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You're deciding to live like the trappers in the documentary "Happy People"?
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Dec 21, 2013 04:14
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 02:48 |
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Congrats on the job and not having your murdershack fall on you! e: tried to PM you, you have plat or no? It's saying you have them turned off. kastein fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 05:40
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kastein posted:Congrats on the job and not having your murdershack fall on you! I think you underestimate apatite. I'm feel quite confident his murdershack will look like this in a couple of years: 
Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 11:55
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The Swiss Family Redneckson
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Dec 26, 2013 08:31
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 apatite fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2013 15:39
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apatite posted:Needs more tropical birds, like maybe some plastic pink flamingos?? I would think that turkey hen decoys that have been spray painted fluorescent pink and jammed onto a long(er) stick would be more appropriate if you want to go with this theme.
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Dec 26, 2013 15:59
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          This pic right here you all have seen a hundred times before. This is my standard driveway pic, which has shown up in fall foliage photos, spring leafing, snow hitting, etc etc.       Everywhere, the woods looks like a bomb has gone off. There are branches and debris as far as the eye can see. The noise in the woods on these days was unparalleled. Several times a minute trees were falling, tops were breaking, and ice was rattling down in every direction.      These beech leaves are frozen sideways. They had frozen straight down when the ice first started, then as the tree top got too heavy and dropped over, they continued to build up ice but were frozen in their original position.               sorry about all the pics
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Dec 26, 2013 16:19
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apatite posted:sorry about all the pics You take that back. That's some seriously impressive ice though  I hope the long-term damage to the forest isn't too extreme! Looks like you've lost at least a few trees.
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Dec 26, 2013 16:37
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Those pics are amazing, and I wish I could buy my own land just to experience the wilderness again (grew up in rural Idaho on a ranch).
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Dec 26, 2013 16:54
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Under ice, OK looks a lot like NY. (But with less snow)      detail of log, above    Thankfully, the roof broke its fall...   Jew's Ear jelly fungus  Witch's Butter  http://i.imgur.com/7pZXhJp.jpg bigger apatite, if I'm horning in on your thread, let me know.
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Dec 26, 2013 19:45
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Nahhhhhhh, keep on keeping on, those are some nice pics. I can't provide enough visually stimulating content to keep these folks happy on my own, without some type of financial backing that allows me to quit my job 
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Dec 27, 2013 16:10
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324672
apatite fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Dec 27, 2013 19:04
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Ya'll is boring these days. Happy holidays I guess. Dragged home a "free" old (non running) snowmobile this weekend, see you's guys in the spring.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:08
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Happy holidays, your pictures help fuel my burning hatred of the suburbs Also does your creek have running water year round?
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Dec 30, 2013 22:49
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Free toys like that are the most expensive toys, don't wrap yourself around a tree with it.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:51
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I am loving the pics and I am going to turn a few into winter themed wallpapers for my work desktop.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:14
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Senior Scarybagels posted:I am loving the pics and I am going to turn a few into winter themed wallpapers for my work desktop. You must live some place warm?  Glad to help
apatite fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2013 00:32
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apatite posted:All I ever wanted was to perpetuate burning hatred for cultural norms. You have made my life complete, no poo poo. I'm happy you're happy. Have you thought about sticking a little pvc waterwheel or something like this: http://www.riferam.com/river/ in the stream? I don't know if there's enough flow to make something like that work but running water is awesome.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:52
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apatite posted:Ya'll is boring these days. Happy holidays I guess. I hope you know that quite a few of us actually envy you.
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Dec 31, 2013 01:06
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apatite posted:All I ever wanted was to perpetuate burning hatred for cultural norms. You have made my life complete, no poo poo. Kansas, and yeah, we had a 60 degree Christmas day, I am glad that the snow didn't melt the day before. We've only had 15 recorded white Christmases since the weather started being accurately recorded. Also I just like wintery wallpapers for the winter.
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Dec 31, 2013 05:54
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Senior Scarybagels posted:We've only had 15 recorded white Christmases since the weather started being accurately recorded. Nuts! I thought it was colder than that there. Learn something new every day. Sir Cornelius posted:I hope you know that quite a few of us actually envy you.  apatite fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Jan 3, 2014 20:12
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Was last night as brutal out your way as it was up here? My bathroom spaceheater in my  abode decided to go on strike and I woke up to a frozen shower valve, frozen tub drain trap, frozen toilet bowl, and partially frozen toilet cistern. Fortunately the only actual damage was a minor crack in the plastic mixture valve core on the shower valve.I imagine you're probably better-prepped for that kind of thing, I wasn't expecting the heater to fail so it hit me pretty hard comparitively.
