Posted on 03/08/2009 12:28:19 PM PDT by WhirlwindAttack
I've been here a while now, put a hundred into the kitty to keep the site up so I'm posting a vanity asking for some advice. My family are all liberals I don't dare ask them their opinion. So here goes.
My bride and I both see bad things coming. We are buying 5 acres in rural south central Tennessee on contract from a friend. No house, just partially wooded land. We've been saving our money and investing in heirloom seeds, long term food supply that we eat and rotate, and camping gear.
I weld and am a jack of all trades. My wife has only ever worked as a retail bookseller. We're healthy but a little overfed.
We are considering leaving our apartment in Indiana when our lease is up in May. It's in a college town of over 100K. and very liberal. The plan is to store what we don't need immediately ( we have storage available until July of next year.). Go down south, pitch a camp and dig a privy then go forth to find work. We will be planting a garden and trying to get a small cabin weathered in before winter. I want to build a home as we earn the cash money to buy materials and do this without a mortgage.
I would rather get out while I can and keep her safe than stay here and she feels the same way.
So here's the crux of the matter, I'm 48 former USAF and don't like to take rash jumps into the unknown. I have however been in the third world, started over with nothing twice and am with the love of my life. She is 30, brilliant, sews, weaves, throws pottery, and has the ability to build her own kiln.
She's a former LDS and fell right in line with my food storage quirks not to mention she's a dead shot with everything I've put in her hands.
She thinks that pioneering will be an adventure. I know it will be hard work. Her parents have told us they admire our courage and want to know when to expect grandchildren. ( Sorry gonna have to wait Mom )
FRiends I'm worried I'm missing something. I like the benefits of civilization like hot showers and flush toilets. But being out of the cities when they do go wonky holds more appeal.
I welcome your comments.
She was a level-headed dancer on the road to alcohol
And I was just a soldier on my way to Montreal
Well she pressed her chest against me
About the time the juke box broke
Yeah, she gave me a peck on the back of the neck
And these are the words she spoke
[Chorus:]
Blow up your TV throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own
Well, I sat there at the table and I acted real naive
For I knew that topless lady had something up her sleeve
Well, she danced around the bar room and she did the hoochy-coo
Yeah she sang her song all night long, tellin’ me what to do
[Chorus]
Well, I was young and hungry and about to leave that place
When just as I was leavin’, well she looked me in the face
I said “You must know the answer.”
“She said, “No but I’ll give it a try.”
And to this very day we’ve been livin’ our way
And here is the reason why
We blew up our TV threw away our paper
Went to the country, built us a home
Had a lot of children, fed ‘em on peaches
They all found Jesus on their own!
John Prine
Stay at work another month or so and buy whatever junker trailer or motor home that you can get away with parking on your lot for a year or two.
There are plenty of old beat up motor homes (even if you have to tow it to your lot) and trailers that would go for next to nothing (and are worth about that much), the advantage is that they already are set up as a glorified shack with a propane stove and sleeping quarters and such.
That and one or two of those tent like temporary carports will give you working and storage space out of the rain.
If you do use a tent, put it under one of those $160.00 carports and it will make the living much easier, you will have a dry tent and plenty of spillover room for cooking, sitting and working, and keeping your stuff dry.
LOL I was listening to that just the other day.
Next is snakes. Depending on what part of Middle Tennessee you can expect to see Copperheads, Rattlesnakes, and in some places west of Nashville Cottonmouths. Learn what they look like and under the conditions you will be living {camping} be watchful. Something a person told me about snakes. To keep them away get a few cats. The cats remove their food source. Before you get the cabin built have a bug out plan ready for possible overnight or longer shelter. Our weather can get pretty darn rough with little warning especially in the summer months and tents go sailing off into the next county.
Have you thought about this instead? Buy a used travel trailer already set up with beds, stove, sink, etc? This would give you adequate shelter while building your permanent home.
I know a few people in East Tennessee where I live who live in cabins in remote areas. One of them uses solar panels for what little electricity he uses for creature comforts.
I think you'd get the best advice from that group.
sw
Just a suggestion on housing:
Think ‘underground’ for many reasons, first of which is the advantage of concealment. Second, the insulation factor, warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer. Third, maintenance, no shingles to replace, no gutters to clean, none of that.
An interim method of acquiring underground housing on the cheap is to find yourself a used mobile home dealership, and look for one of the cheaper (i.e., older and visually less appealing) models, preferably a single wide with three bedrooms. After getting it moved on to your lot, keep the wheels on it while you find someone with a backhoe to dig yourself a nice deep hole that you can roll that rascal down into, leaving enough room on the side for a staircase from the front door to the surface.
