so you want to move to the country?

8/14/2019 So You Want to Move to the Country?

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So You Want to Move to the Country?

This is for the people who are considering moving from an urban or suburban area into the country.This is general information that I have picked up over several decades on my own or from other peoplewho also have been living in the rural American Midwest. I'll start out with dividing some of thedifferent types of people who want to move into the country into general groups and then address some

things that the rest need to consider. I have tried to keep this short and not to ramble too much like anold man.

First I want to give you a little information about my background. I grew up in what, in effect, was adifferent world than most of you – rural poor on a small farm in southern Indiana at a time whenelectricity was still being introduced to rural areas. Most homes were left unlocked, children couldwander the countryside barefoot with little fear of harm, and a tin cup hanging on a well pump wasconsidered a safe place to get a drink. I was taught that our country was the “melting pot” for all ethnicgroups, a man was as good as his word, and that we were to grow up to become productive citizens. Istill believe the values I was taught, but it is no longer a safe place to leave your home unlocked andthere are very few places that children can safely go barefoot, much less unsupervised. I also will state

that the types of people who offend me are the liars, the thieves, the parasitic, and those who practice adouble standard. If you are reading some kind of ethnic or political meaning into that statement it isbecause you have associated certain things to certain groups.

Back in the 1970's there was a 'back to the land' movement of people from urban areas to rural settings.From the various books and periodicals that came out at the time it appeared that many of these peoplewere trying to learn or reinvent things that were common practices a couple of generations earlier.Some of these people adapted and have stayed all these years since and others have found situationswith which they were not able or willing to cope and returned to their urban lifestyle. Hopefully I canhelp you by giving you some direction that may help you avoid some of the pitfalls.

The first group that I want to specifically address are the people who appear to have moved to thecountry to either make an impression on other people or they bought into the reasoning that a home isan investment (for financial gain). It is really hard to tell by looking at what these people do which of these two reasons by which they are motivated. The homes built are typically whatever is currentlyfashionable and they will have a large, well manicured lawn – usually without a vegetable garden. Theso-called “curb appeal” seems to apply to both groups.

I really don't have anything to say to the people who are out to impress someone else. As long as youare spending your own money and not antagonizing your neighbors I, and others like me, really don'tcare. For many years I didn't understand why these new people in the country did the things that theydid, but it was a way for me to quickly visually separate the homes of the urbanites from the homes of the old country families. The issue of why the yards were done the way that they were a mystery to me.I couldn't understand why someone would put that much effort into keeping a yard so carefullytrimmed when there was no apparent benefit. I was given some enlightenment about the issue at onepoint in a conversation several years ago. It was explained to me that the practice of the formal lawnsand gardens dated back to the Middle Ages when the nobility and the wealthy would do this as a formof conspicuous consumption. They were showing that they didn't need to use this ground to grow foodand they could afford to keep people to keep the grounds prepared this way. I don't know whether ornot this explanation is correct, but it does seem to fit the behavior and personalities.



The people who are buying and maintaining the largest homes they can afford as an investment havemy pity, but not my sympathy. The reasoning that buying a home as an investment is based on thehighly flawed argument that the real estate market always goes up. I remember two separate times thatthe real estate market fell on its face. One was just recently and the other was back in the 1970's. Theremay have been other times as well. If you were in a position at such a time to liquidate your assets youwould have had an overall loss. You may not be able to wait long enough for the real estate market tocome up to a point where you could sell and make a profit. The only way that you can actually get thatmoney is to sell your property and the only way you can make a profit on anything is that you have tobe able to sell it for an amount greater than the money that you have put into it. In the case of real estatethat would include the purchase price, closing costs, mortgage interest, taxes, insurance, maintenance,and repairs. As close as I can tell the only people who consistently make money on selling homes arerealtors.

There is another group of people who move into the country to get away from the city, but you bringthe city with you. The best explanation I can give of this is to compare this to camping. The line thatwas typically used about camping was that you were “getting away from it all”. I'd done a lot of camping in years past with what I carried on my back, and after I had a family I purchased a small pop-up tent camper to simplify things, but during that same time there were people who traveled with whatwere basically small mobile homes with all the amenities of modern living. The typical backpackerwould try to find campsites as much out of sight from others as possible, but the camping trailers wouldoften be placed within a few yards of each other. You can often find isolated developments in thecountry that have all the disadvantages of their suburban counterparts with none of the advantages.You've got a house and lot like in the suburbs and neighbors very close at hand, but you have to travelto get to work and stores.

If you want to have neighbors close at hand and also be close to some basic stores, and possibly youremployment, you may want to consider one of the small towns outside the urban areas. Locally theseare called “bedroom communities” and they lie within driving distance of an urban area. Thesebedroom communities vary in size from a few hundred to a few thousand people and generally have afew stores and restaurants. Living in or near one of these small towns could get you away from theurban crowds and you would still be relatively close to stores and restaurants. The biggest disadvantageto living in or near a small town is the limited employment prospects. The first place that my wife and Ibought was a handyman special at the edge of a small bedroom community with a population of a fewhundred. It was a two bedroom house with a lot that was about 75 feet wide by 150 feet long. It was anold house that sat very close to the street, so most of the lot was the backyard. We had a nice gardenthat took up over half of the backyard, plus red raspberries along the back fence and grapes growingalong one side. My wife and I had both grown up in the country and were not used to having neighborsclose, so we sold that place and moved into the country.

There is another group that I'll call the 'conservationists', and considering how much attention thatactivists get in the media I would think there would be more of these 'conservationists'. What I amcalling conservationists are people who buy property for conservation purposes with no intention of living there or financially profiting from it. Perhaps the activists that I hear about have the liberalmindset that someone else should pay for what they want to see done. There are ways that individualsor groups can actually materially participate in improving wildlife habitat or some other type of conservation. If you own ground that has timber or habitat you have laws that you can use to keeppeople from cutting wood or hunting on your property. You can also take steps in your personal



lifestyle for conservation and environment. Plus there may be government programs that will help youin your efforts.

There is a 'Classified Forest' program in Indiana that is supposed to help private landowners manageand conserve woodland on their property. You have to have at least ten acres you can dedicate to theprogram and work up a conservation program with the local state district forester. In exchange fordedicating the property to a woodland conservation program the landowner gets a property tax break.Any acreage in a classified forest program is assessed by the county at a value of one dollar per acre, asopposed to the current market value which currently is at least a couple thousand dollars per acre. Otherstates may have similar programs. The Classified Forest program can also be implemented inconjunction with a wildlife conservation effort. Even if you don't put your timbered property in agovernment conservation program you can prosecute someone for theft and other charges if they cuttrees on your property without your permission.

If you have open area it can also be used for wildlife conservation, but I'm unaware of any stateprograms that encourage landowners to do that. Open areas are used as habitat by rabbits and a varietyof game and non-game birds. These creatures find their shelter and food in the grassy areas while otheranimals, like deer, will come into the grassy areas to feed. If you have an open area like this you wouldneed to mow it at least once a year to keep trees from sprouting up and turning the area into a thicket.The way I have done this is to mow the area late in the season except for a patch that I leave for wintercover for the wildlife. In the spring when the rest of the area has grown some I cut the remaining patchfrom last season. Another thing you can do to have small game cover is to create one or more brushpiles that small animals can use for shelter. A brush pile can be built in the open where you can mowaround it or along the edge and somewhat out of the way. To build a brush pile for wildlife cover putlarger pieces down first and then put other pieces across in order to create open spaces that smallanimals can shelter from the worst of the weather and predators. Once you have spaces underneath youcan pile on additional brush in any manner. If the upper part of the pile has some branches sticking outand some relatively open areas there are several types of birds that will make use of the brush pile aswell.

Usually the state Department of Natural Resources has information available on different types of conservation practices that you can use on almost any type of property that you may own. You can getthis information off the internet or go the county extension office for that type of help.

