Room to roam, largely self-supporting due to our own forest for heating and building, own water well, own waste water facilities, no building permit needed for farm buildings, own land to grow whatever we please. My children get to grow up in the countryside, where city-dwellers have empty syringes and crack heads on their doorstep we have elk, deer and wolves. Where they hear police sirens at night we hear owls and foxes. Meanwhile we have a gigabit glassfiber connection feeding into a rack I built which houses enough cpu and storage to be mostly self-reliant on that front as well - no external cloudy services for me, thanks.
The more independent we get, the less money we need. I just built a new 230m² barn which will be used partly as a new stables, partly as a veterinary clinic (my wife is a horse vet). On top of that barn I'll put enough solar panels to make us mostly electricity-neutral through overproduction in summer (which will be fed into the grid) which will be another step towards self-reliance.
If you're mechanically-inclined, have two left hands (I'm left-handed, get it?), not afraid of some honest blood & sweat and able and willing to take up such a project you won't regret moving to the countryside and taking up farming, part-time or more.
How do you deal with lack of social life and having to drive everywhere - especially for children?
My partner hates the idea - she likes to take stroller out and walking around area, going to coffee groups, etc. Living in a farm means at least 10 minute drive and not being able to safely walk anywhere but your farm.
Social life changes but it does not disappear. Those coffee groups make way for meetings with friends and neighbours (which might become equivalent, when there are fewer neighbours you tend to get to know them better). We live 3 km outside of a small village where our youngest goes to school so we can cycle (or ski in winter) there, she can also take the school bus. Our children can walk and cycle to their friends, they won't have to cycle more than ~4km which is perfectly doable. They often meet halfway in the woods to go either to our or some friends place. I think moving to the country is actually one of the best things you can do for your children since they can get so much more real freedom than in some congested car-studded crime-ridden city or a suburb which can only be escaped by car.
The bit about only being able to walk safely on the farm is strange to me, we can walk far more safely on the more or less traffic-free roads around here than we would in any city. Maybe things are different in rectangular-plot-straight-road USA farm country but here in Sweden rural roads meander through the landscape. We walked with stroller (not anymore since our youngest is 9), dog, cat and horses, toboggan (which is called 'pulka' here) or cross-country skis in winter, etc.
We live in NZ. Suburbs here are not like in US. There's usually a corner shop about 20 minutes walk max away, some connecting bus not too far away. Cars move OK - not too fast to be annoying.
However I found the houses tiny (compared to a farm we've lived in recently), backyards minimal and just so claustrophobic.
Country roads here mean people driving past you at 70-90 kmh - you can bike and walk relatively safely, but it's going to be too far to get anywhere unless it's just for a hike. Also not super pleasant to have cars rushing past you where as traffic in suburbs is much slower and you've got a sidewalk.
The cost in country is also much higher, especially in areas that are not too far from city. Of course you get 10x more land that's going to appreciate like crazy in future, but you also shelve out at least 2x initial cost + more on maintenance.
Room to roam, largely self-supporting due to our own forest for heating and building, own water well, own waste water facilities, no building permit needed for farm buildings, own land to grow whatever we please. My children get to grow up in the countryside, where city-dwellers have empty syringes and crack heads on their doorstep we have elk, deer and wolves. Where they hear police sirens at night we hear owls and foxes. Meanwhile we have a gigabit glassfiber connection feeding into a rack I built which houses enough cpu and storage to be mostly self-reliant on that front as well - no external cloudy services for me, thanks.
The more independent we get, the less money we need. I just built a new 230m² barn which will be used partly as a new stables, partly as a veterinary clinic (my wife is a horse vet). On top of that barn I'll put enough solar panels to make us mostly electricity-neutral through overproduction in summer (which will be fed into the grid) which will be another step towards self-reliance.
If you're mechanically-inclined, have two left hands (I'm left-handed, get it?), not afraid of some honest blood & sweat and able and willing to take up such a project you won't regret moving to the countryside and taking up farming, part-time or more.