I'm so glad I found this forum - my wife and I are starting the land search to find a possible hobby farm / gentlemen's estate site.

Some background on me - I didn't grow up on a farm, but my grandmother had a small one.  I fell in love with the whole farming lifestyle (hard work and everything), but like all teenagers I rebelled against it back in the late 80's and moved to the city.  I met my wife, whose grandmother had a small farm too, there.  We moved to a small Midwestern town of 200,000 and here the story truly begins...

We are currently living in a modest house in town, and we intend to use this as our primary residence while we are preparing the farmland for our "estate".  I am the one tasked with finding the land / budgeting for our expenses / etc.

Our primary use of our farm estate will be food for ourselves, our immediate family, and for some friends.  We are currently childless but are adopting soon, so we foresee going from two to four or six family members.  Down the road I might consider selling at a farmer's market, but after reading Joel Salatin's excellent book Everything I Want to Do is Illegal, my passion for that has faded a bit. 

So - my first, most pressing question is - how much land should we get?  And where?  My natural inclination is to get as much as we can afford and as remote as possible, but that's probably a reaction to the small lot and high regulation that we currently experience.  We've found several parcels ranging from 20 to 40 acres, at roughly $3-$5K an acre.  If we want to start small with room for expansion, would 40 acres be overkill?  I figure we want to have extensive gardens, pastures, and woods, so I want plenty of space hehe.

Sorry if this rambles - I've been reading several books about buying farm property, such as Gene Lodgson, but those books don't really deal with overall farm planning and how to stock/build/purchase equipment for one.

Thanks so much for reading, and if anyone wants to talk via email I would welcome it!  My email is dhatcher@chicagogsb.edu

Morg
Hobby Farmer Wannabe