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Hello from NW Montana

1K views 14 replies 11 participants last post by  Offgrid48 
#1 ·
Greetings fellow homesteaders. I have been using this site as a resource for a while now and figured it was time to sign up and be a little more active. My wife and I have been wanting to do this for quite a few years, and last year we took the plunge. Bobbyjane, my lovely wife, grew up in the mountains of southern Utah, on a 60 acre ranch/farm/homestead. Her dad was an underground miner, and would leave for months at a time on jobs. By the time Bobby was 10, all her older siblings were out of the house. She learned at a young age how to operate a tractor, and can fix most anything with enough duct tape, baling wire, and cuss words. I (Jerrod) grew up in a small town in Northern California's wine country. Yes, the same area that is currently in flames. (We would be evacuated right now had we not moved up here to Montana) My dad is a computer programmer, and my mom was a social worker. We had a garden one year, but I don't think we got much out of it. Guns were not permitted, nor could I pertend to be playing with one as a child. Farming and homesteading was the last thing I ever pictured myself doing. A few years after meeting my wife and getting married (2004) we saw a thing about Earthships, and knew that was what we wanted to build. I am a sommelier, (cork dork) and worked in a few restaurants that supported small local farms, and would sometimes take tours. It dawned on us that we would much rather pursue that type of lifestyle than what we were doing.

In the spring of 2016, I took a job in NW Montana despite having never set foot in the state. Bobby had come up here for 4H as a kid, and spoke highly enough about it that I took her word. When I landed in Kalispell, I didn't even have a place to stay yet. I had found a cute little cabin that the owners were selling and offering owner financing. It was just a shell, with plywood still over the windows and sliding door cutouts. There was no insulation, no wiring, no nothing. There WAS an outhouse. So, when I landed in Kalispell I rented a car and drove 60 miles or so north and met the realtor. 1.7 acres, about 18 miles south of the Canadian border. The cabin itself looked just like the pictures depicted. The view didn't. It was AMAZING. My wife was still back in California finishing up her last two weeks of work, and didn't get to see it with me. I called her as soon as I got back into cell service and told her that we were going to make an offer the next day on it. I knew she would approve of this piece. I put in an offer the next morning, they countered that afternoon and we accepted. On a crisp June morning just three hours after Bobby pulled into town with a trailer loaded with all of our stuff after 1000 miles of driving, we closed on it.

Last summer we wired the cabin for electricity, hung the housewrap, installed the windows, hung the insulation (we paid a company to spray insulate the roof, as whoever built it used 2x8's, which wasn't going to let me get a high enough R value of insulation up there unless it was the spray foam). Upstairs saw drywall put up, and taped. Then winter came putting a halt to progress. Temperatures outside were routinely -20 overnight and occasionally -30. Our heat source was a Mr. Buddy propane heater, with a window kept cracked and a high quality CO monitor so we wouldn't accidentally die. We spent the spring doing some seasonal work back in Napa, and returned with a stack of cash and ready to go. This summer we fenced off our 1.7 acres, bought a 12x16 building for temporary storage and will eventually be Bobby's pottery studio. We planted a cherry tree, two pear trees, an apple tree and a peach tree. Downstairs saw drywall get done, a sink complete with wooden support frame and 5 gallon bucket for drainage, an oven (connected to a 20 lb propane tank) a refrigerator (cooled by 2 blocks of ice every couple of days) and most importantly a woodburning stove. Bobby built 2 top bar beehives out of wine barrels, but ended up losing one of the hives. The other hive seems to be going quite strong. We also followed plans online to build a medium sized chicken coop, which now houses 8 hens and a rooster. We did the same in building a cattle panel hoop structure for a goat and rabbit barn. That barn has a breeding pair of rabbits we just picked up 2 weeks ago, and 3 nigerian dwarf does.

Tuesday was a huge day for us, as we got a 21 foot steel pole mounted in the ground for our solar panels, and we should have electricity in a few days. Up until now, we were running an invertor off our Prius battery, and using an extension cord to the house to charge our devices, and power the router and modem so we would have internet access.

Our city friends think we are insane living like this. I say we are lucky. Our town has 150 people in it. The sound of gunfire doesn't instantly make you nervous. A traffic jam is having to wait for 2 cars to go by to make a left onto the highway.
 
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#5 ·
Welcome from Wyoming and Central Montana as we are setting up our retirement place there.

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