Advice??? Midlife Transition: From the suburbs to rural

This is a question I have often wondered about the correct answer. Any insight would be appreciated.

You are moving into an area the has been over run with Californians, some fine, many don't like the life style and leave. They have left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. I would take the plates off my cars and get ID plates the first day I was eligible. Never start a sentence with "in Ca we......" Do not volunteer you moved from CA, then complain about dirt roads, lack of police, lack of shopping. Do not call the sheriff to remove the bears from
your yard or pick up the garbage. They won't , but they will tell everyone. Make an effort to meet the neighbors. There is probably one person in the neighborhood that knows everyone end everything. Try to meet them and ask questions about the area.

Be sure that you have first water rights, if you have water on your place. Find out what the Idaho water rights are, it is very important that you know and understand them.

I would think that if there was a property for sale, that you could easily approach any neighbor that directly adjoined the property for sale without anyone thinking it was weird in the slightest. Going out one or two properties from there should be okay too, if you have your spiel down and you are friendly and easy to talk to.

At least, that's how I feel about it. I know that any time a strange vehicle comes down my driveway I get my hackles up just a bit because it's usually (75% of the time) the Jehova's Witnesses AGAIN even though I've asked them repeatedly not to come but I'm always very quick to warm up when it turns out that it's NOT the JWs. There's often that little "Oh NOW WHAT??" at first but I'm kind of a pessimist that way.

On the question of just driving up private drives: I would say "It depends". I really don't mind folks driving up here but I do like my privacy - which is why I live here in the first place. So if you drove up. introduced yourself and maybe asked a couple of questions then left that would be fine. If you stuck around chatting I would get restless in a hurry. If you expected to be invited in for tea and cakes you would be disappointed. I know that sounds very un-neighborly. I like people in small doses, is all, until I get to know them. Then I'll make you dinner.

My neighbor to the west has welded gates, electric fence and lots of "No Trespassing" signs. I don't think anything would induce me to drive up his road without an invitation. LOL. He is actually a really nice person. Just very private.

Mary

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And maybe you could rent a car in Idaho before you go knocking on doors. There really is a lot of negativity against people moving up from California. Hate to say it, but you might do well not to mention it if you can avoid doing so.

Kind of the same thing with moving from the city into the country. A lot of country people have personal experience with city people moving in, paying "way too much" for land, making demands, changing things (because, you know, change is bad), being different, and a host of other inexcusable behaviors... all of which they will associate (rightly or otherwise) with the person having come from the city. In reality, people are just people. Bad dog owners are bad dog owners, whether they come from the city or the country. Entitled people will always act entitled - whether it's because their grandfather used to own the land that you've just bought or because they expect all roads to be paved. But it is easy to chalk it up to you being "from the city" or "from California".

When we bought this chunk of land, one of the things we liked about it is that it is on a gravel road. The hills are terribly steep and if it were paved, I would need to have my horses shod with borium for traction. Little did we know, there is a big agitation by most of the families here to get the road paved. We are one of exactly two households (out of maybe 15 in this area) that actually wants the road to remain gravel. One of our neighbors told us we should take out a loan in order to be able to afford our portion of the paving costs. Um, no! People were shocked when we told them we didn't want the road paved. I'm afraid it hasn't won us any friends, even though we are one of the few families that works on repairing potholes through the year.

One of my neighbors is a welder and a mutual friend instructed me to go there to inquire about having something fabricated. So I hitched up my horse and wagon and drove the couple miles there to introduce myself. I was greeted with angry shouts and was told to GO BACK, GO AWAY from across the field. I had to actually drop the name of our mutual friend to get him to stop yelling at me. The man was terribly fierce-looking in a bearded, angry, coveralls, backwoods sort of way. I was pretty intimidated but I somehow made it up to his porch anyhow. Once I introduced myself and explained the reason for my visit, he warmed up and he is really a great guy.

Turns out, since his driveway goes under a big set of powerlines, people on horseback are always coming down his driveway thinking they are going to ride down the (nonexistent) powerline trails. They sometimes come through his cattle pasture gates trying to find a way through where no route exists. It has been an ongoing battle for many years. When he saw my horse and wagon show up, he thought I was another one of "those".

So you never know what kind of toes you'll be stepping on. It's just the risk you take when you approach a stranger. If you don't get the warmest of welcomes initially, don't take it personally. Just be a good person.

