Rural Freedom

Things I liked and disliked about that rural homestead next to my parents house 🏚️

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Probably heading up to the Adirondacks to beat the summer heat plus the issue of fire insurance on the building next to my parents house sealed the deal of me not getting that property but I wanted to write down what seemed to be my concerns and the things I liked so I would have the list when considering future properties.

Things I liked.

  • Great price when you consider the cost of rent over ten years and you’ll recoup some of the cost when you resell it especially if you’ve fixed it up
  • Chicken coup, horse barn, outdoor sink and overhang for butchering livestock outdoors
  • Relatively small size of the house
  • Single floor and a relatively low slung roof that could easily be maintained by a short ladder
  • Relatively new roof and windows
  • I could have paid for it with cash and had the title in hand, then only paid homeowners insurance and property tax

Things I disliked.

  • It’s in New York State with the burn ban and the bad gun laws
  • Being rural and having to commute each day to the city
  • Werid shaped property with one of the neighbors’ properties inset within the land
  • Have to be careful what I burned due to being a residential neighborhood
  • Vinyl siding, which was covering up obvious wood rot below it
  • Grid-tied, an ancient oil burner which if it was still functional probably wasn’t energy efficient
  • No wood stove
  • No forest land to use as a wood source if I were to burn wood
  • Cost of property taxes, homeowners insurance, and commuting would exceed my current rent, while getting nothing back in return — investments in stock and cash are
  • So any unknowns …
    • No guarantees I’d be able to get insurance on the property until I moved in as it would be a cash purchase
    • Power is turned off as is the water, so don’t know if there are shorts in the building’s electrical, if the well and septic work. While I would have a home inspection done, that’s a bunch of unknowns and I would have to put up a bunch of cash not knowing what I would get in return.
    • Floor is collapsing in one area. While it doesn’t seem serious as a one story structure, the whole foundation looks to be mostly of uncemented field stone, and I’m not sure how secure the whole building is without a full home inspection

It’s the commute 🚘

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I’ve continued to think about country living and building my off grid homestead. Commuting sucks especially in the big city, as I’ve determined in the past two days when I drove to work – one day for the Pine Bush Hike and the other for heading out to Schoharie to camp.

  • Traffic jams, traffic speeds up and slows down, you have to pay constant attention.
  • So many broke down cars and crashes necessitating difficult lane changes due to Move Over Law.
  • Cops everywhere – checking your speed, if all your tail lights are working, not using your cellphone, following the Move Over Law.
  • A complete time suck – on the bus you can read and on the bike you get exercise but time driving is wasted.
  • Expensive automobile maintenance and fuels.

And that was only one trip out of town and a trip up to the Pine Bush!

Rush Hour Traffic

It’s nice to get out of town, but I’ve come to realize that much of the nice of the really nice land is beyond sensible commuting distance. There is no reason to live in a suburban subdivision surrounded by corn fields that smells like cow shit. Commutes aren’t certainly a good reason to live out in the country.

Maybe for as long as I have to live in big city, focusing on making money, I should continue to live in the city where I can bike to work. Continue to research and plan my dream homestead, but realize it’s not compatible with living in New York or being within commuting distance of my work. It just isn’t possible to put together to incompatible views of my future.

My Gadsen Flag

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As much as horrifies my liberal friends I really love my Gadsden flag.

You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to own my own Don’t Tread on Me Flag but was too embarrassed to spend the $8 to buy it.

I’m a life long liberal Democrat who loves guns and burning things that government is involved in too much in our private lives.  I’ve always kind of liked the Tea Party message of defending the second amendment, individual empowerment and less government interference with the lives of private citizens.Government shouldn’t regulate individuals like it does large corporations. You might say my views are closer to Malcom X and Huey Newton then Donald Trump or Paul Ryan but I couldn’t find an inexpensive Black Panther flag that I liked. Moreover, nobody knows what the meaning of the Black Panthers is anymore. The Panthers flag just isn’t that nice color wise, especially next to my Blue Marble Earth Flag or now my Rainbow Flag. I thought about getting a Molon Labe flag but I didn’t like the colors or the military undertones. I’m not a war monger but I believe in citizen empowerment and the right of self-defense and self-reliance.

I’ve long flirted with the Tea Party because I love the Man (lol!) and his aerial highway patrols as much as the next person, but I also think that Obamacare has helped a lot of people even if I think that the subsidies should have been a lot more generous for middle class families. Why can’t government help people get healthcare and an affordable college education without spying on our emails or beating up on the farmers just trying to do their jobs? Animal rights and environmental extremists have gotten much too much control in our society today. People who are ill informed and act only emotion, have no role in our governing. I’m more concerned with air pollution from coal power plants and large landfills then marginal farmers in the mountains grazing cattle and rednecks burning trash and riding quads in the woods. Not every acre of land should be declared wilderness. We can have public lands with great backcountry camping and trails, hunting and fishing but we can also have logging and mineral production to help pay for upkeep of the land.

I believe we can have a government that works for the people and promote the common good without treading on people’s rights.

Grin

Conservative working-class life can be kind of fun. 🔫 🔥 🛻 🐮 🤠👨🏻‍🌾

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I am not a conservative. If anything I’m libertarian leaning, but I also see the benefit of a state that helps people, especially through the kind of public services that are largely indivisible and free for all to use without discrimination such as public parks, plazas, mass transit and libraries. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think the conservative style of living is fun and has a lot of benefits.

