Moving to Colorado... Talk to me, people!

[Hydro-Soil]

(edit: Bring a JOB/INCOME with you... there are precious few jobs of quality up here)

No fracking up where I'm at... that's for sure.

The higher up you go... the cheaper land gets as well.

The higher up you go... the shorter the growing season gets and the more brutal it becomes to live.

At 10,000 feet up, here in Fairplay... a lot of people can't handle it and have to move down slope in a few years. Diet and personal vices have a LOT to do with altitude acclimation.

Buena Vista and Breckenridge are 45 minutes away for shopping. Denver and Colorado Springs are about 2hrs.

Hydro shop 10 minutes away with decent prices. New one going up in town, in 5-6 months.

Basically... if you want peace and quiet and don't mind -50F below a couple weeks out of the year. It's perfect. One tip... Subaru and other small, awd vehicles rule up here... big heavy 4x4 trucks are much more limited in their snow/ice travel. LOL

It's also one of the most beautiful spots on earth with tons of outdoor activities year round. LOL

Mud season #1 is just a month or so away!

Anyone decides to move up here... be sure to give me a PM. Tiny mountain towns are *different* in a lot of ways. LOL

Stay Safe!

p.s. The Park County sheriff is also interested in leaving the colorado law abiding citizens alone. That means they are specifically not interested in confiscating guns or turning in folks for plants...even if this Obamadork passes regulations that would require them to.

 

[Avinash.miles]

look in an area called the buffalo near como between fairplay and BV
salida and BV take the cake for me, very nice towns, not at right wingy as you would think... and if u are coming from the south, the right wingers here are nothing like back home.... well they are similar but not as.... hateful and intolerant, not as racist. it's like the rightwingers here in co are ignorant but not arrogant about it like back in the dirty dirty.

red feather lakes is fun to visit but i didnt think about the high cost..... front range is a lil more exp.
but that salida & BV area is awesome, great for rockhounding, white water rafting, hikinng mt. biking, not a bad growing season either since it's 7000k ft elevation only.... and still close to monarch and crested butte if ur into skiiing or snoboarding
last year outdoor went longer in salida than it did in denver.... so go figure, they call that area the banana belt of colorado, that big wide ark valley.

tesla.... if choose to move above 9k ft elevation.... be ready for that... cold as fuck & snow & high winds....
they close them main roads up there for high winds, (&snow) once a cop told me "the wind is tippin tractor trailers like tumbleweeds!"

good luck

 

[monsoon]

Salida/BV is a beautiful area. Less snow than you'd think for the elevation/location.

 

[DreamsofTesla]

Thanks everyone. I'm definitely looking into it. There is actually quite a bit of affordable land (and homes) in CO, if you do the digging.

Thought about that this morning. If I lived in Colorado, whatever I had with my coffee would be full of marijuana.

 

[monsoon]

As I said in your thread in the general section....just be aware of the water aspects of the land you are looking at. there is A LOT of cheap (by Colorado standards) land out there but it is DRY land. Dry here means nothing will grow unless you water it..and if the land is dry you don't have the right to water it unless you own that right, even if a creek flows across your land.

best of luck in your search...

 

[Hydro-Soil]

As I said in your thread in the general section....just be aware of the water aspects of the land you are looking at. there is A LOT of cheap (by Colorado standards) land out there but it is DRY land. Dry here means nothing will grow unless you water it..and if the land is dry you don't have the right to water it unless you own that right, even if a creek flows across your land.

best of luck in your search...

You'll most likely be wanting around 35acres or more. That size and larger are the plots that generally have water rights options. Smaller and you're usually stuck tight.

Stay Safe! :blowbubble:

p.s. Remember folks... bring your job/income with you when you move up into the mountains. There are precious few jobs of quality up here for the population.

 

[DreamsofTesla]

You'll most likely be wanting around 35acres or more. That size and larger are the plots that generally have water rights options. Smaller and you're usually stuck tight.

Thanks Hydro, much appreciate this, and the other kind people, Monsoon, Avi, Nuggs. I look forward to ripping a big fat bong with all y'all sometime real soon. I'll bring some boiled peanuts. A couple more quick questions:

• I do have a modest income to bring with me. I need consistent phone and internet. Is that a problem in the mountains?
  
