Rural Property Acreage?

All the different ways of solving the shelter problem. To be static or mobile? Roots, legs, or wheels?
Laura Ingalls
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Laura Ingalls »

We had utility bills that broke 4 figures. We still weren’t very warm. This could have been fixed by a smaller place and having time to cut wood.

We had access to a very nice acreage suited tractor at the second place. That would have been $15k even at 20 years old. It was essential to living there. On the prairie you can scoop the same snow multiple times. We had baby chicks and the heat bulb lamp broke and I had to go to town ASAP so they didn’t all die. I could go on and on.

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Alphaville
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Alphaville »

Laura Ingalls wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:51 am
We had utility bills that broke 4 figures. We still weren’t very warm. This could have been fixed by a smaller place and having time to cut wood.
we could last the winter with 2.5 cords of wood in a small place with a small stove that i made to run efficiently. not russian fireplace efficient, but you know... manageable. when i had a big stove i’d wake up sweating at night :lol:
you can buy a decent chainsaw for maybe $300, but there’s a risk that one can seriously injure themselves with it. and they need a lot of small time-sucking maintenance. but yes, fumes and carbon monoxide ftw.

for splitting, i found that home depot could rent you a gas-powered one for about $100/day, although i never used it. the maul was fun once you learned it.

some family members would heat with coal instead, which we saved only for emergencies. oh the stench!

re: chickens: so you never had to bring lambs into the house, or bottle-feed calves? :lol:

country living is rough. people leave for the cities for a reason. lack of opportunities for young people are also real.

@HB:

i forgot to mention that rural schools are generally underfunded and understaffed, and consequently they underperform severely. in a city you have a wealth of choices from publig schools with a strong PTA to parochial schools to Montessori/Waldorf/KIPP/Performing Arts/etc etcetc....

sure, your kids will arrive to your new hamlet to become the town’s gifted little geniuses, ahead of everyone in reading and math, but they won’t be challenged enough and will fall back to merge with the rest of the pack: beer and football, and having babies.

Laura Ingalls
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Laura Ingalls »

@alphaville
DH loves anything connected with burning wood. Paradoxically, we burn wood in town and have spent $300-400 per year in natural gas (this is cooking gas and hot water too). DH leaves little piles of wood from tree trimming projects at work at the end of the driveway. He splits and stacks it. He had a volunteer project where he learned how to maintain his chainsaw himself. In the winter he sits by his stove and reads books. It actually a much more self-sufficient system. My mom has a splitter which DH has no use for. DH used to give her his “ugly” wood as she had bigger firebox and less ego in her wood pile aesthetics. :mrgreen:

flying_pan
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by flying_pan »

Jean wrote:
Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:02 pm
I own about one and a half acre of forest, which is already kindof large in switzerland.
As switzerland is densely populated, the main benefit is social, as it allows me to invite people to camp, and lend it for people who need a piece of forest to put bees on, organising foraging camp, and so on. In addition, it hedges me against energy price, altough i don't see me cutting down any of my living trees, as i already grew attached to them.
I use it for some experiments, like to test which berries seeds can survive my digestive track, as well as trying to plant my favorible cheese side : potatoes.
I wouldn't be allowed to use it for a primary residence, even if i ponder a lot of possible workarounds.
Hunting would require a license and owning the forest isn't necessary.
I see it as kindof an investment, because it's very hard to buy forest, and usually very easy to sell, even when asking for too high of a price.
If I understand correctly, it is somewhere not exactly near you? How do you get there? How far is that? How often do you go there?

I was thinking about getting land specifically, without building and bearing the burden of bad utilities and healthcare, and treat it as my own playground.

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Jean
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Location: Switzterland

Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Jean »

I can walk there fromhome in an hour. I could drive there too if I need to bring heavy stuff and can find a vehicle.
I go there very irregularly. Sometimes several times a week, sometimes not at all for two months.

Hristo Botev
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Hristo Botev »

Alphaville wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:29 am
but they won’t be challenged enough and will fall back to merge with the rest of the pack: beer and football, and having babies.
That's kinda the point. As someone who "won" (at some level) at the meritocracy game, it's pretty much the last thing DW and I want for our kids. There's a lot to be said for beer, football, and having babies.

