Super Duty dreams and off-grid schemes.
Things I plan to do to be climate resilient when I own my own land 🌎 🚜 🏘
Climate change is real and its impacting us all already and it’s going to only get worse. The politicians’ solutions – where they exist at all – are kind of bad, mostly consisting of evacuation centers and welfare and reminding people that it’s okay to walk away from the post storm deterus – they’ll cart it off to the landfill for you.
- First off, recognizing that political activism is not going to protect me from climate change. The buck stops with me.
- Buying a Prisus or electric car won’t protect me but buying a backhoe might.
- Own a house that has metal roofing and remove trees nearby that could burn in a wildfire
- Make sure the house and barn are well away from streams and flood plains that could flood in extreme rain
- Have an independent off-grid electric system and on site fuel storage
- Have a tractor with a front end loader to both bury debris and dead stock, and also fill in and repair washouts
- Have extra materials like timber, plywood, gravel, dirt and culverts to make repairs after wash outs.
- Not own a lot of material things that are easily damaged by water or smoke
- Be willing to do with a lot less with the land rather than the property
How Much Land Would I Need to Own.
When I own a land, how much land do I think I’ll want to own? I think I would want to own enough land to:
– Be able to hunt and shoot firearms at a backyard range, which would mean at least 500 feet from the nearest other house.
– Be able to ride four wheelers on my land, have some fun in the mud without making too much of a mess.
– Have enough land to hobby farm, such as pigs, goats, and other smaller livestock, which means they’ll need pasture and a bit of distance from the house.
– Be able to compost food, leaves, and other waste.
– Be able to burn trash and have bonfires, without causing a nuisance or smelling my neighbors burning their trash.
– Be able to listen to music as loud as I want to, hang lights outdoors, drink beer, and have a good time with buddies.
– Have junk cars and other equipment I’m working on, or saving for scrap use on my land without bothering others.
– Be far enough back from the road so I don’t have to see others or have others piering onto my land.
Obviously, none of that doesn’t require that much land if you have the right kind of neighbors and the right kind of state and local government that leaves people alone, but having more land often comes with having better neighbors that mind their business while you mind your own.
My parents have a little under five acres — surrounded on one side by city reservoir property — but I think I’d rather have closer to 50 with much less house and barns, as my focus would be the wilderness not having a fancy home or barnyard. Obviously, this is an expensive goal, but living farther out means you can get more with less money.
Why I don’t talk much about owning my own land and living off-grid these days 🚜
Sometimes the best thing to do with an automatic investment is to just let it run its course. Let the bimonthly deposits go in on schedule, let the markets grow, ignore the ups and downs, know that better days are ahead but don’t give it a lot of thought in the near term.
The truth is my hope and vision for the future hasn’t changed much though my expectations have been somewhat tempered watching the rate the markets grow, my quickly aging parents, the progress of my career. I realize probably within the next decade my parents are either likely to pass on or retire to a nursing home when they are no longer able to take on their homestead. My sister has little interest in their five acre property in Westerlo, so it will either get sold or I’ll take it up as my own home.
It’s not everything I would want in land but there is a lot of possibility with the property and it’s within commuting distance of my current job. Another thing two I’m considering is that I’m within 5 years from having twenty years in with the state retirement system at which point I will get a big bump in my retirement benefits. My current apartment isn’t great but it works well enough and is super convenient on the bus line and not a long ride to work.
On that land, if it’s someday mine I could rework it more into my own vision of the land.
How I learned to be happy with New York 😊
For the longest time, since the implement of the burn ban in 2009, I have seriously thought about leaving New York State. I’ve watched in frustration as do-gooders continue to lock down our public lands in the name of wilderness preservation, demanding more restrictions on our gun rights from the SAFE Act to SAFE Act 2.0 that made it illegal to purchase ammunition without a background check, or even a simple .22 “semi-auto” rifle for hunting squirrels without a pistol permit like I bought before SAFE Act 2.0 for $150 a few years back. Or the games people and towns go through to register and ride ATVs on private trail systems, because state politics is forever hijacked by the environmentalists. Or how well-meaning, but the still problematic drive to decarbonize the state is leading to thousands of acres of farmland and open space to be developed, at the same time electricity prices continue their spiral upwards.
