Land!

Posts about buying land, and my adventures on the land I bought.

by

fail day

Nothing quite worked today. I think I’m slightly worse off today than I was yesterday.

I got 60 feet of 3/32″ steel wire, a couple of pulleys, miscellaneous wire-related hardware, and a 4-wheel heavy-duty cart and headed to my land. I tried to build the cart, but quickly realized I didn’t have the necessary tools. So I headed to my trailer, with cables, pulleys and all.

I turned my trailer around so that it pointed up the dirt road, but when I did that, it started rolling back downhill, and across the dirt road. Instead of being in a nice clearing off the road, my trailer was blocking the road, and a few feet farther from where I wanted it than when I started.

No matter, I’ll just pull back up, with the pulley. I wired everything up. One end of the cable was secured to a tree, one pulley attached to the trailer hitch, the second pulley attached to the tree again, and the end of the cable tied to a 2×4 for extra leverage. It didn’t take long to find a number of critical flaws with my plan. First of all, the front post of the trailer (which prevents the hitch from hitting the ground) dug into the ground and acted as an anchor. Secondly, the two pulleys didn’t reduce the required force enough to really move the trailer much. Lastly, and most fatally, even when I did manage to move the trailer a few inches, I had no way to secure the gains I’d made. As soon as I released tension on the cable, the trailer would simply roll back to where it was before.

So, at the end of the day, I’d only managed to get my trailer to an even less convenient location. But no matter. Lesson learned. Tomorrow, I’m going back with a winch-type contraption that’s supposed to be able to pull a ton. The cable on this contraption is only 12ft long, so it’ll take a while, but that’s ok. I’ll get there; 12ft at a time.

by

Structure! -ish!

I left the imaginary reader hanging at the edge of his seat this morning, without resolution. The rest of the day turned out to be quite an adventure, or disaster, depending on how you look at it.

After procrastinating for over 3 hours, I left Starbucks at 12:30 and headed to a Lowes nearby, where I found the cargo trailer I was looking for. It’s 5ft by 8ft, fully enclosed, and cost a little over $1800 after taxes. I then called up half a dozen U-Haul locations in the area to find a truck. One place had one tomorrow morning, another place had one right away but needed it back by 7. It was 1pm at this point, which meant I had 6 hours. It takes 3 hours to get to my land from Redding and back. I figured one hour to get the truck and trailer, one hour on the property, one hour of margin. It’ll be tight. Should I wait until tomorrow? Of course not. I’m down to my last <150 days of my twenties, and I haven't a day to waste.

By the time I got to the U-Haul place, it was 1:20. There were a bunch of people ahead of me, and I didn't get the truck until 1:40. I transfered stuff from the Ryomobile into the truck bed, and by the time I got back to Lowes, it was 2:20. Buying a trailer, as it turns out, is a big deal. There's DMV paperwork to be filled out, and then when I tried to pay for it, the credit card company pulled anti-fraud on us. All told, it was 3pm by the time I got the trailer, but I still needed to buy a lock and some other supplies. I hit the road, trailer in tow, around 3:45, a full 45 minutes behind schedule.

I didn’t get to my land until 5:20. In order to get the truck back to Redding by 7, I’d have to leave by 5:30. But what am I going to do? Turn around? Of course not. What I’m going to do is get to my land, drop off the trailer, and get back out in 10 minutes. Of course. I barreled down the dirt road. The going was easy at first, until I turned off the beaten path to head towards my property. That section of the “road” hasn’t been traveled much, and is overgrown and narrow and windy. My pace slowed down considerably.

The “road” twisted and turned, with hardly any clearance between trees. I had to go a few feet, stop, then scout ahead and remove debris and rocks from out of the way. Then I’d inch forward, get out, and reassess my angle of approach for a tight turn. I inch forward, then hop out to see how much room I have before I hit a tree. I inch forward, I walk around to see if the far side of my trailer is going to clear a big boulder. You get the idea.

It was clear I wasn’t going to get back to Redding by 7. If I’m not going to get back by 7, it doesn’t matter what time I don’t get back by. The place is going to be closed, so it’s all the same. I just focused on getting to my drop-off point. The minutes ticked by, then an hour. But I hardly noticed. I wearily watched dark clouds forming over head. The sun was starting to set.

Then I hit a particularly tight corner. I inched back and forth for maybe 10-15 minutes, but my rear tires kept digging into the soft dirt, throwing up a cloud of red dust. God damn truck is a rear wheel drive. What’s the point of having a truck that isn’t 4WD/AWD? It might take another 20 minutes to make this turn, but there were more turns after that, and a steep-ish grade. If I had another hour, an AWD vehicle, and another person to help navigate, then I might make it. There was no way in hell I was going to make it today before sun down. It was time to make an executive decision.

There were a couple of small clearings on either side of where I was. I decided it was time to ditch the trailer, get the truck turned around, and get the hell out. I was approximately on my property (right around the Southern border), and about 150 yards from where I wanted to be. This would have to do.

But wait, how do I get the trailer into the clearing? I’ve never tried backing trailers into anything, but I knew it was hard. Damn near impossible without any room to maneuver. There was only one solution: I had to do it myself. I placed a couple of rocks behind the trailer’s wheels to keep it from rolling down the gentle grade, lowered the stand to take weight off the hitch, and unhitched the trailer. The trailer weighs 890lb. I had maybe 100lb worth of stuff in there, so the thing weighed around 1000lb. You know how hard it is to pull a 1000lb trailer? Pretty hard, as it turns out. Especially on uneven ground. But it’s doable, and it was done.

