There are about 20 houses in my neighborhood. We have the smallest property at just under one acre. The whole neighborhood probably has about 60 acres. Almost none of this land is in use for anything other than holding houses, driveways, and cars.

I work really hard on my job at the dairy farm. Its an industrial farm and the work is industrial scale and very serious. Yesterday was especially challenging for no reason other than luck. I was kicked in the face (but not hurt) by a cow. I was shocked twice by a broken handle. I had to wrestle a pig and clean up lots of maggots. And I got covered to sopping in whey. All of that is in addition to the actual job, to give you some idea of the time and trouble that goes on over there. And my shift is only 5 hours. I guess they pull in, on average, about 200 gallons of milk a day while also producing a lot of pork and maybe a half dozen eggs. No one over there is interested in chickens.

I don't work hard on the farm at my house. My farm is very tiny and I set it up so that I don't have to work at it very hard. On average, when things are well managed, I can pull nearly a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs off this land every day---easily. Plus figs, flowers, herbs, and any random vegetables I am willing to tend. Of these, due to the lay of our land, the vegetables are least productive. But remember, I'm not willing to try very hard, either. I could double the milk and eggs plus add meat birds without blinking. They can double production without blinking.

It occurred to me this morning that our little neighborhood could become almost entirely self sufficient in terms of food without all that much effort. Each household would have to spend, likely, a similar amount of time, energy, and money for set up as has my family. (Remembering that I'm not even trying very hard and most other families would be smarter about the whole thing.) It would not take all that much time, trouble, or money to create a self sufficient food economy with a very large diversity, given the amount of land we're talking about.

I just can't understand why more folks don't want to produce their own food. The animals do all the work! They do it happily, they improve the land as they do it, and the food is far FAR superior to what's available in the store. All that, plus you get to have baby animals and the luscious sensuality of good life happening around you, as opposed to what's available in terms of sensuality and goodness at, say, Food Lion or Harris Teeter.