sarbar
Trail Wise!
After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
Posts: 940
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Post by sarbar on Jul 8, 2019 7:40:59 GMT -8
It's very, very hard work I can attest. We are maybe only 75% off the grid due to our infrastructure not being all done. Every 5 gallon bucket of water I haul from our water tanks to fill the fruit trees water bags....that is a reminder how easy it is to live on city water.
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Post by marmotstew on Jul 8, 2019 18:19:36 GMT -8
Sorry hope I haven’t offended anyone. I just don’t feel like anyone is gonna live off the grid or live off the land again. Everyone has a footprint.
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rebeccad
Trail Wise!
Writing like a maniac
Posts: 12,666
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Post by rebeccad on Jul 8, 2019 18:38:51 GMT -8
Sorry hope I haven’t offended anyone. I just don’t feel like anyone is gonna live off the grid or live off the land again. Everyone has a footprint. Having a footprint is, of course, not the same as being on or off the grid. But the reality is that while a few people can do this, if very many tried, the demands on land would be overwhelming. Can’t give every family 5 acres, even if we used all the land in the country and planted people throughout the Parks. So I see this as personally satisfying, but not any kind of answer to the bigger problem we somehow find ourselves discussing—i.e., how to house all the people we seem to be stuck with, without destroying the ecosystem.
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texasbb
Trail Wise!
Hates chicken
Posts: 1,223
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Post by texasbb on Jul 8, 2019 20:35:09 GMT -8
Can’t give every family 5 acres Earth's land area is about 150 million square kilometers. With 7.7 billion people, if the average family is 5 people, each family can have about an acre. Of course, some families would get desert, some would get ice caps, some swamps, some good farmland. I'd prefer any of those to a city anthill.
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rebeccad
Trail Wise!
Writing like a maniac
Posts: 12,666
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Post by rebeccad on Jul 9, 2019 7:35:24 GMT -8
Can’t give every family 5 acres Earth's land area is about 150 million square kilometers. With 7.7 billion people, if the average family is 5 people, each family can have about an acre. Of course, some families would get desert, some would get ice caps, some swamps, some good farmland. I'd prefer any of those to a city anthill. Of course, you can’t support a family on 1 acre (or 5, most places). Since this would eliminate farmland, as well as wilderness, we could do it, and all starve to death while dying inside for lack of nature. There will no doubt always be some of us who can’t live in cities (I admit I’m one, though I can handle a town okay) and really can’t handle apartments. But for a huge portion of humanity, it’s the only option.
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sarbar
Trail Wise!
After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
Posts: 940
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Post by sarbar on Jul 9, 2019 12:47:20 GMT -8
I just don’t feel like anyone is gonna live off the grid or live off the land again. Everyone has a footprint. Everyone has a footprint. If you live in a city, your food is trucked in, and your garbage out. You need water from outside the city. And so on. Living rural isn't easy - and most don't want that lifestyle. However, yes, you can be self sufficient on 5 acres in a temperate climate. But you have to know what you are doing. This takes a lot of practice. People did it for eons. And that is why town or city living is so good to many - there is little worry about having water or food there for most. No hard work working fields. No moving water by hand. No fiddling with solar power. I should be out working right now, but wanted a break....lol
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Post by autumnmist on Jul 9, 2019 14:11:46 GMT -8
I'd like to think that the foci we feel and choose for ourselves and families are in the grand scheme of life hopefully complimentary with others of different persuasians, allowing us to pursue the lifestyles we want and choose while others pursue their own interests, often the opposite of what we would want for ourselves.
There's a 3 story so-called upscale complex under construction at a major intersection in my area. Every time I pass that area, I wonder how anyone could consider the intersection of a main interstate freeway and a state trunkline highway a desirable place to live. There's NO outdoor space that I can see, the noise level from the freeway is intense even in less congested areas. Getting in and out could take awhile, depending on the time of day.
I doubt if even the squirrels would find a place to live. There would be no fireflies to watch in the evening, probably no yard to even sit in (although I'm sure there's a high end swimming pool and workout center somewhere in the complex). To me, that's a sterile lifestyle, but the people who eventually will live there (and already live in a similar complex in that city) will probably enjoy it more than having a yard and garage to putter around in, a yard and trees in which to observe birds and critters.
And I'm sure there will be people who find this attractive and choose to live there.
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Post by cweston on Jul 11, 2019 16:15:15 GMT -8
Some other thoughts...
I live in the sticks now, having been a city-dweller (large or small) most of my life.
Where I live, we are not farmers or ranchers, but we live in a remote area, far from town, far from official help. Pretty-much every household here owns a big-ass truck, a lawn tractor (at least), a chainsaw, etc. Many own some sort of ATV. To be self-reliant is resource-intensive in ways. Yes, we could pool lawn tractors and chainsaws among neighbors, but that's not the American way, after all. (We do pool with some of our fellow beekeeping neighbors on some beekeeping equipment.)
No real point, just that living ON the grid in cities does allow for much more efficient pooling of resources. When we lived in town, the few times a year that we needed a truck, we borrowed or rented one, for example.
