This is The Place We've Been Looking For

While I won’t say exactly where we are (although those who know us probably know) I figure I’ll show and tell a little bit about why we picked this property and how its set up. Our road starts 5 miles outside of a small rural town (our population sign says 2,000-ish but that’s actually covering about 30 minutes in each direction outside of town as well). The towns out here are set up about 20 minutes to an hour apart with NOTHING in between. Not like run-on cities making a really big one. Just a town, hour drive. Town, hour drive.  So when you get to our road, which is dirt and unmarked, you drive approximately 10 miles of winding, steep, completely uninhabited dirt road, dropping around 2,000 Ft. in elevation on the way into the canyon with a pretty sheer drop off one side of the grade.

Once on the canyon floor there are only about 8 families living here, and most are retired- but ALL are either ‘Preppers” or LDS so they are pretty ‘prepped’ as well. Not a single home here is on grid, and only a few have either cell boosters or radio phones. There isn’t a single power line or city water or gas line anywhere down here. It’s a pretty tight-knit group of like-minded people.

 The property we are on is set back into its own smaller canyon within the larger canyon, and completely fenced and gated. We have rock cliffs going up one side, and a creek bed along the other, and behind the fence in the back is nothing but empty canyon, which although being owned by BLM has no access point except through our property.

 

The property is around 70 acres within the fence and there is another hundred acres across the road. There are around 30 mature peach trees, 30 apple trees, four apricots and several cherry, nectarine and walnut trees, as well as a grape arbor spread through two orchards, as well as several acres of alfalfa fields and garden space.  There are three wells- Two are fitted with heavy-duty 8000 kW diesel generators and 150 gallon per minute pumps, and have field irrigation lines. The smaller well has water 15 feet down and has at least 50 gallon per minute capacity, but is currently pumpless. We are installing a solar pump for this well. We have two 1,000 gallon gravity-fed cisterns for every-day use, as well as two 350 gallon cisterns and two 35 gallon cisterns with a pressure tank and 12 volt pump for the winter and emergency water.  For power there is a 4000kw propane generator, and we brought in two gas generators. Peter is currently making a photovoltaic system and a wind turban to replace the generators.

 

The property came with all kinds of plumbing, irrigation, building and scrap materials as well as an assortment of rusted out old trucks and equipment. All of those things are very useful since peter can build or weld anything out them. There are also two large caves blasted out of the sandstone cliffs. One is slightly unstable and used for storage and animal feed, the other we are going to convert to a root-cellar/ shelter to store all of our supplies. There is also a large swimming pool blasted out of the top of a twenty foot ledge in the cliff, so we enjoy that in the summer as well as the fact that it can be used as emergency water.

As for the house-It’s nothing fancy. We chose the property for the property and location. I actually pretty much hate the house, but I’ve conceded to the fact that I’d rather hate the house but be here and safe and fed than to have a beautiful big house like we’d originally planned on before we were married. That being said, it’s a 1970’s single wide converted and added onto. The add on is nice and well done, and the house is securely and permanently set in its foundation. The large covered deck is fabulous and even has an outdoor kitchen (which is where I like to can). It’s a three bed, two bath small little thing, but we fit ok. Our stuff, not so much, but we do. Our only heat is a wood stove, and our living room has large southern facing windows which let in a lot of warmth. Our kitchen has an older-style (probably original to the house) yellow (blehck) gas stove. But, you don’t need electricity to turn it on, no safety switch to kill propane if the power is off, which is a must. I’d like to actually get a newer model or an even older wood-propane combo stove. I haven’t decided yet which way I want to go with it since there are two wood cook stoves here as well. Our fridge was a source of frustration for me at first. Its tiny, its old, its ugly and it smells like old fridge. The attached freezer is the size of a bread box. It’s a 1960s or 70s propane fridge. Id bought a HUGE side by side fridge since I only shop once a month and I like to stock up, but it took so much power we drained our propane tank running the generator the first month, and half my food still went bad. Now I hardly keep anything in it but it’s incredibly efficient and can run on methane (yes-methane from manure) when we get a digester built. I’m also looking into some deep-freezers that run on a solar system battery.

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It’s been an adjustment getting used to running out of water and turning on the pump, cutting waaaay back on movies and TV and conserving power, having no cell, internet or 3g coverage at all. I’ve had to say goodbye to my electric dryer (I need a gas one now- been line drying) my massive coffee maker, my big fridge, my microwave, my toaster, my crockpots, my iron, and my blow dryer. When we get our photovoltaic system up then I can bring back some of those things, but I think it’s been beneficial getting along without them. Peter stills gives me the hairy eyeball when I bust out my curling iron, though.

But it’s worth it to live on a property that will not be affected by a loss of power or water, and that is so remote that we don’t have to worry as much about looters, desperate people taking desperate measures, or those taking advantage of the situation to act out violently. Our region is very 2^nd amendment appreciating and very prepared food wise, and that goes triple for this canyon. Our neighbors have 10 years of food stored away and a small armory. We are now set in our live-in retreat location after looking and moving around for the past four years, and now it’s time to start our cache, get some cows to add to our goats and chickens, and start practicing and living our homesteading long-term survival skills.