The last time I checked into the issue all Indiana wildlife is officially property of the state, so a deer onyour property is state property and could be shot by a hunter with the proper permit, but if the hunter ison your property without permission he is a trespasser and can be prosecuted. Normally you wouldhave to have no trespassing signs posted, you would have to catch the hunter, and be willing toprosecute that person.

Years ago there were practices that hunters were commonly expected to follow if they wanted to hunton someone's property. First of all they would ask permission. Then they would let the property ownerknow when they arrived and when they left. If they got any game while hunting they would offer someto the property owner. That was a way that some of the elderly would still get some meat from theirproperty. That seems like a different era now. There seems to be a lot of people now who act as thoughanything that doesn't look like a suburban yard is public property and they have some kind of right todo whatever they want, but a hunting license or tag doesn't give them that right.



I am going to move onto a much larger group that I will call “farmers”, but it is fragmented into manymuch smaller groups that are much harder to define. The reason that this group is so fragmented isbecause there are multiple factors that are independent of each other. You have farmers that rely heavilyon the chemical industry versus organic farmers; vegetarians versus meat eaters; passive versusaggressive; politically liberal versus politically conservative; personally liberal versus personallyconservative; and large scale versus small scale to name just a few categories. There also variations ineach group from one extreme to another. As an example there are vegetarians that won't eat dairyproducts or eggs, some vegetarians that will eat dairy products, some meat eaters that will only eatsmall quantities of meat or no red meat, and meat eaters that will eat large quantities of all kinds of meat. The variations are almost limitless, so I am going to spend the rest of this document going oversome specifics that should be considered.

One of the things that you should get is technical information, and I would strongly suggest printedmaterial, mostly books. I am only going to be able to write a brief description on each of a few topicsbut there are many books that have been written on more topics that I can mention. Various types of electronic formats ranging from audio to video to text are available, but all are dependent uponavailability of power, formats becoming obsolete, and media degradation. Books can still be read evenwhen the pages are old and brittle, and can be read without power or special equipment. Electronicformats are compact and you can pack a fairly large library into a laptop, but I don't think I've kept anyof my computers operational for over ten years and file compatibility becomes an issue with newer OSand application software. I would suggest that if you find a book in electronic format that you like youshould buy a hard copy, which on anything larger than a few dozen pages would be cheaper thanprinting it out.

There are a variety of topics you should seek, ranging from generic topics like farming orhomesteading to more specific topics like growing a specific type of fruit or vegetable. Some of thepotentially most useful were first published many years ago, like 'Five Acres and Independence' by MG Kains published in 1935. You may find these inexpensively in used bookstores and some have beenpopular enough that they are still being reprinted. I do want to give a word of warning about theinformation in the old books – you are likely to find information on using materials that are currentlyconsidered hazardous, and you may actually find some of these materials still lying around old farms.When I was helping by brother-in-laws clean up their family farm we found a bottle of nicotine andtwo bags of Paris green, both compounds had been used for insecticide at one point in time but we hadto dispose of it as hazardous waste.

If you want an entertaining place to start reading I would suggest one of the Foxfire books. These werethe result of students interviewing older relatives on how they lived in the country. These books maynot reflect the way you want to live, but the people being interviewed were living off the grid beforethere even was a grid.

First and foremost, if you want to move into the country you should think about property, water, andthe issues related to these topics. In this region of the country (Ohio river valley) most of the groundthat is good for farming is also considered good for construction, so you will likely have to pay morefor the better parcels of property because developers know that they can build and sell homes onproperty in good locations. Even if you were planning on starting a large truck farming operation(growing vegetables to sell) or an orchard you wouldn't be able to turn a profit as quickly as someonewho builds a house and sells it. You would either have to have the resources to purchase what you wantoutright or you would have to find something that is inexpensive enough that you purchase it and then



make it into what you can use. I'm going to go over some things that you may want to seek.

If you are financially strapped the places that you are seeking are not going to be the places that therealtors are going to want to show, so you have to start by getting a map that shows the county roads.You can sometimes get these maps for free from cycling organizations or perhaps the local chamber of commerce, but if you're willing to pay something you can definitely get a county plat map from thecounty government. A plat map will show the outlines of individual properties in addition to the countyroads. Use the map to explore different areas away from the main highways and you will be likely todiscover properties that are for sale that the realtors didn't show you.

These properties may or may not have buildings. If a property does have buildings look at them andmake a mental note of the approximate age and condition. If it appears to be an old farmstead it may bea good site with a good well, but the buildings may require extensive repair. The type of old farmsteadof which I am thinking would have buildings that would have been constructed over fifty years ago andmay have been used by farmers who used horses to work the farm. There are some sites like this thatare the result of a farm being bought by a larger farm, and the larger farm has no particular use for theextra buildings, so they will sell the house and outbuildings with just a couple acres and they will farmthe rest of the ground. If the buildings are substantially newer there may not be a well on the site, butthe condition of the buildings may be better. Don't buy a “handyman special” unless you have theknowledge and the ability to make the repairs yourself. It is difficult to save money buy repairing ahouse if you have to hire the repair work. My first home was a handyman special. It was a veryinexpensive price, but after I replaced the roof from the rafters up, installed a chimney, replaced mostof the plumbing and electric wiring, and insulated the building I discovered that I could have built anew building from the ground up for about the same total cost and effort that I used in repairing an oldhouse. I'll mention building new structures in a later part.

A newer home in good condition with a large lot may be affordable and adequate for your purposes.Some of the subdivision style homes have fairly large lots where you could garden or perhaps evenhave animals, but be aware that even in the country the subdivision style homes may have covenantswhich may restrict what you are allowed to do with your property. Make sure that you check that youwill be allowed to do what you intend before you buy your property. A person with whom I had workedbought a house outside of Louisville with a narrow lot that was a few acres in size, and he didn'tdiscover that he wasn't allowed to have a garden in his back yard until after he hired a person to till agarden for him. On the other hand, my oldest son bought property that had covenants, but there wasnothing listed in the restrictions with which he had any issues.

While we are on the subject of legal issues and property I should mention county ordinances andzoning issues. There are a number of typical county ordinances that make sense because of health andsafety issues, but there are some that appear to be focused on appearances and property values and theyare often only selectively enforced. If a neighbor thinks your property is unsightly he may complain to

the county and you could be fined, while someone who's property has even less “curb appeal”, buthasn't had a complaint filed against him, will be left alone. I'll come back to codes in the section onbuilding construction.

To assess the quality of the soil wander around and look at the plant growth, preferably outsidewhatever yard there may be. If it is out in the open where it would be largely in the sun there should beabundant plant growth with the ground covered, and if it hasn't been mowed there should be plants overknee high. If the ground has been recently tilled and it is in the growing season there should be similarplant growth to other fields in the area. If there is dense tree growth you should see some undergrowth



(smaller trees and plants growing in the shade of the larger trees) and thick growth of plants around theedges where there is more sunlight. If there is no undergrowth it may be because the area had beenregularly mowed or livestock had been grazing the area. Look around as you walk for wet areas orsmall shallow pools of water. If it has not been raining recently but the ground looks wet there may be agood possibility that it stays wet most of the time, which would make it difficult to garden or farm. Toproperly assess the quality of the soil it takes extensive knowledge or experience, but looking at whatthe soil grows should give you a general idea. Poor soil can be improved, but it takes time and effort,which is manageable by an individual or family for a garden plot. Improving soil over a much largerarea would require much more equipment or man-hours. In addition to the prospect of whether the soilis in good condition or not there are also different types of soils, which I will go over more when Imention gardening.

