[HN Gopher] Dispatches from the farm upstate
___________________________________________________________________
Dispatches from the farm upstate
Author : walterbell
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-08-04 17:55 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (lcamtuf.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lcamtuf.substack.com)
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| 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.
| bbarnett wrote:
| 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.
| codingdave wrote:
| You need to maintain a rural home well enough that you
| can get out in an emergency, or when you are sick or
| injured. Or old. Assuming that everyone can always walk
| half a mile, or shovel by hand, is a dangerous game to
| play. If you slip, fall, and break a leg during a storm,
| the ambulance won't shovel your drive to come get you.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I assure you the paramedics will come down your driveway
| on foot. What kinda weird place do you live in?
|
| So if someone falls in the woods and calls on a cell, you
| think they won't hike in to help? Really?
|
| As in, if you get hurt off of a road, you're screwed?
| Come on!
|
| Or you go to sleep, and wake up sick, but it snowed 2
| feet over night. Now no one will ever ever come to help?
|
| Your concerns are not based upon reality.
|
| And you can fall in your basement and be just as trapped,
| right in the city!
| eschneider wrote:
| You're making your response time worse and sometimes that
| matters. A lot. Do you need to go out on a stretcher?
| Life's easier if you've plowed.
| bbarnett wrote:
| How many people, when buying a home, seek out and assess
| the mean time to response?
|
| Did you buy a home? Or even if you rent, have you
| checked? Depending upon city neighborhood, average
| response times vary widely.
|
| Some city areas are hospital adjacent. Some are a mean
| time of an hour away.
|
| If you haven't purposefully checked, then why not?
|
| Some people live in 6 story buildings with (gasp!) no
| elevator. What of them? I assure you a stretcher up and
| down 6 stories is no better than a mere 1/2 mile walk on
| flat ground.
|
| What of power outages in the city? Did you check to see
| if your building has a backup generator? Yes? No? What do
| you do if the power is out, and you're on the 35th floor?
| Yet many city buildings have no backup generator, even
| tall ones.
|
| If one is to throw stones, take care not to live in a
| glass house. Or in this case, an apartment building.
| eschneider wrote:
| Hmmm...Until recently I had an elderly relative living
| with me and I _know_ the difference in difficulty in
| getting them out with cleared snow vs not, and it's a
| lot.
|
| Does that sort of thing (and hospital proximity, etc)
| matter to everyone? No. Or certainly it doesn't matter
| the same amount.
|
| But for some people it will matter a lot.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _But for some people it will matter a lot._
|
| Bear in mind I advocated clearing with a snow blower a
| walking path. This is far cheaper than owning a truck and
| plow, and can be done very fast each storm.
|
| Note, this is a thread about cost savings in rural
| circumstances.
|
| But my statements about parallel situations stand. And
| about people evaluating things ahead of time, they just
| don't. Rural living has different risks, but city born
| risks are just as high. IMO, higher.
|
| Just the additional smog and pollution alone are an
| issue. It's even hotter in a city.
|
| I'm sorry about your incident, but I've seen 6 story
| buildings with no elevator. People live there to save
| money too. The stairwells are not conducive to a
| stretcher either.
|
| So people save as they can.
|
| All that said, how many people move when they get older,
| so they're closer to hospitals?
|
| I get why you wanted to chime in, with a personal
| experince though.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > thousands of dollars an acre
|
| Did you mean per square foot?
| maxerickson wrote:
| 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).
| michaelt wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Fomite wrote:
| 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_ wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| m0llusk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Well, if you're discussing post-agriculture yes. The
| equation and density changes a lot pre-agriculture.
|
| But regardless, rural != isolated. Children still go to
| school. This guy lives 10 miles (aka 10 minutes) from a
| "town", and that town is indeed where people get
| together.
|
| That's the thing about actual rural living. There are no
| stoplight (which takes 2 to 4 minutes to cycle) which
| slows down miles-driven. There are no traffic jams.
| Everyone is typically doing 60mph. 1 mile per minute. 10
| miles is 10 minutes.
|
| I know people that take buses to "do city things", and it
| takes them > 1 hour to get anywhere. I know others that
| walk (20+ minutes) or drive (20+ minutes to get a mile
| away, or to get a few city blocks due to traffic).
|
| "Having houses apart" doesn't mean isolated from other
| humans. At all. Heck someone with a "few hundred acres"
| is often within a mile of another house. As a kid, I used
| to bicycle 10+ miles to see friends in the summer (when
| there was no school), and why not? And in the winter, you
| see your friends daily at school.
|
| You're not "living alone" because you're on a 200 acre
| parcel of land.
|
| A person would need millions of acres to even feel as if
| they're living alone.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> But regardless, rural != isolated. Children still go
| to school. This guy lives 10 miles (aka 10 minutes) from
| a "town"_
|
| 10 minutes for the grown-ups, who can drive whenever they
| feel like it.
|
| For the 14 year old who can't drive, and whose parents
| can't drop everything to play chauffeur? That's 40
| minutes each way on a bicycle - along single-lane roads
| with drivers doing 60mph.
|
| Sounds like a recipe for your kid to spend all day behind
| a screen, to me.
|
| Source: Direct, firsthand experience. The social
| isolation and countless screen hours did turn me into a
| great programmer though, so I've got that going for me.
| defrost wrote:
| 10 miles isn't much if you're 14 and live in the country,
| there's horses, dirt-bikes, hitch-hiking (local traffic),
| riding a push bike (traffic is rarely an issue and there
| are usually not-road paths to bike on.
