3 ms·

I've come to love cold, dry, desolate places. (Such as Montana). The downsides aren't nearly what people make them out to be, and the upsides are amazing. Cold

I've come to love cold, dry, desolate places. (Such as Montana). The downsides aren't nearly what people make them out to be, and the upsides are amazing. Cold really isn't that bad, and winter hobbies are a lot of fun.

tonyarkles 5y ago
I'm sitting here in rural Saskatchewan right now, absolutely loving life. We got this property dirt cheap ($1 for the lot, $300 in gas to move a free mobile home to the lot, ~$4000 to trench water and gas). Until last week, the only downside was the lack of decent Internet for being able to work from out here, but... thank you Starlink! Last week we went from tethering to a distance tower, to 250Mbit downlink measured this morning.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Starlink really makes the difference from even not so remote locations--such as my dad's house on coastal Maine--from being basically somewhere I could not work from to somewhere I could.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Jealous. What tools do you use to find land for $1? Obviously these kinds of properties are specialty and not going to be posted on Zillow or something.
  - tonyarkles 5y ago
    Well, it's a long story but my wife's family farm is two miles from here. Hopefully this doesn't make the jealousy worse, but it's actually 3 large lots; the north-most one has an old United Church on it. Several generations of her family were baptized there, etc. In 1999 the town wanted someone to take it over, and she offered to. It's all "free as in puppies" though. The church needs a new roof this year (ahem, maybe more like 10 years ago...) and that's going to cost about $25k. It's a beautiful building though, and we have aspirations to modernize it somewhat (more insulation, natural-gas-fired forced air heating, water...). Starlink honestly will help with all of that effort though. Right now our primary house is about an hour away in a city, and it was a pretty big hassle to come out here to work on things for an evening/weekend. I can generally work remote though, so I can just come out here for a week, put in my work hours and then pick away at things in the mornings/evenings.
refurb 5y ago
Having lived in such places, the winters are often colder, but in my opinion way better than the more temperate coastal winters. I can remember walking to school in -25C weather, but there was no wind and not a cloud in the sky. Contrast this with the cloudy, icy winters further East and I'd take the Western winters any day.

tonyarkles 5y ago

I'm sitting here in rural Saskatchewan right now, absolutely loving life. We got this property dirt cheap ($1 for the lot, $300 in gas to move a free mobile home to the lot, ~$4000 to trench water and gas). Until last week, the only downside was the lack of decent Internet for being able to work from out here, but... thank you Starlink! Last week we went from tethering to a distance tower, to 250Mbit downlink measured this morning.

ghaff 5y ago
Starlink really makes the difference from even not so remote locations--such as my dad's house on coastal Maine--from being basically somewhere I could not work from to somewhere I could.
ryandrake 5y ago
Jealous. What tools do you use to find land for $1? Obviously these kinds of properties are specialty and not going to be posted on Zillow or something.
- tonyarkles 5y ago
  Well, it's a long story but my wife's family farm is two miles from here. Hopefully this doesn't make the jealousy worse, but it's actually 3 large lots; the north-most one has an old United Church on it. Several generations of her family were baptized there, etc. In 1999 the town wanted someone to take it over, and she offered to. It's all "free as in puppies" though. The church needs a new roof this year (ahem, maybe more like 10 years ago...) and that's going to cost about $25k. It's a beautiful building though, and we have aspirations to modernize it somewhat (more insulation, natural-gas-fired forced air heating, water...). Starlink honestly will help with all of that effort though. Right now our primary house is about an hour away in a city, and it was a pretty big hassle to come out here to work on things for an evening/weekend. I can generally work remote though, so I can just come out here for a week, put in my work hours and then pick away at things in the mornings/evenings.

refurb 5y ago

Having lived in such places, the winters are often colder, but in my opinion way better than the more temperate coastal winters. I can remember walking to school in -25C weather, but there was no wind and not a cloud in the sky. Contrast this with the cloudy, icy winters further East and I'd take the Western winters any day.