Looking for Homestead Property: Why & Things to Consider

I've mentioned previously that I'm looking for a piece of land to purchase.  In this blog post I want to lay out some factors that I need to take into consideration when evaluating property as a way to clarify my own thinking and help me in my search.

Background: Why Homesteading and Sustainability?

Here's some background that's relevant: I think that there's sufficient reason to be concerned about the stability over the next fifty years of the multiple systems that provide us with affordable access to food, water, gasoline, propane, and electricity.  That's one of the main reasons I wanted to get out of the suburbs--my entire existence was dependent on the stability of those systems.  If any one of them got out of whack for more than a few days, things would go to shit.  While I lived in Maryland, there were a few periods where the power was out for a few days due to major snowstorms, wind storms, and hurricanes. And I lived in Northern Virginia when the attacks on NYC and the Pentagon happened, and we had a major snowstorm.   During these events, I saw what happened when we lost power for a few days, and when communication and transportation systems broke down for short periods. I saw how people behaved in the lead-up and aftermath of these events. 

Our food supply in this country is very vulnerable to disruption.  Many grocery stores have only a few days worth of food in stock; they're dependent on continual deliveries.  Before and after some of the storms we had in Maryland, the shelves were bare of essential products such as water, bread, milk, and batteries.  Hardware stores ran out of generators, portable propane stoves, candles, shovels, and flashlights.  When the power was out for a day or more, some of the local stores lost all of their refrigerated supplies and fresh produce.  All of the local restaurants closed.

Local transportation systems are vulnerable as well.  After the snowstorms and hurricanes, roads were blocked by snow, trees, and downed power lines.  In both Maryland and Virginia, to even get to the grocery stores, we had to hike out over unplowed roads and in blizzard and hurricane conditions.  

Without electricity in our neighborhood, we couldn't heat or cool our house, or have hot water.  When the larger electric grid goes down, access to clean drinking water becomes problematic.  You're told to boil water, but your electric stove doesn't work.  All perishable food in our house perished, because there was no power for the refrigerator or freezer.  And since the stove didn't work, we couldn't use it to cook the staples we had, such as rice and pasta.  After a day or two, we ran out of candles we were using for light.

We made do.  I had a propane camping stove and propane for it, a kerosene lantern and kerosene, jugs of water stockpiled, and a few days worth of canned and non-perishable foods.  We wore layers of outer clothes inside and added more blankets to the beds to keep warm when the power went out in the winter.  But if any of these power losses had lasted more than a few days and had it been colder out, things would have not been so nice.

Extreme weather is projected to worsen over the next century.  According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this includes higher high temperatures, longer heat waves, more extreme and longer droughts, and more intense rainstorms (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-will-worsen-extreme-weather).  Check out this information from the EPA for some more details about changes projected by 2100.  I'm not a professional scientist, but when I see that, amongst professional scientists who do study issues related to climate, the overwhelming consensus is that there will be dramatic changes in climate and that this will affect human, animal, and plant populations, I know enough to pay attention. 

I don't want to get caught in a situation where the basic elements of my survival such at water, food, and shelter are extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change.  And even if I'm optimistic, or want to deny the existence of significant climate change and its possible effects on us, I've seen how vulnerable the systems I depend on for life support are to existing extremes in weather.

I've already taken some actions over the last two years to adapt to the changes that are already happening and to the more dramatic changes that are projected.   We've moved to this property, where we are almost entirely off grid (the one weak spot, and it's a major one, is reliance on the grid to have access to water).  We've stockpiled some seeds to save, and I'm planting a garden and planning to preserve its products.  I drive less.  I consume far fewer material goods. 

With any significant choice, there's a certain weighing that we do when we decide how to act, though I suspect in the end the choice is not entirely or even largely based on reasons or evidence.  In this situation, the evidence is complicated to understand and there are multiple projections of how and at what rates change might unfold, so the future is uncertain.  And there are risks and benefits to acting, and to not acting.   I think to a degree those risks and benefits are specific to individuals and their life circumstances.

In my own case, looking beyond climate science, there were factors I took into consideration when I decided I wanted to move toward an off-the-grid, sustainable homestead.  These things aren't necessarily relevant to everyone's decision making.  Health wise,  I knew that I would benefit by removing myself from the stresses of living in the suburbs and commuting to a more-than-full-time job in the city.  I was also in a position where my health forced me to retire, and the loss of income that came with marital separation and leaving my job required me to make some major adjustments in how I was living.  I needed to reduce the basic costs associated with living.