All that remained was to transfer all my stuff from the truck bed into the trailer itself. And then it started to rain. I worried about my stuff getting wet, but more than that, I worried about the ground getting wet. The fine dust turns into slippery mud. I didn’t want to have to drive in mud. I worked hectically, and got everything transfered as fast as possible.

But I still wasn’t free. The truck had to turn around too. There was no way I could back all the way out, at least not before sun down. I won’t recount the 30-point turn that followed, although I will point out that I had to hack off a oak tree branch with my machete to make enough room for that 30-point turn. Once I was turned around, I got out pretty quickly, especially without a trailer behind me to worry about.

may land and relevant features as of Sept 12, '09

may land and relevant features as of Sept 12, '09

Here’s the state of my land (refer to image above –red box is my property). I have a trailer somewhere in the south-east-ish area of my property (or my southern neighbor’s property). It’s about 150 yards from a nice flat clearing where I want to set up camp. I also have a cache of supplies near the paved road on the north eastern corner. My next steps are as follows. I’m going back in the Ryomobile, and brining a heavy duty hand cart with me. I’ll use the hand cart to move my cache of supplies from the north side to my trailer. My trailer then needs to move about 150 yards west, over a windy bumpy road and up a grade. I think I can get it there myself by pulling it using a series of pulleys, anchored against trees along the way. I also need to get my generator fixed.

So I have more work to do before I can settle down on my land, but I’m very happy to have something resembling a structure there. The trailer’s more than big enough for my stuff, so I’m thinking of actually using it as a shelter. It’s definitely long enough for a cot, and if I add a shade structure to the side, it should make a nice little living space.

Right now, I’m back in Redding, using the internets at a Safeway (little known fact: many Safeway stores have free wifi). I haven’t decided where I’m sleeping tonight. Campground or Wal-Mart parking lot? Life is full of tough decisions…

by

Ok… so I’m not on my land

I went to my land yesterday. But once I got there, I realized that I hadn’t sorted out my logistical issues. The Ryomobile can get me to within feet of the North East corner of my property, close to the paved road. But I don’t want to set up camp there because, well, it’s really close to the road. I didn’t buy 60 acres of land to camp by the road.

So, what to do?

I revisited my options, and decided that the best course of action was to buy an enclosed cargo trailer, put my stuff in it, rent a truck, and tow it to the back of my property via the dirt road (which is too rough for the Ryomobile, but probably not for a truck). I can leave the cargo trailer there for short periods of time, for instance, when I need to go away to see my parents next week. The major downside is cost. A cargo trailer costs around $2000, and a U-Haul truck would cost about $200 for the round trip. But at the end, that’s just money. I can always earn more of that.

But, of course, things aren’t so simple. I’m in Redding right now (the nearest city) and I called up half a dozen RV/trailer shops in the area, and none of them sell enclosed cargo trailers. I also asked if they knew anybody in the area who did sell cargo trailers, and they all said nobody in Redding did. I know there are at least 3 places in Chico that sell them, but that’s another 70 miles away.

And then there’s my electrical system. Right now, I have 60 Watts of solar panels, which might give me about half the electricity I need on a good day. My battery charger is either broken or doesn’t like the inverter I got, so that plan is shot. My battery is down to 60%, and even if my panels work at maximum efficiency, I have a deficit of about 20% per day. My battery will be dead in 3 days.

So, here I am in a Starbucks, trying to figure out my next move. I could go back to my land, and just camp by the road, and deal with my electrical deficit and less-than-ideal location. The other option is to leave Redding and find a trailer where ever I can find one.

by

Heading Out

I’m heading up to my land in a bit here, once I finish packing my stuff into the Ryomobile again. I’ve spend the last few days in Chico, enjoying my friends Keith and Stephanie’s hospitality and kittehs, and recuperating/regrouping after Burning Man.

I was hoping to head up to my land sooner, but got held back with a couple of issues. I spent all of Tuesday driving down to the Bay Area and back to get my guns out of storage (which means, I actually have my laptop and my rifle with me for the first time since April). Then it took me until today to come up with an alternative plan for my electrical system, after my generator stopped working at Burning Man. I got an inverter I can hook up to my car, which I can then plug my battery charger into. This’ll effectively turn my car into a giant generator. Since this is grossly inefficient, I also went and bought a 60 Watt solar array at Costco. The nearest location with the solar panels in stock was down in Woodland, about 1.5 hours from Chico, so that took the better part of today. Sixty Watts isn’t enough to cover my anticipated daily usage, but it should give me enough juice that I’ll only need to charge the battery from my car for about an hour a day. Maybe less. We’ll see.

In any case, off I go. I’ll be back in civilization next week to meet up with my parents in Tahoe.

p.s. I finally got around to uploading photos from my road trip back West. Go have a gander. I uploaded more photos of my land as well.

by

Electrical System

Preparations for my vacant-land-living adventure are coming along nicely. While there are open questions still remaining, I have a pretty good idea of what I’m bringing with me, and have purchased a small mountain of equipment and supplies, which is currently accumulating in a friend’s garage in Sunnyvale.