I found my current property using the methods I described above. I bought a plat book and went outinto the county looking for something appropriate. There were several places that I checked out butrejected for one reason or another (cost, poor location, poor soil, too little or too much ground, existingbuilding condition too bad) before I came across a plot of almost 30 acres of woods that had been veryheavily logged and had debris all over the place. I was able to purchase the ground relativelyinexpensively (apparently the quantity of stumps discouraged other prospective builders). It took meseveral weeks of my spare time to clean up a building site and I pulled together what resources I couldand had a 28' x 32' house built. That was about 25 years ago. The property now has about 4 acrescleared that I use for yard and garden and trees have grown back over the rest of the property – andsome of them are almost two feet in diameter. Not everything I tried worked, which is not unusual. Itried growing fruit trees, but between the ground not laying well for fruit trees and diseases from thenearby woodland trees the effort was unsuccessful. The wild grapevines present when I bought theproperty were doing well, but domestic grapes failed. My father in law explained that “grapes don't liketo have their feet wet” - the water table is too high. My garden usually does well, as do strawberries andblackberries. A final note about my property: I bought it from a realtor, but I had to ask to see it after Ispotted his sign, he hadn't mentioned this property at all when I had been there earlier. The realtor toldme after the fact had the ground had been bought when an old farm that had come up on the marketwith the intent of turning it into a subdivision with a lake, but the buyer discovered that the groundwouldn't support a lake where he wanted to put one. The buyer tried to recover his money by selling off the timber and selling off the farm divided into smaller plots.

Water is a critical item. Too little or too much can be equally bad. Look at the situation at the site youare considering. Does it lay wet? Does it flood? Some plants are more common in wet areas. You canalso look for signs of debris left by high water. You can also talk to people in the area and see what theycan tell you. There have been a number of homes that have flooded locally over the past couple years,and some of these homeowners should have known better. On the other hand, can you get water at yoursite? Some sites in this area are not suitable for wells and water utilities don't have lines everywhere. Inthis area of the country we do get rain, but few homes in this area are currently equipped to collect and

store rainwater. Some of the old farm houses had such systems. Usually there were gutters that haddownspouts that were connected laterally and routed to a manually operated diverter. The diverter waspositioned so that water would drain away from the cistern initially. After it had rained enough to clearmost of the bird dropping and debris from the gutters and downspouts the diverter would berepositioned so water would drain to the cistern. Another method that was done was to have one ormore barrels positioned under downspouts, which wasn't as satisfactory in terms of quality or quantityin comparison to letting the roof rinse then collecting in a cistern. I've seen articles about sedimenttraps for cistern water supplies, but I'm not personally familiar with them. I wouldn't trust the waterquality of any surface water anymore. Decades ago there were streams or lakes from which I wouldn't



have been afraid to drink, but I haven't seen any in at least 15 years that wasn't visibly contaminated.You may be able to put in a pond on your own property, but if you don't have control of the watershedyou may have to deal with contaminates from off of your property.

Producing your own food in this area shouldn't be that difficult, especially if you're a vegetarian, but itmay take some time to build up your garden. I would guess that a well-tended half acre garden shouldbe able to produce enough food for a small family. The problem usually is a result of some initial well-intentioned effort without the sustained effort required to maintain the garden and process the food.Gardens aren't magic – you need to monitor the garden and take care of issues as they arise. Removingweeds that compete for soil nutrients, removing pests that damage plants, and watering when neededare all tasks that need to be done during the entire growing season. If you plan to save some of yourcrop to consume in the off season it needs to be prepared and stored for that purpose.

I mentioned different types of soil when I was going over some methods of finding property. There areseveral types of topsoil and subsoil and many variations of those types. The property at my home hasseven different types of loam, which is not unusual in hilly terrain. My father-in-law's farm has a siltgumbo soil. The methods that you need to use when working the ground can be drastically differentbetween different types of soils. The soil in my garden area is a sandy loam and the subsoil has asubstantial amount of gravel, and I am able to work my garden without problems almost any time it isdry enough to physically till the ground. If you till the soil on my father-in-law's farm when it is toowet it will become rock-hard as it dries.

If you want to improve your soil there are some common things you can do that won't do any harmregardless of what type of soil you have. Almost all kinds of soil can be improved by tilling in mulch ormanure, which will build up humus and nutrient material, but I would advise not to use human manurein an area that is going to be used for root crops or vegetables. That could create a disease or parasiterisk. I have found grass clippings to make good mulch in your garden and they help build the soil whenyou till it into the ground. Avoid getting grass clippings from areas that are treated with chemicals. Itseems that a number of urban and suburban yards are heavily treated with herbicides and pesticides,and these can cause problems in your garden. Wood chips from the wood chippers used to grind upbrush are also good to put in your soil, but if they are not somewhat composted before you add them toyour garden they will tend to draw nitrogen from your soil. If you have a heavy clay or compacted soilit may be a good idea to till sand or similar material in to help it break up and drain better.

If you want to do something to get quick results from your soil you can have a chemical analysis doneand add an appropriate fertilizer or chemical treatment. This is something that I would suggest youconsider carefully before doing. Putting fertilizer on the ground is like giving an athlete performance-enhancing drugs – the short term gains are often countered by a long term loss. I've seen fields wherefertilizer was used, and over a period of time they had to use larger amounts of fertilizer in order to get

the same results. That is one of the reasons why much of the soil that has been tilled for decades is insuch poor condition. Material is taken out of the soil and never replaced. Adding some fertilizer mixcan be used to improve the chemical balance, but the soil needs to be replenished like any living thingneeds to be fed.

If you are new to gardening you may want to work into it a little at a time. You'll find that you can getmore from a relatively small, well-kept garden than from a larger garden that is unkempt. Start withplants that give a good return on the space used. Tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and other salad garden typeplants are probably good to try initially, as are sage and other herb plants. Corn is easy to grow and so



are the vine plants like cucumbers and squash, but they take up more space. If your neighbors aren'tgoing to complain you may be able to have a nice garden on a town lot.

If you have a garden you are likely to have issues with some type of animals foraging in your garden.The biggest problems we have locally are rabbits, deer, and raccoons. The rabbits seem to eat thegreatest variety of garden goods, and the deer seem to work on young corn, beans, and strawberryplants. Raccoons only seem to be interested in corn when it is ready to eat, and they are quite effectiveat getting the corn just as it reaches its prime. One technique that is relatively effective on rabbits anddeer is a scarecrow, and one of the best that I have used is just a garbage bag on a post. Basically youput a steel T fence post in the ground far enough that it won't fall over, put a plastic jar or ball on topand put a large black garbage bag over the whole thing. The least amount of breeze will make it moveand the motion is what tends to make the animals nervous. The post should be about as tall as a person,or at least tall enough that the bag can move freely without dragging on the ground. The jar on top of the post is just to keep the post from poking up through the bag, and a metal can works almost as well.Look for something with rounded edges. The bag should be a 30 or 50 gallon size and black. I've triedclear and white and they don't work as well. The bags are usually deteriorated from the sun at the endof season so you probably won't be able to reuse them, but the posts and plastic jars can be reused yearafter year. These scarecrows should be put out in the garden early, so that the animals won't be nibblingoff the new plants as they come up. My experience is that these scarecrows are relatively effective untilthe garden has substantial growth, which apparently seems to let the animals “hide” from thescarecrows. I put out three of these scarecrows scattered around my garden of roughly 50 feet by 150feet size.

While we are on the subject of gardening I would suggest that you don't forget your yard as a source of food. If you haven't turned your yard into an urbanite special there is quite likely salad greens of sometype growing in your yard that you didn't have to cultivate. Dandelions are fairly common, and are asgood in salads as lettuce. Dandelions, like lettuce, are usually better early in the season and get a strongtaste going into hotter weather. Plantain, with leaves similar to spinach, is also common in local yards,but I don't care for it much myself. My father-in-law introduced me to lambs-quarters, which seemsmore palatable than dandelions, but they don't do well where the area is regularly mowed. Poke is alsocommon around this area, but I was warned when I was a child that it was poisonous. A friend fromTennessee recently told me poke was fine as long as you don't eat the purple parts, and he has evenattempted to cultivate it in his garden and yard. A number of other things may be found in or near youryard as well, including blackberries, wild strawberries, wild grapes, gooseberries, mulberries, and anumber of other native or naturalized plants.

