The percentage of U.S. farms with high speed Internet access varies wildly from state to state and county to county, according to the recently released federal Census of Agriculture. Nearly 6 out of 10 farms in Connecticut had a high speed Internet connection in 2007, when the Census was taken. In Mississippi, only 2 out of 10 farms had a quick connection to the World Wide Web.
via Broadband Connection Highs and Lows Across Rural America | Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural.
Of the 44 pheasants released last fall, about a dozen were released near the cabin and over the winter, I would often see them, sometimes in groups of 2 or 3, sometimes solo, and every so often in a cluster of 10 or more.
As warmer air has moved in, a group of 5 hens has formed a harem, led by a very well fed rooster who I’ve nicknamed “King Louie” – from the Jungle Book character. I refer to the hens in the harem, collectively, as “the girls”.
"Scout" in the tall grass along the north fence line
Two other roosters are not attached to the harem, I gave the name “Scout” to one of them, as he was usually the first one out of the tall grass in the early morning, and the others would follow a few minutes later.
The other rooster, who I’ll call “Ace” will often fight or dance with Scout to establish pecking order, and the two will patrol the yard and borders of the tall grass all day, scratching for food.
The night before last, when I arrived home around sunset, Scout and Ace were on opposite sides of the highway, standing proud in the gravel. As I parked the car, and walked past the pen, King Louie and “the girls” were eating at the feeder and ran off to hide.
Ace pacing on the deck
Once I got inside the cabin, after a few minutes, I heard a Kaw ACK outside the cabin and when I looked out, Ace was standing and as I walked out, rather than run off, he led me to the barn and waited for me to throw out more corn on the ground. The next day, he repeated his performance, this time, walking on the deck and waiting for me.
While earlier this week, I shared Murphy and Bishop’s reporting on job losses affecting urban more than rural areas, their posting this week shows that in December, things got worse in rural America:
In the last 13 months, the number of unemployed people living in rural America has increased by 297,000. All but 15,000 of those jobs were lost in one month, December 2008.
via Job Losses Explode in Rural America | Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural.
The Daily Yonder reporters Tim Murphy and Bill Bishop report:
In the first 11 months of this recession, the most dramatic decreases in employment have taken place in urban counties. Rural counties, however, still have higher rates of unemployment.
Murphy and Bishop looked at the federal data
First we did two comparisons. First, we compared employment — the number of people working — in rural, urban and exurban counties, finding that cities suffered a disproportionate decline in jobs during the first year of the recession. Second, we counted unemployment — the number of people looking for jobs. Again, urban areas had a larger increase in people looking for work than did rural counties.
Recession Strikes Cities Harder Than Rural Communities — So Far | Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural.
As someone who grew up immersed in the art of Grant Wood (I attended his namesake elementary school) the temporary return of the painting to Iowa is making news. To understand American Gothic, Eldon, and how it relates to today’s world is the subject of a future blog post.
“Does it depict life today? Probably not,” says Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge. “The world has changed dramatically. People are much more mobile. Fewer people live on farms and make their living on farms. We don’t dress that way anymore. But that doesn’t take anything away in my mind from the painting. The painting is still a depiction of our heritage and something we should be proud of.”
There is a growing discussion on line and in traditional media about rural affairs. Sometimes even the pursuit of a “simpler” life still requires paying attention to more global issue. Steph Larsen posts this on the Blog for Rural America
The sustainable local food system we are trying to build relies on an abundance of small, diverse, sustainable family farmers scattered all across the United States. For this kind of farm to exist, sustainable must mean more than environmental sustainability – it must also include economic viability. Farming is a dangerous and risky business, and it becomes a whole lot less attractive when a farmer knows that he or she is one fall from the hay loft away from losing their land.
While 9 in 10 farm and ranch operators have health insurance, nearly one-quarter (23%) report that insurance premiums and other out-of-pocket health care costs are causing financial difficulties for themselves and their families.
Respondents who reported financial problems spent on average 42 percent of their income on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs.
In addition, more than four in 10 farmers and ranchers (44%) report spending at least 10 percent of their annual income on health insurance premiums, prescriptions and other out-of-pocket medical costs.
Growing Healthy Food Requires Health Care | Center for Rural Affairs.
I’ve mentioned Lou Ureneck’s cabin project as one I’m following, and in his comments, someone asked a great question: What is a cabin?