The one thing that took me the longest to make a decision on, was the electrical system. It was a particularly complex problem to optimize because I had to consider a number of factors simultaneously. I knew I would draw most of my power from a deep-cycle 12 Volt battery, but how would I charge the battery? What kind of appliances do I want to run? What are my logistical and financial constraints?

My initial plan was to bring all my power tools, including a miter saw and circular saw. Since the miter saw is rated at 15 Amps (1800 Watts @ 120V), I would need an electrical system capable of peaks of at least double that (3.6kW). The cheapest way to get 3.6kW is with a gas generator, which can be relatively cheap (around $500). The problem is, these generators are rather large; they weigh 150lb or more, and take up several cubic feet of space. So, in order to bring my miter saw, and a generator to support it, I would need a new car and probably a trailer (the Ryomobile has a 850lb cargo limit, and can’t tow anything). Of course, this seemed rather excessive, so I asked myself whether it was really worth getting a new car and a trailer, just to be able to use a miter saw. The answer, of course, was “no”.

Next, I swung in the opposite extreme. I started looking at minimizing my electrical needs so that I could run everything off of solar panels. The only appliance I plan on having plugged in full time is a portable freezer, which is rated at 2.5Amps at 12V (30 Watts). Over 24 hours, it would draw 60 Amp Hours of power. Instead of my power-hungry miter saw, I can compromise and shell out $200 for a battery powered saw, but those batteries would also need to be charged. Factor in an average of 20 Amp Hours a day for charging various batteries, and that comes out to 80 Amp Hours total. The cheapest solar panels I could find that were of manageable size generated 6.5 Amps. Estimating actual output from solar panels is hard, but if they averaged 60% efficiency during 10 hours of sunlight, that would be about 40 Amp Hours. Then factor in a 30% loss in the charging process, and we’re looking at 28 Amp Hours of actually usable power pumped into the deep-cycle battery per day. To get 80 Amp Hours per day, I’d need 3 of those panels at a total cost of about $1000.

While going solar appeals to my inner hippie, it’s not the most reliable option. For starters, if the actual output from my panels is lower than estimated or my usage is greater, I’m screwed. Although not a concern this time of year in California, solar panels also generate significantly less power when it’s cloudy. Most people who rely on solar also have a gas generator for backup, so even if I get most of my power from the sun, I’d still need a generator after all. Also, while solar panels are lighter and more compact than big honking generators, they are fragile and rather unwieldy.

My final solution was to get a small, low-wattage (and therefore quiet and fuel efficient) generator. After doing research on small generators, I settled on the Honeywell 1000i generator, which has a peak rating of only 1kW, but also weighs less than 40 pounds and costs $400 shipped. Since I still plan on using battery powered tools, I only need the generator to charge my deep-cycle 12V AGM battery. The charge controller I got sends 40 Amps of power, which should replenish a day’s usage in 2-3 hours, while drawing about 600 Watts from the generator. The downside is that I have to run a generator for 2-3 hours a day, but maybe that’ll encourage me to lower my electricity usage.

Just as an academic exercise, I tried comparing the long term costs of gas vs solar. My gas setup turned out to be cheaper by $500, which is equivalent to 167 gallons of gas (at $3/gallon), which in turn will run my generator for 1000 hours, sending 40,000 Amp Hours of power to my battery; enough for 500 days of expected usage. Solar would eventually be cheaper if I were thinking of long-term settlement, but for a month or two, gas is definitely cheaper. Besides, as I mentioned earlier, it’s good to have a generator for backup anyway, so it’s a worthy investment. I can still gradually add solar panels and lower my reliance on gas, but I won’t have to worry about running out of power.

Having written all that, I’m quite surprised by how much thought and research I had to put into getting enough electricity to run what would be the equivalent of roughly half a 60 Watt incandescent light bulb. It was also interesting to actually have to run the numbers and compare gas vs solar, and I have to say, what I learned was a bit surprising. Solar may seem like the ideal sustainable energy solution, and it may be, but it’s still prohibitively expensive for many, and not compact, efficient, or reliable enough to be depended upon as one’s sole energy source. One alternative that I didn’t consider is wind, mostly because I’m not sure how much wind I get on my property. In any case, I have a feeling I will be thinking about electricity yet for some time to come, and that my electrical system will continue to evolve.

by

Things I think about…

I’ve been trying to get back into coding, but I was feeling unmotivated, uninspired and unimaginative in the dark confines of our little apartment, so I went for a walk. About an hour later, I was by the lake, and I suddenly realized that I hardly ever spend any time thinking about code any more. I don’t know if this is common, but when I’m into a programming project, I actually do a lot of my coding away from the computer. Most of the thinking behind creating, defining, and solving problems happens while I’m walking, in the shower, eating dinner, trying to sleep, driving, hanging out with friends, etc. But not any more. So no wonder I felt like I was blocked.

Instead, I’m spending a lot of time thinking about my next adventure: to go to my (well, soon-to-be my) property and spend a month or two on it. Why am I going out into the middle of nowhere? I have a few reasons. First of all, I want to get to know and enjoy this thing I blew my savings on, and also work on some improvements. Secondly, ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of living in a corner of the woods that I could call my own, and you never turn down a chance to fulfill a childhood dream. And, lastly, as I mentioned previously in this blog, I want to focus on shooting for a bit, and there’s no better place to do that than on my own personal shooting range.