If you choose to have livestock you can basically figure that the larger the animal the more that isrequired to keep the animal. Rabbits and chickens are the most cost effective type of locally commonlivestock that can be kept in a small area. As the sizes go up you have sheep and goats, pigs, and cattleand horses. Pigs are a little unique in that they can be kept, humanely, in a relatively small space, but

they would require much more attention and care than if they had more space.

My personal experience with livestock has been with chickens and cattle when I was growing up.Chickens are useful for eggs, meat, and a handy way to turn kitchen and garden waste into manure andcompost. Chickens do need to be protected from many local predators, requiring a 'tight' building inwhich they can take shelter in the evenings and possibly an enclosed run. A chicken run is a fenced inarea where they can forage for bugs and plant matter, and a good run will be made in such a way thatpredators can't dig under the sides or climb over the top. Cattle are useful for milk, meat, and manure,but they won't be much help in recycling kitchen waste. Cattle are pretty durable and they don't have to



worry much about predators much except perhaps dog packs. If there is adequate grazing and wateravailable you don't have to do much to take care of a cow. For the most part they are pretty docile andtend to stay with other cows in a herd. Guernsey or Jersey cows are relatively small breeds that may beworth checking. The Guernsey is a gentler breed and can easily become a family pet, while the Jerseyis an exceptional milk producer for its size. If a local farm only had two or three cows when I wasgrowing up it was usually one of these breeds.

In addition to livestock you can get meat by hunting or fishing, and I've got something to say hereabout hunting and hunters. A substantial portion of the meat I ate while growing up came from wildgame. I don't see much difference between shooting a cow and shooting a deer. I do think it is wastefulto take a trophy and throw away the bulk of the meat. I would suggest that if you are hunting for meatthat you stick to rabbits and squirrels, because deer season brings all the nuts out of the woodwork. Inaddition to the regular hunters you have the wannabe Daniel Boones who are a hazard to others andgive hunters a bad reputation. There are more regulations and enforcement on deer hunting than forother local game largely because of these people.

Rabbits and squirrels taste similar, much like the dark meat of scratch chickens. (Yes, they really do“taste like chicken”, but not the grain fed confinement chickens you can usually get in the stores.) Ahealthy rabbit has more meat than a squirrel, but they taste about the same when cooked. You shouldhave a hunting license and get your game in-season following DNR requirements for your area. Themost commonly accepted weapon for hunting either of these game animals is the shotgun, which hasthe hunting advantages of being able to do a close range kill without exceptional accuracy by theshooter and a limited effective range of causing injury or damage. The disadvantage of using a shotgunto kill game is having to pick all the shot out of the meat. It is rather unpleasant to bite down on shotwhile you are eating meat. The second most popular weapon for hunting rabbits and squirrels is the 22caliber rifle, which has the advantage of not needing to pick shot out of the meat but it requires moreaccuracy on the part of the shooter and it has a much longer range of potential injury or death. Anotheroption for getting rabbits is to use a box trap to catch them. I know the old style wooden box traps arequite effective, but I've never used the newer commercial wire cage types. When I was very youngpeople used to use snares to get rabbits, but as I understand it those are illegal now.

If your property doesn't have a safe area where you can practice shooting you should check for publicand private ranges in your area. Within short driving distance of my home there are a couple of decentprivate ranges and an excellent public range, which has ranges up to 250 yards and both left- and right-handed shooting benches. There are probably others, but I have a small range on my property and Ihaven't gone out of my way to look for other ranges.

While I'm on the topic of hunting and guns I'd like to mention that one of the few threats that we haveto large livestock in this area is a dog pack. Dog packs are one of the few things locally that can bringdown a cow and they can easily take down smaller livestock like sheep. They are a lot like human

gangs – individually they aren't as aggressive, but collectively they are capable of acts that theywouldn't attempt individually. During the day the individual dogs may be someone's pets but when theyget together in a pack in the twilight hours they work each other up and look for trouble. They willtypically kill an animal and leave it to attack another. If there is over five or six they may attack ahuman, but I think I've only heard of two or three people killed by dog packs over the past severaldecades. The only effective recourse against dog packs that I have seen in over fifty years is shootingthem while they are still together in a pack. If you can pick out and kill the alpha, and possibly the beta,the rest of the pack will probably break up and scatter, which is something to consider if you eitherhave limited ammunition or a weapon with a slow firing rate. It may be comforting to know that in the



past five years the local packs I've seen have only had three or four dogs.

Despite my remarks about dog packs I really am a 'dog person' – I like dogs and am more familiar withthem than any other type of pet. If you have any amount of ground in the country I think it is a goodidea to have a dog. Ideally a dog will bark when someone approaches, but not bite. You want to bealerted, but don't need the legal issues of a dog biting someone. There are a few ways that I havelearned to keep a dog from 'packing'. My father-in-law would chain up the dog before sunset andunchain the dog in the morning. By the time the dog was full grown he would come up to his doghouseto be chained up without being called. Some people keep their dogs chained up or caged all the time,but I don’t think that is a good idea in most cases. I've learned to take advantage of a dog's nature andtake advantage of it being a pack animal. I get a dog as a pup and I spend a lot of time with them asthey are growing and the dog becomes conditioned to me being the alpha of the pack. I tie the dog up inthe evenings until they are full grown and then I don't need to do it anymore. Even with her being anoutside dog she stays close to the house and she goes with us if we out and around on the property. Shebarks when someone approaches (alerting the rest of the pack) and chases off other dogs (defending thepack territory). At night in warm weather she often stands on the deck and barks back and forth to otherdogs in the area (dog talk – if you listen you can hear answering barks in the distance). Dogs also haveanother property that I find interesting. For most dogs, if you raise it from a pup it will try to mimicyour personality, and they are surprisingly good at judging someone else's personality. If your dogdoesn't like them, you probably won't either. I don't know if it is a subconscious thing where a person isinclined to select a dog with a similar personality or if the dog is actually trying to mimic you to blendin with 'the pack'. If you have a dog, make sure that it has food, water, and dry shelter available.Replace the water when it freezes in the winter. I generally let the dog in at night when thetemperatures are subfreezing, and she knows her rug is over by the stove.

I'm not much of a cat person, but if you have one that is a 'mouser' it is worth keeping. Rodents do a lotof damage, and the more predators working on them the better. If you have vehicles that parked outsidefor extended times it is not unusual for rodents to climb up into the engine compartment and chew onthe wires and plastic vacuum lines. On the newer vehicles with many more electronic sensors andelectrically controlled components this can become a real problem. I don't mind the 'trophies' – everychipmunk, squirrel, or mouse that is killed by the cat is one less that chews on wiring.

If you want to build any sort of building on your property you should check with the county to see whatrestrictions affect you. It seems that most counties in this area have building codes and require buildingpermits. Most of these make sense in one way or another, but when dealing with officials you may haveto deal with bureaucratic mentality. Typically where you will run into trouble is if you want to dosomething different, like using a building method other than western framing or pole construction.Western framing was developed as a construction technique after sawn lumber became commonlyavailable to enable unskilled labor to construct buildings. Pole construction was more recently

developed as an even easier method of construction. The officials who will determine whether or notyou can build something different are usually are unfamiliar with any of the older traditional methodsof construction or the newest construction methods, and may be reluctant to risk allowing you to use adifferent construction method. You may have to use a lot of persuasion or legal action to get a buildingpermit. The county where I currently live also has a minimum size requirement for a house. My housepredates that requirement, and the original part of my house would barely meet current requirements onsize. The original farmhouse, on the plot north of mine, would be too small. The only reasoning thatI've been given is that they are trying to improve property values in the county. The only benefit toincreasing property values is to increase the county's property tax base. The minimum size requirement



in this county doesn't apply to trailers, so there have been a number of trailers installed that otherwisemay have been houses built. If you want to build a smaller house you may be able to get a variancefrom the county.

