Thanks for this insightful and generous post. You've helped me clarify a number of things about my own future plans. For one thing, I think I'm going to consult with permaculture specialists to start in that direction. I may also wind up going vegan. We'll see on that one, since I hate beans.

And yes on the aches and pains. When I was younger I saw no reason for them, so just assumed it was something other people were plagued with for doing something wrong. Well it appears that simply sleeping and then getting up constitutes doing something wrong if so. Add to that any sort of physical work on the land and forget about it. Gotta do yoga every day now just to not be in constant pain, and I just have a quarter acre garden.

But I'm selling here and preparing to move onto acreage. Many decisions to make, many things to learn, and much time to do it in since my horizon is a couple years. I have a feeling I'll be learning a lot from folks like you in the meantime.