IF you move towards a LITTLE town or village, Your husband might, if they have a bench outside of the grocery store, as they did when I was a boy, take a piece of wood, a sharp knife, a pipe if he smokes, and go sit on the bench for a couple hours on Sat. When I was a kid, around 1/2 doz old farmers would do that during the noon hour on Sat.
He being a contractor, IF he has any equipment that can be left out and seen from the road might cause you to be accepted, especially if he puts out a sign saying he does work.

Best advice I can give succinctly:

1) Leave California in California.Somethings will be done stupidly and ignorantly in ID. That's ok... take a bit of time to see why people do stuff, sometimes you'll have a better way, sometimes you won't.
2) Develop a strong faith.
3) People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Get involved in the community. At your stage in life, you'll have to do age-appropriate functions and groups. Hunting clubs, gardening clubs, church attendance, Reading groups, etc. With us, we were easily immersed because our kids got involved in a bunch of activities.
4) Be a good neighbor... when you have a bad neighbor... still be a good neighbor. You'll either wear them down, or they'll die off.
5) Be of one mind with your spouse and make sure you all are there for the same reasons, because you might get lonely. You better be good friends with him too.
6) Understand all of your "systems" in your house and don't be afraid to ask questions. If you're new to rural, get the septic system inspected before you purchase. Poop problems suck.
7) Well problems suck worse... buy a house with a submersible well that's got 6" casing and get the water flow and quality checked.
8) Dirt and gravel roads mean dusty cars and chipped paint. It's a fact of life, so get used to it and don't hold any possession too tightly.
9) Good bones on the house... make sure to buy something with a good roof, strong foundation and lots of insulation. If you have never heated with wood before and will be, your woodstove is more important than your electric cooking range. Spend more on it, it will pay you back in the long run.
10) Don't forget the rule of 3 (in the sense of survial)... moving from urban to rural, YOU are your life line and first line of defense. The rule of 3 - have 3 ways to get water, 3 ways to heat, 3 ways to cook, etc. Snow, ice and non-southern california things await you.

Maybe not too succinct...

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You mention Fracking contaminating the ground water - just wondering - do you know of cases where this happened? - from all I have read is that such contamination has never occurred -

I'm in my late 50's and bought the place I have about 4 years ago. It's the third one I've had. First one was a little over 100 acres with nice river bottoms (Ohio River), the other half in woods, and no-so-nice river bluffs to drive down to access it. My dad and I went together on it. We didn't farm it, just mowed the bottoms, hunted, and fished in the lake that was there. We bought that one on contract for deed for $40000 in the mid 80's. Against my better judgement we sold it to a rock quarry, but I didn't have total say-so in the matter. The next place I got was 42 acres and it was in the boonies. I also bought it contract for deed for $35000 about 1999. It had a dumpy trailer on it, a falling down barn, and about 3/4 grown up pastures, a creek, and a deepwell. I tore out the trailer, put in a new doublewide, built an equipment shed, and had a nice pond dug, and two big gardens. I loved that place. It was in an old dried up oxbow of the Ohio River and had great bottoms, but the house was on a high spot not prone to flooding. I eventually decided to get some cows and that's when the work started. I fenced in about 20 acres and it took me about two-three years to do it all because either I didn't have the time or didn't have the money. I had a hard time because I kept getting more livestock before I had everything fenced. Dumb. I always felt under pressure to do fence, but I did like messing with the cows, and it saved me time mowing. But once you get animals, then there's hay, water, vets, (did I mention fence) and a whole host of nightmares I couldn't have imagined. When I got home from work while a normal person would be eating supper and kicked back with the remote watching TV, I'd be out in the cold hauling little square bales of hay back and forth to the cows, or busting ice so the could drink. I still loved it though. My little paradise kinda got spoiled when a college basketball coach bought up all the ground around me, like 3500 acres, and my driveway was a right-of-way to some of his property. So 4 wheelers and tractors coming past the house became more and more common. I was a little donut hole in the middle of a kingdom and he finally convinced me to sell out. The next places I looked at (including the one I bought) I made sure already had good fence, barns, some woods, and other things I considered important. I'm not so worried about being totally off grid, but I like the idea of not being totally devastated if the grid goes down for some period of time. I have two wood stoves and a wood cookstove in the house, and plenty of woods available for firewood. My water comes from a spring, so it's available (by buckets) even in a power failure. I have a generator for short term outages of a week or two. I knew in my mid-fifties that my mind and heart isn't afraid to tackle anything and I'm not afraid of work but, I have to listen to my body too. I'm still in good health so far and physically fit, but I do know my limitations. So, my bottom line piece of advice for folks in our age bracket is to try to find something that is fairly well set up so you don't have to spend all your valuable time and energy getting set up so you can enjoy the place. Second advice is to carefully consider the time and money investment that will be required for almost any kind of critters or livestock. Last and not least, some people spend all their time planning themselves into oblivion until everything is exactly right and never actually do anything. Although having a plan is important, I personally believe it can be an excuse to stall or avoid actually taking any kind of action. (I have been guilty of this) But these are only my opinions and everybody has those. Good luck and have fun!