If you can get past restrictions on construction methods in your area there are a number of constructionmethods you may want to consider. The first that I would suggest is masonry construction, which is notmasonry veneer. The local codes may not cover masonry construction, but most people would befamiliar with local buildings that were constructed from stone or brick, so getting a permit shouldn't bethat difficult. If you want to build a masonry building I would suggest putting the thermal mass of thestructure to your advantage by insulating outside the masonry wall. The same is true for logconstruction. There are a number of traditional and 'kit log' houses in the area, so it shouldn't be aproblem getting approval. Another that I would suggest would be timber frame construction, alsoknown locally as barn framing or mill framing. Timber frame construction is most easily seen in oldbarns in this area, so it may be possible to get a permit by showing an old structure built with thismethod. Timber frame construction may be worth considering in combination with straw baleconstruction. Use the timber frame construction for structure and fill in the open areas in the walls withthe straw bales. I would have my doubts about suggesting any earth-based construction in this areaexcept earth-bermed. With adobe or rammed earth you would need to come up with a method to protectyour structure from the rain and groundwater. It would also be worth exploring construction methodsused by indigenous peoples in temperate zones in various parts of the world, especially if you arepursuing self-sustaining or green construction.

Another place that you need to get approval is from the Board of Health. I have no argument with theintent of their efforts. Remember the visible water contamination I mentioned earlier? A large part of that is related to household waste from ineffective septic systems. Most of what they are trying to do isrelated to the reduction of the spread of disease, but it has the side effect of taking steps to improvewater quality. The problem is that locally they only seem to understand one method of doing that,which happens to be one type of leach field system. If you are interested in setting up a compostingtoilet or a system with separate processing for greywater and blackwater you may have some difficultyin getting approval.

Now that you've gotten this far I am going to hit you with a question. How are you going to pay forthis? Remember what I told you about limited employment prospects? Well, there is another issue aswell. The pay scale is typically lower for jobs in the bedroom communities than at the same type of jobs in the larger urban areas. I worked as a machinist, a tool designer, and a teacher, and except for abrief period right after I bought my current property I have driven at least 20 miles each way to every job that I have had since I've been married. Some of these jobs I drove more than 50 miles each way. Ican't vouch for what food service pays because it has been a few decades since I've done that type of work. It is possible that the big franchise places may pay the same in the city and rural areas. Food

service and farm labor were exempt from minimum wage back when I worked those types of jobs.

If you are considering working from home or getting an income from you property I want to warn youthat the most common types of income in these categories are intermittent or seasonal. Farmers andsmall business owners are familiar with the “feast or famine” nature of their income, and it requiressome serious financial management skills. Being self employed also means that you have to plan foryour own health care and retirement benefits. I wouldn't bet on the government for your retirement,because what the government has collected from the people who have worked all their lives is alsobeing used to cover the people who haven't worked at all, plus pay for the government. It doesn't take a



genius to figure out that it is a losing proposition for those who work. As far as any change in healthcare from the government is concerned I would suggest that you take a look at their success rate increating programs to correct situations. You may have an idea on how you can create a steady income,but for the most people I would suggest getting a regular job while you are paying for your place.

My advice to anyone is that if you don't have a technical skill work on getting one. In the meantimeyou need to get employment even if the pay is miserable. I've been there; it gives meaning to the term“long term goals”. Most of the people that I personally know that have their own property had to work at a regular job in order to pay for their property. The more skill and experience that you have the betteryour prospects are that you can get a better paying job. Even at that you need to be adaptable and keeplearning. I was in my mid-30's before CAD started becoming commonplace in industry and I knew thatI had to learn how to use the software if I was going to remain in my occupation. A lot of the peoplewho were about my age didn't want to learn something new and they elected to change occupations ormove to a company that hadn't gone to CAD yet. The same thing happened with machinists and CNCmachines. I think you can see the pattern in this.

When it comes to paying for your property you have consider your expenses as well as your income. If you had a habit of eating out, even if was just fast food, you will need to reconsider what you eat. It ismuch cheaper to pack a sandwich at home than go out and buy one at lunch. Do you really need to goto the game, or the concert? Pick your priorities. You probably have limited financial resources, andyou definitely have limited time. How you spend both will determine what you have in the long run.

If you have your place in the country you are probably also planning on working on your place. Thiscalls for work clothes and tools. The clothes you wear while working are undoubtedly going to getsoiled and they may get stained or torn as well, so you would be advised to have clothes for thatpurpose that you don't care about that much. There are a variety of places you can get work clothes, butI would suggest that unless you are worried about your appearance or need some sort of specialty itemsI would suggest discount stores, second hand stores, or military surplus. I've been partial to the forestcamo BDUs. Oil and grease stains don't show up that much, they are durable, and they are relativelyinexpensive. The appropriate gloves and shoes depend upon what type of work you are going to bedoing. I would also suggest bandannas or hats with a fabric headband, to help keep perspiration fromrunning into your eyes or dripping on the inside of your glasses.

The tools you should have depend upon what tasks you intend to do and how much of it you will bedoing. In many circumstances hand tools are quite adequate, and in some cases will do a better job thanpower tools. Regardless of whether you are going to buy hand tools or power tools keep in mind that agood quality tool is worth more to you than a cheaply made tool. A cheap tool is not a bargain if youhave to replace it. If you buy powered equipment that has a gasoline or diesel engine of any kind thekey word to remember is lubrication. Adequate and proper lubrication is the single most important

factor in the longevity of motorized equipment. Using the correct fuel mix in two-cycle engines andtopping up and changing oil on four-cycle engines can make the difference between an engine lastingthree years or lasting thirty years.

The basic tools you need for gardening are a long handled round nose shovel, a hoe, and a garden rake.There are other tools you can get, but these are the basics, and they are adequate to do a small garden.If you are gardening in flower boxes or patio containers a garden trowel and hand cultivating tools arethe scaled down versions. If you have a larger garden there are wheeled cultivators which do a decent job of keeping the soil in between the rows loosened and weed free if you keep the garden cultivated on



a regular basis. If you have a very large garden or want a power tool I would strongly suggest checkingout a rotary tiller. They are motorized tools that are useful for initial preparation of the garden andcultivating between the rows during the growing season. If you are going to even a larger scale or haveto deal with something like hauling in firewood from a wooded area you may want to consider atractor.

Even though there are many different sizes and styles of tractors I want to initially divide them into twocategories of “tricycle gear” and “wide front”. The tricycle gear tractors, so called because of the closeset wheels in front, were initially designed for tilling crops that are planted in rows and they do anexceptional job of plowing and cultivating row crops. The biggest drawback of the tricycle gear tractoris that they are more prone to rolling over than the wide font tractors, which have the front wheelsspaced about the same distance apart as the rear wheels. The wide front tractors seem to be morepopular than the tricycle gear tractors but they also can roll over, just not quite as easily. In addition torolling a tractor on a hillside they also can be rolled from a load being improperly applied. Never try topull a heavy load connected higher than the hubs of the rear wheels. The stock drawbar for any tractoris in a safe location, low on the tractor. For decades farm tractors have been rated by the size of plow itis supposed to be able to pull and when I was growing up that seemed to be more important than therated horsepower of the tractor. A two-bottom tractor is rated to pull a plow with two moldboards and aten-bottom tractor is rated to pull a plow with ten moldboards. In between riding mower/garden tractorsand farm tractors there is another group of tractors that are in a class called “compact utility” and arequite popular with small property owners. The compact utility tractors seem to run from about 20horsepower to about 45 horsepower and because of their popularity tend to be more expensive for theirsize new or used than the larger tractors. If you are shopping for a tractor you should consider what youplan to do with the tractor so you don't get one that is too small or excessively large. If you arechecking out a tractor you should consider the condition of the tractor, parts availability for the tractor,and if you can get the attachments you want to connect to this tractor. There were a variety of methodsdeveloped to connect implements, or attachments, to old tractors, but the newer implements forrelatively small tractors connect to a three point hitch system. There were conversion kits made forsome of the old tractors. The Allis Chalmers WD that I owned had a three point hitch conversion. Theconversion worked, but it wasn't as effective as the three point systems on tractors that weremanufactured with them. While on the subject of implements I want to mention that many implementshave components that require lubrication with grease or heavy oil, as does the three point hitch.