I often think liberals are too intellectual, too concerned about others to have a little fun and relax. At the same time, many on the left lack the inhibition to be respectful of those with traditional values. Now I’m no bible humper or anti-environmentalist, but I think it’s fun to live a life of owning guns, having bonfires, riding quads and snowmobiles, hunting, fishing and farming. A life where you don’t spend your whole life fretting about other people’s problems, where your not worried about saving the planet or country, your just looking to have a little fun.

Conservatives are often seen as dour, but I think many on the left have adopted dour politics as a central tenant of their identity. And while it’s certainly important to control pollution and address racism, especially in our urban areas that are densely packed and impacts of pollution and racist policing tactics can be acute, people should be left alone and not looked down because they live a life different then the imaginary liberal ideal. It’s good to care, but you shouldn’t be so dour in your mannerisms and outlook on life.

How Much Land Do I Need Eventually?

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Driving out to the Green Mountain National Forest via Sand Lake, there was a sign advertising 6 to 10 acre house sites. My parents have 8 acres where they live in Westerlo, and I think the town requires a least 3 acres for new home sites, to protect the rural character of the land, even if it ultimately is just promoting sprawl and McMansions with abandoned, farm fields reverting back to woods.

When I eventually move out to the country, I want to own enough land to be back from the road, have privacy, be able to shoot guns, have bonfires, heat wood, burn trash and debris, and listen to music as loud as I want to. I’m not into burning junk tires or super amplified music, but I do like have my freedom to do what I want with my land, and nobody knowing or caring. If I want to butcher a deer or hog in my backyard, so be it. I guess you could figure out far you have to be from the road to be screened, how far smoke travels, how loud your guns are. Obviously, you have to respect local laws on when you burn and how far you have to be from other people’s homes and barns to be shooting. But we all knows that sometimes smoke and noise travels farther then you would like, and that’s why it’s important to have the right kind of neighbors.

Mountains Fade Into Fog

No matter how remote you live, there are always neighbors down the way. Many country folk don’t give a fuck about how other people live their life, to them it’s live and let live. Which is good. But it only takes one person to call the cops when they smell the wrong kind of smoke, or are bothered by noise of shooting or music. Rednecks are usually good neighbors while the nosy, moved out of the city in the fancy McMansion is the worse. But you never know, so having distance is important. And sometimes a reasonable person can get annoyed or change. Good people sometimes move out and bad people move in.

Livestock and wood are another consideration. Livestock can require quite a bit of land for forage and you often don’t want them penned up right next to your house, because especially cows can be quite noisy at night and hogs smell like hogs. Wood heat can require a good supply of firewood, especially with those outdoor wood boilers – but even fireplaces can burn through a lot in a cold winter. All considerations on how much land I would need to save up to buy. But those are easy to calculate – in contrast having decent neighbors who don’t make a fuss about nothing is far more important then having a lot of land.

My buddies’ $150k house he bought in Summit 🏘 🐷 🤠

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It’s super nice, with a view of the mountains and nine acres of land. I am jealous because the parcel I grew up on was only 4.9 acres and the neighbors were a lot closer it seems. It also makes me kind of happy to think things like this still exist in the world, because $150,000 isn’t a lot of money in these inflationary times, and I could if I decided to sell of some stock go out and buy something similar, if I so wanted today.

To be sure it’s more of a large hunting cabin then a house, and it’s electrically heated and not far from the road. But it shows what kind of deals once can get if you out there and looking — he apparently snapped it up from the man that was selling the first day it went on the market. Plus Schoharie County has been bleeding population ever since Summit Shock Correctional closed — nearly one out ten people have left the county since then. But it’s a reminder of what’s out there if you are looking.

It really gives me hope that there is a tomorrow, and some day I will be able to afford my own land, preferably with cash and no borrowing costs. And that the only choice need not be suburbia with neighbors right next door, looking down on your redneckery. Seems like there is a bright future ahead, and if I want to leave way out in the sticks, there are eventually very affordable options out there if you know what your looking for. And if you keep it simple, and it’s paid with cash, rural living can be affordable and possible.

Rural Means Free

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There are many state lands away from big cities that are relatively unrestricted in their use. They are so free only because they are largely unknown by the public and the lack of use means they can be used extensively without serious environmental damage.

The wear and tear by a few pickup trucks, quads, and horses seem minimal compared to the damage we see in far more restricted urban areas. I am inspired by Rural America and how little us humans have destroyed it compared to the big cities.

People can pollute more per capita and do far more damage then would be permissible if more people where out here. A truck can tear up a muddy trail pretty badly, but many people walking on one trail can do far more damage as witnessed in the Northern Catskills. People who live out here can have dirty diesel tractors, big gas-guzzling pickup trucks, and burn trash without significantly compromising their clean air or their quality of life. We could only wish that to be the case in the big city.

Looking at the Lake

My biggest fear is what will happen when the cities expand further and further out into the country. What will happen with a new class of people coming out to enjoy the land? More people will ultimately mean more rules, less, freedom, and certainly no camping or four wheeling. The area won’t be as beautiful as farmsteads and forests get replaced by McMansions enjoying the mountains. What once was empty roads is increasingly becoming houses.

You just have to fear what it will mean when people come out here and settle the land. Outsiders will start demanding that we change, and that we start following their orders. Rural America might ultimately be the Pine Bush of the future a seriously compromised area that only is preserved for historical memories of the great beauty. Life in Rural America is nice now, but how will it be when country ain’t country no more.