5 ms·

Dispatches from the farm upstate

129 points by walterbell 2y ago

Temporary_31337 2y ago
Interesting that this is a place that is 10 minutes drive from a nearby town and yet requires all year round maintenance. At least in Alaska the government gives citizens tax incentives for simply living there but looks like owning a rural property in US nowadays is very far from homesteading of yesteryear- you have to pay taxes and pretty much need some additional source of income just to get by.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  In areas with higher population density, land values are driven by recreation and are thousands of dollars an acre. Not expensive compared to urban land, but a far cry from working the land to earn it.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    > thousands of dollars an acre Did you mean per square foot?
    - maxerickson 2y ago
      Well, they did mention Alaska and I did mention that I wasn't talking about urban land. Lots of room between those. I was thinking of something like rural land in counties that aren't essentially empty (rather than land near LA or whatever).
  - Temporary_31337 2y ago
    I agree with both of you, of course, but this means that in order to just break even you have to do something like tourism or similar just to cover your own costs of taxes and plowing.
    - b112 2y ago
      This is sort of true. People often mistake convenience for "required cost". An example? If you have a 1/2 mile private road, you don't actually need to plow it. This is a convenience. A 1/2 mile is not a long distance to walk, regardless of the temperature (if one is relying upon "getting to a car" to be warm, that's not even remotely safe. dress appropriately, your car could break down after all...). Instead, you can: * not plow it at all, and hand shovel a small area right by the road OR * use a snow blower right by the road OR * use a snow blower to make a person wide path to the road, then plow the "at the road" driveway If you don't buy a truck, and a plow for it, and only clear a small area at the road, as above, a snowblower can do the job cheap and easily. So can a shovel. Yes, I know this for a fact. I might add that even with frequent snowfalls, walking back and forth to the car is an event of path creation and snow flattening in itself. And that also, the winter is great because a sled can be pulled by a person with much ease, even with a lot of weight on it. It's why many pull firewood, entire trees out of the forest in the winter, instead of the summer. One may say "well that's inconvenient". So? That's my whole point. You still have a car, you have mail at the road, and there are even modern super-cheap workarounds such as a remote camera at the road. In terms of water? Yes, being on a well can suck in the winter. But there are workarounds to generators. Generators aren't cheap, maintaining them isn't either, nor is the fuel for them. But when buy and build your well infra, you can use a large or a small pressure tank. Modern methods tend to have this super-tiny pressure tank -- no power, no water. I have a 40 gallon pressure tank, and it retains a lot of pressure for a long time. I also have a super-insulated hot water tank, which means: * I can take 3 showers, one hot, then warm, then lukewarm with the power off * I also have at-tank water that has no pressure to drive the taps, but does have 20+ gallons of fresh water at the pressure tank Is that entirely convenient? No. Well the first part is. Typically, power outages are less than a day for me. Some are far worse (once 2 weeks!), but for the short outages of < 1 day: * you just don't flush the toilet.. "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown send it down" is the old adage. This significantly extends water stores. * you don't need to shower quite as frequently Now... one can have a small generator, meaning "less expensive, less fuel", to just re-pressurize the pressure tank. Water can be infinite, and I frankly get by a day easily during power outages without needing that generator. And most people with forests to maintain, tend to do wood heat a bit if they can. Even if it's only ornamental, living room "that looks nice" fireplace, that's plenty to keep you warm during outages. And of course, our friend 'the sweater" helps too. But my point is, you can be inconvenienced and live on the cheap. You don't have to plow. You don't have to do a lot of things. And clearing the forest becomes "here's how I heat my house", so the work you do, the costs of the chainsaw, becomes a break even, if not a bit of a savings and also a "here's how I stay warm without power" bonus too. Anyhow! The taxes, well.. that's still an issue.
