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Kat I just thought of something, you could maybe use grow lights and containers and grow your herbs like that, It is easy and all kinds of help on [ hate to promote ] youtube. But at this stage in the game who cares. :doghouse::D

I am thinking of doing just that. I had left my canning supplies and garden seeds at my house with my husband. I just told him last night, I want to get all those and will start with some easy herbs.
 
Since I started this post in December of 2017, I have moved from the off the grid home and lifestyle to a small city. I had to leave and could not tolerate my marriage or life there any longer. Maybe I do not belong on a country living forum, but just because I moved does not mean I forgot everything I learned or did. I would never consider going back to that life now and I know living in the city is what most homesteading people are trying to get away from. But when you get to a certain age, things change.
You have paid your dues ,, you have the voice of experience and most of all ,,,, you are a survivor
 
You know it wasn't so much that I minded this life off the grid. If we had just stuck with that and not spent so much time on building a barn and getting horses, but fixed the house first. Then if we wanted a barn we could build one. But the thing is that we didn't really need horses. And we could have survived without clearing so much of the land. The house could have been remodeled and been nicer, water brought inside right from the start. It was hard the way I lived, but a big part was spending money on the system as parts would need repair or upgrading. And of course, my husband was in a bad accident and almost killed so he ended up on disability. It wasn't like he made me live like that, to be honest, I wanted to live that lifestyle even more than he did. Just a lot of regrets now.
 
... not spent so much time on building a barn and getting horses, but fixed the house first. ...house could have been remodeled ...big part was spending money on the system as parts would need repair or upgrading.

Read story about a husband talking to a Marriage Counselor. Husband couldn't figure out why is why was so depressed. After the Counselor had talked to the wife he had an answer for the Husband. "Fixed the kitchen ASAP!"

"Well I'm planning to but that is where my workbench and where I keep my tools. Once all the other rooms are finished then I'll add on a garage and move the workbench and tools out there and then finish the kitchen." And the husband didn't want any debt so a room wasn't completed until the money for it was in hand. So the house remodeling was a several years project.

The Counselor answered, "How would you like it if every time you wanted to remodel you would have to move and rearrange kitchen post and pans, knives, appliance and no clean workbench to work on?" Husband shooock his head, "No". "That is exactly what your wife haves to deal with every time she cooks a meal. No place to prepare the food, wash the sawdust of the dishes every time she wants to use them and she knows she'll have to do this for years?"

The husband understood and finished the kitchen first instead of last.

I kept this in mind when we bought our first house. Built the garage first, totally remodeled the kitchen second and the rest of the house after that. Good thing too because 25 years later I was about 75% done.
 
Read story about a husband talking to a Marriage Counselor. Husband couldn't figure out why is why was so depressed. After the Counselor had talked to the wife he had an answer for the Husband. "Fixed the kitchen ASAP!"

"Well I'm planning to but that is where my workbench and where I keep my tools. Once all the other rooms are finished then I'll add on a garage and move the workbench and tools out there and then finish the kitchen." And the husband didn't want any debt so a room wasn't completed until the money for it was in hand. So the house remodeling was a several years project.

The Counselor answered, "How would you like it if every time you wanted to remodel you would have to move and rearrange kitchen post and pans, knives, appliance and no clean workbench to work on?" Husband shooock his head, "No". "That is exactly what your wife haves to deal with every time she cooks a meal. No place to prepare the food, wash the sawdust of the dishes every time she wants to use them and she knows she'll have to do this for years?"

The husband understood and finished the kitchen first instead of last.

I kept this in mind when we bought our first house. Built the garage first, totally remodeled the kitchen second and the rest of the house after that. Good thing too because 25 years later I was about 75% done.


I could relate to this as soon as I started reading it. I'd send it to my husband but don't want to start a fight. We are friends at the moment.
 
Our cabin is off-grid with solar power. Our motor home (we are snowbirds now) is solar powered including the electric refrigerator. Our 5th wheel is solar powered (just got it this summer) but has a propane fridge. Our "woods" camper (converted 14 foot U-Haul) is solar powered. Our camper van (for cross country tripping) is solar powered. Wouldn't hook onto the grid if we were paid to do it.
 
I used to say that too, but the best thing I did was to leave there. I have never been this happy before. Everybody is different and has different needs and health issues.
 