I grew up on an off-the-grid homestead and I already knew that I loved that way of living, despite its inconveniences and my desire to experience other ways of living after I, as they say, grew up.  I love how I feel when I am building things, grow and preserve things, and caring for animals.  I love the feelings of competence that comes from being able to provide for many of my basic needs.  I love learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge to help me better meet those needs.  I feel fulfilled as a human being, that is, I feel like I'm flourishing when I do those things, when I'm learning more about them, and when I'm thinking and writing about them.  Here, I don't want to make a universal proclamation that this would be true of everyone and thus a reason for choosing this way of life.  I do think that it's a basic human drive to learn and to achieve competence and autonomy, and I suspect that, absent cultural conditioning in opposition and given opportunities during childhood, many people would want to do and learn the things they'd need to in order to achieve autonomy and competence in meeting their basic needs through building, growing, and caring for animals (see Deci and Ryan for support of this argument about the universal human drive for competence and autonomy: http://users.ugent.be/~wbeyers/scripties2012/artikels/The-what-and-why-of-goal-pursuits.pdf).   We see this in young children before they begin school and before they are extensively socialized into mainstream U.S. culture.  Anyway, a desire to live a certain kind of life is a definite factor influencing my decision to move toward homesteading.  Simply, I feel good when I live a certain way. 

I also think that it's a more responsible way to live, and that being responsible is a desirable thing.  Here, it's hard to describe the exact nature of my belief and it's not possible to fully justify it.  Some people believe that the earth was created for their use and pleasure, and they can and should use it as they wish, even if that means destroying the environment for the other beings that live here now and will live here in the future.  I don't share that belief.   I don't want to commit to the idea that humans are the only beings capable of reflection prior to action, but I do think that some humans are capable of thinking about how to act prior to acting, reflecting on the consequences of those actions for themselves and their environment, and then (appearing) to choose how to act.  I don't have to be driven solely to consume material goods; when I see that consumption of certain material goods that go beyond satisfying my basic needs has consequences such as causing harm to other things such as animals, plant life, or the environment, I can choose not to consume.  And I see my good, my happiness  and flourishing as an individual as interdependent with those things.  So if choosing to consume some non-essential material good causes harm to them, I want to choose not to consume it.

Digging a little deeper to analyze my thought process, though, I can't see any deep reason for not wanting to harm animals, plants, or the environment.  I don't enjoy seeing other things suffer or knowing that I caused their suffering, and I find an environment that has been disrupted by a lot of use, whether it be a large group of seals shitting all over the rocks or a large group of humans planting houses in a field, aesthetically unpleasant.   And although I don't want to  be the cause of animal or human suffering, why should I care whether a given animal or species becomes extinct or not? Even if nothing else, I have very limited knowledge or understanding of the web of things; perhaps the death of an individual or a species means that other individuals or species will be able exist. 

But even if I assume I did have perfect knowledge of the consequences of all my actions, why should I assume that existing is better than not existing, whether it's me, other individuals, or entire species?   I guess that's a first principle for me: existing is better than not-existing, for me and others, and some ways of existing are better than others.  Certain conditions must be met for me and others to exist, and for others to exist in the future.  Certain ways of existing may be pleasing to me, but are not necessary for me to exist, and they interfere with the necessary conditions for others to exist.  Given the priority I'm giving to existence for myself and others, I need to have a very compelling reason to degrade the necessary conditions for others. 

I have more to think and say here and this seems ridiculously shallow and ill-considered, but this will have to do for now. 

So, anyway, the things mentioned above are the factors I'm taking into consideration beyond the possibility of climate change when I think about why I want to homestead and live more sustainably.

Now, given that background on why I want to homestead and to purchase a piece of land, here are the factors I've been thinking about as I look at land.

Considerations for Evaluating Land

Access to local water for drinking, gardening, and livestock
This is absolutely essential.  Obviously, without access to water, life isn't possible.  And I don't want to be dependent on others outside my community or on the grid for access to water.  Thus, while I understand that it's possible to have water hauled in and stored in cisterns, this is not optimal because the whole functioning of the homestead would be dependent on the availability, cost, and transportation of that water.  And if anything happens to the grid, the outside water supply, or access to fuel to transport the water, that would have effects on the homestead that will be entirely outside of my control.

Currently, we have one link to the grid:  the pump at river level that supplies our entire neighborhood is connected to the electric grid.  If the power goes down, and it's during the majority of the year when there's no snow or rain, everyone will be hiking to and hauling from the Rio Grande and local tributaries.  I believe our water is also dependent to some degree on the flow in the Rio Grande.  If folks upstream pollute the water (through the fracking that's currently proposed for the northern part of the state and in Colorado) or decide to limit the water flow due to extreme drought conditions, we're in trouble.  Even though we have a rain barrel and a grey water system, that's not enough water to maintain a garden, livestock, or us.  New Mexico and the entire Southwest are already in severe drought conditions and are battling over access to water for drinking and agriculture.  Given projections that that drought conditions will worsen over the next fifty or so years, water access is top of my list.