At the present time there are three common styles of tractor tires. There is a turf tread, which has adiamond pattern and is usually selected because it doesn't mark up lawns as much as the other types;there is the R1, which is a bar lug agricultural tire which is best suited for farm applications, and thereis the R2, which is a different style of bar lug used extensively with construction equipment. All of these tires are available in narrow or wide sizes. The narrower tires tend to sink into soft material andget traction on firmer material underneath and the wider tires provide more surface area to reduce how

much the equipment sinks into softer material. The wider tires are often lower profile as well, whichlowers the center of gravity and reduces the risk of rollover. The weakness of turf tread is traction, andon slick material they tend to spin without digging in, but that also reduces how much the tires wouldtear up sod, which is the purpose of this type of tire. The R1 farm tire is designed for traction in avariety of conditions and the tire lugs are designed to shed soft material as the wheel rotates and beclear as it engages the tire engages the surface on the next revolution of the wheel. This allows the R1to get much better traction in wet or soft soil, but it can tear up sod badly in the process. The R2 tiresdon't get as much traction in soft materials as the R1 tires because they don't shed the material as wellas the R1 tires, but the R2 tires wear much better than the R1 tires on hard surfaces such as pavement.



Selecting the wrong type of tire is one of the mistakes that I have made. I ordered a compact utilitytractor several years ago with a front loader and R2 tires. I had been advised that the R2 tires wouldhandle more weight than the R1, but now I don't know if that is necessarily the case. In any case, Idiscovered the traction issue after I had started using the tractor. Then I learned that it would be ratherexpensive to change wheels and tires to R1, so I have learned to work around it.

One of the things that you are likely to do with a tractor if you have an open area is mow, and I want togo over some of the basic types of mowing equipment. The first I want to mention is the sickle barmower, which has a stationary beam with protrusions on the front and a reciprocating bar with anumber of triangular blades that cut with a scissors action with the protrusions on the stationary beam.The advantages of this type of mower is that it requires less power to cut fairly thick material and theheight of the material being cut has no effect on the operation of the mechanism. The drawback is thatthis type of mower is known for injuring animals. I've seen a number of three legged farm dogs thathad gotten too close to this type of mower in operation. This type mower is still available and this typeof cutting head is still used on machines like combines. The next type of mower I want to mention is arotary mower, which has one or more blades each of which rotate about its own vertical shaft. Thecommon lawnmower used on yards uses this type of system, and a “bush hog” is a type of rotarymower that has blades mounted on pivots so they can swing back if they strike a hard item such as atree stump. The advantages for this type of mower are that it is somewhat safer from being directlyinjured by the cutter than the sickle bar and that it can make a smoother looking cut. The drawbacks arethat it requires substantially more power to operate, it can eject objects at high speed which may causedamage or injury, and when cutting extra thick or tall material requires an immense amount of power orit will bog down and stop. The last I want to mention is a flail type mower, which has many pivotingangled metal blades mounted on a rotating horizontal shaft. The only advantage I am familiar with onthis mower is that it is safer than either of the other two I've mentioned. The appearance of the cuttypically is not quite as good as the rotary mower can be, and it requires even more power to operatethan the rotary mower. The one flail mower with which I was slightly familiar seemed to have amaintenance problem. It was continually losing blades, which I presume were left somewhere out inthe mowed area.

The traditional tillage equipment locally used with farm tractors are plows, to roll the soil over, anddisk harrows, to cut the soil into smaller chunks and level the surface. There are components on each of these pieces of equipment that need to be cleaned and greased in order to maintain effective operation.Greasing the many bearings in a disk harrow is more critical to operation than greasing the coulters onthe plow. Another type of tractor attachment currently available is a rotary tiller, which will prepare thesoil as well as the use of the plow and disk harrow, but it will not penetrate as deeply into the soil as theplow. Another thing to consider is the cost of the rotary tiller, but if you are considering buying all newequipment the rotary tiller may be competitive with buying both a plow and a disk harrow.

Another set of tasks commonly performed with a tractor is moving material. Leveling driveways and

clearing snow is usually done with a blade which typically attaches to the three point hitch on thetractor. Scooping up and moving dirt can be done with a slip scoop or a front loader. A slip scoopmounts on the rear of the tractor and stays low, which keeps the center of gravity lower, and it is one of the most inexpensive attachments for moving dirt. A front loader mounts to the front part of the tractor,is more convenient to operate, and can lift loads much higher, but it is substantially more expensive andcan drastically shift the center of gravity and tip the tractor. If you are going to be pulling logs orstumps you should be using a chain and if you are using a tractor to bring in firewood you would needa trailer or wagon.



If you are shopping for a tractor you may discover that a new tractor with attachments may cost asmuch as your property did. You may decide to look for a used tractor and there are factors that youshould consider. A diesel engine in good condition will last longer with proper maintenance than agasoline engine, but a gasoline engine in poor condition can be made to run more easily than a dieselengine in poor condition. As far as fuel is concerned the price of gasoline in comparison to diesel fuelseems to vary quite a bit. In the past diesel was more inexpensive than gas, but now diesel is often moreexpensive. You should check to determine if service parts are available for a used tractor beforepurchase. Parts are usually available for brands that are still being sold new, but that isn't always thecase. If you aren't mechanically proficient you probably should stay with more recent tractor models,the same as you probably would for buying a used car.

I should mention storage while I'm thinking about fuel. Whatever type of fuel you are using should bestored in a manner that reduces the risks of fire and explosion. One of the common methods that I haveseen as I was growing up was elevated fuel tanks away from buildings that would allow fuel to bedispensed into equipment by gravity. A problem that has developed from this type of storage is fueltheft. If locks and barriers are used the locks get cut and the barriers removed. The thieves often takewhat they can and leave the remainder of the fuel draining onto the ground. A method around this hasbeen in-ground tanks with locked electrical pumps. The power to the pump is typically turned off andlocked in a remote location so that the pump can't be hot-wired. Obviously this is an additionalexpense. If you don't use enough fuel to justify a bulk tank I would suggest a number of fuel cans. Ihave three 5 gallon fuel cans for my diesel tractor, another three 5 gallon fuel cans for gasolinepowered equipment, and a few smaller fuel containers for other equipment. I keep these in a lockedbuilding separate from the rest of my stuff. The storage structure is stoutly built, metal clad, and ventedto reduce heat and disperse fuel vapor. Since it looks like a tool storage shed it doesn't attract attention,and I don't use enough fuel for the small quantity stocked to be an issue. Another advantage of this typeof storage is that the smaller containers can be carried to refuel equipment that is some distance fromthe buildings. If you are going to be storing diesel or gasoline for an extended period of time youshould consider using an additive for the fuel to improve and extend its storage life.

You may need tools for cutting weeds, brush, and wood. There are a variety of mowers and weed-eatersavailable to cut grass and weeds, but if your property is badly overgrown you may want to considerusing a scythe. The scythe is the two handed mowing tool that has been around for centuries and issurprisingly effective at cutting weeds and brush. The blade is swung at an angle so that it cuts with asawing action, plus it is heavy enough and sharp enough that it can cut through brush and weeds even if you are not using it correctly. I have personally used one to cut through saplings close to an inch indiameter and weeds over two inches in diameter without difficulty. A new scythe will cost about asmuch as a good weed-eater, but it will cut through tougher growth than any string trimmer. You have tohave a very sharp blade and the right technique to cut light grass; otherwise the grass will just lie over.

