Update from September 2009 to January 2010

UPDATE-

I haven't written too much lately due to there's a lot going on, but not in the direction I was hoping to head, so here's what's "new" since Sept. '09

I'm still recovering from my hernia, I was doing well, but I think things may have gotten a little messed up and set me back. I am moving a lot slower then I expected to be moving five months after my surgery. My slow recovery and the almost 13% unemployment rate here in my part of Florida has put a huge dent into my goal, not to mention my bank account.

Since September '09 I have lost both of my businesses due to the slow economy, my bad health and lack of employment. There is a "silver-lining" to part of this, as bad as times are, I see an opportunity to maybe return to college to get my Architectural-Engineering degree, which would greatly help in the understanding and designing of the HVAC, Plumbing, and Electrical systems I would be installing in the house.

I am also taking this time to learn more about the way different countries deal with their over-crowding populations and how some families have been living for hundreds of years without that much change. If ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

I have also taken this down time to start studying Chinese / Mandarin, and it's been great to hear from some people over-seas and to see how some of the rural families live. Depending on if or when I would go back to college, I may try to get over to China to study / travel for a summer to learn more first hand how people adapt to smaller apartment / condo living.

If anyone would like to try learning Mandarin, for free, I found a great web site Chinese-tools.com that offers free audio, along with reading and writing lessons. There's no sense in paying for CD's or videos if you're not sure if you want to learn it or want to just learn some basic words for fun.

To date, the little that I have learned about living off the grid has made me re-think some of my off the grid goals or thoughts. Like a lot of people, I too would love to "get away from it all" and live way out in the middle of Erehwon, "That's nowhere spelled backwards"(TM) I sure I needed to give the out-fitter store some kind of credit for using their slogan, even if they might be out of business too???

So is it better to live way out in the country and have a bunch of land and no neighbors for miles or maybe live in a medium size town / city and take advantage of things like a flat "green roof" to maybe grown some veggies?

The second option doesn't lend it's self to raising goats for meat or milk, or chickens or other live stock, but if you are someone who still needs to work five days a week to earn a living, why have the long commute?

I never made it out to Jackson Hole or the Northwest this year for a number of reasons, but I did make it out to one of the areas that was on my list in Kansas. The nearest medium sized town is called Newton, KS. It's a nice, clean, typical Mid-West farming town. One of my original thoughts about an area like this was to buy a small piece of land outside of town that is great for growning a crop and raising some goats and chickens, for both myself and to trade / sell.

While visiting the area I saw some old flat-roofed commercial buildings and got to thinking. Many people have re-zoned buildings like these to make useful living quarters and with a flat roof they would make for a great water collection and Solar PV system set-up. It doesn't fit into my "Timber-frame" theme, but it fits very well in the LEED building concept, reuse, repurpose or recycle, etc. Plus, some of the old factory style building were built with something close to a post and beam style. And if you hit the jack-pot, you can find an old building with old hard-wood pine floors!

Some big "pro's" to an area like this are:

-Farmer's markets just about every weekend through-out the growing season. Which means I don't have to grow all my own foods, but could buy it fresh, I would know where it came from and it would help support the local economy.
-The Building is already built, just need remodeling.
-If I choose to grid-tie the PV system I could earn money back from the electric company to help pay for the system and help give to the community.
-Close to town and within an hour's drive to a big enough airport if I need to fly. FYI -I did have to fly out of Wichita one year to Chicago, the flight cost more then flying to Germany from Chicago. It might have something to do with most of the people flying into or out of Wichita during the week are doing so for business, all the airline manufactures are located there. It's one of those trade-off's, is it worth it???
-Centrally located in the US, so I could drive to places like the Colorado Rockies or Chicago within a long day's drive.
-Located close enough to a medium population that I could find employment, but not be within the "rat race."

So even though I am not actually building my dream home, I am making productive use of this time.

Happy New Year!

Daryl

In the words of Peter Brady (BradyBunch TV show)

In those famous words (and scratchy voice) of Peter Brady... "It's time to change!"

