New to Region 2

[RWS]

Hello Region 2
We just purchased property in region 2.  Since it is part farm land and part mountain with no house, It will be a while before there are any facilities there.  Instead of buying Gold or silver, I bought land.  At least I got all my money out of the bank. 
What is the hardest location to get to in Region 2???  That is where I have bought land.  If we are up there camping this Summer and there is a meet up, maybe I will show up.
We now reside in Region 8.
We are not planning to move completely to Region 2 but build an off grid cabin with spring fed water.  We are at 3000ft in elevation on the flat farm land and 3800 in the rear with a plateau overlooking the valley.

[ProGeek]

How's the drive? Can your RV make it ok?

[RWS]

How's the drive? Can your RV make it ok?

The road is narrow but it is County maintained right up to where I want to put in a driveway.  I did see a tree limb that has to come down.  Mostly pasture on each side.

[RWS]

Stopped by the new BOL on the way home from NC.  The wife & I walked all over the 17 acres and decided on a location for the cabin and where the driveway will be located.  Now I can finish the basement drawing to locate the door that will allow me to park a 4 wheeler inside. 
Did a good look over of the springs and two ponds.  There has been quite a bit of work done in the past routing water thru pipes to dry up the flatter land near the road and make it farmable.  There is much work to be done on the ponds as they have been terribly neglected for the last few years.  I hope to restore them back into nice fish ponds.  There was quite a bit of water flowing which I don't think is normal.  A big rain had just passed thru the night before I was there.

[RWS]

I have established contact with a builder that wants to meet, walk over the property and discuss what I am looking for.  Any way it is a start.  We plan to meet in about three weeks or so.  I will schedule a camping trip and set up a meeting.  They have other services available.  Here is a cut/paste from their web page.

Your satisfaction is our goal!
Here are additional service we offer:
Poured wall foundations
Land clearing and grading
Home improvements (kitchen, baths, extensions, garages)
We specialize in Handi-capped additions
Small Commercial (up to 25,000 sq. ft.)
Custom Plans Designed In House

The other services in red are also what I need to have done.  Maybe it will work out.

[Lilburner]

I need several of those things in the coming months!

Let me know what you think and if he services my area. Although you're in R2, we're quite aways away from each other.

[RWS]

Just got home from a trip to my Region 2 BOL.  I met a contractor and we walked over the property.  Look see what I found.  Pic 1  Rhubarb!  There is more rhubarb pie in my future...  I asked him about ramps and he said there were some in the area.  He had had some a few weeks ago.

[RWS]

When I bought my new BOL property, it was advertised as having 2 spring fed ponds.  I found a third.
While I was up there I met two more of my neighbors.  The closest one to me is a homesteader.  They have chickens and a goat.  We had the camper parked along side the road so the lady asked me where we were going to put the camper?  I said we weren't that we planned to build a cabin.  She seemed overjoyed to have neighbors soon.  It won't be too soon as you will see in the pictures of the three ponds.  Two of them need a lot of work to get back in any shape at all.
PIC 1 Largest pond
PIC 2 Middle sized pond
PIC 3 Small pond I just found.  Maybe it is just because there is a good flow of water this time of year, we'll see.
The weed floating in the ponds has red roots hanging down in the water.  My oldest boy has some kayaks so I need to twist his arm and have him go up there and clean a pond one weekend.  Wish me good luck with that!

[RWS]

I have been keeping an eye on solar electric supplies.  I have noticed that that available inverter models are shrinking.  I use the XW6848 but it has been out of stock for a couple of months.  I got nervous and ordered a PRO6848 which is the same inverter with the added communications board, ect to make it internet compatible.  I am not interested in putting data on the internet, so that part will probably go unused.   At least it is on the way.  It has been sitting on the loading dock a couple of days.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get here.  I will store it until I am ready to use it.  I think it is getting challenging to put together a solar system now as most electronic parts come from China.

[RWS]

The truck lines called today to schedule the inverter delivery.  I told the lady that I had just tracked it this morning and it was in Missisippi and that I was not expecting it until Monday.  She said it was actually going to be here Monday but they would not deliver until Tuesday.  I think it has to do with a holiday someone just made up??  Anyway I will have a spare inverter in case there is an EMP attack at least I can get some of my system back running.  My spare charge controller is in NC so I can count that out.  Just gathering parts for my off grid cabin in region 2.

[RWS]

My wife found a recipe for BlueBarb jelly.  We will have blueberries in our region 8 home location at the same time we will have rhubarb at our region 2 BOL so next year she said she would make BlueBarb jelly.

[RWS]

We met with our builder the other day and I pointed out the location I wanted to use for a barn.  There is a hill that faces East, so I plan to dig back into the hill and pour a concrete floor and 3 concrete walls.  The front will be www.everlogs.com 10" barnwood.  The floor will be insulated from Earth and PEX tubing installed to be able to add a little heat to the concrete.  That should keep the water lines from freezing during the Winter.  We took elevation readings from a Garmin and the Barn will be at 2996ft. elevation.  Our spring is at 3050ft and will gravity down to the cistern at 3023.  I will pipe a 2" discharge out the side of the cistern near the bottom down to the barn and up thru the floor where the water pump will be.  That will give the pump a flooded suction.  The cistern is planned to be 2000 gal which will take one day to fill.  The cistern will continually fill from the top side and overflow from the opposite side to keep a continual flow thru the cistern.  Plans are good, it is just making it happen is usually the problem.
We decided the property was a farm as opposed to a residential site.

[RWS]

Self Sufficient Me !   Since I am new to region 2, I will have to learn how to garden for the climate.  It will be much different at 3000 ft elevation than it is in South Georgia at 365 ft.  I found a video that I will use to guide may way.  What do you think about the video??

[Abigayle]

Good reminders on nutritional value of different veggies.  I forget about onions, just like mushrooms in respect to the forgotten value.
I wonder where he got that huge planter.  Would it cost a fortune to plant in those those metal livestock waterers?  Always wondered if they would heat up too much in summer.  They would be great early spring and late fall, into winter.  I noticed his were white.  Are they painted or purchased?
Gardening in the mountains is a real challenge.  We tried it up in Ellijay, on a high property, and were not very successful.  Our pots on the sunny deck, did great.  What are your thoughts on this method, R.W.S.  and others?

[RWS]

Good reminders on nutritional value of different veggies.  I forget about onions, just like mushrooms in respect to the forgotten value.
I wonder where he got that huge planter.  Would it cost a fortune to plant in those those metal livestock waterers?  Always wondered if they would heat up too much in summer.  They would be great early spring and late fall, into winter.  I noticed his were white.  Are they painted or purchased?
Gardening in the mountains is a real challenge.  We tried it up in Ellijay, on a high property, and were not very successful.  Our pots on the sunny deck, did great.  What are your thoughts on this method, R.W.S.  and others?

I noticed a homeowner down on the hi-way had 2ea  4x8 boxed in beds.  He had a lot of stuff crammed in there and put up hog panels around each bed to keep the deer browsing to a minimum.  Now the hog panels are removed and he has a couple heads of cabbage left.  I will probably start off that way.