My complaints about the state are well known to anybody who regularly reads the blog. They are pretty obvious to anybody who lives in Upstate, especially in rural areas. It’s not hard to see who often gets the raw end of the stick in New York, when more then 2 out of 3 New Yorkers live in the metropolitan region, where the state’s liberal policies may be idealistic but come back to bite those who don’t live in the city or suburbs. It kind of sucks to live in Upstate New York. But at least for me, it’s a Faustian bargain. Or as Dan Halloran said to then-Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith, when he tried to buy a spot on NYC Mayor’s ballot — “It’s All About the F-ing Money.”
That’s how I’ve felt about New York for many years. I stay because I make pretty good money, especially nowadays. Maybe I feel like I’m still a bit underpaid, but I do make good money. To leave New York would be to leave my job and leave the money behind. And nowadays, as the Data Services Director, I would not only be leaving behind the money, but a job that I actually really kind of like that challenges my mind, involves working with code and scripting, and being able to work with smart programmers and computer system administrators. I get paid to write SQL queries, export databases, clean data and work with a great team. It’s the kind of career of wanted for a long time, but didn’t have an easy way to transition into, as my college degree was in Political Science, as I found the advanced theoretical math required for Computer Science to be difficult. Plus I’ve always had these anti-technology bent, in part learning how toxic these devices we call computers are both from the hazardous materials they are made out of and how they warp our brains and our politics.
At this point it’s just too hard to walk away. I told myself for years I’ll move out of state the first possible minute that I can reasonably afford to — be it once I have enough money saved up, once my parents pass away, or once I retire. The date just kept getting pushed further and further into the future. And while the news headlines about what state government was doing to make the lives of Upstate New Yorkers worse and worse really grinds at me, one of the best way to avoid it, is to just turn it off. Don’t follow the news very carefully. Most of the most objectionable things that the do-gooders are trying to force our throats, are actually quite unpopular and as such aren’t vigorously enforced despite the stern warnings of the politicians. Watch what is happening in reality, on the ground by real people, and not what the media and politicians are saying.
I am quite fortunate to have a great career, good pay, and a life that has been fun over the past 17 years since I graduated from college. I have enjoyed the travel, camping, hiking, spending time in the woods and having fires. And as much as I have romantic visions of moving to a rural, free state like Missouri, South Dakota, Idaho, or West Virginia, the truth is things aren’t all wine and roses there either. Nearly every state has bad laws, stupid politicians who egos trample on your freedoms. And the Faustian bargain is real — no place I could move would have the career opportunity or make the money that I am currently making. It’s not like I object to my work, I’ve had the chance to work with many great clients over the years, and even when I don’t agree on all issues, I do agree with them on many things, and New York has excellent consumer protections and those for renters. After all, I am a liberal Democrat, maybe of a wilder breed. And it’s not like we shouldn’t be doing something to address to climate crisis, even if I think some of state’s actions by the urban politicians are a bit misguided.
Faust in the bible made the mistake of not only selling his soul for twenty-four years of supreme knowledge, but squandering his gift. Faust didn’t maximize his gift, use it for good though he sold his soul to get it. I have been a careful steward of money over the years, living frugally and carefully saving and investing for a better tomorrow — namely that off-grid cabin that I wanted in a free state. While I am realizing that the second half of the dream may not be possible if I want to keep up that part of the Faustian bargain, it’s not necessarily to say much of the first half of the dream isn’t possible to largely make into a reality, duly noting the constraints of state building code, the various laws as implemented as rules in reality, and the long unpleasant commute that will involve to get far enough away from cities for at least some freedom. The thing is I could wait and save even more — but cost of land and building is no longer the major constraint — but number of years I can practically expect in my second half of my life. Old age, time, is cruelest joke as you get deeper into your forties.
I don’t like all the compromises, but maybe it’s a way to live with myself, and a live a life closer to what I want without walking away from the money.