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Jan 5, 2014 01:05
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kastein posted:I imagine you're probably better-prepped for that kind of thing, I wasn't expecting the heater to fail so it hit me pretty hard comparitively. God, you should expect the heater to fail comprehensively the day before the coldest night of the year, every single time.
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Jan 5, 2014 06:51
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drat that sucks. I was thinking of you today when I got that snowmobile running and almost hit a tree due to riding under the influence(in my driveway ) We hit -22 last night and it was 30 today, basically a tropical heat wave. Maybe you should plumb your toilet supply to hot water in the winter so that you have a heated toilet??
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Jan 5, 2014 11:09
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apatite fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Jan 6, 2014 20:24
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Hope you and your dogs stay warm during the cold snap over the next couple of days. It's supposed to get to the negative teens or so, maybe -20 during the night in the area.
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Jan 6, 2014 20:42
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I think he's probably about in an ideal situation. Small, insulated space with a wood stove, though I guess the plumbing out to his storage water tank might be put to the test.
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Jan 7, 2014 15:33
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Well, it's -25 here in Buffalo with the wind chill, and downwards of -35 in the southtowns, so here's hoping they pass that test.
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Jan 7, 2014 16:15
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apatite fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2014 16:38
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Living a simpler life is something I dream of. It costs a nice bit of money up front but we will see what the next couple years ahead will offer. Gardening and hunting as a means to survive for whatever reason really appeals to me. It is probably much harder than I can ever imagine but it couldn't be much harder than working poo poo jobs for poo poo money making other people much more money.
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Jan 8, 2014 20:59
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I dream of being able to move to a small plot of land and build a little house to live in. I don't want to be able to see my neighbors, much less hear them or traffic. It's a tough dream though, seeing as I hate winter and my living requires me to have a great internet connection. Count me as one of the envious lurkers.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:15
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When I was a kid I was a cub scout, and then a boy scout. I was never really in it for the badge work, which I found onerous, but I really enjoyed the wilderness trips. My boy scout troop had one campout trip per month, plus scout camp for a week during the summer, and those were formative experiences for me. I also read several books which had big impacts on me as a kid. Probably the first was My Side of the Mountain. I read a chunk of the Little House on the Prairie books too. I read Jack London's most well-known books, The Call of the Wild and White Fang. I red Where the Red Fern Grows and Rascal and probably a dozen other books I've long since forgotten. Basically by the time I was a young man, I had instilled in myself a sense of what it means to get by in the wild, what it takes, what's dangerous about it, and a combination of the romanticized/fictionalized "call of the wild" with a bunch of more practical experiences that tempered those notions (e.g., the simple fact of how dangerous it is to have something like a minor cut or a twisted ankle when you're 15 miles from the nearest phone and it's possible no other human will be down this trail you're on for the next three days). I've lived in urban (san francisco) suburban (other places in the bay area) and rural (a tiny village in southern England) settings, and I've found that I can get by and enjoy aspects of each. I love visiting other people's homes that are situated in more wild areas, and part of me really badly wants to live in that kind of setting. I crave the peace and quiet (I don't want to hear other people's kids playing at 9 AM on saturday morning, I don't want to hear mariachi music being blasted at 10 at night, etc.), the close proximity with wildlife, the sense of being in a more natural and primitive environment. I always find that when I'm on a remote trail somewhere in the wilderness, and I can look out on some vista and see absolutely no signs of humanity, I get a sort of fulfullment and ease of mind and rightness that I can't get anywhere else. Something in me says "this is how it's supposed to be." On the other hand, I very much enjoy the conveniences and trappings of urban life. I don't hate civilization, I'm not some kind of anti-technology luddite or loner. I'm basically a pretty lazy person and just from owning a home with a modest back yard, I have a good sense of just how much work it is to maintain and care for a property. In the wilderness it can be much more work. I'm also hitting middle age and I already have some health issues that, while not serious, are strong reminders that it's good to live 15 minutes from a hospital ER. I like to go out and enjoy a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant, I like shopping and museums and cultural events and bookstores and being able to call up a friend and make spontaneous plans to meet up in an hour to do something. Much of that is still available in a rural or wilderness setting, but it takes a lot more time and planning to set up and is much less casual. So I'm kind of torn. I suppose if I was wealthy, I'd keep a primary residence here in the bay area, and buy a vacation cabin on a plot of land out in the wild and go spend time there when I felt like it. Realistically I'm unlikely to ever be able to afford that, especially since I have other financial goals and priorities as well (I want to travel more, for example). In addition, I'm married and I have to take my wife's dreams and priorities into account. She does not want to live somewhere where it snows a lot, for example, and as an artist, she's also torn: an "artists retreat" sounds good, but she needs access to the cultural centers where art is actually supported (museums, galleries, art festivals), and not just country folk-art faires either, I'm talking fine art and all that goes with that. It'd be unfair to her for me to pack us up and go live on a chunk of land in the Sierra foothills, for example; being 4 or 5 hours' drive from SF is probably too far for her to maintain her practice, or even find a decent job in her field. I can telecommute, but she can't. So for me, this thread allows me to vicariously enjoy what you're doing, apatite, without having to take on the work, cost, sacrifice, and privation that would be involved if I tried to do the same thing. Romping around on a hunk of acerage, taking photos of bugs and trees and finding tracks in the snow, wrenching on a "vintage" vehicle or two, planting some vegetables and sitting out on a summer evening with a cold beer and nobody but the bees and the squirrels and the chirpy birds to bother me? Well, I will probably never have that, so I'm glad you do and I get to enjoy it with you in some way. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 21:34