The big drawback to the scythe is that it can very dangerous to someone standing close. I've buried thetip of the blade up to about three inches into stumps at one point or another. If someone had beenstanding in those locations it would have definitely required an emergency room visit. If you are goingto be cutting woody brush you should look into lopping pruners, bow saws, and axes. These arerelatively inexpensive and can be used for removing brush and small trees. I wouldn't suggest buying achainsaw unless you really have enough work to justify one. If you have a lot of wood and brush toclean up or you are cutting firewood it is undoubtedly the best tool for the job, but if you are ignorantor careless it can cut you faster than any other blade I've ever seen. If you have a tree that threatens abuilding or utility you probably would be best advised to hire professionals to remove it unless you are



certain that you have the skill and experience to drop the tree where you want it. If are cutting firewoodI would also suggest the purchase of a maul and splitting wedges. Don't drive steel wedges with the flaton the back of the ax head because it will deform the head. Even on good axes it is usually only thearea of the cutting edge that is hardened.

I've got some tips for taking care of your tools that you might not learn somewhere else. Any tools thatwork in the ground should have any mud and dirt scraped off before storage. A putty knife is handy forthis task. It is much easier to get the mud off before it dries on hard, plus mud tends to hold moisture onthe metal and tends to make it rust. Some people also coat the metal with a light coating of oil toprevent rusting, and a cheap paintbrush in a can containing oil is handy for doing this. A lot of equipment requires lubrication from a grease gun and my father used to have a metal can with the topand bottom cut out mounted on his tractor in which he would hang a grease gun. The can was a littlelarger in diameter than the grease gun and the handle on the grease gun kept it from falling through.I've mounted a can on the wall just inside the door of my barn for the same purpose. It keeps the greasegun handy and minimizes the mess normally associated with storing a grease gun. Learn how tosharpen the blades of your tools correctly and keep them sharp. Sharp tools require less effort to useand you are less likely to get hurt than by using a dull tool. You tend to use excessive force andimproper technique when you are using dull tools. There are some tools, like saws, that you may findmore practical to have someone else sharpen because it requires additional equipment that you may notpossess.

I want to go over some basic care for engines on small equipment. I mentioned earlier that lubricationis critical to engines. I should add that includes changing the oil in small equipment. I have seen anumber of people who either never check the oil in a small engine or only top it up. It really needs to beregularly changed. Old oil will contain material that will cause increased wear on an engine. Changingthe oil could make the difference between a lawn mower or rototiller engine lasting two or three yearsor lasting fifteen or twenty years. Another thing to do is to drain the fuel from the system at the end of the season of use. If you get all the fuel out of the carburetor it won't get gummed up from old fuel. Acouple of things that can cause problems but don't require constant attention are air filters and spark plugs. As air filters get loaded with dust and debris the amount of air that can come through is reduced,which can cause the engine to use more fuel and smoke. In an extreme case a clogged air filter willkeep an engine from running. Fortunately most air filters are relatively easy to clean or replace. Similaris true of spark plugs. They don't require constant attention, but as they deteriorate the operation of theengine will become degraded. Spark plugs in extremely poor condition can prevent an engine fromrunning. An experienced person can tell quite a bit about an engine by the appearance of the spark plugs after they are removed. Spark plugs are also relatively inexpensive and easy replace on smallequipment.

Some people are trying to get off the grid or be self sufficient to some degree. It wasn't that long agothat there wasn't a grid in rural areas. It wasn't difficult to find homes in rural southern Indiana thatweren't connected to the grid, even though it was available, in the late 1950's. The Foxfire books, whichI mentioned earlier, were based on interviews done with older people who had lived the off the gridlifestyle. Even though the people interviewed lived in a different part of the country the things theydescribed would largely apply to the Midwest as well. If you have relatives that are over 75 years oldthat had lived in the country during that time they can probably tell you quite a bit about it and theywould probably appreciate the visit. The problem is that many of us who would like to be off the gridor be more self sufficient have things that we want to keep that wasn't available to people living off the



grid at the time.

Television, computers, video games, microwave ovens, central heat, and air conditioning in thosehomes were completely unavailable. A radio, if they had one, would have been battery powered. Arefrigerator, if they had one, would have been propane or kerosene powered and would have had asmall refrigerated space. The cook stove would probably been wood-fired or propane. There were somekerosene cook stoves, but the ones I saw didn't have an oven. It was possible to have running waterwithout electricity but it wasn't commonly done because the water had to be pumped to an elevatedtank where it was stored until used, and then gravity would send it through the pipes to where it wasused. Flush toilets were even rarer.

Let’s go over how the essential needs of shelter, water, and food were handled during 1940's and 1950'sin rural Indiana. It may give you some ideas as to where you can adapt for your purposes. There wassupport from off the farms. Various foods, fuel, and other material items not produced on the farm werepurchased in nearby towns, but not to the degree that is done at the present time.

A lot of people today don't realize that old country houses were not warm places during the winter.Generally the kitchen and another room or two would have heat from some source and the rest wouldbe completely unheated. The heat source may have been a wood or coal fired stove, an oil fired heater,a fireplace, or a gas fired space heater, roughly in the order of probability. The people in the housewould be dressed warmly and would generally stay in the warmer rooms until they were ready to retirefor the night. The house was usually uninsulated, but weather-tight enough to keep the weather out.Bedrooms were usually cold and you would rely on a number of quilts and blankets to keep warm.During the summer the house would tend to heat up during the day, so steps were taken to minimizehow hot the house would get. Trees were kept in the yard near the house to provide shade and coolerair, numerous doors and windows were opened for ventilation, if the house had a porch it was used asan outside room, and if there was a summer kitchen it was used to keep the cooking fires from heatingthe house. Most lighting was from oil lamps.

Water was usually pumped by hand or, if it was viable in that location, a windmill. The only runningwater in a rural house before electricity of which I was aware in the county where I grew up waspumped by a windmill to a second story level tank and fed by gravity to the first floor of the house. Itwas unique enough that people went past the house to see the setup. Water was carried to livestock orthey got their water from ponds and springs.

During the growing season a large portion of the food was what was available at the time. Fruits andvegetables were used as they came in season. Meat, fish, and dairy items that were not available on thefarm would have been purchased, but much of the meat was likely to have been small livestock or wildgame. Larger livestock and large game would have been slaughtered during cooler weather in the fall toreduce spoilage and reduce insects. Before refrigeration the meat from larger animals would have been

canned, dried, or cured. The curing process involved removing water from the meat by smoking,salting, or using sugar – the results are a bit different than drying, which results in jerky. Some gardenproduce, like green beans and tomatoes, were canned and other produce like potatoes and onions werestored in a cool environment out of the light. Fruit like strawberries and blackberries were often madeinto jams, and fruit like grapes were often stored as juice, but both were usually stored in canning jars.

The only initial changes that resulted from electricity were electric lights and electric motors. Theelectric motors were used in fans, to run pumps, and to operate refrigeration compressors. Initially thefans were just used to circulate cooling air, and it was later that they were used to circulate heated air.



Electrically powered well pumps used with pressure tanks were the basis for running water in mosthomes. Motors running refrigeration compressors drastically changed how food was handled. Thetransition from canning garden produce to freezing garden produce was very rapid, partially becausethe food tasted better and largely because it required much less labor. The ease of freezing fruit,vegetables, and meat very rapidly reduced the other food storing practices to almost nothing. Themotorized washing machine did the same kind of thing to laundry. There were other types of kitchenequipment and sewing machines that became motorized as well. During the 1950's many of thesevarious devices were being marketed as “labor saving appliances”.