The comments there bring an interesting mix and Lou writes:
It’s a good question, though not so easily answered. A cabin is not a house, though it may be a home. Some cabins are small and some are big. So, size won’t help us, though the bigger the structure the more likely we are to approach its claim on the title “cabin” with skepticism. The concept of cabin is closely connected to logs but clearly many cabins are not built from laid-up logs. Wood seems essential, however.
Dale Mulfinger, in The Cabin: Inspiration for the Classic American Getaway
writes:
We all have a cabin memory. Or a cabin dream. A little place whee the family vacationed when we were young,. Tiny, cot filled cabins at summer camp. The cabin we built when the kids were small, — or the cabin we want to build when the kids are grown. We remember our own cabins, or recall some shared national memory like Lincoln’s or Thoreau’s cabin.
The truth is, in function, if not always in form– modern cabins are no different than those historical ones, expect that people today usually don’t live in their cabins full time; we escape to them instead.
Mulfinger goes on to describe the cabins in his book as well as cabins in general, limiting them to less than 1,200 square feet.
A cabin makes a great escape and a wonderful full time home. For many, cabin implies a more primative or rustic level of finish detail, however, some cabins are sleek, refined, and polished. In my own space and design, I’ve purposely left some edges and details ragged, to speed the process of developing a patina of a lived-in space. To other tastes, it may appear to be ragged or unfinished.
This post originally was posted at John Raabe’s www.countryplans.com (see the entire thread here)
Talk about asking the tough questions! If I may, let me add my thoughts from my (narrow) point of view. As a compliment to all before I begin, I know we all come from various backgrounds politically and socially and culturally, yet I continue to be proud of how even our potential hot bed discussions don’t break down to the Internet mud slinging that goes on so many other places.
Politics and economy == wow what a potential mine field.
I think to answer the first question, is this a good time to build? — absolutely — IF — you have done your homework. I don’t think the decision to build (or be the general contractor) of a home/shed/garage/dog house should be entered into lightly and without some thinking…or soul searching… The second part of the question, building a country home add more complications. To chose live in a rural area whether it’s 5 miles, 50 miles or 500 miles from your supplies means you have to think differently. Not easier, not harder, but differently.
Another consideration is the idea of country living as a “simpler life”….”simple” is not complication free. By living in a rural area, I traded one set of complications for another set of complications.
So yes, if you have spent some time on this forum (or read a lot of books, or talk to a lot of people who have done this) and you understand what you are getting into, this is an ideal time to build. Even if you can’t do it all in one burst, being able to build in steps an stages will get you farther than waiting until the “perfect” moment in the economy, weather, and work-life balance to start.
As for the Iowa economy, I work in the capital city, surrounded by banking, financial and agribusiness, so we don’t see the huge spins of the economy like manufacturing or tourism dependent cities do. My cabin is in the poorest county or 2nd poorest in the state. That said, I’m not seeing my neighbors adversely affected either — they don’t rely on credit, have just what they need, and are still able to put gas in the truck and the Wal Mart shelves are full.
The folks in between are the ones I see having trouble. On the local Craig’s list, I see weekly ads for “free horses” and just last week someone offered all his cattle free, writing he was “out of hay, out of money, and out of time”. I suspect we’ll see more of this before we’re done.
So if I were starting out in 2009 – I would borrow as little as possible to buy the land and build.
Buy local – as much as possible. It will cost more $$ than the Lowes/Home Depot big box stores, but it will pay you back over time in both community trust and helping your neighbors.
Decide your priorities: your first year you may concentrate your energy and dollars into building the finished shelter, leaving the landscaping and the sustainable food gardens to a second or third year. Starting a new garden to support your family takes time and energy the first and second years. Unless you are blessed with pristine soils, you can’t just drop seeds in the ground and enjoy the bounty of the grocery. Likewise with small animals or poultry for eggs, there is a learning curve and even the most experienced growers have problems
Spend less discretionary money: Last fall I started trying to spend $5 less each week and putting that money away. (Week 1 $5, Week 2 $10, Week 3 $15) (Yeah it gets real hard by week 20 or so…but it adds up.) Now, true, you maybe cut your other spending back, and then drop $5000 on building materials but I hope my logic make sense.
Buy in bulk when you can, (within reason if you’re living in a small space) so you have foodstuffs to get you through emergency bills or unexpected breaks in your income or cash flow.
Offer to help others If you neighbor has a big job, offer to help, show up, and pull your share. It, too, will pay you back, probably when you least expect it and most need it.