- michaelt 2y ago
  To me it sounds like the "all year round maintenance" is mostly because they've got a lot of land. You've got to get the snow off your driveway no matter where you live. If you buy a property with half mile of driveway, you're going to have to shift a lot of snow. You've got to maintain the trees on your property, no matter where you live. If you buy 20,000 trees you're going to have to maintain a lot of trees. And so on.
  - brigade 2y ago
    The trees… it very much matters where you live. They spend so much time dealing with them because the PNW is a tinderbox. East coast, you just make sure nothing will fall on your house and leave your 50 acre forest to the wilds. (And of course, a good chunk of the country basically never gets enough snow to need plowing)
motohagiography 2y ago
such a pleasure to read. I've followed lcamtuf's work since the 90s and also now live rurally. this week's project was figuring out how to fell a large dead tree without being killed by its upper limbs breaking from the pressure release, and working on some home sigint tools for doing rural property security, but mostly to justify upgrading the rtl-sdr to an ettus. country life isn't for everyone, but you see the impacts of tech, economics, and cultural change more clearly in the country because they're more stark against the backdrop of natural rhythms and things that change at the pace of seasons.
- jcims 2y ago
  Same and actually had the pleasure of working with lcamtuf briefly about ten years ago. >Country life isn't for everyone, but you see the impacts of tech, economics, and cultural change more clearly in the country because they're more stark against the backdrop of natural rhythms and things that change at the pace of seasons. Couldn't agree more. Aside from a few short stints I've lived in rural locations my entire life and one of the things that encouraged me about the major shift to remote work is that the folks that are shaping so many of these factors also have a better opportunity to experience it first hand. >working on some home sigint tools for doing rural property security, but mostly to justify upgrading the rtl-sdr to an ettus Never did upgrade to the ettus but spent lots of time ogling their products. My 'project I'll never do but it's fun to think about' lately has been figuring out a way to watch the behavior of the uplink beam from my starlink with some kind of mesh of detectors/receivers. Seems very doable but the dopamine of finding a viable way will probably be enough for me to let go of it haha.
asynchronous 2y ago
On display here is the race towards trying to buy land somewhere before a Californian manages to bail from Silicon Valley and buy it before you. Wish the best to all the young folks enduring this competition currently.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Housing and land prices in metros are crazy and much building should be done. But, rural land like his are abundant. Even a couple hours from Silicon Valley is a house on acres for $300k.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Fomite 2y ago
  The...shall we say non-uniform distribution of political beliefs in the folks moving from California has also done wild things to the politics in some of these areas.
- miah_ 2y ago
  Its a good thing the US is _huge_. I certainly didn't "displace" anybody as I moved back home to Michigan from California to buy a house in the woods. There are at least 6 houses for sale within a half mile from me right now all for well under $300k. People struggling in California could learn a thing or two by moving.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    That doesn't stop people from imagining the "Big Bad Californian" in their minds. For a while, I was looking out-of-state for real estate, and I encountered a non-zero number of realtors informing me that their seller intends to charge a "California tax" to anyone coming from that state, because he doesn't like where I'm moving from.
    - 2y ago
m0llusk 2y ago