In planning for this adventure, the overarching theme is “minimalist comfort.” It might seem oxymoronic, since we often associate “comfort” with “excess” and “lavishness”; not minimalism. But comfort is subjective, and I believe that my personal flavor of comfort can be achieved through a minimalist approach. That is, rather than assume some pre-conceived notion of comfort (a home, a bed, hot showers on-demand, etc) with its built-in excesses, I’m going to start from nothing, and build up until I’ve reached a comfortable level.

So, the first step is to figure out what “minimalist comfort” means to me, which is in itself an interesting thought problem. The main challenge lies in the fact that I have to define “comfort” myself; there is no pre-made model to simply adopt. I can’t treat this like a backpacking expedition into the wilderness, because my parameters are different (for instance, I don’t have to try and haul everything on my back). It’s different to camping too, because while campers typically seek some comfort, they do so in campgrounds with infrastructure already in place. My aesthetics and goals are also different to homesteaders, who might care more about long-term self sufficiency than I do (at this point). Similarly, I won’t shun technology the way the Amish and luddites do.

Having said that, I do have to start somewhere, so I’m taking my experiences from backpacking in the desert, and gradually adding things that I think make me comfortable. It’s a good place to start because there’s nothing in the desert, so the list of things to think about is similar; just with different parameters and restrictions. In any case, here’s a laundry list of things I think about all day:

  • Food – I may eventually plant a garden (once I have water) on the property, but for now, there’s nothing there, so I’ll have to buy food. I also don’t want to live off of canned or freeze-dried foods for extended periods of time, so I’ll need some fresh food. Fortunately, there’s a market about half an hour’s drive away. In general, I plan on buying raw ingredients and cooking as much as possible.
  • Food Storage – Since I don’t want to go grocery shopping all the time, I’ll need to store fresh foods for a week or more. This is one area where technology has given us a blessing in the form of refrigeration. Right now, I’m leaning towards a energy efficient freezer so that I can freeze some meat, for example, but also freeze ice (or ice packs) that I can then use to chill stuff in a cooler1. Also see, Electricity.
  • Food Preparation – I’ll bring my camping stove, but for the most part, I can probably cook over an open fire. There’s plenty of wood to burn, so I’ll just need to build a fire pit and put a grill over it. I’ve cooked some elaborate meals for myself over a camp fire, so I’m pretty comfortable about general cooking. However, I’d like to figure out how to bake, so that I don’t have to buy bread. Humans have been baking far longer than we’ve been doing most things, so this seems like a solved problem. I just need to research the solution.
  • Toilets – Whatever I eat will come out, eventually. Fortunately, I’m a dude and I can pee anywhere I want (actually, I’ll probably start a compost heap and pee on it to add nitrogen). Solid wastes are slightly more problematic, but I’ll probably do what the park services tell me I should do when I’m backpacking on their land: dig a hole at least 6 inches deep and burry my crap. Crouching to take a dump out in the open is surprisingly refreshing, but I do like toilet seats. So I’ll probably bring a toilet seat (just the ring part) and rig a chair out of it for better comfort.
  • Bathing/washing – Ironically, I don’t bathe too often when I’m in civilization, but I do like to bathe frequently when I’m outdoors and getting all sweaty and dirty. Actually, there’s nothing ironic about that: I want to bathe when I get dirty. The problem with bathing is water (see Water). Assuming I have water, I may want to heat the water, but that can be done easily in a large pot over a fire. If I get creative, I also may build a solar water heater, which isn’t hard especially in CA where there’s plenty of sun. Then, once I have warm water, I’ll probably need a bathtub or something. That shouldn’t be hard to find. I can also wash clothes in a bath tub. Then, when I’m done, I’ll need to figure out how to dispose of gray water. If I use biodegradable soaps and detergents (which they generally are), I can just dump the water, although I also want to look into recycling/reusing the water.
  • Sewage – So, it looks like I’ve found a solution for sewage. My shit goes in the ground, gray water also goes to the ground. No problem. Except, it might technically be illegal. In the long run, if I were to build a permanent structure of some sort, I’ll probably get a composting toilet so that I’m not just burying my shit. The laws might still require septic, but at least nobody can claim it’s dangerous or harmful.
  • Water – The biggest issue is water, since my land doesn’t have a well and drilling a well may cost more than I’m willing to pay right now. Given my short timeframe for this particular endeavor, I can probably steal drinking water from nearby campgrounds in 5 gallon jerry cans. If I use 1.5 gallons a day2, I can get by for 10 days with only 3 cans. Making a trip out once every week and a half to get water doesn’t sound too bad. But that’s just drinking water.

    If I want to bathe, I’ll need considerably more water, so I’ve been looking at DIY water well options. A small affordable drilling rig might allow me to drill a well myself, assuming the water table isn’t much deeper than a few hundred feet and I don’t have to bore through rock. If the water table is shallower, I can even essentially hammer a pipe into the ground. My land is pretty rocky, so I’m not sure either of these options will work well. A third option is to collect precipitation in a cistern, which is cheap and feasible, but won’t actually yield water until this winter. So, for now, how I’m going to get enough water to bathe is an open question.