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sarbar
Trail Wise!
After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
Posts: 940
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Post by sarbar on Jul 11, 2019 20:38:31 GMT -8
Shrugging....last winter when we had a bad storm we took care of ourselves first, then once we were safe we went out looking to see if others needed help. We cut a lot of trees for neighbors in our rural area. You just do it! However, we have forestry chainsaws, chaps, helmets, gloves and a 4x4 tractor with a grapple for moving trees. Kirk is CERT trained, so it is considered in our area that we should step up and help if we can. Yes, it is resource intensive, but once gained you often never have to buy again - just maintain and repair. Our neighbor is much older than us, and we keep an eye out on them - he has tools he can't use so well these days, but is happy to lend us if we need them.
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Post by yosemitegirl on Aug 14, 2019 10:39:41 GMT -8
Sorry delayed response! Haha. Totally with you on the $ of land. At this point, I'm happy if I can find something under $900k or so - for now, where I'm at, I can get what I'm looking for around $700k, so that's good. But it is only going to go up!
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Post by autumnmist on Aug 14, 2019 10:49:57 GMT -8
yosemitegirl , is that what the market is in WA, in the whole state generally or in specific areas?
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Post by yosemitegirl on Aug 14, 2019 11:53:56 GMT -8
That's the state of most of the areas that are commutable to Seattle. The farther "out" you go, the better the pricing. We are in a nice house now but it is on a TINY lot (5000 square feet). The only saving grace is that our lot backs up to one of our community parks, so we don't have a house on one side! This can be had for just under $500k, so much more reasonable.
If you want land, though, it gets more expensive. I've seen 5 acre lots sell for between $200k and $350k though, in the last year or so. Which, coming from Southern California, seems totally reasonable. As you go east, it gets waaay less costly. Or south actually, there are some super cute areas south of us, but too far south to commute to Seattle, which we would love.
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Post by yosemitegirl on Aug 14, 2019 11:55:01 GMT -8
Actually north can be better as well, but if I have to deal with one second more of daylight in the summer, we are going to have a problem!
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Post by hikerchick395 on Aug 14, 2019 19:05:49 GMT -8
Opposite of McMansion here. We have a 700 square foot single wide mobile home. But we have an acre of land. In a county that has 10,000 square miles and a population of less than 19,000 folks. Less than 2 people per square mile. Considered "frontier." (Not to be confused with our phone service, Frontier, who suck.) In California.
Our area is super cute, I consider us lucky.
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Post by autumnmist on Aug 20, 2019 10:02:16 GMT -8
www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/millennials-homebuying-choices-are-changing-the-american-dream/ar-AAG4nyZ?ocid=spartandhp Another ding in the value of McMansions. Apparently Millenials aren't that impressed, have a different focus, and are changing the market with their preferences for more reasonably sized homes. Of interest are the technological effects on changing goals for homes: 1. Delivery of meals vs. meals cooked in a big kitchen. (I'm guessing they don't garden or can either). I'll bet they don't cook on wood burning stoves, either. 2. No basement workshops. (That's literally blasphemous to me; what do handymen do w/o their own workshops?) Where do they store all the wood they collect, including from building sites, or the tools they buy on sale at Man Caves? And I assume the women don't sew, knit or crochet? 3. Online vs. paper storage. 4. Electronic books, so "no bookshelves." I totally disagree with this. There's no way to substitute the pleasure of reading from paper, with the sense of actually entering the characters' lives while visualizing their environment. Nor is there a substitute for perusing a bookcase, viewing the often lovely covers, then selecting one to read. In addition, books don't have batteries or have to be recharged. There's also no substitute for shopping for books and calendars in the Christmas season. There was always a sense of anticipation - what new books are available? Which ones are on sale? And there were the spontaneous events: At one Borders' sale, response was so great that long lines had formed; at one point there was well over 50 people in line. A few servers suddenly appeared with trays holding little cups of hot chocolate. It took the edge off the inconvenience of waiting in line, and really created a holiday spirit among strangers, who became talking to each other instead of grumbling. And another time a young man sat down at the baby grand in the 2 story Borders locally and played, and played, and mesmerized shoppers with his professional expertise. People stopped, sometimes even sat down on the floor, and just listened. It was as if we were participating in an event that was so special, so beautiful and so spontaneous that we all wanted to devote our full attention to it. I have so many fond memories of Borders; like Hudson's, it was an icon in the commercial world. People still need real experiences. I'm probably a holdout on this, but I will never give up my books until I'm unable to read, which hopefully never occurs. I think there's merit, though, in considering how much smart phones have expanded and changed photography, even though there's still a place for the really good cameras. Selfies don't appeal to me, but they have some unidentifiable appeal to their devotees, and that's one pasttime that doesn't seem to be declining with the millennials. I wonder how the McMansions will fare in the next recession; they might be a bargain, but the greater upkeep costs will still exist. There might be merit in converting them to offices. One of the law firms I worked for decades ago bought a beautiful old mansion type home in Detroit, remodeled and ran it as a law office. It really was a pleasure to work there; the building had so much character, which to me is lacking in so many new buildings.
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