I have been studying homesteading/getting back to living for over 2 years. I am closer now but not quite there yet. First it depends where you live. I live in west Tx. Dry and brutal summers make gardening a real challenge. Some parts of the country you get by with 5 but here I would have to have 20 to pasture raise 1 cow a few goats and have 50+ chickens in a moveable coop.
I have one acre:/ But it is a start. I have producing fruit trees, and this year I am putting in a huge garden. I will be canning and solar dehydrating most of it.
I read an ebook to start where you are and learn as many things as you can before you jump in head first. I admire y'alls desire. We wont regret slowing down.
kim

Kim thanks so much for the comment! How ironic, we're moving to the Dallas area next month. Never been. We looked at Houston because it's wetter, and we thought, better for homesteading. But we can get more for our buck in Houston. How is eastern Texas? Like between Tyler and Dallas?

would even go to such lengths to live off grid

Here in WV 25 to start with a lot of forest land. Now to break that 25 down and why.

2 acres for house and garden (1 to 1/2 acre for garden and fruit trees, grapes, berries etc). What you not not need you can sell.

9 acres for livestock (excluding pigs). Will support two cows and a few goats.

10 for food crops for the livestock (hay, grains, corn etc). Depending on the demand. Hay here can go upwards to $10 per bale and corn $8 per bushel during a long rough winter.

5 acres for firewood. Cutting your own firewood will save you a huge sum of cash when a truck load of firewood sells for anywhere from $70 to $150 per load.

Again about 25 acres to start and 40 to 50 would be ideal.

Sorry I haven't been here to respond back.

I lived in east tx for a short time and loved it. I am from up north so I miss trees but in east tx around Hallsville there is regular rain, and beautiful pines.

I personally don't care for Dallas/ Houston areas. Too much city and city attitude. I like it here although I am 100 miles to go shopping, I go once a month. We do not have rain much and the winds are no fun.

I would get your desires down on paper and then assign an amount of space to each one. There are so many good resources out there to get you going encouraging and inspiring you

kim

Are you wanting to be self-sustaining, as much as possible? If so, I don't think 5 acres will be enough.

I grew up on a 170 acre beef cattle farm. We had around 70 head of cattle and sold some every year to pay the mortgage, as well has had some butchered for our consumption, but didn't have any other animals (we sold the chickens when we moved from 6 acres to the farm). We had a garden that was something like 40x60 ft, as well as maybe a dozen apple, peach, and pear trees. While we did still make grocery store runs, a significant portion of our meat and veggies came from our property. Our home had electric heat, but it was mostly used in the bedrooms as a compliment to the wood fireplace insert in the living room.

The farm was about 60% cleared pasture and 40% wooded and was roughly split in thirds by fencing and the cattle were rotated among the different sections, depending on the time of year. In the summer, they were kept in the back pasture, so that the two front pastures could be used to grow hay for harvest. My memory is fuzzy, but I believe we started baling in late June, then opened up the gates the second week of July so they could roam all the land freely. They generally followed wherever there was grass, which allowed the back pasture to get some growth. Around roughly October, we put them in the back pasture and shut the gates, so that the front pasture could start doing its thing to prep for the next year's hay harvest.

Doing that allowed us to have enough bales to give the guy with the mower and baler his cut, as well as feed our stock. We did buy grain for the cattle, but it was more of a treat that what sustained them and we rarely had to buy bales, although that did happen on rare occasions.

Beef wasn't our only source of meat. My dad knew a guy who raised pigs, so we exchanged meat. No one in our family hunted, but people who asked to hunt on our land generally gave us part of the deer they shot as a thank you. Chicken was the only thing we had difficulty finding a source for, although eggs were easy to come by.

Anyway, I know that this might not be what you're looking for, but I thought that knowing about a larger operation might be helpful and give you an idea about size.

We had planned to homestead but for health reasons plans change.

Bought 20acres in southeast Texas, dug a pond some fencing.

Now we will sell. Hope someone will buy and love the land they we love it.

Josephene

I needed a place close to a city for a regular paycheck, but enough land to have a small homestead. My land is only about one acre, but I have a barn, woods, vegetable and fruit garden, chickens, and a koi pond (could also be a tilapia pond). But it has much more with a beautiful cape cod home, gazebo, and a tropical garden (Apex, NC frost zone 7b-8). I love it but my husband and I are getting older and at least we have fulfilled our dream before moving to a downsized home soon. Don't lose focus on your homestead. Its worth it. I'll be selling mine in about 3-5 years to move on to Florida, and will miss it.