  • Communication – I don’t need internet or anything, but I’d like to be able to call for help if I get hurt. I can get cell reception in the valley beyond some hills from my property, so I’m hopeful that if I could get an antenna above the hills, I can get cell reception. For that, a relatively inexpensive wireless signal booster like this one or this one may do the trick. Unfortunately, until I try it, I won’t know. More reliable, but potentially more expensive alternatives include satellite internet (then VoIP, or SOS-over-Twitter) and satellite phone.
  • Electricity – My power needs will be fairly modest. The only things I’ll have plugged in all the time are a fridge or freezer and possibly a cell signal repeater or wifi base station. Other than that, I might want to run power tools occasionally, and charge various batteries (laptop, cordless drill, phone, lamps, dry-cell for flashlights, etc). I’m still looking at various options, but a couple of deep cycle 12 volt batteries charged with a portable gas generator seems like the cheapest way to go. Since batteries are finicky about charging, I’ll need an inverter/charger or charge controller. If I plan on using a lot of stuff off of AC, an inverter/charger makes more sense, but if I don’t need a lot of AC ’cause my stuff runs on DC3, I might get by with the cheap inverter I have plugged into my car’s cigarette lighter. When I run power tools, I can just plug it directly into the generator. Either way, I’m spending a lot of time right now doing research in this area.
  • Shelter – Since I’m planning on being out there in the summer when it doesn’t rain and the temperature stays pretty comfortable, I won’t need much shelter. I’m thinking it’d be fun to use white oak found on the property to build a little structure with a roof and no walls, and hang a hammock inside. Or maybe I’d prefer to sleep on a cot. And maybe it’d be nice to have some sort of netting to keep the bugs out.
  • Fencing – The property doesn’t really have fences or signs, so one of the first things I’ll need to do is put up signs and fences. Plastic signs are relatively cheap (50-75 cents each) but how many do I need? My property has a perimeter of around 7000ft. If I put a sign every 100ft, that’s 70 signs. Is that enough? Maybe I want to use more to make sure people will see them. Or maybe I can use fewer, since there are only a few realistic avenues of ingress. Fencing is another problem. Barbed wire fencing is the cheapest, but again, 7000ft is a long ways to go. Even if placed 10ft apart, I’d need 700 fence posts, which isn’t going to be cheap. Then I’d need over 21,000ft of barbed wire if I want 3 levels of wires. Yikes. Even then, barbed wire fences are suboptimal since they don’t keep out determined humans, but do keep out wildlife (which I don’t want to do). So maybe it’s not worth the money and effort it’d require. Right now, I’m thinking of a more symbolic fence that humans will understand but animals won’t.
  • Tools – I also spend a lot of time thinking about tools I’ll need. There are a couple of hardware stores nearby, so I don’t need to absolutely bring everything I’d need, but it would be annoying to have to make frequent trips to town (since it’d take at least an hour round trip). I’ll need a shovel, ax, post hole digger, chainsaw, jigsaw, machete, chisel…
  • Ryomobile 2.0 – The Ryomobile has served me well these past few years, but the requirements of a city-dwelling Ryo and a rural-living Ryo are different. So, it’s time to look for Ryomobile 2.0. I’ll need an AWD vehicle with enough horsepower to tow a flatbed trailer, and hopefully get decent gas mileage. Options right now are a Toyota Venza, Subaru Forrester, or a beaten up old truck (which won’t get good gas mileage, but might have lower TCO).
  • Shooting – I plan getting a lot of target shooting practice on my property, which comes with its own set of logistical requirements. I’ll need to bring a sufficient quantity of ammunition and ammunition components, spare parts, and targets. I need to figure out how to accurately measure 100, 200, and 300 yards so that I’m shooting at the correct distances for my discipline (and use the correct targets). I also need to think about where on the property I can shoot safely, and how to prepare the impact area to reduce risks ricochet and fire. I also might need to think about lead pollution.
  • Forestry – By buying this piece of land, I will become a steward for hundreds (thousands?) of trees, which, in this day and age, is a responsibility not to be taken lightly. Not that they need me to survive or anything, but I might be able to help them along. I’ll need to learn to identify all the species of plants on my property, and figure out how to best help them grow. There are some nice white oak trees, but I feel like they might be over crowded, so some thinning might be in order. I’ll need to do more research or I might end up doing more harm than good.
  • The Future – Naturally, I think about where all this is heading. Maybe I’ll go out there, and realize that I can’t stand being in the middle of nowhere by myself, and I’ll come back out. Since I consider this endeavor an experiment, that’s a perfectly valid outcome. Although, I am more concerned about the opposite scenario, where I go out there for “a month” and decide I don’t want to leave. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that outcome, although it may not be feasible in the long run. Eventually, I’ll run out of money, and you can’t make money being a hermit. I might be forced to rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed, but how? Doing what? Where? Can I really go back to being a suburban cooperate coder? Or maybe I can strike a balance. Maybe I can settle down in one of the nearby cities, where I can find a job but still make frequent trips out to my property. Maybe I can find a different occupation. Who knows.

So… yeah, as it turns out, there’s a lot to think about, and there’s yet more research to be done. Then, of course, I have to make it out there before the summer ends.

Footnotes
1 – Actually, that’s what people used to do before refrigerators. They’d harvest ice in the winter, then burry big chunks of ice in saw dust until the warmer seasons, when they’d take out the ice to put them in ice boxes.
2 – 1.5 gallons a day might not sound like a lot, but when we went backpacking, we used less than 2 liters (a little over half a gallon) a day per person, so I know it’s doable.
3 – I’m starting to realize how inefficient this whole AC/DC thing is. For example, if I were to plug in my laptop into my setup, it goes like this: my generator produces AC, which then gets converted to DC to charge the 12V batteries, then back to AC by the inverter, then my laptop’s power plug converts back to DC. That’s 3 conversions, each of which wastes energy. It’s no wonder Google improved energy efficiency in data centers by going completely DC. Fortunately, a lot of gear designed for RVers and boaters run on 12v DC, so I should be able to get by with only on AC->DC (generator->battery) conversion, and eventually none if I go solar (which produces DC).
by

Lawlessness

Question: There are a bunch of dudes with guns in your back yard. What do you do?