Yes, I still don't know where I am really heading, and I'm still not any closer to buying any land. I am in the need to make a move. Sometime in the next coming weeks I will be leaving Florida and heading out "west" somewhere, well, maybe west by northwest??? I am still trying to find the balance of reasonable priced land, with a safe, clean area, and good employment. Like all the problems in my life right now, I notice that I can usually have two out of three things.

I ended up having a Hernia surgery on Aug. 6th, 2009 and although the surgery went well, I am still moving slow and have yet to return to work of any kind. So trying to make any move right now is both needed and at the same time hard. Most of the money I had set aside for land purchase or living expense has been used to keep myself fed, etc while recovering from my surgery.

Since I missed the 2009 hail season, and 2010 season doesn't start until at least February I am going to have to go and find "something" to do, "somewhere" until I either get some hail work or find a new career.

I feel weird about this point in my life, on one hand it's scary as hell to not know where you are heading and the fact that you are almost out of money, but on the other hand, it's kind of a blessing that this economy and my bad health as given me a chance to "start over." Part of me wants to dust myself off and get right back into the game and another part of me is thinking stop and take a look around, live on the cheap for awhile and don't be in a rush to get back into the rat race.

While recovering from my surgery I had a lot of time to sit and think about what I am looking for. I have always been the kind of person who has some kind of dream or goal, and although I am not completely lost for a direction, I am finding it harder to stay excited about any of my goals in these difficult times. So as of this point in time, I feel no big move is the best. I will take this opportunity to continue to check out different states, towns, etc and when I find something I like, then I will take the next step. So it's off to the Northwest or West somewhere. Depending on the weather, I am thinking about spending some time in Jackson,WY and then if it's too costly to make anything happen I can make my way to the west coast from there.

Land, Land everywhere!

Well, my plans to get up to Iowa to look at some properties got set back by that little thing called a "job." I ended up needing to go do some hail work, and now I'm almost finished packing my house, but with no idea to where I'm heading!

I'm putting my belonging in storage and so now the push is on to get out there and narrow my search for land! A funny thing happens when you start really looking, well, it's more like a couple of things happen when you get down to it.

One, all the great "deals" you use to find just about every day, well, they're all gone. Which reminds me of a quote by Donald Trump, he was quoted as saying that "the deal of a life-time comes around about once a week." I find this to be both true and false. The deals are out there, but everything that glitters is not gold! So you need to look harder.

So the other thing that happened once I really set out to find a deal, was I started finding a lot of great places. I started talking with people about different areas in the country and each one has a different area with it's own pro's and con's.

I have found some amazing deals on land in areas like OK, KS and MO. Places that I have never thought much of before. And with the real estate market like it is, there are some special deals to be made with people who are willing to "owner finance" or help out in other ways so they can get out from under the payments.

Sad reality of this market is people need to leave the places they dreamed about, so they can move to an area where they can find employment. I have seen real estate ad's from Colorado to Kentucky from people just about begging someone to buy their home so they can move closer to their new job.

So what has changed in my search? Iowa is not on top of my list as of right now. I took a closer look at the climate and choose to look a little farther south. One area that has a good balance of cheap land, good location for my job, and room to grow, is around the Ozarks in Missouri. Or more or less the general area where OK and KS meets south west Missouri. The area has good prices for someone starting out who's looking for a larger track of land. There's some hidden gems, and some not so great lots for sale, but the area in general looks like it could work well for both my Hail work, and if I want to add livestock. Not to mention the better wind and solar possibilities in OK and KS.

Another area that I have had my eye on since my childhood is Eastern Kentucky. I remember my parent's dreaming of one day owning horses in the Blue Grass State. Now I drive through the area any time I need to get from my home in Florida to wherever the hail storms are and keep telling myself to check out the area "some day." Land is not as cheap in KY, pretty, but not as cheap, but I did find that the houses are a better bargain. $50,000 buys a pretty nice house in some of the smaller towns around Danville,KY. So the general area is back on my list.

Hopefully my job will work out so I can drive through the area again, but maybe take a couple of days to look around. Then I can come back at the end of my season to really pin point my search efforts.

Too many great places in this country to live!