This when young the city was fun but when older than mattered less thing does not match with my own experience at all. Having an extended family and running a service business I have known quite a few people getting old and aging into their final years. Having people around and things to do can be critical for maintaining quality of life. It is really common for older people in rural locations to become isolated an unable to access the things that once brought joy to their lives. Seems like a potentially interesting contrast to call out.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Yeah I also find this odd. Especially at my age with children at home, why would I take them away from all the opportunities a city offers? When they are very young and not social you might want them to have a place to just crawl around and taste dirt, but as soon as they are social you need people around, and in later childhood the opportunities in sports, music, dance, and other arts call for at least a fairly large town. I can imagine myself leaving the city after my kids are independent but even so, dispersed living seems to offer little except manual labor. I'd want a town of a least a few thousand so I stand a chance of meeting some new friends of my own age. A humorous book on the topic of the fact that rural life is mostly just a lot of work, see "Against The Country".
  - arcbyte 2y ago
    There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. I still cherish sports, music, and dance, but the difference in childhood environment is immediately recognizable in adults.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      > There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. These being? I grew up in a lot of different places but the impression I get from my own experiences is that the valuable life lessons of being alone in the woods can be acquired part-time. You don't have to relocate there. And since living totally alone in the middle of nowhere, rather than in a small town surrounded by fields, farms, and forests, is a lifestyle that only recently became possible, I doubt the value of extended isolation. Throughout human history people have gathered into settlements of at least the size of a village. Living alone is totally new.
cdshn 2y ago
The banned gas equipment is going to cause a lot of fun. PG&E cant maintain the tree canopy as it is.
- skybrian 2y ago
  People will buy it out of state I'm guessing?
  - mindslight 2y ago
    I find it odd the fervor with which rural people react against superfluous regulations. I get it that they're ridiculous, asinine, and sometimes even onerous. But the regulations aren't targeted at them, and rural freedom involves being away from the enforcement matrix and maintaining a can-do attitude, no? Can't buy a new gas powered chainsaw in a store or have it shipped directly to you? Buy used, keep old gear going with new parts, or make a trip out of state for you and your handful of well-known neighbors. The suburbs outright banning the use of gas equipment will mean lots on the used market, too. Maybe I'm just biased against gas chainsaws since my childhood is full of memories waiting foreeeverrrr to get a chainsaw started. Meanwhile electric is just sitting there always ready to go. I'd feel differently if I were a professional arborist cutting down 40 inch trees, but I, and most other people, are not. Also, that image captioned "visit from the fun police" is a bit off the mark. I don't like disclaimer labels everywhere either, but this one is at least defensible. Loaders generally use flexible hoses, which can burst suddenly and then the unsupported bucket/load just drops. If you are under it or on it, you will be injured. Hydraulic equipment meant for safety critical situations uses things like pilot operated check/counterbalance valves right on the cylinders.
    - cdshn 2y ago
      So ban them in suburbia. Why do rural folks have to become outlaws to do day to day things just because they're unlikely to get caught? Anyway, my comment was about future forest fires from the impossibility to do maintenance.
      - 2y ago
dlvd 2y ago
[flagged]
rml 2y ago
FWIW the stuff about dealing with the Feds only applies out west AFAICT There’s lots of rural land in the northeast where you can basically just go to your small town hall and get whatever done without much hassle. Or just don’t tell anyone and nobody cares (if it’s actually rural enough) Also in the northeast many areas are depopulating due to folks aging out, so there is land available (as long as you avoid the popular NYC and BOS-adjacent areas) Fair warning you will need to accept that other people may not share all of your “correct” opinions but they will probably still be kind enough to help you IRL with a flat tire or digging your truck out etc :-)