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My dream if I ever hit a lottery that gives me more than a million bucks is to buy a decent tract of land (100 ha) and build myself an enclave. I will parcel it in subunits for my isolated biome experiments where I will plant whatever the hell I want (how I will get around the whole climate zones and plant preferences is still a mystery, think landscaping in Terraria). Since I'm a mad carnivore, I will raise my own cattle, pigs and chicken. Organic and in ideal conditions. I will eat small parts of said animals and sell them as a premium brand. On the grounds where I will build my house, I'll start replicating environments from other countries (plants only). It must include a mountain so I can build a proper NORAD in it. I will have optic fiber installed and have DSL in a rural area. If I have any terrain remaining I may donate for a ecotourism resort.
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Jan 9, 2014 00:56
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Leperflesh posted:When I was a kid I was a cub scout, and then a boy scout. I was never really in it for the badge work, which I found onerous, but I really enjoyed the wilderness trips. My boy scout troop had one campout trip per month, plus scout camp for a week during the summer, and those were formative experiences for me. You should read I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson. Goes very well with the rest of the books you listed. In fact Osa and Martin Johnson went on trips with Jack London, as I recall. I'm pretty sure all those books are still on the shelf at my parents place from last time I read them. Can't remember the title of it, but the one about the Alaskan husky/wolf hybrid that went all the way across Alaska looking for its master was amazing too. Oh, and much closer to the theme of this thread, the book about the young man in Maine who goes wilderness canoeing and fishing with a friend and discovers a sunken bulldozer in a remote lake, which they manage to recover and build a business around. e: that last one is aptly titled "Bulldozer" by Stephen W Meader. I can't recommend it enough. kastein fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 06:18
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Leperflesh- there are plenty of rural areas just outside major cities. I live in Chester county, PA about an hour from Philadelphia, and 2 hours from both DC and NYC. The township I live in is almost all protected land that can never be built on and it's farms as far as the eye can see, but we are 20 minutes from a whole foods and good restaurants and malls, and an hour from some of the best museums in the country. The Amish live 15 minutes in the other direction. I live on a plot of half an acre in a village of 18 houses so I do have a couple neighbors but there are also plenty of very isolated and reasonably priced homes with more land. And it's impossible for any new housing developments to be built here in the future so it will always be rural. I used to think I really wanted to homestead on multiple acres but it is so much work and having good neighbors is really nice. Our pipes froze the other day and our neighbor loaned us his blowtorch. I think we found a good compromise of rural and town living where we are. Our immediate neighbors have sheep and chickens and we have a barn and a large backyard so we can do a bit of gardening or get chickens or bees ourselves if we want. But we also don't have to maintain a ton of land no matter what, so we can take it slow.
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Jan 9, 2014 14:13
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TerryLennox posted:My dream if I ever hit a lottery that gives me more than a million bucks is to buy a decent tract of land (100 ha) and build myself an enclave. I will parcel it in subunits for my isolated biome experiments where I will plant whatever the hell I want (how I will get around the whole climate zones and plant preferences is still a mystery, think landscaping in Terraria). Since I'm a mad carnivore, I will raise my own cattle, pigs and chicken. Organic and in ideal conditions. I will eat small parts of said animals and sell them as a premium brand. On the grounds where I will build my house, I'll start replicating environments from other countries (plants only). It must include a mountain so I can build a proper NORAD in it. I will have optic fiber installed and have DSL in a rural area. If I have any terrain remaining I may donate for a ecotourism resort. You should probably look into aquaponic farming. It's hydroponic farming, but it adds fish into the mix to turn fish food into plant food. If I ever had the money and land, I'd built a good sized warehouse in which to make an aquaponic farm. There'd be a large pool of Tilapia, which would eat duckweed and poo poo out tons of plant nutrients. This water would be piped into aqueducts which would hold the plants. The plants themselves will be in cubicles that are individually climate controlled, with LED lighting tuned to whatever appropriate spectrum of light the plants needed. The thing I like about a setup like that is that it's mostly self-sustaining. The LED lights use very little electricity, so the main draw would be the water pump. Id only have to add water to combat evaporation and whatever the plants suck away. The fish live off duckweed alone, which as its name implies, grows very rapidly on the surface of the water. make a 2nd pool and use it for duckweed growth, then just chuck a heap of it into the fish tank regularly. The fish stay in the pool till they're a certain size, at which point they're taken out and filleted. I'd eat whatever I need, and sell the rest to local restaurants at a decent discount. Anything the restaurants don't buy will be sold at an on-site farmers market.