Jassar, folks have given very good advice. I can't add to it much because DH and I did much the same thing 2 years ago - one of the best decisions we ever made (after each other and kids). I hope you find it as great a choice as we have.

I will choose to offer two words of advice
1) Ask and then be quiet. What I mean is don't interrupt when they start to answer, even if it seems long and wanders around a bit. There's so much more information people will share, if you let them. Respecting experience is priceless.
2) stay connected to this forum. Read the sub forums even if the subject isn't immediately important, it probably will be at some point. The folks on this forum are terrific and generous with their information. If you really want to learn, someone here likely has an answer and will be willing to share.

Best of luck to you and hope you check in regularly to share updates.

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Buffy! I am so excited to read you took Geoff's class. Did you take the new online course he offered? I really want to do that. I only know the very basics of permaculture, have been reading, but do not know enough to do a design. With my schedule, I don't know that I will be able to learn and design before we find property. I know it is a slim chance, but was hoping to find a designer in Northern Idaho to hire. Do you feel the course you took would prepare a novice gardener enough to design on their own?.... omg, I wish I could sit down and talk to you! Congratulations on your certificate.

Thank you for the good additions to the question / research list too!

Janna

Excellent advice Maddy. It does me good to hear of someone that made this kind of change midlife; and alone! OMG props to you!

Over the last few years that we have been making the plan for this move, I run though so much in my head. One thing I am not sure how to do anymore is walk up and introduce myself ..... I do it in business no problem, and I used to do it all the time in my personal life up until around 15 years ago. People here started to change, becoming less open and friendly. Now and then I still try smiling and saying "good morning" when I pass someone in a store etc, and most just look at me like I am crazy or that I must think they are someone else. Except for the older folks, they tend to be ready to chat Which is really nice.
.............. So, I am a little nervous about building relationships and at the same time it is the main reason we want to go. I feel like I have been segregated from "real" people for years.

I would love to hear more about your move and experience...you should write a blog

Oh, about talking to neighbors.....

After I already closed on the place I have now I was hauling stuff in and out. I saw one of my elderly neighbors out in the yard. (I only have two neighbors and they are some distance away on the main road.) I stopped and introduced myself and we chatted for a couple minutes and he seemed OK, but then I mentioned how I thought it was nice and quiet back in here and I thought I'd like it. At that point he tells me that it IS usually quiet, but if anybody came back in here and messed with him or any of his stuff he'd shoot them right between the eyes and dump them down a sink hole. He said by the time they found out anything he'd probably be dead anyway. I said, OK, I'll be sure to call before I stop by. Ha! Actually, he has turned out to be a fabulous neighbor, but after seeing his "war room", I don't doubt him for a minute. But if I had talked to him before I actually bought the place I might have had some misgivings about buying it.

It sucks, we are trying to get away from the pretentious hordes of people here in CA and too many of them have already paved a nasty road for us

I am embarrassed to admit I am from CA while I still live here!

Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to prove ourselves worthy (and I say that will all sincerity, because we are the outsiders with a bad rep).

Wow! another that took that plunge alone. I take my hat off to you.
Thank you for the advice, I am soaking this all in and will take it all to heart and use it!

Another very good item added to my list.... what is growing on the land now.
will head over to Amazon and check out these books.

Thank you!

Fantastic post! Thank you

Here 99% of the well casings are SCH 40 4'' PVC .not many 6'' to be found

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