Hi from Oregon out East

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Faez

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Joined
Jul 22, 2022
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102
Location
NW USA
I am 71 and my off-grid remote mountain homesteading and ranching days are behind me. I was raised on a high mountain Colorado cattle ranch and as an only child, I learned to do everything. My years in the mountains and high range gave me a wealth of experience. I was widowed at a young age and decided to do it all on my own and I did.

I can't brag about being highly accomplished at anything, but I can talk about my experiences with building log cabins, sawing lumber, making cabinets, making musical instruments, building shortwave radios, making muzzleloaders, knives, tanning buckskins, chickens, dairy goats, sheep, and beef cattle. From gardening, drying, and canning, to growing wheat and triticale for stone milling to wind generators, solar panels, hydraulic rams, waterwheels, to gold mining, repurposing 2nd hand clothes, treadle machine sewing, spinning, blacksmithing, to operating about any type of heavy equipment out there, is the story of my life.

I now live on the edge of town nearer medical facilities because of my health. I walk daily. Rural living especially homesteading is hard work and not for the lazy or faint of spirit.

The biggest drawback I see these days is buying a place to set up more dependency on yourself and less on others. Land prices are insane and then laws about what you can and cannot do can also limit your self-sufficiency.
 
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Welcome from Alaska. Strange your life and your current situation is nearly EXACTLY where I find myself now. I live up on a mountain in Alaska in a small cabin and hauling water and this lifestyle is coming to an end, I am far too old for this. Good luck with your future.

Faez said:
I am 71 and my off-grid remote mountain homesteading and ranching days are behind me. I was raised on a high mountain Colorado cattle ranch and as an only child, I learned to do everything. My years in the mountains and high range gave me a wealth of experience. I was widowed at a young age and decided to do it all on my own and I did.

I can't brag about being highly accomplished at anything, but I can talk about my experiences with building log cabins, sawing lumber, making cabinets, making musical instruments, building shortwave radios, making muzzleloaders, knives, tanning buckskins, chickens, dairy goats, sheep, and beef cattle. From gardening, drying, and canning, to growing wheat and triticale for stone milling to wind generators, solar panels, hydraulic rams, waterwheels, to gold mining, repurposing 2nd hand clothes, treadle machine sewing, spinning, blacksmithing, to operating about any type of heavy equipment out there, is the story of my life.

I now live on the edge of town nearer medical facilities because of my health. I walk daily. Rural living especially homesteading is hard work and not for the lazy or faint of spirit.

The biggest drawback I see these days is buying a place to set up more dependency on yourself and less on others. Land prices are insane and then laws about what you can and cannot do can also limit your self-sufficiency.
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Welcome from Bama! Funny, my dad was 85 before I finally convinced him that we should get out of the cow business. He was stubborn but I couldn't do it alone. So I fixed it for him... As of last week my cousin will run cattle here (his weaned heifers too young for breeding). At least dad can sit on his porch and watch cattle graze again... and I don't have to care for them.
 
Faez said:
I am 71 and my off-grid remote mountain homesteading and ranching days are behind me. I was raised on a high mountain Colorado cattle ranch and as an only child, I learned to do everything. My years in the mountains and high range gave me a wealth of experience. I was widowed at a young age and decided to do it all on my own and I did.

I can't brag about being highly accomplished at anything, but I can talk about my experiences with building log cabins, sawing lumber, making cabinets, making musical instruments, building shortwave radios, making muzzleloaders, knives, tanning buckskins, chickens, dairy goats, sheep, and beef cattle. From gardening, drying, and canning, to growing wheat and triticale for stone milling to wind generators, solar panels, hydraulic rams, waterwheels, to gold mining, repurposing 2nd hand clothes, treadle machine sewing, spinning, blacksmithing, to operating about any type of heavy equipment out there, is the story of my life.

I now live on the edge of town nearer medical facilities because of my health. I walk daily. Rural living especially homesteading is hard work and not for the lazy or faint of spirit.

The biggest drawback I see these days is buying a place to set up more dependency on yourself and less on others. Land prices are insane and then laws about what you can and cannot do can also limit your self-sufficiency
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Greetings Faez,

So, you are on the dry side of Oregon. I used to run 84 out of Portland through to Ontario quite a bit back in my transporter days. Pretty country through the gorge, dry from there east, except in the mountains between Pendleton and LaGrande.

It sounds like we went to different schools together.

Lord willing, I'll be 66 come September.

From birth to eight years, I lived on a dairy farm in Storrs, Connecticut.

