HOA truly scares me about American living. That a group of people can dictate what you can and can’t do with your own house is absolutely wild. How is that home ownership?

You probably do have a group of people that can dictate what you can and can't do with your own house. You just call them "local government", "county government", "provincial government", "state government", etc as appropriate to however your current region organizes things at the smallest level.

The difference is that the bad kinds of HOA are essentially extra-local government chartered into existence for just one neighborhood, and since the "real" government has covered most of the actually important issues, they need to do something to justify themselves and are local enough to actually pay attention to your front yard and make ordinances against things they think will lower property values.

don't leave your yard in disrepair

Even that should be your own business, unless you're endangering anyone

It's worth mentioning that in the majority of residential neighborhoods, either they do not have HOA enforcement or the HOA is entirely optional, in that you can pay to belong to the HOA and gain benefits like access to community centers and pools, but then have to abide by guidelines.

In these places, you can ignore HOA rules if you're not interested in joining. I've greatly enjoyed telling their offended members that no, I will trim my shrubs when I feel like it, thank you very much.

There is still going to be a lot of regulations against like, turning your house into a tavern or something, but there is a little more freedom here in most places than people talk about. But it's still pretty bad and getting worse, there are more and more "master planned" communities that turn entire countrysides into oceans of rooftops in these homogeneous people hatcheries where you have to get approval to grow flowers in your yard.

Freedom \TM

Also no chickens (usually)

A lot of higher-density residential areas are actually more enjoyable to live in if you're a people person and like walking to places. Areas of apartment blocks tend to be placed closer to shopping and bars and restaurants.

Meanwhile, a lot of the newer, cleaner "master planned" communities are just sterile oceans of identical rooftops miles and miles from anything but schools and fire departments, forcing all residents to drive if they want to so much as pick up a carton of milk.

Come to Brazil!

Joking, but also not that much. If you work remotely for some American company and choose your city well, chances are you'll probably be making enough money to be able to ignore all of Brazil's problems. $60k per year should be more than enough for that.

Then it was "find a cheap source of hay".

Many hay farmers will sell spoiled hay (unfit for animal consumption) for 50-25% of what you would pay for clean hay. Get evangelical about permaculture and the Ruth Stout method and some will just let you have spoiled hay for free.

Stables will frequently give spoiled hay away for free, except here you need to fork it up and pack it off by yourself, it won’t be baled for your convenience. Plus, a lot of bedding wasn’t meant to be eaten by the animals in the first place, and comes with embedded manure.

Remember, spoiled hay is spoiled. it’s not fit for feeding animals, and it’s not gonna be displayed in the Smithsonian as an example of premium hay. Many places that produce or consume hay just want to get rid of it, as it’s wholly undesirable for their main operations and just gets in the way.

Then you need a method to spread hay- which ain't easy.

Gesundheit? If you are complaining about spreading hay - and I can cover my existing 185m² in a single afternoon with ease - then gardening in general is not going to be up your alley. Spreading hay is not supposed to be difficult or laborious. If it’s baled, unbale it and use your hands to break off chunks and crush it to floof it up and simply drop it in place. If it isn’t baled, get a fork, spear the hay, walk over to the garden with the fork full, then just shake the fork to loosen the clumps and let them fall.

Like, you are doing this while standing upright, some time between October and March, long before the first plant gets planted. If your plants are already in the ground, you’re doing it the hard and needlessly difficult way.

You are starting way behind here, but I strongly recommend you hit up YouTube to get the basics on the Ruth Stout method and the Hügelkultur method.

I have modified both in the following ways:

First, I stripped away all topsoil. Whether you use or dispose of yours will depend on the availability of good topsoil in your area, and how good the current topsoil actually is. Then I dug down to provide myself with about 50cm (2-3ft) of vertical space to work with (accounting for the maximum height of the final soil level that I don’t want to exceed). If you aren’t doing this near a foundation, or you can still rework the soil to slope away from any foundation, you might be able to ignore this.

For the Hügelkultur method, I went with a flat layout instead of creating humps, and I used wood chips instead of logs and branches. I was aiming for a dense woody later that is laid down about a foot thick, and has about 8-12 inches of soil on top of it. This is meant far more as a decomposing layer that holds onto moisture, as I am in an area with sand and rocks further down that water just drains straight through. Bedrock might have this method as a good idea as well, just lay down an inch or two of sand before you put down the wood chips as a way of water running off if it gets saturated. And if possible, pack down the chips using a powered soil compactor, so you minimize the subsidence as the wood decomposes.

Once the topsoil is down, I finish the soil itself by bringing in several tons of horse manure, and rototilling it in. Horse manure because it doesn’t “burn” roots like steer/cow manure does. This is also why I went with an 8-12in layer of soil - so there is no chance of the rototiller reaching the wood chips. Also: June bugs and other root-sucking grubs love horse manure, be sure to spray with beneficial nematodes every year you supplement with manure.

For Ruth Stout (the soil cover), I have access to several acres of herbicide-free grass via a family orchard. I mow this through the year and pack it into a 8×4×4ft bin (this is fine for up to 1,000ft² of bedding cover, make it commensurately larger for larger gardens). Because I cut and pack when the grass is completely fresh and green, this starts the composting process that kills off any seeds, but the heat of the composting process also stops the process after a short while because I’m not turning over the pile to cool it off and introduce oxygen. This leaves me with lots of barely-composted grass clippings to use as an initial layer (about 60% of the total) when laying down the hay bedding. This suppresses weeds and holds in moisture much better than just hay alone.

You are likely to find green areas which are not treated with herbicide where the owners might permit you to mow and collect the grass clippings. Pretty much any green material, including heavily weed-filled areas, will suffice, as the seeds will be killed off during the composting stage. You want to avoid treated lawns because the herbicide will VERY negatively impact any vegetables you plant. In the end, you will be planting your garden through about a foot of thick hay and grass clippings; separate them by pushing them aside and plant directly into the soil. The grass and hay can also be considered as soil for bulbs and so forth, things like garlic can just be placed directly on top of the soil and re-covered. You will also have to recharge this layer every year by just putting more on top, do so in the early fall once you start shutting down your garden so you don’t disturb any beneficial insects that are bedding down for the winter.

Good luck.