Not a tangent at all Phil! Many people smoke just for the flavor and it's a factor when choosing.
Phil said, "Ideally, if I lived in the country with rural land of my own, I'd have a small outdoor meat-hanging shack with a hole for a smoker device attached for those times when I want to smoke the meats, eggs, etc. That's what I'd like to do in retirement, along with a chicken coop, fruit trees, a small amount of permaculture plants, a bee hive, fermenting equipment, hunting grounds nearby and so forth."
You know, I thought about a small shack in the backyard but with my now six cats I wonder if it would be practical and with close neighbors I wonder about how much smell and smoke would come out and might affect them - if someone would call the fire department on me!
I also don't want to draw predators to my yard with the chickens and soon to be ducks. Unlike on a ranch I am lucky here in the city to have much fewer predators and the only predators I have to worry about are hawks - and the chickens are really smart about avoiding them. Having a outdoor smoker if it attracted predators wouldn't be worth the trade-off.
I'm in the process of the trees, plants and fermenting and am thinking of a top bar hive and even aquaculture for fresh fish after the garden is fully done. The hunting grounds are only the size for the cats.
You wouldn't believe what you can do in a suburban yard! You might not even need much land to make most of your dream come true. At least here in Texas people have ranches and they sell you permits to hunt on them. Often ranchers make more money from that than farming or raising animals themselves. Large ranches necessitate much more work and maintenance. My little setup (once each part is created) takes little effort or time to keep up. Chickens take no time at all and my self-watering planters are a breeze. Let's hope it keeps on like that.