Don’t expect to be perfect You will make mistakes. Reading this forum and talking with others will keep you in perspective. The TV build-it-yourself shows don’t. Everyone makes mistakes, some small, some huge. Real life and real building doesn’t go through the tv-edit booth to remove the goofs. They happen, you learn from them, and go forward. Some will keep you up at night, some will be expensive, but while others may laugh with you, no one who has done this will laugh at you.
Finally, building a country home is a little like the old saying about the best time to plant a tree:
The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, the second best time is now.
After enduring (there is really no other word) a long dark and cold winter, this afternoon was the third day of unseasonably warm weather in the high 50′s and clear blue skies. A rooster pheasant greeted me in the drive when I pulled up in the car, and a pair of rosters were scratching for food and playing near the well.
Later, 5 hens, whom I often refer to as “the girls”, flew out of the brush at the north end of the ranch and over to the grass between the cabin and their pen and former.
A hidden rooster cackles every now and then from the dense cover to the east, and whenever a noisy truck or motorcycle drives by on the road, another rooster cackles, either as an alert to the others, or in competition with the noise. Of the 44 pheasants released in the fall, it seems that somewhere between 8 and 11 still are making a home near the cabin. I’ve seen a few down the road, and wonder how well the others may have done over the winter.
Just now, 14 geese flew over heading for the pond across the highway. Through the bare trees, I can see my neighbor’s paint horses and I wonder sometimes if they stand there because they can see me on the deck? Mostly likley, they just like the grass they find there.
One of our readers commented about her enjoyment of solitude on her farm, writing
And in that moment I didn’t feel in the least bit alone. But those moments are precious. I can not begin to tell you how relieved I am to find this site. I’m not crazy after all…..
For moments like these, there are almost no words.
Thursday’s forecast was warm. Today was even warmer but in case this turned into a major repair, I wanted to have Friday as a back up day. At about 9:31, the backhoe came down the drive way and we went to the back of the cabin.
The dogtrot has a bisecting deck that extends 24 feet to the west and 10 feet to the east. The water line, on the east side, splits near the north end of the big cabin, and then wraps around the shorter deck and to the little cabin.
Because the ground is still frozen at the surface, approximately 24 degrees, even with the backhoes’ stabilizers and the front bucket down on the ground, the backhoe still slid sideways as it began to break the ground. The frozen earth looked more like pieces of shale than soil as they were scooped and dumped.
In time, the first hole was nearly 3 – 4 feet deep, and 6 – 8 feet long. Russel, the contractor who is by far the best digger and linesman in the area, got out two to three times and probed the softer deep earth for the water line. And not finding it was a good thing.
We now had about 20 feet between the hole and where we estimated the line rejoined the main line back to the street. Russel moved the back hoe and as I watched from in front of him, began to scrape at the frozen ground.
On the third scrape, which just a few inches of soil removed from the surface, I waved him off to stop digging. In front of me was an amazing sight: a severed waterline, frozen, sticking out of the ground. It was now 10:04, less than 30 minutes after we started digging.
Water pressures in the earth can do interesting things. Poorly placed septic tanks can surface in hard rains, caskets can be un-earthed in the right – er – wrong conditions. And the water line had floated to nearly the top of the trench.
In hind sight, Russel explained and I remembered, he had changed plans when we lay the lines originally.
A year ago in April, when we burried the lines, we started a day early because there were few other sites where his crew could work. It was wet and sloppy. As they did the prep work on the site, all was well, but as they started to use the wheel driven trencher, it took nearly 2 hours to lay 20 or 30 feet. So the crew left and came back the next day with a track driven trencher and finiched the job.
The smaller trencher — while still digging a 5 foot deep trench, made a narrower cut in the ground. The narrower cut did not fill with dirt the way the wider trench did and with a very wet spring and early summer, the line worked its way to the surface.
The gallery below includes images of the repair and the solid tube of ice that blocked the water line.
There are some lessons to be learned. It always pays to hire local experts rather than brining in your own from far away. Local people know local conditions. I had piece of mind knowing that since the conventional fixes to frozen pipes wer enot working, something was indeed out of the ordinary. Having the trust in Russel made it easier to call him for help. Preparation is still part of the planning. And while it didn’t matter in this case, I’ve made some plans to adjust how the water lines enter the cabins as soon as it thaws and we can dig more easily.