Don’t just start dumping earth on top of your cheapo underground shelter, plan on building a framework of beams (4 x 4” thickness) that will rest on TOP of the mobile home to more evenly distribute the load of the earth that will eventually be used to fill in and cover up your humble abode.
You’ll need to think about the whole electric and plumbing issues, which may be a challenge, but are not insurmountable.
Basically what you’re doing is building a basement without a house, and your single wide mobile home is what you’re going to fill up the basement with.
I think what you’re doing is basically what I’m in the process of doing, although I am in what I like to call an ‘undisclosed secure location’, and I plan to be finished by the end of this year.
You’re making the right move. Ignore the naysayers. Go with your gut, that’s what the USAF taught you, I’m sure of that.
Good luck!
MKJ
I'm partial to these: Kodiak Steel Homes.
I wish I were at a point to build my own. Someday...
Get a used travel trailer to use as temp housing and for storage!
Find a good church with some good peoplw down there and get to know them. No man )(or woman) is an island and you can find (and give) a lot of support and companionship in small churches..
Ooof. Around NM, you can get the new style for under 10 grand.
Thanks
If that is the case, what have you got to worry about? Even if the economy completely collapses, a man who can work with his hands will never go hungry.
First, a weekend trip w/tent to get the privy dug and some kind of enclosure over it.
Then when you acquire a suitable RV, drive it to the land, and in a couple days you could get it up on blocks or timbers (with the help of a mechanic's floor jack) and tied down and skirted against winter winds (which would also give you some low-cost 'shed' storage space to boot).
The RV's propane tank can be refilled pretty cheaply in town for cooking/heat needs, and the vehicle's built in slop bucket can be emptied into the privy without needing to endure nightly treks in the snow for frozen butts. You would however need to give some thought to keeping the on-board water supply from freezing.
As for electricity, the easiest solution would be to run the RV's engine when needed to recharge whatever batteries are on-board, and refill in town as needed with a jerry can kept for the purpose. Or alternatively, assuming there'd be no neighbors close enough to object to a generator running, the cost of a medium duty unit would prolly be a good emergency investment anyway.
The RV would still start feeling a bit cramped come February, but you can surely make it snug/comfy enough to feel like home for awhile, and you'll have the whole winter of long nights to do your research and get a firm plan in place to tackle a more permanent dwelling asap after last frost.
/.02 (professional carpenter for 30 years)
Re the garden, there’s a thread here somewhere that says gubmint will be interfering in even that. FWIW...
Now..........
"our lease is up in May......Go down south, pitch a camp and dig a privy then go forth to find work. We will be planting a garden and trying to get a small cabin weathered in before winter."
....My suggestion at least for the above portion. Think through your time line very closely. Uncleared land and a garden sometime after May? That means you at best can look only for a limited fall crop. Secondly, I suspect you can get a small cabin partially weathered in depending upon it's size and your available cash. But working for the other man may limit that ability somewhat.
If you could basically go the end of the fall without having to work for the other man then use the winter to do that an gather a few dollars. Start in the early spring with your summer garden and finish weathering in your cabin, get a well dug and other necessities.
Good luck and the above is just my read so only take it as that, nothing more.
Thanks for the laugh I really needed it.
This would allow you a roof over your head and the comforts of home, while you scout jobs and opportunities for economic activity in the area and make your decisions for the future.
And if you don’t like your options, you just pick up and find another place with your home behind you. Then, when you’ve settled on your location, you sell it.
It’s an adventure, for sure, maybe glamorous in the very beginning, but soon enough I think roughing it and the time you’d be spending on the very fundamentals of life would get old, and your priorities will be not only be surviving well while being as self-sufficient as possible, but also earning money to keep pursuing your eventual dream situation.
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I note no mention of toilet/sewer/septic issues, however, and it’s not inexpensive, but I look at the time you’d have to spend just to secure your safe and enclosed housing that you could be better using to get to know your community, pursue your livelihoods in your new home, and see if you want to stay there permanently.
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Older, but much cheaper
http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/5thwheel/1994-Kountry-Star-By-Newmar-15141.htm
http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/5thwheel/1992-Avion-15147.htm
Good luck, and God bless you both. Keep us posted, and pray for us all.
*Hey, it might also be worthy of a published journal of your journey ............ ;) I’d definitely keep one .. and think it could be salable (and a website maybe?).
We also had plans to go to TN in a few months. Now it looks like the economic issues have forced us to change our plans. We found ourselves stuck here in California when the music stopped.
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