I started throwing the Phoenix Gazette at the age of 10 in Arizona. I kept a menagerie of chickens, ducks, guinea pigs, and rabbits in the back yard, I've worked in the cotton fields, tromped cotton, baled alfalfa, worked alongside the non-English speaking field workers from South of the border in the watermelon and onion fields, was a grocery carry out and worked at a pizza parlor all before graduating high school in Peoria, Arizona.

Learned how to weld in Vocational Agriculture shop. Pounded nails framing houses. Worked at a warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona that handled all of the cigarettes for the entire state. Was a teacher's aide in the Vo Ag department at Peoria High School. Delivered roof trusses around greater Phoenix.

Worked sorting feeder pigs in Ava and Thayer, Missouri and on cattle on a ranch, from castrating to building fence in Arno, Missouri,

Worked on a 300-cow, total confinement 3X milking a day dairy in Ellington, Connecticut and an 85 head 2X a day dairy in Randolph Center, Vermont. Worked at a sand-molded clay brick manufacturing company in Middletown, Connecticut and a Machine shop in Newington, Connecticut that did machine work for Pratt-Whitney Aircraft and some work for NASA.

Worked at a Rainbow trout fishery, and as a deputy sheriff in Ava, Missouri, I rebuilt hydraulic cylinders, (re-sealed, straightened bent chrome rods, replaced honed tubes and liquid-tight welded, cut threads and machined any part necessary from steel or cast-iron stock in order to fix them.) I've been a portion-controlled meat cutter, construction equipment transporter (backhoe, dozer, track loader) and ran a dump truck in Springfield, Missouri. I was a sign/billboard face installer. I've worked with draglines, wheel loaders, jack hammers and just about any kind of construction and industrial equipment and hand tools you could name. I've delivered class eight trucks all over the lower 48 and overland from Vancouver Island to Nova Scotia, Canada for a company based out of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

I consider myself a cattleman. I judged dairy in FFA, took an AI course and studied embryo transfer. I can get a full breach calf out of a cow, raise it to slaughter, butcher it, cut it up into retail cuts, cook it and serve it to you.

For a hobby I make a marinated hot smoked salmon, lox and a pate'.

I'll bet you have some interesting life experiences to share.

As for land, the wild west has moved east. I am in southwest Missouri. My son bought 80 acres of land within 35 miles of Springfield, the third largest city in the state, (two hospitals and loads of every kind of doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs) for $2000 an acre. He can pee off his back porch, shoot his rifles, use tires to burn brush piles and generally do whatever he wants.

Bass Pro Shops got started in Springfield, it is also where Brad Pitt grew up. There are three lakes down by Branson which is the Disneyland of the Midwest. Lots to see and do here. The entertainment is kinda spendy, but the cost of living is pretty reasonable and there's lots that an OCB like me can do. My rent for a 700 sq ft apartment is $550 a month in Nixa, the home of Jason Borne.
 
Hello from the mountains of Montana. Growing things from ashwaganda to tobacco here. Small flock of layers is just big enough to start chasing grasshoppers.
 

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Hello and welcome from S.W. Oregon, we are living on just over two acres and if it wasn't for the help of our dear younger friends we couldn't get anything done that needs to be done around here, all the projects that seemed to be easy a few years ago, now they are whipping me, yesterday we went to the Roseburg Costco and bought twelve new GC 2 6 volt batteries as we want to replace all our solar storage batteries, my friend did all the heavy work getting them up to the solar equipment shed, we have to get twelve more batteries, but this time I'm going to air up the lawn tractor trailer and haul them up in that, at 60 pounds per battery they are just not fun to handle. I highly recommend that all the heavy work be done while you're still young, coming up in October I'll be 80 and believe me, I'm really starting to feel those years, thank God we have help from younger friends.
 
Welcome from Alaska. I'd love it if you started a thread on tanning.
 
Welcome from rural N Florida.
I don’t do well with snow and below zero temperatures, so when the Army sent me to Colorado, one winter there caused me to volunteer for Vietnam.
I’m 73, wife is 75, we have a few acres with a vegetable garden, some chickens, and my wife’s mare.
That’s her in my avatar. The mare, not my wife. LOL.
 
Caribou said:
Welcome from Alaska. I'd love it if you started a thread on tanning.
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I will do that but I haven't tanned in years and have no interest in doing so again, but I love talking about it and reminiscing. Keep your eyes peeled.

@Caribou the thread is started and also one on homemade muzzleloaders. Also have you ever tried the nickel iron batteries? They last 30 years. (probably not important for you or me hahaha) They won't deep cycle like lead acid, but I used them for years.
 
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Welcome from Alaska! I would love to learn more of your life’s adventure!
 
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