I think everyone changes depending on where they are in their life. I grew up in a major city and was fine with that. Then got married and moved to beachfront and loved it. Then husband took a 2 yr job in Europe and that was good, too. Arriving in the desert 20 yrs ago was good. Now I'm ready for farming. Too bad I'm old.
 
Well, old or not, I'd rather be a farmer. Or a minifarmer. Right now I guess I'm an acre farmer, so that's ok.

Well that to me is a lot of farm. We mainly use raised beds and greenhouse containers. We did use hydroponics for past 6 or 6 years but closed them down last year.

We have fairly good neighbors though. Nobody bothers anyoen but soem will help
 
Growing up in small town with a narcissistic family, I grabbed the opportunities that came my way, but took me to big cities. Decades ago, I worked on a plan to live with an uncle on his ranch, and become a farm woman. He encouraged me to, and he could have used the partnership, as could I have. I had been offered a teaching job, so I could have had an income and been able to develop a herd of cattle and more. That was until his narcissism start coming out and he wasn't easy to be around. He had always had a bad temper and I wasn't going to jump into that fire. I moved 1000 miles away.
 
Growing up in small town with a narcissistic family, I grabbed the opportunities that came my way, but took me to big cities. Decades ago, I worked on a plan to live with an uncle on his ranch, and become a farm woman. He encouraged me to, and he could have used the partnership, as could I have. I had been offered a teaching job, so I could have had an income and been able to develop a herd of cattle and more. That was until his narcissism start coming out and he wasn't easy to be around. He had always had a bad temper and I wasn't going to jump into that fire. I moved 1000 miles away.

People who are always in a bad mood are not happy nor are the people around them. It is sad though. Seems these kind need love the most.
 
People who are always in a bad mood are not happy nor are the people around them. It is sad though. Seems these kind need love the most.
I think you are right. I was one of the few people who would stop to see him whenever I was where he lived. Not very many others would stop to see him, but he was my mom's brother. Once I walked away from the ranching opportunity, I think he realized that it was his actions that caused that. I stay away from unkind, mean spirited people, especially relatives who are that way.
 
It's hard to do when your mom is that way. My mom is 86 and getting up there in age, but she can say really mean things. Then people don't like to hang out with her. I try to always be kind to her, but after I leave for a visit, she'll say nasty things about me to other people. And then they'll call me and tell me. She makes stuff up, too. Hard to honor your parents when they are that way. I told my favorite cousin that if I get all mean like that to just slap me. I'll do the same for her.
 
It's hard to do when your mom is that way. My mom is 86 and getting up there in age, but she can say really mean things. Then people don't like to hang out with her. I try to always be kind to her, but after I leave for a visit, she'll say nasty things about me to other people. And then they'll call me and tell me. She makes stuff up, too. Hard to honor your parents when they are that way. I told my favorite cousin that if I get all mean like that to just slap me. I'll do the same for her.
I struggle with "Honor your father and mother."
 
I struggle with "Honor your father and mother."
You do the best you can. If they are not worthy of it, He understands. If they would be worthy therein lies the accountability.
Unkind and mean-spirited family members are miserable with nothing better in their lives than to judge their own blood. It helped us get away from it by moving thousands of miles away. Before that, i started saying NO, we have other plans.
Pass the bean dip (change the subject).
 
You do the best you can. If they are not worthy of it, He understands. If they would be worthy therein lies the accountability.
Unkind and mean-spirited family members are miserable with nothing better in their lives than to judge their own blood. It helped us get away from it by moving thousands of miles away. Before that, i started saying NO, we have other plans.
Pass the bean dip (change the subject).
Exactly! I don't reach out to most of them.
 
We have one neighbor about half a mile from us. The other property that is closer than that is a hunting lodge, that is hardly ever used anymore. Now there are a few cops who are members of it that just practice shooting there off and on. Not very often. Our neighbor recently got married and sold his property and moved to FL, at the time of the hurricane. He was a good neighbor, but we keep to ourselves more so it is not like we went to each others' homes. Now we haven't met the new people yet. People wave when they go by but we don't really know them. If they get a different vehicle then I always think it is someone new. Most of the properties on our road are hunting camps.

