Tell me about Oregon

Homeschooling in KY is not bad at all. I homeschooled two of my children for a couple of years back when they were in third and fifth grade. The fifth grader is now in college. lol All i had to do here in KY was send a certified letter to the Board of Education and let them know that i would be homeschooling my children and this is the name of my school. You have to submit this letter every year. there is no testing, no visits unless of course someone says ur not teaching ur child then they will check it out. Never had that happen to me. U were required to teach so many days out of the year. cant remember how many. So Kentuckys laws are pretty laid back on homeschooling unless it has changed since i did it.

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

At some point I am going to have to move to VA.

Oregon.... no restrictions on how many Livestock I can have in the area I live.
VA .. in Essex, King George, Caroline counties, since I called and asked... for three small horses and a mini, I have to have the min of 10.1 acres.
Oregon... the fencing can be on the property line and I can run the animals any where on my property.
VA... I can't have a barn, shed, hen house or what ever within 200' of the next person's house. Some areas in VA I have to have the fencing backed off the property line.
A lot of pieces of property are very oddly shaped and narrow, makes it impossible to own animals on it.
Finding land I can have animals on is harder than it sounds in those areas.
VA has a lot of restrictions Oregon just doesn't have, nor is Farm or forest land protected like Oregon's is.

OK for Homeschooling...

Oregon- kids take the CAT every few years and they don't bother you.
WA- you have to have them take the SAT every year and they keep an eye on you.
They were quite nasty about it where I lived.

If you want your kids to go to College, having taken the CAT/SAT's makes it easier for them.

I can go on with all the states I have lived.
Oregon by far, at least in the County I live and where the family farm is in Polk County, offers us more freedom than any other place I have lived in the US.

Every State has its issues.

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Shari

In Ky we have to have inspections on plumbing and electrical. You have to have a perk test for septic. If i want to build a barn or anything other than a house on my property I can. I dont have to get a permit for it. My place has no restrictions on it. There are some places that dont allow mobile homes on a certain piece of land. I can have as many cows, chickens,pigs ect as i want. I can not sell milk for human consumption. The Amish right down the road sells milk for pet consumption. I bought from them for a while but the milk went bad really quick, I guess because of refrideration (sp) issues for them. I stopped buying it. I dug a huge pond on my property and never got a permit. (dont know if i was suppose to or not) Around here people pretty much think...."Its my property and I will do what I want with it" So it is nice to know some of Oregons laws. I think it is great that someone can go buy milk straight from the cow in Oregon.
Liberals and Conservatatives.... I live in Ky and most here are Republicans I am a Democrat. But I dont always agree with all things Democrat. Here people just get plain mad if they find out you are a Democrat. I feel like everyone should be what they want and not have to worry about what others think. It is ur right. I dont push my beliefs on others and sure dont want them to do it to me. I dont judge others because of their beliefs either. I tend to find myself not conservative but not Liberal either, I think I fall somewhere in between.
When I move to Oregon I will not be buying property. Will probably rent until I find the perfect place for me. There is such a variety in Oregon I think I may want to just see where i feel i belong. The biggest shock for me will probably be cost to rent a place. Here things are cheap. There i am assuming that is not true. When i say cheap... (in my town, not a big city at all) you can rent a decent house for about 500 a month. Now in big cities that is not true.
It will probably be a year before I move because I have a daughter that likes one more year of school. I just let her move to her dads to be with sister that is in college. I want to be here to experience her last year with her. I am in the process of adopting my step-daughter and she is ready to move when we are. she has two more years of school.
I love the information you all are providing me.

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

what kind of animals do u all have out there? (wild animals) What about laws dealing with firearms? Hunting?

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

Out here, a lot.
In this area there are a lot of cougar, bear, packs, yes packs of Coyotes and they are not shy, Bobcat...etc...etc... and they are all quite active.
More than the area would be able to support if there were no people here because they have gotten used to feeding off the livestock as per the Head Fish and Game lady I know.

Had to shoot a bold Coyote(nothing wrong with it) a couple of weeks ago.
So if you have livestock, a good fence is a must.

If you move over towards Hillsboro and those places, you won't have the predator problems we have here.

Hunting,, when is there ever not hunting in these hills? Elk and deer

Fire Arms, no issues, have a 30-30, shot gun, .22... etc.. etc..
Everyone up here tends to have a number of firearms.

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Shari

See my website or blog for pictures of the Baker City area of Eastern Oregon. In the summer, it's pretty nice here. We don't get much wind. I'm tired of this cold winter though.

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Laura

www.GrowGreatVegetables.com
http://www.vegetablegardensuccess.blogspot.com/

Well we dont have cougars, elk, bears here but we do have bobcat (which I have never saw here) coyotes run the creek behind my house but never bother us. We only have white tail deer here.
What are your concealed and carry laws there?
We have several guns that my father left me before he died and a few my huband own.

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

do u have water issues there? Ur garden was beautiful. What kind of climate is in ur area?

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

I do not know about the concealed gun laws in Oregon because,
I don't carry a gun off the property.

