A few weeks back I joined a Facebook group known as Five Acre Living…

I grew up on six acres although my parents always said it was around eight but the tax rolls say six. That said, I don’t think the tax rolls count buildings and what immediately abuts them, if I really wanted to know I could look up the deed online. Regardless, when I eventually own land, I think I would want to own more than five acres. While you can do a lot of homesteading on five acres, especially if you are able to buy hay and feed, it does really limit your buffer between yourself and your neighbors.

Buffer space is a good thing. States often require and strongly recommend new landfill operations have a buffer around themselves to avoid odors, views of the mounds, truck, bulldozer, compacter, and even toxic chemicals leaching out from them from causing a nuisance.

Buffer space around a homestead is good too. For one it offers privacy. It keeps noisy neighbors from looking in, hearing your music, the shouts and beer your drinking, the noise from shooting your guns, smelling your livestock, your wood smoke or trash burning barrel.

It also keeps you from having property next door from being developed or used in ways that might prove to be a nuisance – a farm field can become a McMansion where the owners always complain about every little thing to authorities. He shoots guns in his backyard! He has cows and pigs that smell like farm animals! He burns trash and heats with wood! And even if a bordering farm field remains working land, growing crops you might want a buffer from the agriculture chemicals, the cow and hog slurry or potentially more pungent – bio-solids made from sewage treatment plant sludge. Stinky yes, but good for the crops but maybe not so good to have right next to your porch. And the neighbor’s cows, pigs and donkeys can be remarkably loud when they want to be fed or milked too.