For most people, the first reaction will probably be to ask, or at least wonder, why there are a bunch of dudes with guns in one’s backyard. But, to make my point, let’s assume that you don’t wonder why they’re there. In that case, perhaps the most reasonable answer to the question I posed would be something along the lines of: Call the cops.

So, you call the cops, and within minutes a police car with flashing blue and red lights pulls up in front of your house. An officer, or two, perhaps with their pistols drawn, step out to confront the armed strangers. If said armed strangers are of the particularly belligerent or dangerous types, maybe more cars with more flashing lights will show up on your front lawn, inevitably knocking over a garden gnome or two in the process. They may even be reinforced by a black van full of heavily armed SWAT agents. Helicopters buzz over head. The sprinkler turns on inexplicably. All while you’re sitting comfortably in a neighbor’s living room, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, and watching the whole ordeal on live local TV.

But, let’s suppose a bunch of dudes with guns show up on my property. They’re illegal hunters. Or illegal marijuana growers. Perhaps they’re harmless. But maybe they’re drunk, or stupid, or both. In any case, there are a bunch of dudes with loaded guns on my property. What do I do?

The answer is less simple. In theory, they are on my property, illegally. I may have signs saying “no trespassing” and “no hunting” or even “trespassers may be shot”. But they’re there, and I’m out gunned. I’d call the sheriff, except, I have no land line and no cell reception. Even if I could call them, it might be an hour before they show up. So I’m on my own. The law is on my side, but I am outside the reach of law enforcement, which renders the law, at least for the moment, unhelpful. I am on my own to confront the intruders. If they decide to just shoot me, it might be days before anybody finds me. The intruders will be long gone. There will be no witnesses. So maybe I’d better bring my biggest gun with me.

Living in the city, we tend to take the law for granted. The law seems absolute. Of course you can’t do something illegal, at least not something very illegal. And if someone tries to do you wrong, you’re protected. You call the cops. They show up. But out here, it’s practically lawless. Or at least, there are different rules at work. It’s not the rules as written in the books.

Where there is no law enforcement, it becomes more apparent that the rules which dictate human behavior, are often not the same as the rules encoded as laws. Enforcement is essentially the translator between laws and “human rules”. If we are motivated by fear of violence, by financial gain, by desire for freedom, then laws are enforced by threat of violence, financial penalty, and loss of freedom. Lacking enforcement, and the threats extended thereby, we are left with something much fuzzier, subjective and unreliable. We are left with ethics and morality, and lacking even that, something more primal and violent.

So, when I am confronting a bunch of dudes with guns on my property, that will ultimately be the question going through my mind. Out here, out of reach of law enforcement, can I count on these people to act morally? Or will they only respond to threat of violence? Will they just shoot me, burry my body and leave, free as can be? Ironically, maybe my best hope is that they will be motivated by fear of God. I may hope, even pray, that they genuinely believe that God exists, is omnipresent and fearsome, even when the sheriffs aren’t. I wonder if that’s why people in rural areas tend to be more religious than city folk. Maybe it’s true that guns and god are all there is out here to maintain order.

Addendum – Rest assured, if I were actually in the situation described above, I would not confront the dudes all on my lonesome. If I were with someone else, I’d have them a safe distance back to keep an eye on things, and if I were alone, I’d actually drive out to where I get cell reception and call the sheriffs.
by

Land! Part 2: What to look for in land

This is part 2 of my 3 part series about buying land. If you haven’t read Part 1, you might want to start there.

Ok, so you’ve found some listings that seem promising. How do you choose the right land? Of course, the question to that depends on what you intend to do with the land. I guess most people buy land to build their dream homes, but I actually wanted land for what is generally called “recreational use.” That includes the things I want to do like: camping, shooting things, hiking, building siege weapons, small scale gardening, illicit cabin building, being left the fuck alone, and other fun stuff like that. Regardless of your intended use, the kinds of things to look for are probably similar; the specifics of what is or isn’t acceptable may be different for you.

Quick disclaimer: Some of what I talk about below touches on legal issues. I’m not a lawyer. I’ll tell you what I think I know, but it might be flat out wrong. Consult a real lawyer if you think any of this might apply to you.

What to look for when buying land

  • Location, location, location – One of the first things to think about is where you want land. How remote do you want to be? Do you want to be near a super market, near hospitals, near a school? Or do you really want to be in the middle of nowhere? If this is recreational land, you probably don’t want it to be too far from your place of residence either. What county or town would you like to be in/near? Availability may also vary depending on location, so if you just want cheap acreage (as I did), you might have to go where nobody else wants to go.
  • Price – It used to be that price was less of an issue when buying houses, thanks to “creative” lending practices. With land, lenders never got “creative” and they certainly aren’t today. Getting financing for land is difficult and expensive. You might have to put at least 50% down, maybe more, or they might not be willing to give you a loan for vacant land at all. Some sellers are willing to carry (provide private financing), but they’ll probably still want to see about 50% down. That means the most expensive land you can buy has to cost less than, at most, double what you can put down in cash.