But you can look at the law here
http://licenseinfo.oregon.gov/index...._item_id=14705

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Shari

From what I understand we can have a gun in our vehicle as long as it isn't hidden, most of the year folks with pickups have guns in the back window racks...we have fishing poles and a lead filled bat.
Here on the farm (just outside Salem), we have Coyote problems and every once in a while a mountain lion passes through, we also have issues with Coons who have issues with our .22's.
For a smallish house or duplex $500 is possible to find, my oldest and his wife rent a two story duplex, 2 bedroom for $585 and that's in a nice neighborhood.

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"At The Worlds Beginning There Was A Mother"
~ Chinese Tao Te Ching~

[[[....Oregon by far ...... offers us more freedom than any other place I have lived in the US....]]]

Unless you want to pollute. There are strict laws concerning contaminating water (you won't be allowed to), if you harvest forest, you must replant, and that is enforced. You can't produce or dump toxic waste. They are extremely strict about building on forest land or agricultural land. You won't be allowed to subdivide it and pave it over. There are laws to prevent the damaging of streams and rivers.

A guy (must have been a Californian) here in Bend, got himself some absolutely enormous fines for going onto public land and cutting down some juniper trees that were interfering with his view. It's not done, and the general population is solidly behind laws like that.

Why don't you give us your dream list for a place to live and maybe somebody could tell you what area of Oregon would meet most of your criteria.

There is all kinds of good fishing, all over the state. Salmon, trout, halibut, dungeness crab, lake, river, ocean. The game warden, by the way, will swing by to check that you have a fishing license and to count and measure your catch.

Deer tags are easy to get. Elk and antelope tags are by lottery. 2-3 bighorn tags every year, but they are auctioned off. Ducks, chukkar, quail, dove. A few places to hunt wild pigs.

There is a huge amount of public land to hunt on. There is more publicly owned land in Oregon than there is privately held land. Large mammal permits are issued by zone, so aren't good state wide.

The state maintains fish hatcheries and wetlands for the ducks and geese. There are several privately owned wetlands maintained for the waterfowl, also. They are breeding grounds, so no hunting allowed.

Poaching is severely frowned upon. It is simply not done, and your neighbors are very likely to turn you in.

One reason I love Oregon,, they don't allow people to make parking lots or sub divisions out of farm land.

And I won't want to live any where, were they allow people to dump toxic stuff where ever people want.

Replanting the forests is a good idea, specially if you want another crop of trees. Only common sense.
There are generation tree farms around here, and replanting trees, means you will have trees to sell in the future.

As for poaching... up here, in the Hills, there is poaching year round. Big problem Fish and Game said but they don't have enough people to deal with it.
No one in this area has hunting licences, Hill folk don't think they need it.

No safe places for waterfowl in this area. Ducks and so on, are hunted so heavily, good luck taking photos of them. Minute you roll down a window or get out of the car, they are gone.
They are doing an Extended Elk season this year. Tags are easy to get. At least my husband's family gets their licence.

So it really does depend on where one lives in Oregon.

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Shari

With Bergere again. While I'm not a tree hugger, I appreciate that the state is conscious about taking care of the land.

Very easy to get a conceal and carry permit. My wife is going to the class this weekend.

HUnting has already been addressed above.

Oreon really is an easy place to live as long as you are ok with the rain.

I do live HIllsboro-ish and we have only lost chickens to predators - usually raccoons and coyotes. I have never lost larger livestock (goats, cows etc) to anything and ours are out all night. There are coyotes but they have never attacked our goats. They look to be well fed without them

So, what I'm getting is that I should cancel my move to Oregon...

Exactly. I was born right here, have not been too far from here and wanted to be back here as soon as possible when I was away. We have a family cabin at Wallowa Lake, we love it there (just hate the drive) We need trees and green so we love the rain. Sweetie is from Long Beach California but couldn't go back. I was born in Dallas, our farm was 7 miles south and I have lived within 5 miles all my life. The little towns are gone now but we are still part of that community, Bridgeport, Antioch, Fishback, Lewisville, Ferns Corner, Guthrie, Liberty, Ellendale, Oakdale, Polk Station, Salt creek, Maple Grove, Airlie, Suver, Pedee, Kings Valley, Wren, Valsetz, Most had a school and store, some had a post office and later some had a fire station. My closest town is Falls City, it has tried to die many times but we keep bringing it back. A few families keep the memories alive....James

I think I want to live close to the mountains. Just trying to decide on West side or East side. On the west side do u still get a lot of rain? On the East side close to mountains is there a water shortage? I need to figure out what small towns that are not way expensive. I want to live in rural area not in town. I realize that by living close to mountain it will be colder. I can deal with that. I just want decent summer temps. Not having to run an air conditioner would be heaven. its funny when i tell people around here that i want to move to Oregon they say..."Oregon, what for?" They dont get it. I want to see other places. I think people there are going to be different than the people here. I want to experience that. Even within my own state there are differences on how people act and think.

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

Only if you hate rain. Otherwise, Oregon's very liveable.

Is it okay to use firewood to heat ur homes in Oregon?

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IT STARTS WITH A DREAM...

Out where I live, yes, Family farm too is the same.
We use wood to heat all the time.

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Shari

There are places that have tempeture inversions that have restrictions on wood heat, around Medford, Portland and Eugene, Oregon has places where the air is unhealthy during these times. Not so much in rural areas....James