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Jan 9, 2014 15:18
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Keep being cool, dudes apatite fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Jan 9, 2014 16:33
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When I say it would be expensive I mean the upfront cost of a couple of acres. In order to do things right I would want to pay it all at first which would cost anywhere between $17g-$30g. Then add another $10g for proper tools and supplies and such so I don't starve or freeze to death the first year. I already live quite frugally, never made much more than $15/hr so most of the first part does not apply to me. The only modern convenience I might miss is being able to watch sports whenever I want and I already realize what a waste of time that is.
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Jan 9, 2014 17:11
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apatite posted:
There are a lot of hard-core conservationists around here (mega-rich people who want open land for fox hunting and nice views, environmentalists, farmers) and so even though they have different reasons for wanting to prevent strip malls and new housing developments, the end goal is the same and they've managed to work together to put most of the land under easement or pledged to land conservation non profits. There are also township ordinances that state that the minimum land for division/ building is 20 acres, so even if the land isn't under easement or conservation (and about 90% of it is), you can only have 1 house per 20 acres. Of course there are a few little villages like mine that are grandfathered in, but it means that this village will always be only 18 houses and there will always be open farmland across the street. Anyway, around here it's all rolling hills and open fields, hardly any forest, so if you're not mowing your field and maintaining your fences you'll start to get sideways glances. You can't really get away with hiding a DIY shack from view, because everything is in view. However, there are several thousand-acre+ preserves within a 10 minute drive which are public parks, and because of all the horse farms around here, all the roads need to have fences at least 20' from the street for a bridle path, so there is public right-of-way to walk on the side of any little side road along the farms for miles and miles and miles. It's great to be able to go out for walks right from my front door and not have to drive first to do it.
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Jan 9, 2014 17:21
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 02:48 |
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I feel like I bring this up too often in this thread, so sorry if I do, but: My parents did the slightly more upscale version of what Apatite's doing for their retirement. They're solid middle class, so while they definitely didn't do it on a shoestring like he is, they weren't extravagant about it. The key for them was that they owned the land for 5-7 years before retiring and moving there permanently. The first year, the land was pretty much completely unimproved. My dad went and bought a 30 year old trailer for around $1,000 from a local amusement park that used to rent them at their campground to serve as a living space at the site. He then spent a lot of long weekends and vacation weeks living in that trailer and doing the initial improvements, including clearing building sites and getting septic and a well put in. From there, my brothers and I and various friends/family would come out when we could and do things like put up a pole barn and make improvements to the land. Every time we went the site would be a little more livable. We went from a generator and kerosene lamps with no running water in the trailer to a trailer tied into the residential electric service at the site, running water, and a toilet tied into the septic. The third year, my dad laid out everything for the house site, installed the plumbing and the in-floor hot water heating within the form for the foundation pad, and had the pad poured. I honestly can't remember if he did it in the fall and let it cure in the winter, or just first thing in the spring. Once the pad was poured, an all hands on deck rotating cast came over the course of several weeks in the summer and we got the house framed and roofed (using SIPPs and trusses, so things went up really quickly). Once the house was weathertight, my dad went back to his regular rotation of long weekends turning the shell into a home, all the while putting in his last year at work. In the end, he probably spent somewhere between $150-200k on the land, improvements to the land (pond, driveway, well, septic, blah blah blah), but it was also spent over 5 years, and was pretty much covered once they sold their house in the city and moved out. Now, 13 years after they bought the land, there's a house, a barn, a workshop, various wood/tool/snowmobile sheds, a solar kiln, and a pretty robust trail network out there. All made one nail and shovelful at a time. the tl;dr is that even if you can't afford to move out there right now, if you can scrape together some cash for the land and start making slow but steady improvements, you can make yourself something nice over the course of a few years. You don't have to take the Apatite approach and jump into the deep end and one day move into the woods, as awesome as that is.
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Jan 9, 2014 18:54
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