I know people say you should network with the neighbors but we live completely different from them and they do not understand why anyone would want to live without grid electric. Some people are coming around though after all these years. Especially when they slow down to look at our solar panels and turbine spinning. Solar is starting to show up in our area, but grid tied. That is better than none. Not too far away, about 11 miles, there is a solar farm in the little town. It is opening local peoples' eyes. If you are off the grid, do you have neighbors?

I want my "neighbors" about 10 miles away in every direction........... In general, I don't like people very much.

Now on the other hand, if my neighbors generally speaking let me live how I want to live and they generally agree ----- then we can break out the BBQ and the Beer.
 
We're not off the grid electrically (but we want to be) and we can't see our neighbors from where we live. We rarely see any of them. Our closest neighbor is a thief so we want nothing to do with him. Our other neighbors are nice. Our property is surrounded by timber company land and the timber company lets a hunting club pay to use the land for hunting. The areas surrounding that are a wildlife reservation where hunting is not allowed (not that it stops my bad neighbor). Our power bills are usually high. House is not insulated properly, windows suck, we have a workshop attached so our bills are always over $200 a month. They tack on an extra $100 using more than they think we should use (but we're powering more than just the house & the power runs the pumps for our well system). I think if we got the house better insulated & new windows it would reduce the electric usage. It also doesn't help that we have bad wiring & some of the rooms no longer get power after a bunch of power surges. We've had our lines get friend multiple times-- one of the reasons we want to go off-the-grid so we don't get the power surges from a tree falling on the lines down the road.

How difficult is it to set up wind turbines? And solar? Our roof slopes down on the south side so we have space for solar panels on the roof facing the south. I'm not sure if we get enough wind for a turbine to be any good though. We do get a lot of rain though. Wish there was a way to harness that to generate electricity.

Most of the neighbors out here keep to themselves but they will help others out if there's a need. Got a guy a few miles away who cleared the tree that fell on our vehicles & he bush-hogs our yard from time to time (we sold him our tractor for much less than it was worth bc I could no longer go out on it in the heat/sun & he needed a new tractor). Haven't heard from him since the pandemic. Might call him to see if he & his wife are OK.

My sister wants us to move out near Albuquerque but the properties are all more expensive, water is more scarce, and none of the places we looked at have much land or privacy. We don't want to see our neighbors & my sister doesn't understand that. I think she's more social than we are. LOL.
 
... House is not insulated properly, windows suck, we have a workshop attached so our bills are always over $200 a month. T... if we got the house better insulated & new windows it would reduce the electric usage. It also doesn't help that we have bad wiring ...

How difficult is it to set up wind turbines? And solar? ...

I'd put my money into insulation and wiring first. Otherwise you'd waste money to oversize solar, turbine and batteries to compensate.
 
... My mom is 86 and getting up there in age, but she can say really mean things. ... I try to always be kind to her, but after I leave for a visit, she'll say nasty things about me to other people. And then they'll call me and tell me. ...

I don't need drama in my life. Wonder why the callers feel the need to report what your mother said said about you? My siblings tried that tactic with me, I nipped in the bud. Mom has the beginning stages of Alzheimers and says things that would embarrass her when she's in her normal mind. I have a "that's not mom talking" mentality.
 
Ten years ago we re-insulated the house, ceiling, walls, windows, and doors. It helped a lot, but oxygen compressor runs 24-7 and the pushes us up into a higher bill group.

In 2000, I put in a cast iron stove with a flat surface on top so we can heat the main room and cook when the power goes out, but 5 years ago I lost my source of free firewood. Firewood here is expensive, so I limit when I fire up the stove to "dark" snow days.

As folks get older they tend to loose their "filters" when talking to other people, sometimes I can discount it to mecical issues, sometimes it's like they just don't care anymore.... I figure either way it is my choice if I want to talk to them or not....
The only thing that I can control is myself, and I'm not always very good at that...
 
It's hard to do when your mom is that way. My mom is 86 and getting up there in age, but she can say really mean things. Then people don't like to hang out with her. I try to always be kind to her, but after I leave for a visit, she'll say nasty things about me to other people. And then they'll call me and tell me. She makes stuff up, too. Hard to honor your parents when they are that way. I told my favorite cousin that if I get all mean like that to just slap me. I'll do the same for her.
My mom is getting mean to my SIL. Comforting to know we're not the only ones going through this. Your post makes it easier to deal with her as it changes my expectations.
 
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