Natural Beauty
This is not a necessary condition for survival so I suppose it shouldn't be this high on my list for that reason.  But it is and realizing this requires me to go back and revise my thinking in the background section about why homestead.  I want to live somewhere that is aesthetically pleasing to me.  It doesn't have to be beautiful in the standard sense of having an ocean view and a great big green lawn.  My personal preference is land that that has some variability in its appearance, features such as rocks, hills, and trees that interest and stimulate the attention and imagination.  Many of the properties I've seen advertised are out in the middle of large plains and though they have beautiful views of far-off mountains, the properties themselves are flat and featureless.  I'd like to be in rolling hills or the mountains, and in either case, I would like to be able to see mountains and hills when I look beyond the property boundaries, rather than a wide, bare plain.  Some nearby water source would add to the beauty and the presence and diversity of animals and plants that would be able to live nearby. 

Suitability for Gardening
An important component of a homestead is a garden, and this means that when I'm evaluating land, I need to be attentive to growing conditions, including such things as the length of growing year and number of sunny days.  It would be possible to extend growing year with row covers, cold frames, and/or a simple greenhouse, and I'd like to do this regardless.  But some areas of the country have very short growing seasons and I would prefer not to have to heat a greenhouse. 

A major consideration is the amount of organic material and nutrients in the soil, and availability of organic material in close proximity.  Solar radiation is intense in the high desert and at high  altitudes more generally.  The radiation quickly breaks down organic matter in the soil; long periods without water creates alkaline soil, which many vegetable plants do not like (Weinberg, Growing Food in the High Desert, 2012, p. 11).  Deciduous trees on the property or in the local community would provide some organic matter (leaves) that could be added to the garden. 

Additionally, I have a preference for property with some open, fairly level, well-drained land.  I don't want have to do lots of tree and rock removal, though I can if necessary and the land is desirable in other respects.

Suitability for Solar Power Generation
I'd like the property to be off-grid, the house and any livestock shelter to be passive solar, and all the electric needs met through solar power; thus, I'd like property with southern exposure and to be in a climate with many sunny days.  I'm less familiar with the technology of wind power; that's an option to explore as a backup power source.  My personal preference is to not live somewhere with lots of heavy wind year round, but I understand that wind is a seasonal feature in many parts of the country.  I can live with that.  If the area is wind-prone, I'd like there to be areas on the property that are sheltered from the wind for placing the buildings.

Accessibility
Some land is only accessible by snow mobile in the winter.  That's problematic.  I don't want to have to haul things in and out that way, and I'd have to buy a snowmobile. I'd also be concerned about emergency medical needs, either to be able to get out to a hospital quickly or to have an ambulance reach the property.  I'd like a road that is accessible with my all-wheel vehicle, and I wouldn't mind using chains occasionally in the winter.

A long entry road in an area that gets lots of snow means that it would be necessary to pay someone to plow us out.  An unimproved entry road means that we'd have to invest funds in possibly removing trees, adding gravel, and grading, so a long access road isn't desirable.  Being able to reach most of the way to the property by state roads is desirable, because they'd likely be maintained and plowed within a reasonable time frame, compared to other kinds of roads. 
 
Solitude and Community
Lastly (for now at least), I would like to be able to look out my windows without seeing another house or a road, and wander in the yard without being under the eye of neighbors.  At the same time, it's important to have neighbors within walking distance who are reasonably friendly, for mutual assistance and a sense of community.   And this is important:  I want to have multiple places to explore on walks that are directly accessible from the property. 

Finally, I have desires with respect to the local community: some are important (access to a post office,  a largish grocery store with staples like coffee, salt, flour, etc., a public library, a hardware store, livestock food store, a gas station), others would be very nice (a farmers market, a coffee shop with good coffee, a restaurant or two, and an active community scene with occasional events like films, plays, art shows, craft fairs, etc.). 

I have desires about the overall attitudes of my neighbors and community members:  I'd like them to respect privacy, be respectful of other people's choices and identities (as long as those choices don't infringe on their own basic rights), and be open to forming new relationships and teaching and learning from others.  I'd like some diversity in perspective and world experience.  I don't care if they call themselves democrats, republicans, libertarians, tea party members, or anarchists. 

I'm sure I've forgotten factors that need to be considered.  I'll add them later as they occur to me, feel free to suggest some.