    In addition to affordability, price per acre is a good indicator of how desirable (or undesirable) the land is. If you look at enough listings, you get a sense of how much a particular parcel of land should cost. If a piece of land is being sold at a price that significantly deviates from the norm, it’s worth looking into. It’s particularly worth being cautious with land that is particularly cheap for reasons that aren’t obvious.

  • Access – There’s a lot of cheap acreage out there. You can even buy entire 600+ acre sections for a few hundred thousand dollars. But good luck getting to them by anything other than a helicopter or parachute. There are two parts to access: getting to the general area, and getting to the actual land. The first part is about getting to the general vicinity. Is there a highway or paved road that’ll take you to within a couple of miles (at least) of the property? How far is it from a major highway? Are the roads kept clear year around? Is the pavement so torn up that you’ll be crawling along at 5 miles per hour?

    The 2nd part is about actually getting to the property itself. In the simplest case, the land is on a public road. But a lot of cheap land isn’t directly accessible, or you might not want that because you don’t want people to easily get to your land. Either way, it’s not unusual for parcels of land (especially cheap ones) to be near a paved road, but not be directly accessible from it. Ideally, you want what is generally called deeded access or an easement1, which means there’s a legally recorded way for you to get from a public road to the property it self. There’s also something called prescriptive easement, which is a right to use someone else’s land a certain way if you’ve been doing so publicly for a certain number of years2. In the context of access to land, prescriptive easements generally manifest themselves as dirt roads that lead to your property through other people’s land. It’s not legally recorded that you can use that dirt road, but if you can prove that people have been using it to get to your land for some number of years, it could be recognized in the court of law. Downside is, because it’s not written anywhere, you may have to go to court to protect or establish your right to get to a parcel of land (or you might be able to just keep using the dirt road for ever, you never know). Also, the spirit of prescriptive easements is to allow for continued use, and as such, I found an interesting California court ruling that denied prescriptive easement to access ex-Government land (i.e. there never was an implied right to access said land by any individual, therefore no continued access is granted –is I think how the logic went). One other thing to note about dirt roads is that, they could be really rough and inaccessible unless you have a 4WD.

  • Topography – If you’ve found some cheap acreage, and miraculously enough it’s accessible, there’s a good chance it’s cheap because of its topography. I found one 80 acre parcel going for about $60k, but it was literally a mountain peak at 6000ft altitude (well, and it was also inaccessible). I’ve also seen plenty of cheap acreage in essentially a ravine, with steep inclines. It depends on what you plan on doing with the land, but if you want to build, you might want nice flat bits (although you could also build houses half-burrowed on inlines and get nice insulation). Personally, I want to shoot on my land, so I wanted something that wasn’t completely flat (so that I could use an incline as a back-stop). The best way to assess topography is to walk it with your own two feet, but tools like Google Maps and Google Earth can help you get a rough idea.
  • Vegetation – Trees are nice. They’re nice to look at, give you shade, and can be cut down for fuel and/or profit. But too many trees packed too densely, and large portions of your land might be practically unusable (or at least invisible and inaccessible) without lots of work. Find whatever balance is good for you.
  • Utilities – If you plan on building a home on your land, you might want to think about access to utilities. Actually, the most crucial and hard-to-get utility is communication (phone, internet). Electricity you can generate yourself, through solar, wind or gas. Gas, you can usually just buy by the tank. Water, I’ll get to next. But communication access is something that’s hard to make-do by yourself. Phone lines are either there or not, and if not there, you’re out of luck. Cell phone reception also tends to be spotty in most rural areas. You might be able to get internet via satellite, although it might be slow and unreliable.
  • Water may not be an issue in some parts of the country, but it is in Northern California. If you’re lucky, you’ll find land already with a well, or if you’re really lucky, a natural spring. Otherwise, you’d have to drill a well, and there’s no guarantee that you’d find much water. The local realtor might have some anecdotal information about the water table in the area, and I’m sure well drillers would too. A good rule of thumb I heard (at least for Northern California) is that if there are big trees on the land, there’s probably some water. Also, Northern California has decent annual precipitation, but it all comes down in the winter and is very dry the rest of the year. In a place like that, a cistern to collect precipitation might supply enough gray water (but not drinking water) for the dry periods. That’s something I plan on experimenting with….
  • Zoning on a particular parcel of land may prevent you from using the land the way you want to. Some zoning codes restrict building, others restrict recreational use. Zoning codes differ by county, so it is best to find out what the zoning is, and then lookup what the rights and restrictions on those zones are. On the other hand, it may also be possible to have land re-zoned. For instance, I was looking at some land that was zoned as timberland that didn’t allow for homes, but since the particular parcel had little value as actual timberland, the realtor said it might be possible to have it rezoned.
  • Neighbors – It’s worth looking around a piece of land to see who and what’s there. Satellite view on Google Maps or Google Earth might show structures near by, but nothing beats putting your boots on the ground to get a sense of human activity. If the land is near a road, you can get a sense of how much traffic it gets. If you walk on the land, you can look for signs of human activity on the ground; beer cans, shotgun shells, maybe even piles of illegally dumped trash. While on the land, don’t forget to listen, either. You might hear gun shots, dogs barking, cars, trains, and such.