129 points by walterbell 2y ago

Interesting that this is a place that is 10 minutes drive from a nearby town and yet requires all year round maintenance. At least in Alaska the government gives citizens tax incentives for simply living there but looks like owning a rural property in US nowadays is very far from homesteading of yesteryear- you have to pay taxes and pretty much need some additional source of income just to get by.

maxerickson 2y ago
In areas with higher population density, land values are driven by recreation and are thousands of dollars an acre. Not expensive compared to urban land, but a far cry from working the land to earn it.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  > thousands of dollars an acre Did you mean per square foot?
  - maxerickson 2y ago
    Well, they did mention Alaska and I did mention that I wasn't talking about urban land. Lots of room between those. I was thinking of something like rural land in counties that aren't essentially empty (rather than land near LA or whatever).
- Temporary_31337 2y ago
  I agree with both of you, of course, but this means that in order to just break even you have to do something like tourism or similar just to cover your own costs of taxes and plowing.
  - b112 2y ago
    This is sort of true. People often mistake convenience for "required cost". An example? If you have a 1/2 mile private road, you don't actually need to plow it. This is a convenience. A 1/2 mile is not a long distance to walk, regardless of the temperature (if one is relying upon "getting to a car" to be warm, that's not even remotely safe. dress appropriately, your car could break down after all...). Instead, you can: * not plow it at all, and hand shovel a small area right by the road OR * use a snow blower right by the road OR * use a snow blower to make a person wide path to the road, then plow the "at the road" driveway If you don't buy a truck, and a plow for it, and only clear a small area at the road, as above, a snowblower can do the job cheap and easily. So can a shovel. Yes, I know this for a fact. I might add that even with frequent snowfalls, walking back and forth to the car is an event of path creation and snow flattening in itself. And that also, the winter is great because a sled can be pulled by a person with much ease, even with a lot of weight on it. It's why many pull firewood, entire trees out of the forest in the winter, instead of the summer. One may say "well that's inconvenient". So? That's my whole point. You still have a car, you have mail at the road, and there are even modern super-cheap workarounds such as a remote camera at the road. In terms of water? Yes, being on a well can suck in the winter. But there are workarounds to generators. Generators aren't cheap, maintaining them isn't either, nor is the fuel for them. But when buy and build your well infra, you can use a large or a small pressure tank. Modern methods tend to have this super-tiny pressure tank -- no power, no water. I have a 40 gallon pressure tank, and it retains a lot of pressure for a long time. I also have a super-insulated hot water tank, which means: * I can take 3 showers, one hot, then warm, then lukewarm with the power off * I also have at-tank water that has no pressure to drive the taps, but does have 20+ gallons of fresh water at the pressure tank Is that entirely convenient? No. Well the first part is. Typically, power outages are less than a day for me. Some are far worse (once 2 weeks!), but for the short outages of < 1 day: * you just don't flush the toilet.. "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown send it down" is the old adage. This significantly extends water stores. * you don't need to shower quite as frequently Now... one can have a small generator, meaning "less expensive, less fuel", to just re-pressurize the pressure tank. Water can be infinite, and I frankly get by a day easily during power outages without needing that generator. And most people with forests to maintain, tend to do wood heat a bit if they can. Even if it's only ornamental, living room "that looks nice" fireplace, that's plenty to keep you warm during outages. And of course, our friend 'the sweater" helps too. But my point is, you can be inconvenienced and live on the cheap. You don't have to plow. You don't have to do a lot of things. And clearing the forest becomes "here's how I heat my house", so the work you do, the costs of the chainsaw, becomes a break even, if not a bit of a savings and also a "here's how I stay warm without power" bonus too. Anyhow! The taxes, well.. that's still an issue.
michaelt 2y ago
To me it sounds like the "all year round maintenance" is mostly because they've got a lot of land. You've got to get the snow off your driveway no matter where you live. If you buy a property with half mile of driveway, you're going to have to shift a lot of snow. You've got to maintain the trees on your property, no matter where you live. If you buy 20,000 trees you're going to have to maintain a lot of trees. And so on.
- brigade 2y ago
  The trees… it very much matters where you live. They spend so much time dealing with them because the PNW is a tinderbox. East coast, you just make sure nothing will fall on your house and leave your 50 acre forest to the wilds. (And of course, a good chunk of the country basically never gets enough snow to need plowing)

motohagiography 2y ago

such a pleasure to read. I've followed lcamtuf's work since the 90s and also now live rurally. this week's project was figuring out how to fell a large dead tree without being killed by its upper limbs breaking from the pressure release, and working on some home sigint tools for doing rural property security, but mostly to justify upgrading the rtl-sdr to an ettus. country life isn't for everyone, but you see the impacts of tech, economics, and cultural change more clearly in the country because they're more stark against the backdrop of natural rhythms and things that change at the pace of seasons.

jcims 2y ago
Same and actually had the pleasure of working with lcamtuf briefly about ten years ago. >Country life isn't for everyone, but you see the impacts of tech, economics, and cultural change more clearly in the country because they're more stark against the backdrop of natural rhythms and things that change at the pace of seasons. Couldn't agree more. Aside from a few short stints I've lived in rural locations my entire life and one of the things that encouraged me about the major shift to remote work is that the folks that are shaping so many of these factors also have a better opportunity to experience it first hand. >working on some home sigint tools for doing rural property security, but mostly to justify upgrading the rtl-sdr to an ettus Never did upgrade to the ettus but spent lots of time ogling their products. My 'project I'll never do but it's fun to think about' lately has been figuring out a way to watch the behavior of the uplink beam from my starlink with some kind of mesh of detectors/receivers. Seems very doable but the dopamine of finding a viable way will probably be enough for me to let go of it haha.

asynchronous 2y ago

On display here is the race towards trying to buy land somewhere before a Californian manages to bail from Silicon Valley and buy it before you. Wish the best to all the young folks enduring this competition currently.