There is probably a good trade-off between the way we live now and the way we lived then, but somepeople don't have a grasp of the difference between wants and needs. One example that comes to mindis a parent of one of my students back in the mid-1990's. I had a class where I had assigned eachstudent to draw up a complete set of house plans, and I had assigned small houses from a governmentpublication on low cost homes so that the students could complete this assignment during the course.During the open house a mother of one of my students looked at the floor plan her child wasdeveloping and exclaimed “How could anyone live in a three bedroom house with one bath!”. I think she was serious. She was just an example, not an exception. There are a lot of people whose realitycheck has bounced, and I refer to this situation as the Marie Antoinette syndrome. Someone maydisagree with me, but I think that it is quite possible that Marie Antoinette wasn't being intentionallycruel when she said “let them eat cake”. From what I've seen of people I think it is quite possible thatshe couldn't grasp that people were actually starving because it was so alien to her personalenvironment. Of course that didn't keep an outraged population from taking her head. I run into a lot of people who have no idea of what is required to maintain their current lifestyle, and they often reallydon't want to know.

The approach I would suggest would be to examine how you will provide absolute necessities likeshelter, water, food, and basic clothing and then add other items by your personal priorities. If you planto embrace some kind of sustainable green lifestyle it would influence how you approach these issues.

Sometime back I was guided to a small compound, for lack of a better description, that had severalsmall structures built using different techniques. Due to where they were located I doubt if thesebuilding had been built with local government approval, but I found them interesting. There was arelatively wide grassed trail that led to the site, large enough to be mowed with a farm tractor androtary mower, but no sign of recent vehicle traffic. Uphill from the site of the buildings there was a wellwith a tripod, which appeared to be intended for hoisting water with some type of container. Furtherdown the slope was the site with four buildings with different types of construction. The first building Iencountered was a two room building of cord-wood construction, which appeared to be a combinationof kitchen and bathhouse. As I faced down the slope there was a straw bale building on the left, a framebuilding on the right, and a privy at the lower end of the building site.

The door on the cord-wood building opened into a small kitchen with a window on the opposite side.The kitchen had a wood burning cook-stove, and the rest of the kitchen looked like something I couldhave seen as child except for the cord-wood construction. The kitchen was rather close quarters, andwould be awkward for more than one person to work. There was a door that went from the kitchen tothe bathhouse side of the building, which contained a small wood burning stove and an old-fashionedsheet metal bathtub. The lighting in the bath area was limited, coming from several colored glassbottles embedded in the cord-wood walls, so it was rather dark but not foreboding. The stove appearedto be either a box stove or laundry stove and the tub was a long oval shape of the same type of



construction used on wash tubs but more of a size and shape that someone could bathe in comfortably.

The straw bale building appeared to have a pole frame structure with a platform built level and fastenedto the poles slightly above the ground on the uphill side. It was the largest building of the set andappeared to be about 20 feet by 24 feet or less with a loft across the back part of the building. Most of the windows were on one side, with a row of windows below and clerestory windows above. Windowsand doors appeared to have been salvaged or built from salvaged materials. The only electrical itemthat I spotted was a battery powered television, which had an antenna fastened to the upper part of thebuilding. The lower part of the building was divided into an L-shaped living/casual dining area and asleeping area that filled out the remainder of the rectangular floor area. There appeared to be a sleepingloft over the back part of the main floor. The roof seemed to be covered with some type of membranematerial largely covered with a soil mulch mixture with various plants growing on it. Even though itwas sunny and warm outside this building it was quite comfortable inside.

The frame building seemed to be a workshop and tool storage area, built largely with 4x4 framingcovered with planks. On the downhill side there was a covered area a little smaller than a carport thatappeared to be an outdoor working area.

Downhill and in between from the frame and straw bale buildings was a privy. I seemed to be builtsimilar to the ones with which I had been familiar. Supposedly outhouses, or privies, were no longerlegal except for old ones that existed before the laws changed, but you can actually find plans to buildprivies on government web sites. The government privy plans all seem to have the feature of a masonrypit. A person may be able to make a convincing argument to a local board of health for a compostingtoilet if you can show them that the government still supports the construction of privies.

There appeared to be some kind of garden that went from the straw bale building to the privy with alow woven wire fence in front, but it looked like it may have been too shaded to have been an effectiveplace to grow vegetables.

I didn't see anything that looked like a root cellar or some sort of place for long term food storage, but Iwas only at this place for a few minutes and may have missed that feature. The site looked like it couldhave been a work in progress, made up of small buildings that had been built independent of eachother, so there may have been plans to build additional buildings.

There are a few things I would suggest to someone who would consider something like this. First of allI would strongly suggest that a cooking area would be connected to the main living area as opposed tobeing in a separate building. Summer kitchens were often built separate from the main living space, butthey were in addition to a regular cooking area in the house and were used to minimize heat generatedin the house during warm weather. Another thing I would suggest is to look at old homes which werebuilt in this area, mostly to get an idea of layout and size. There are several that are in various state

parks that have been restored close to the way they were used originally. Many would be consideredquite small, but families lived in them under conditions acceptable at the time. Several of the olderbuildings had fireplaces that were used for cooking and heat, but I wouldn't suggest copying the waythe fireplaces are built exactly. Whether or not the fireplace worked well was sometimes hit and miss,you may want to check proportions of known effective fireplaces like the Rumford and others.

Food storage of some type would need to be considered. The site I described above was not constantlyinhabited year round, so food storage may have not been an issue. They may have carried ineverything. In this setup they could have dried food for storage or canned food in jars, but I didn't see



any signs of either having been done. It doesn't require power to keep food after it is canned, but it doeshave to be protected from freezing. Usually things that had to be protected from temperature extremeswere stored in a cellar or basement. For small quantities of food a cooler could be used as an ice box,and modern chest type coolers are much better insulated than the old ice boxes were. I didn't spot anon-electric refrigerator, but I could have missed it if they had one.

The well should have been more protected to prevent contamination. The simplest way would havebeen to have a hand pump and cover on the top of the well, which would keep out small creatures andsuch plus make it much easier to get water out of the well.

There is an issue of electrical power. The site I visited had no apparent external power, and I didn't seeany method of generating power on site, so the battery powered television probably was operated bybatteries that were brought to the site. If or how you have electrical power is a personal call. Theamount of electrical power you use is determined by your choices. The television at the site was a smalltube type, which would require more power than the LCD equivalent of the same thing. You can have anumber of electrical items and you can get products that use less power, but you have to know whereyou are going to draw the line.

I personally have a home connected to the grid and a 5kW generator that I can use when the powergoes out intermittently. I also have the equipment, knowledge, and experience to live without the grid,but there are a few things that I would miss, like refrigeration and hot and cold running water. If youchoose to live on the grid I would suggest that you be prepared for the power occasionally not beingavailable. At the present time this typically is the result of storm damage or a vehicle accident. Usuallythe power is only out for a few hours, but I've recently seen it out for a few days. If you are connectedto the grid and the power goes out you should call in to the power company so they can assess theextent and area affected. There is also the possibility that you could have been the only customeraffected, and if you don't call in they wouldn't know. I would also ask that you have some patience forthe people who are working on the power lines. Their work is hazardous, like several otheroccupations, and when they are working on a power outage they may be dealing with darkness and badweather as well as several thousand volts.

There are some misconceptions that many people seem to have about generating electrical power andpower usage. First of all, generators are not magic – any particular generator can only generate alimited amount of power and it requires fuel. When the power load on a generator increases thegovernor adjusts to increase the throttle setting to maintain engine RPM, which increases fuelconsumption. The size rating of a generator is simply a number to some people because they can'tassociate it with how much it can do. Back in the 1960's it was not unusual for a 5kW transformer to beused to supply power to a house trailer. Usually these trailers used electricity to operate lights, arefrigerator, a well pump, blowers for the heating system, a few small appliances, and a television. The

kitchen range, the water heater, and furnace were generally powered by propane. I have managed to usemy 5kW generator to keep the refrigerator, freezer, and water heater operating, but the generator wasdefinitely loaded down and running at capacity. The transformers used currently to provide power tohomes seem to be in 15 to 20kW size range and the trailer across the road from my home has a 10kWtransformer – and a large propane tank. The price of generators used to be around $100 per kW, but Ibought mine to operate power tools in remote locations well before the Y2K rush and prices could bemuch higher now.

so you want to move to the country?

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