I'll do some more research. You and Pig4Bill have me thinking I'm giving these goats too much credit.

Unfortunately, my solar panels are small and I rely on the generators frequently.

My battery system.

The generator I use.

The generator basically runs everything - fan, TV, lights, charges computers, dehumidifier if I want it, while it charges the battery. The TV and dehumidifier draw too much power to use with the battery, but everything else works fine.

From We Rent Goats:

I guess there might have been a temp fence where I saw them working. It was a big open space of about 5-10 acres, so there might have been a temp fence that I just couldn't see.

Do you think a few years you might want to go even more extreme? IE - move to Alaska 100 miles from anyone and completely off any definition of grid - like that show Life Below Zero.

I'm not ruling anything out. Three years ago, what I'm doing now wouldn't have sounded appealing at all. But that said, right now I feel the long-term arc will be to not get too-farther out there. But still, who knows.

How the **** much does it cost to rent goats and a goat keeper?

Pretty sure Gonzo believes I built him his own bedroom.
I think he also believes I'm just the doorman at his favorite restaurant.

It's tough to make interesting pictures of trees, but here's some pics from around the land.



I remember reading that some trees bear from every other year. This tree had no apples last year but so far appears to be showing lots of fruit higher up. I think I'm going to prune out the dead, internal branches so I can climb up, and maybe eliminate some of the crappy trees surrounding it, blocking it.

Obviously, it's overgrown and mostly out of control.



Still makes apples though!



Love this spot. Future spot of Cabin #2, I think.



There are lots of trees like this, I had to cut down or around to make trails.



On of my favorite stretches of path, leading back to the cabin.



I believe these are two cherry trees in an opening I cut.

Pulled this out today. Beets seemed to do well in the soil here, and took off even when we weren't getting rain. And the deer ignored them.



Carrots didn't really work out. We've been in a drought most of the summer.

If you have a lot of dead trees to clear, maybe you can offer them up as free firewood. Get your neighbors to cut them down and haul it away.

Really enjoying following your thread El sapo! Great pictures as well. Do you hunt or fish? If not, do you see yourself doing so in the future?

We've got a couple of apple trees on our farm that have been producing apples my entire life (over 40 yrs). They produce apples every other year as well. If maintained they'll produce huge amounts of apples. I'd guess we get 20-30 5 gallon buckets full from each tree.

We get so many that we end up feeding a bunch to the cattle. If you feed them to livestock be careful that you don't feed them too many at once.

They're great for baking as well as making apple sauce. My mom makes huge batches of apple sauce and then freezes it and it's plenty to have homemade apple sauce every week until they produce apples again.

Obviously remove all of the dead branches 1st and then you want to slowly prune the tree downward. You want to prune the top so the tree grows lower making the apples easier to pick. You're aiming to create a short bushy tree that's not more than about 10' tall.

There are plenty of articles online about how to properly prune an apple tree. The best time to do your heavy pruning is in the off year when they aren't producing apples.

Yes but how do you apple a prune tree?

one bite at a time

Was up in the Finger Lakes last week with the family. Nice country up there. Went to Parker's Tap House in Geneva, nice place. Hammondsport and Skaneateles are nice towns as well. Didn't get to Trumansburg.

OP do you ever see yourself buying a regular house in a town up there after a while, or do you think this is what you want long-term? Your lifestyle doesn't really seem suited to marriage/long-term relationships. You are filtering out a huge percentage of potential partners with the whole "s*** in a bucket" thing, no?

Yeah, this (last part) is unfortunately true. It's one thing to find people to go out with, people to hook up with, but it's only recently I've given much thought to how longer-term this impacts things.

Honestly, I'm torn. Right now this is the thing I want to be doing, but yes, long-term I want to find a partner. And while it doesn't feel right to change just for that, I also am aware this is very limiting.

I dated a great woman for about a year, most of the time I've been here; she ended things about six weeks ago, so now it's all casual dating which has its limitations.

As for the Finger Lakes: I still can't get past how gorgeous it is here. I feel like I got really lucky to land here, because I wasn't really aware how awesome it is.

The trees in question are more like 30 feet tall. They've been left wild for a decade or more. ... Last season I didn't try too hard, but I'm going to prune out the one I took a photo of and try and get a decent crop of apples.

Living in a city, seasons were little more than a nuisance. Here, I love seeing how things change the same way every year.

Never hunted, but spent my childhood fishing with my grandfather. I want to get back into it, just because there are a couple of ponds nearby, including a trout pond the feds stock in the spring.

How old are you?

Seems like you're a well, septic, and pin up blueprint of dream house you'd like to build, away from serious long term potential. Most women I know will find the combo of handy+self-sufficient+writer with full time job very attractive.

...just don't tell her you bought the shell.

Ha, thanks for the advice. ... I turned 40 last week.

It's also very different dating here, the distances. In the city, it seemed like everyone was nearby. Here, I go out with people 30 minutes to an hour away.

I've got friends who moved from the city to a smaller area, and then back specifically because they wanted a larger dating pool. I can see it getting small here, fast.

Finding a single chick in her 40's that's not wack is going to be difficult, so I think ****ting in a bucket will be fine.

Happy Belated Birthday!

I live in rural MN, having grown up in a city, and yeah...I can't see spending much enjoyable time with the "born and raised" locals. How far are you from a city? Do you think your potential winter travels might be more fruitful?

Also, thread needs more dating stories. I want to hear how the **** in a bucket/shower 1x/week conversation goes down, please.

Sapo,

I actually think you'd be a super catch for a certain set of women. You are prob like the most non-deadbeat and high potential guy out of all the guys who live in a little cabin in the woods in upstate New York and **** in a bucket. Being serious here, it's all about finding your niche.

I'm not sure if this ever posted successfully. Not everyone digs it:



A couple months after I moved here I met a woman who lives on the other side of Cayuga Lake. She had two kids, and we were 45 minutes away, so we'd typically hang out twice a week. That was all really new for me, a much more moderated pace. Anyway, there are no good stories there, which is why I sort of hold out hope that not everyone is mortified by what I'm doing.

I'm definitely more normal that "**** in a bucket" would lead you to believe.

I went on a date last week with a woman who won a local election. I was seriously excited, just to have someone to talk politics with. I think I made her cry. No second date, needless to say.

I went on a date with someone who was either so nervous or awkward I only learned her name when we ran into someone on the street after lunch.

When I first moved here, I went out (once) with someone who lost in the 2nd round of a popular cooking show. She brought it up quickly, like it haunts her.

I'm not going to turn this into a Cabin Hillbilly Dating Blog (though, good thread idea). But it's fair to note I used to be a serial monogamist. In some ways I'm just now really learning how to be alone, and it's pretty awesome. Dating the woman with kids was an entirely new experience. I knew I'd never be her primary concern, and that there were parts of her life that I didn't fit into. (I did get to know her kids, actually, and they were adorable, **** I kinda miss them) ....

No, this is all true, definitely.

There's a disconnect between how I describe the cabin and what I do, the image people get, and the reality. The cabin walls are covered in art, books all over the place, decent TV next to the wood stove, it's all a bit incongruous.

Also, this thread was really inspired by all the 2+2 threads that focus on people changing their lives. And there are a lot of them - some awesome stories, some stall at "now isn't the right time." But it always seemed to me, and maybe it's internet-forum self selection, that threads about making changes attract a lot of interest.

If you haven't seen it, IMO this is the 2+2 granddaddy of change your life threads.