My Hobby farm is 2.5 hours away. Given my reduced work schedule I now get there every other week and stay for about five days each visit. But for years I would only be able to stay the weekend. The toughest part is just getting things done. By the time you pack up and drive, then unpack and store food, you've lost half a day. If you have a house on the property, it will need maintenance. Machinery that sits seems to develop its own problems -- tire deflation, old gas, mouse attacks on wiring, gummed up carbs, et al. Then there are the other projects like fixing gates and fences, trimming trees, grading the driveway, etc. If you need to meet a repairman [like the guy to check the well] its tough to schedule when you will be there. In short, little things become bi9g things when you have to squeeze them into short, discrete visits. And that's all before you try to get a crop in and out of the ground. The problem there is that you aren't there at critical times. Like the hay should be cut or you need to spray the apples but it's rained the last two Saturdays, or the Christmas trees should be sheared but you haven't mowed the field yet and you're still fooling around with the house gutters.
So if you want a place in the country, that's great. But if you really want to grow something on a semi-commercial scale, keep it simple. Game plots, pumpkins, a hundred Christmas trees for personal use, maybe potatoes and onions -- probably ok. But you want to minimize the need for machinery and the need for continual care of the crop [like spraying, thinning, or pruning at specific times].
In sum, nature never sleeps, brush and weeds grow every day, and bugs, deer and groundhogs love operating in a vacuum. So again, little things become big things pretty quickly when you're not there all the time to stay on top of it all.
