LONG POST
Im portuguese, and used to live in deep central portugal in a small village between a forest and a river, which makes it the perfect location to live if you want to live from the land.
my parents sold that propriety when I was 13 and moved to a city, so when I left I was still a kid. Still, having a farm is intense work. Every day you have to work, there’s animals to take care of, trees/plants to water, fruit to pick, there was not a day of holidays.
We had: chickens, sometimes rabbits (I stopped eating rabbit when I found out that they would end up in my plate ), dogs because my father was an occasional weekend hunter.
Fruit trees, apple, a gigantic lemon tree the size of my current apartment, loquat tree (don’t eat loads of these in an empty stomach otherwise you will spend 48h in a toilet, I learned that the hard way ), persimmons, passion fruit, different types of grapes, strawberry’s, aloe veras, linden tree (that would be harvested to make tea), all types of aromatic herbs, a lot others, and even a pineapple… and a relevant size olive grove which produced good olive oil and it was one source of income to us as we had enough for us, to give and to sell.
As a kid, although it might sound harsh for some people in today’s climate and education, I used to help with processing (lets call it “processing”) chickens, hutting animals from birds to wild rabbits and others. Skinning, butchering, or plucking animals from fish to mammals and birds, its not something that repulses me, as that was a normal practice when I was young. Everything was always done with hygiene and respect for the animals.
For exemple as the smallest kid in the house, I was responsible for when the chicken “processing” started to run into the house grab a container with lots of vinegar run back and catch the blood from the chickens. As we all knew later that day we would be eating chicken rice cooked with blood (I know some of you might find this dish repugnant, but its nutritive and its tasty if you can take your mind out of the fact that you are eating blood... and its actually a known dish in many countries, if you want to take a look search for “arroz de cabidela”).
I would also do onion and garlic braiding for winter storage. Beans and vegetables would be bought from neighbours, processed and frozen. Processed fruits like marmalade and others would be purchased from neighbours as well. But every year we would be foraging for mushrooms and wild berries, takes a keen eye to differentiate good from bad from poisonous.
Everything that you could eat or drink you could farm it yourselg or buy it from a neighbour.