reducesuffering 2y ago
Housing and land prices in metros are crazy and much building should be done. But, rural land like his are abundant. Even a couple hours from Silicon Valley is a house on acres for $300k.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Fomite 2y ago
The...shall we say non-uniform distribution of political beliefs in the folks moving from California has also done wild things to the politics in some of these areas.
miah_ 2y ago
Its a good thing the US is _huge_. I certainly didn't "displace" anybody as I moved back home to Michigan from California to buy a house in the woods. There are at least 6 houses for sale within a half mile from me right now all for well under $300k. People struggling in California could learn a thing or two by moving.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  That doesn't stop people from imagining the "Big Bad Californian" in their minds. For a while, I was looking out-of-state for real estate, and I encountered a non-zero number of realtors informing me that their seller intends to charge a "California tax" to anyone coming from that state, because he doesn't like where I'm moving from.
  - 2y ago

m0llusk 2y ago

This when young the city was fun but when older than mattered less thing does not match with my own experience at all. Having an extended family and running a service business I have known quite a few people getting old and aging into their final years. Having people around and things to do can be critical for maintaining quality of life. It is really common for older people in rural locations to become isolated an unable to access the things that once brought joy to their lives. Seems like a potentially interesting contrast to call out.

jeffbee 2y ago
Yeah I also find this odd. Especially at my age with children at home, why would I take them away from all the opportunities a city offers? When they are very young and not social you might want them to have a place to just crawl around and taste dirt, but as soon as they are social you need people around, and in later childhood the opportunities in sports, music, dance, and other arts call for at least a fairly large town. I can imagine myself leaving the city after my kids are independent but even so, dispersed living seems to offer little except manual labor. I'd want a town of a least a few thousand so I stand a chance of meeting some new friends of my own age. A humorous book on the topic of the fact that rural life is mostly just a lot of work, see "Against The Country".
- arcbyte 2y ago
  There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. I still cherish sports, music, and dance, but the difference in childhood environment is immediately recognizable in adults.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    > There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. These being? I grew up in a lot of different places but the impression I get from my own experiences is that the valuable life lessons of being alone in the woods can be acquired part-time. You don't have to relocate there. And since living totally alone in the middle of nowhere, rather than in a small town surrounded by fields, farms, and forests, is a lifestyle that only recently became possible, I doubt the value of extended isolation. Throughout human history people have gathered into settlements of at least the size of a village. Living alone is totally new.

cdshn 2y ago

The banned gas equipment is going to cause a lot of fun. PG&E cant maintain the tree canopy as it is.

skybrian 2y ago
People will buy it out of state I'm guessing?
- mindslight 2y ago
  I find it odd the fervor with which rural people react against superfluous regulations. I get it that they're ridiculous, asinine, and sometimes even onerous. But the regulations aren't targeted at them, and rural freedom involves being away from the enforcement matrix and maintaining a can-do attitude, no? Can't buy a new gas powered chainsaw in a store or have it shipped directly to you? Buy used, keep old gear going with new parts, or make a trip out of state for you and your handful of well-known neighbors. The suburbs outright banning the use of gas equipment will mean lots on the used market, too. Maybe I'm just biased against gas chainsaws since my childhood is full of memories waiting foreeeverrrr to get a chainsaw started. Meanwhile electric is just sitting there always ready to go. I'd feel differently if I were a professional arborist cutting down 40 inch trees, but I, and most other people, are not. Also, that image captioned "visit from the fun police" is a bit off the mark. I don't like disclaimer labels everywhere either, but this one is at least defensible. Loaders generally use flexible hoses, which can burst suddenly and then the unsupported bucket/load just drops. If you are under it or on it, you will be injured. Hydraulic equipment meant for safety critical situations uses things like pilot operated check/counterbalance valves right on the cylinders.
  - cdshn 2y ago
    So ban them in suburbia. Why do rural folks have to become outlaws to do day to day things just because they're unlikely to get caught? Anyway, my comment was about future forest fires from the impossibility to do maintenance.
    - 2y ago

dlvd 2y ago

[flagged]

rml 2y ago

FWIW the stuff about dealing with the Feds only applies out west AFAICT There’s lots of rural land in the northeast where you can basically just go to your small town hall and get whatever done without much hassle. Or just don’t tell anyone and nobody cares (if it’s actually rural enough) Also in the northeast many areas are depopulating due to folks aging out, so there is land available (as long as you avoid the popular NYC and BOS-adjacent areas) Fair warning you will need to accept that other people may not share all of your “correct” opinions but they will probably still be kind enough to help you IRL with a flat tire or digging your truck out etc :-)