I know my previous post was a bit romanticized, but I feel that the calm and peacefulness will be real. Not that at times it won’t be chaotic because I know it will. But now I am being more realistic with this post.
I’ve started an unusual homesteading experiment.
I want to create a small homestead in the United States, inspired by the way a self-sufficient smallholding might have been organized in rural Britain during the 1800s. But rather than simply recreating the look or lifestyle, I want to find out whether the underlying idea can actually work—and exactly how much land it would require.
And I’m using AI to help me figure it out.
Learning from the past, calculating with the present
One of the authors I’m using as a real-world reference is John Seymour, whose books on self-sufficiency and traditional smallholding have influenced the way I think about this project.
Seymour actually practiced many of the things he wrote about: growing food, keeping livestock, making use of pasture and hay, preserving food, and relying heavily on what the land itself could provide.
I’m taking those ideas and trying to push them further.
My goal is a homestead with no bought inputs, except for three things I’ve chosen to allow for the goats: loose minerals, kelp meal and herbal wormer.
No purchased food.
No purchased livestock feed.
No purchased hay or grain.
And eventually, no purchased seed either—I want to save my own seed.
If I need grain, I first want to determine whether it is genuinely necessary. If it is, I want to grow it myself. And if one acre can’t produce everything I need, I’d rather have more acreage than buy feed.
This isn’t simply a garden calculation. The animals are part of the equation.
My plan includes two Nigerian Dwarf does and one buck. The goats have an established pasture and hay system. The does receive roots on the milk stand, while the buck gets pasture/browse and hay only—no grain and no roots.
I also want two pigs: one for my meat and one to raise for sale.
For chickens, I’ll have four Barred Rock hens and a rooster as my breeding flock. Their eggs will provide the chicks I need to continue the flock. I’ll initially raise six Barred Rock chicks for meat, with a planned grow-out of about 16 weeks rather than the 8 weeks needed for the modern meat birds that can’t reproduce themselves so the day old chicks have to be bought.
That longer grow-out means more feed, which means more land—and that’s exactly the kind of thing I want the calculations to reveal.
What I’m asking AI to calculate
I’m giving AI all of these requirements and using it as a planning and calculation tool.
We’re working through:
- Household food requirements
- Animal feed requirements
- Pasture and hay
- Root crops
- Crop yields
- Winter storage
- Seed requirements
- Paddock requirements
- And ultimately, the total acreage required
The paddock size is already established at 33 × 66 feet, or 2,178 square feet, with a 4-foot lane.
The goat system already requires 8 pasture paddocks and 5 hay paddocks. Those are established.
Now we’re determining how many additional 33 × 66-foot crop paddocks are needed to feed the household and all the animals.
I’m not trying to prove one acre is enough
That’s important.
One acre—43,560 square feet—is where I’m starting, not where I’m determined to end up.
If the calculations show that everything can reasonably be produced on one acre, I’ll know what makes that possible.
If they show that one acre isn’t enough, then I’ll calculate how much land I actually need.
I don’t want a plan that looks self-sufficient on paper but requires bags of feed from the store.
I want the land to provide the answer.
That’s what makes this experiment so interesting to me.
I’m taking inspiration from 1800s British self-sufficient smallholding, using John Seymour and other practical knowledge as references, putting the idea on American soil, and using 21st-century AI to calculate whether the whole system can actually work.
I don’t know yet whether the answer will be one acre, two acres, or more.
And I’m okay with that.
I’m not trying to make the numbers fit my dream.
I’m trying to find out what the dream actually requires, and eventually will have it. I need to know these things before I buy land and move forward with this. It has been a dream of mine to have a small homestead since I was in my teens, it’s time finally have my dream.
Old Ways Made Simple in Modern Times 