|
| Some 14 years olds drive a paddock-basher (unlicensed
| car) on not-public farm roads.
|
| Source: Did all of that at 14 well deep in the country (
| a good 1,000 km away from anything close to a city )
| miah_ wrote:
| 100% this.
|
| I didn't have a farmers license, but I was definitely
| driving our little S10 up to the supermarket for
| groceries or gas at 14. Never had a issue. I wasn't a
| menace on the road until I was officially licensed ;)
| jeffbee wrote:
| In Oklahoma my adolescence was marked largely by the
| constant undercurrent of people killing themselves with
| cars. I think this is integral with the rural or semi-
| rural lifestyle because Wyoming, S. Dakota, and Montana
| are #1, 2 and 3 for fatal transport accidents among
| teens. The more a place relies on cars to overcome
| isolation, the more of their young people they lose to
| car crashes. Descriptions about how this system works
| fine come from literal survivor bias.
| miah_ wrote:
| I grew up in rural farmland of Michigan. Guess what. I
| rode a bicycle or walked. To and from school (I lived
| _just_ inside city limits which meant the buses were off-
| limits to me). To my friends house. To my friends house a
| township away (15 miles). Chauffeur? LOL. Sure. Sometimes
| my parents drove me, and yes I did spend time behind a
| screen (I was on many local BBS's). But I also spent
| hours each day outside.
|
| Did this change in the winter? Nope. I still often rode
| my bicycle to school. On days where there was too much
| snow I'd have to leave earlier to deal with the hike.
| Sometimes a friend might notice me and pick me up.
|
| I was definitely the weirdo in school (not a out
| transgender kid in the 1990's no way), but I still had
| friends. I wasn't isolated in any way.
|
| Source: Direct, firsthand experience. Guess what. In
| life, your mileage may vary. Just because you experienced
| something one way doesn't mean everybody else experiences
| it the same way.
| michaelt wrote:
| You walked 15 miles to a friend's house? And back again?
|
| No wonder you spent hours each day outside :)
| brigade wrote:
| As a kid, you biked alongside cars doing 60mph on 2-lane
| unseparated highways? Certainly no one I knew growing up
| was allowed to do that, which limited us to the the
| hundred or so homes we could reach on slower roads (and
| zero businesses)
| bbarnett wrote:
| Yes. I did. As did other kids. We had gravel shoulders
| wide enough for cars to pull fully off, that's where we
| rode.
|
| We also rode facing traffic. That way you could see a car
| coming although you can hear one coming for miles. The
| purpose of seeing was two fold, to see what type of car,
| and to see of they saw you.
|
| Every kid knew to get over further when a car came, and
| get over further for wider vehicles.
| miah_ wrote:
| Yes. As a teenager when I worked at the local Burger King
| I used to ride my bicycle ~8 miles down farm roads and
| then up to the highway exit area where the BK was. Often
| I'd leave work at closing time (after 11pm) and ride home
| in the _dark_. Guess what. Bicycle lights exist and can
| be seen for miles on a country road.
| AngryData wrote:
| Yeah, people saying their kid would be isolated just
| doesn't ring true with me. There are very few rural areas
| that are literally an hour+ from anything with nobody
| else around. Most rural areas have little towns dispersed
| around them. They may not be big, but locals still gather
| there and visit there, and there is almost always a
| public school available. And like you said, the travel
| distance may be farther but time wise it isn't all that
| much more.
| floren wrote:
| > I know people that take buses to "do city things", and
| it takes them > 1 hour to get anywhere. I know others
| that walk (20+ minutes) or drive (20+ minutes to get a
| mile away, or to get a few city blocks due to traffic).
|
| I grew up in a rural area, 3 miles from the grocery store
| & post office, a 40 minute drive to the "big" town (20k).
| My parents end up driving to the "big" town a couple
| times a week. I always thought this was nuts and looked
| forward to living in a city where that wasn't necessary.
|
| Now I live on the SF peninsula... and everybody regularly
| drives 40+ minutes to do things. Just to get dinner, go
| to Ikea, or take the dog for a walk in a nicer park. It's
| a 10 minute drive to BART or to Caltrain, too. Unless you
| truly dedicate yourself to hardcore SF living, your
| average middle-class Bay Area resident is driving just as
| much as my rural parents did.
| phil21 wrote:
| It's actually pretty interesting that I had the opposite
| adjustment moving into a huge city.
|
| Miles became meaningless - nearly everything I go to is
| within 5 miles. What matters is total travel time since
| two locations both 2 miles away from me might be 10
| minutes or 90 depending on time of day.
|
| I still see the single digit miles on google maps and "go
| oh that's close!" a few times a year just out of habit
| though.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| As an example I grew up riding horses every day, and grew
| to know and understand them very well. That's not
| something you'll experience in the city unless you're
| very wealthy.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Granted that horses take a lot of space, but I think the
| weakness of arcbyte's statement lies in the " _more
| valuable_ than any sport, dance, or academic activity "
| part.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| My mother is losing her sight and can no longer drive. I'm so
| glad she lives within close walking distance of downtown with a
| supermarket so she can maintain her independence.
| cdshn wrote:
| The banned gas equipment is going to cause a lot of fun. PG&E
| cant maintain the tree canopy as it is.
| skybrian wrote:
| People will buy it out of state I'm guessing?
| mindslight wrote:
| 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.
| rml wrote:
| 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 :-)
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(page generated 2024-08-05 23:01 UTC)