s rare to see a mound, let alone the sea of them there used to be. I think wetter, slightly cooler summers are to blame but also they seem to have interbred with the native ants and thus blend in more.

On our property they’ve been eliminated everywhere except the garden by the chickens who out compete them for food. There’s just too much food in the garden to completely get rid of them although plowing seems to do a pretty good job of it.
 
If political trajectory is a real concern South Carolina is an excellent choice... We do not have big cities...
I agree with Zec and Jeremy on SC.
 
average Californians might see them as acceptable places to move. Boise is turning into Austin too.
The data is already in on where Californians are moving, in this order:
  • Florida (more Californians are moving there than are New Yorkers or people from New Jersey)
  • Baja California in Mexico (40% of real estate purchased there in the past 2 years has been by Americans from California).
  • Arizona
  • Colorado
  • Idaho
  • Texas
  • Montana
According to a news report I heard here a few weeks ago, the largest influx into Texas are from:
  • Arizona
  • Colorado
  • New Mexico
  • Louisiana
  • the rest of the United States, but more weighted from blue states
 
I love saying Naccodoches. It’s a fun word.
At the tail end of our vacation we purposefully drove through both Nachitoches and Nacogdoches, named after the 'twin' sons of Chief Caddo. Both are fun to pronounce (Nackuhdotches and Nackuhtish), and its a great legend primarily based on true events that also produced the first formal road in Texas, El Camino Real, which first ran from Nachitoches to Nacogdoches but was eventually extended to San Antonio. We drove over half of it. Only in one place was it redirected from its original meandering route.
 
Interestingly, the fire ants have receded here significantly.
My perspective on them is that folks overly freaked out about them, much like they did the Threat of Killer Bees. Don't get me wrong, fire ants are nasty critters, and mainly because they have some undetectable but recognizable method of communicating with each other from a distance. Their greatest weapon is swarming onto something, and then when one gives the signal they all begin biting at once. I've been the unfortunate victim of this twice in my life. It sucks, but it's not a tornado or anything.
 
At the tail end of our vacation we purposefully drove through both Nachitoches and Nacogdoches, named after the 'twin' sons of Chief Caddo. Both are fun to pronounce (Nackuhdotches and Nackuhtish), and its a great legend primarily based on true events that also produced the first formal road in Texas, El Camino Real, which first ran from Nachitoches to Nacogdoches but was eventually extended to San Antonio. We drove over half of it. Only in one place was it redirected from its original meandering route.
You could have stopped by to say hi. You were probably only about 45 mins to an hour from me at some point on your drive!
 
You could have stopped by to say hi. You were probably only about 45 mins to an hour from me at some point on your drive!
Really? We drove from Fort Worth to Rock Hill SC then down to Orlando and on to Key West and back up to Fort Lauderdale before heading back through New Orleans. Where are you along that route?
 
Interestingly, the fire ants have receded here significantly. They’re still around but greatly reduced. They used to have a mound every ten feet in grassy areas and there was nothing you could do about it. Now it’s rare to see a mound, let alone the sea of them there used to be. I think wetter, slightly cooler summers are to blame but also they seem to have interbred with the native ants and thus blend in more.

On our property they’ve been eliminated everywhere except the garden by the chickens who out compete them for food. There’s just too much food in the garden to completely get rid of them although plowing seems to do a pretty good job of it.
Climate change.
 
My perspective on them is that folks overly freaked out about them, much like they did the Threat of Killer Bees. Don't get me wrong, fire ants are nasty critters, and mainly because they have some undetectable but recognizable method of communicating with each other from a distance. Their greatest weapon is swarming onto something, and then when one gives the signal they all begin biting at once. I've been the unfortunate victim of this twice in my life. It sucks, but it's not a tornado or anything.
I know two people who have spent time in the hospital due to anaphylactic shock after being bitten. Our garden is presently overrun.
Tornadoes at least have a season. 😜
 
Back
Top