    Occasionally, someone from the neighborhood might even see you and give you a holler. Talking to people who actually live in the area can be insightful and interesting. People who live in the middle of nowhere can be a little weird, but from the few interactions I had, they seem to be nice and friendly. They might tell you about potential trouble (one lady told me about illegal hunters who shot her neighbor’s cow), the presence of water and other infrastructure (“I get reception with Sprint, but not the others”), the kind of people living there (“oh yeah, that’s where that crazy church camp was”), etc. On the other hand, if you’re looking for seclusion and privacy, make sure the area isn’t crawling with humans…

  • Neighboring land – Make sure to look at parcel maps of the area, and get an idea of who owns the land around you. Generally, land adjacent to government land may be desirable, since you can just step off your land and hike or ride into public land, and you’re also assured privacy (although, the government does sell land occasionally, so it’s no guarantee). If you want to find out who owns a particular parcel of land, all you have to do is look at a parcel map to get the APN, then talk to a friendly realtor who might be able to look it up for you. Many counties also have their public tax records online, and might even let you look up tax bills by APN (which is a useful way to see the assessed value of any land –although information about the owner may not be revealed).
  • Borders – I’ll talk about this in much more detail in Part 3, but it’s worth checking the property borders. Has the property been surveyed recently, and have marked corners? Are there fences? Are those fences actually on the property borders?
  • etc, etc… I’m sure there’s a lot more to look out for that I haven’t covered. A title report may uncover some things, or it may not. In California, the seller is required to give you a hazard/environmental report, but those reports only pull from public databases, and vacant land in the middle of nowhere can be filled with surprises nobody knows about.

A lot of research on land can be done remotely. Most realtors these days can email you maps, there’s a lot of information online, and official records can be requested directly from the county. As previously mentioned, tools like Google Earth will give you a rough idea of the terrain, vegetation, etc. But at some point, you’ll want to go out there and see the land yourself, and walk around the property boundaries. Sounds simple enough, right?

Find out in Part 3.

Footnotes
1 – Legally, easements cover much more than just access. But that’s out of the scope of this post.
2 – Prescriptive easements are one of those grey areas of the law, and there are a lot of variations from state to state. Also, by nature, there’s a lot of uncertainty. It’s best to consult a lawyer if you have questions about prescriptive easements.
by

Land ho! (Part 1: How to look for land)

Yesterday, my offer for 60 acres of land in Northern California was accepted, which brings my nearly two year long search for land to a close, barring, of course, any issues before escrow closes.

Most of you might have some familiarity with buying or choosing houses, but probably don’t know much about buying undeveloped vacant land. When I started my search nearly two years ago, I didn’t know much about buying land either. I didn’t know where to look, how to look, what to look for, or even how to physically locate a piece of land. In the following 3 posts, I’ll share what I’ve learned in the process:

Part 1: How to look for land
Part 2: What to look for
Part 3: How to physically locate a parcel

How to look for land

Once you’ve decided you might want to buy some land, how do you go about finding land to buy? In my pursuit for land, I used 2 primary avenues: online, and directly through a realtor.

  • Finding land online is deceptively convenient, but surprisingly ineffective and unreliable. There are a lot of real-estate listings online, but many/most of them are tailored to houses, condos and apartments. They might let you search by the number of bedrooms and bathrooms you want, but not how many acres you want. I did find a couple of sites that listed a lot of land and offered search features useful for finding land, namely: LandsOfCalifornia.com and UnitedCountry. Most smaller realtors these days also have websites, but unless you know of a realtor in the area in which you’re looking for land, it’s hard/inconvenient to search in those smaller sites. And even if you know of a realtor in the area, they’ll only list a fraction of the land that’s available. So if you wanted to just look for land at a certain price point “somewhere in Northern California”, there’s no site that I’m aware of that’ll actually give you a comprehensive list.

    But let’s say you do find listings of land that seem interesting. Your troubles won’t stop there. The sites I mentioned earlier will provide a way to get in touch with a realtor for a specific listing. I’ve sent maybe 20 or so requests for information on listings, and rarely got useful responses. Some responded with brochures of property in their area that didn’t appeal to me. Some didn’t respond at all. Some snail mailed me brochures about their county. Only in 3 or 4 cases did a realtor respond to me personally, and specifically about the listing I was interested in.

  • Going through a realtor can also be ineffective/frustrating. Unlike houses, by definition, vacant land is spread out over a huge area, so it seems like realtors don’t have a very comprehensive grasp on what’s on the market. Even with access to MLS, they can’t seem to run a query like “vacant land over 40 acres for under $1k per acre in Shasta, Tehema, Lassen counties” (for reasons I don’t quite understand). And of course, many realtors don’t deal with land, so they can be completely clueless as well. On the other hand, I had a very good experience with a realtor in Burney, CA who spent an hour and a half with me looking at maps and telling me about the area, about zoning, about the market, what to look out for, etc. But she didn’t know about the land I ultimately made an offer for, even though it was only a few miles from the two she did list. In other words, they can be a treasure trove of information, but when it comes to actually finding land that matches a certain criteria, they seem ineffective despite their best intentions. Having said that, if you have a general idea of where you want land and have the time to just drive through all the towns in the area, one effective strategy might be to simply stop at every real estate office you see and inquire personally. It’s slow, and requires lots of driving, but is probably the surest way to actually get a comprehensive view of the market.

So, one way or another, you’ve gotten a list of land for sale. Now how do you decide what’s good and what’s not? I’ll talk about that in the next post.