Lately I find myself writing less about owning my own land and the off grid way of living. While I certainly continue to have that goal, I feel like there isn’t a lot more to say about it except that I continue on my routine savings and investment plan as I inch towards it. But I’m making good money at my job – which I’m putting towards my future while not be laboring the point – my savings and investments are automatic and require little day by day thinking.
At the same time, I’m continuing to read and learn. I keep reading books about livestock and homesteading, learning how to manage natural resources and labd effectively. I’ve been been continuing to learn electricity and the building code, solar power and gardening. I follow several YouTube channels on these topics and are subscribed to many homesteading podcasts and groups.
The thing in my mind is not to jump too soon. Enjoy life today but keep a focus on a better tomorrow. While nothing beats having hands in the soil directly, learning through watching and reading is the next best thing. Being book smart at least gives you some background – and ideas where to go next.
Many people at my point in my career would looking to buy a house and settle down. I do look at future properties from time to time but my focus now is investing and saving. I just don’t want a suburbanite house – I want to live out in the country, on my own land away from neighbors where I can do my own thing on my own land.
Building the Homestead I Can, Not the One I Want 🚜 🏘 🐮
Often when I go out and visit my parents place, I spend some time walking around the yard. My parents are in their mid-70s, and I am realistic and realizing that they may not be able to live independently forever and will pass at some point. I’ll miss them terribly, but I also see a lot of potential in their five acres should I end up taking over their homestead.
Both me and my sister will have a 50 percent claim on the land, most likely. I doubt my sister, who is raising her family in suburban Saratoga County will have much interest in moving back out in country. But I certainly do. I think I am in the position that I could buy out her share of the homestead, paid for in cash, and then only have to pay taxes and utilities going forward.
I look around and think about what I could do with the land. It’s only 5 acres, there is a lot of junk on it, and a lot of it is has been reverting back to woods in recent years. There are neighbors within 500 feet of the most of the land, so probably the opportunities to do a lot of shooting on it are limited, and I have to be careful what I do with fires out back, not burning anything too noxious that produces a lot of smoke, especially with the state’s burning ban. But also, because it’s not neighborly to fumigate your neighbors with smoldering plastic garbage. But there is still a lot of possibility on this land.
Meat goats could do a lot to help clean up the land. Not only are goats relatively small, easy to transport, slaughter and turn into meat, they are browsers and would be perfect for cleaning up the land of brambles and turning land covered with trash species into meat. Portable electric fence means I could move them around to various portions of the land, but they also have a barnyard with stalls for keeping them in the winter. They have a barn and chicken coop, that could be restored for raising chickens and rabbits – a source of meat and eggs.
Eventually, it would be great to run some feeder pigs – piglets bought and raised to weight. This is a move involved adventure, not sure if I could process them on site, so that might involve having to borrow a cattle trailer to get them processed. There are big feed bills involved with having pigs — were talking a few tons of feed for having a couple of hogs — but pigs turn feed into manure which becomes incredibly rich soil for growing other crops.
And maybe cows! But not my own, I am not sure I have skills or even enough land to get started with cattle right away. But a few years back, my neighbors approached my parents about using some of their land to graze cattle. My parents declined, as they had concerns about the noise and smell of having cows so close to their bedroom. But I think it would be an excellent way to help restore that field, fertilize it with manure, eat up the grass and maybe get some home-grown beef out of the process.
I would also like to restore their little pond behind the old well. Certainly chopping down the big junk trees, getting goats back there to clean up the brush and trash species would help. But I’m sure it’s also mucked and probably would need some help from a backhoe after all these years. Maybe it could be enlarged too. There is a good water supply there — it’s fed by a spring that runs out of the shallow well — although the ground around it remains kind of mucky. But it could be cleaned up for sure with a backhoe, maybe a small rental backhoe like on the a tractor.
For having fires, there is all of cinder blocks around the backyard from a demolition and construction project when they replaced their attached garage. I bet these cinder blocks — with the addition possibility of some firebrick would make for an awesome fire pit / incinerator for recreational fires, burning brush and other burnable debris like paper and light-weight plastics that doesn’t make a not of lot of noxious smoke. With a high chimney, it could have a good draw, helping to burn things with minimal smoke that could smell bad and annoy neighbors.
5 acres is nice, but my parents house is not exactly my dream homestead — the house is much too big, too poorly insulated, uses too much energy, and the neighbors are much too close. I want to eventually own more acreage, farther away from neighbors, so I can shoot my guns, have big fires, burn trash and debris without causing nuance. Where I can have more large livestock, cows, make hay and timber, have a simple off-grid property. But if this is the hand I’m dealt, it’s something I can work on for a few years before I upgrade.
I think modern life is much too complicated with too many things to break and fail, needing to be discarded and replaced. Throwing away and buying new unnecessarily seems to be a core principle of the contemporary American economy.
I really get tired of all the broken things in my life and the constant need of repair and replacement. Some of it is my fault – my lack of a knowledge about repair – but a lot is the the cheap poorly thought out designs meant to be used for a short period of time and then sent to the scrap yard and landfill.
People celebrate advancements like instant hot water when you turn on a faucet or shower, high speed wireless internet in every room, perfectly climate controlled rooms, washing machines for home laundrying. Things like that seem to be overly complicated and break a lot.
The other day, one of my colleagues was out dealing with her broken water heater. I know I always have had issues with the one in my apartment – landlord seems to be constantly replacing it. Water heaters seem to be really problematic components – water corrodes them. Seems like my parents are always replacing and repairing their washing machines. Internet routers and computers quickly wear out and need replacement.
When I own my own land I want to do it differently. I really like the idea of using just a simple wood stove to heat a small cabin. Dish water can be heated on the wood stove or propane range. For hot water for showers, I would use a small instant on propane heater – they also have relatively short lifespans but are relatively small, inexpensive to replace. I know people celebrate the end of cold water flats, but I’m not sure it’s that much of a victory when you think of the constant stream of discarded water heaters and electricity or gas used to keep water hot for anytime use.
When I can’t totally avoid mechanical breakage, I’d rather outsource it. People complain about the cost of laundromats and the time wasted going there and doing wash. Maybe if you have a big family but for the individual the laundromat is a pretty good deal – a few bucks and your clothes get clean, you don’t have to pay for the water or electric or the constant discarding and replacement of the machines. Plus the laundromat is a much more effective use of resources – the washer and dryer is shared by many people in the community, it doesn’t sit idle for most of the week. I never saw the time waste as much – I often run to the store or library at the laundromat and at least my local one has free Wi-Fi. People warn of stolen clothes but my underwear aren’t that valuable and if you don’t leave clothes in the washer few people will interrupt your cycle midway through.
The same can be said about home internet and television. Why pay for an expensive home internet when a basic smartphone on an off brand network does nearly everything? For very data intensive services you can always find a free wireless hotspot like at a library in own. No need to waste all that energy at home or pay pricey membership fees. Television rots your brain and gives you violent thoughts, it does not belong in the home.
Maybe I’m a luddite but I thing the good life is a simple one room cabin with a woodstove for heat. No television, no hot water or central heat. Maybe a small instant on propane water heater for an outside shower but that only because hot water cleans better and makes showers better on cold days. But I am so off put by the modern suburban home.