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Alphaville
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Alphaville »

Hristo Botev wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 3:49 pm
That's kinda the point. As someone who "won" (at some level) at the meritocracy game, it's pretty much the last thing DW and I want for our kids. There's a lot to be said for beer, football, and having babies.
ah! i married someone who was fleeing those kinds of circumstances, so i have the opposite perspective about their benevolence, even though she survived the darwinian roulette; and our attemps to engage that sort of life were instructive, but ultimately utterly frustrating, as i’ve mentioned in this thread (there are other aspects i’m less willing to discuss on the internet, related to family, etc.)

my dad fled the same kind of life too, growing up; but like abraham, he never looked back.
Last edited by Alphaville on Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Alphaville
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Alphaville »

Laura Ingalls wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:06 am
:mrgreen:
if there’s one thing i miss about living in the sticks it’s the pleasure of splitting well seasoned firewood. and then the smell of burning cedar and piñon.... ah!

we still have that cabin though, and we’ll visit once the pandemic is over. or maybe we’ll build one somewhere else? i don’t know...

Jason

Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Jason »

"I am no longer selling hay, I am selling a lifestyle."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/f ... utube.html

7Wannabe5
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

My BF's wooded acreage requires less maintenance than a small suburban lot, because the trees don't need to be mowed else weed ordinance violation. Fences are also not necessary; just "No trespassing" signs posted. We have seen no sign of any human (bear, yes) ever being on the property in our absence. This is because it is situated between well-maintained lake residences and abundant public land with easy access.

More general observation being that rural acreage varies greatly. For instance, in my region the farming communities are culturally different than the woods and water communities. The small town in farming county where I raised my children was very Norman Rockwell like. Kind of place you could let your 8 year old walk downtown to the bakery to get some pretzels by herself.

Hristo Botev
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by Hristo Botev »

Jason wrote:
Sat Aug 08, 2020 4:52 am
"I am no longer selling hay, I am selling a lifestyle."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/f ... utube.html
Guilty as charged of succumbing to these Wendell Berry influencer types.

That said, I personally have no intention of going all Wendell Berry and running some sort of permaculture organic family farm that provides 100% of my family's needs. I'm more looking to having a bunch of acres, 2-3 hours from the city, mostly if not almost entirely forested (a la @7W5's BF's land), with a natural water source, probably as a place where DW and I can "retire" once our kids finish high school, but where, in the mean time, we can: (1) hunt and fish; (2) park an Airstream; (3) practice some DIY skills; (4) camp; (5) host large get togethers, and generally invite friends/family to use as they desire (investing in social capital :lol:); (6) get the hell out of the city from time to time; (7) have something tangible to pass on to our kids; and (8) have some security that, if the city does in fact burn to the ground and the world goes to s#@*, we've got a place to at least attempt to wait out the apocalypse.

Also, the redneck in me loves that Ashley McBryde song, Bible and a .44

Said, "take what you've got and do the best you can
Best thing you'll ever own is a piece of land"
Y'all he knew his like the back of his hand
He was something else, my old man
He was something else, my old man

chenda
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by chenda »

I think the rural dream is real and potentially great - as long as you have an urban based income. Otherwise you'll learn the hard way why people flocked to the cities.

horsewoman
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by horsewoman »

how much maintenance a forest needs depends in some cases on how neurotic the people are who own the wood next to yours... My husband inherited 8 acres of forest, unfortunately it is 15 miles away from our farm. Our "forest neighbour" calls us (terrorises us?) whenever a tree falls because he is deadly afraid of bark beetle infestations in his orderly spruce plantation (= infestation-prone monoculture!). He is furthermore continuously offended by our haphazard forest management and very vocal about it. It's like we have a HOA on our woods!

chenda
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by chenda »

@horsewomen - yes an I expect forest fires are going to increase leading to mandatory woodland management. Something else your neighbour can annoy you with ;)

horsewoman
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Re: Rural Property Acreage?

Post by horsewoman »

@chenda - oh joy! :)

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