• Also, what's the deal with BLM land?
• Can they restrict you from catching rain that falls on your roof or digging a swale on your property?
  

<3 Tesla

 

[OKD]

Move West, young man!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Thanks Hydro, much appreciate this, and the other kind people, Monsoon, Avi, Nuggs. I look forward to ripping a big fat bong with all y'all sometime real soon. I'll bring some boiled peanuts.

Gosh I love boiled peanuts. LOL How'd you ever guess. Rare treat around her.

A couple more quick questions:

• I do have a modest income to bring with me. I need consistent phone and internet. Is that a problem in the mountains?
  
• Also, what's the deal with BLM land?
• Can they restrict you from catching rain that falls on your roof or digging a swale on your property?
  

<3 Tesla

No land lines in the buffalo. Probably much better options in BV and Salida. Fairplay has wireless internet in the area (skybeam) that reaches some areas. Definitely line of sight though... no living on the other side of a hill or down in a valley with no sight to a tower.

Only other internet options would be satellite and I don't know how Voice over IP works with that stuff. Probably fine.

Cellphone service is pretty good, covers most areas. Verizon towers. Not 3G yet, not when you reach 10k feet, but it's workable to use a cellular modem if you don't have a lot of data up/down.


Don't know diddly about BLM land except that you don't want to be growing cannabis on it. Hopefully someone else will be able to chime in here.

Stay Safe!

 

[greenmatter]

Can they restrict you from catching rain that falls on your roof or digging a swale on your property?
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<3 Tesla

they can but it depends on the county and if you are on or off grid and/or public water supply. water rights and laws are a complete clusterfuck in colorado, so i would be asking those question when you have a potential address

 

[monsoon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html?_r=0

Keep in mind....it isn't raining much lately. We are at 75% of normal precip after the driest year on record in many areas. You can't count on catching rainfall as yout only soure of water..drinking, irrigation, or otherwise.

 

[DreamsofTesla]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html?_r=0

Keep in mind....it isn't raining much lately. We are at 75% of normal precip after the driest year on record in many areas. You can't count on catching rainfall as yout only soure of water..drinking, irrigation, or otherwise.

Right, I'll look into that. If you get a chance to check out the Geoff Lawson video, they made a permaculture food forest in Jordan using only the natural precipitation. Not sure what the people there do for drinking water. I believe the earthships use the ambient water even in NM, if I'm not mistaken. I don't believe they do wells, they do catchment.

I also think that system takes a while to get up and running, so I'd definitely need a place with drinking water to start. Seems like a lot of people get water hauled in and put in a cistern there.

Thanks for all the great info, very helpful.

 

[monsoon]

I've seen those vids. Everytime I do I notice how GREEN the land around the fields he is working are....naturally....and how lush the vegetation is surrounding the fields and in the neighboring fields. To me....it appears to be a far wetter climate than where you are looking to settle from the onset. I've HEARD alot about this guy and this practice, but i know of no one here who is growing a successful crop without supplemental moisture or frequent irrigation of some sort. There are SO many parameters in play that it's tough for me to simply say (or believe) "yeah...that will work here and in no time, without water, you will have lush growth all around you"

A cistern is a possibility in some areas/homes you may find out there where they have no right to drill a well. It's a plausible idea for drinking water, but using it for irrigation would be costly due to the hauling costs. Again...whether an earthship/etc has a well will depend on if the land it is on has the RIGHT to drill a well. If not...the land is..again...cheap to build on but has little value beyond that compared to land w/designated water rights. Case in point...you can buy land for as little as $500 an acre in the San Luis Valley....no water..no trees..no utilties...and an uber-high salt content... wheras land elsewhere with water rights/ambience/fertile soil/etc may cost you over 10K per acre or more. All land here is not created equal. If it is cheap, there is a reason! Guaranteed.

 

[DreamsofTesla]

To me....it appears to be a far wetter climate than where you are looking to settle from the onset. I've HEARD alot about this guy and this practice, but i know of no one here who is growing a successful crop without supplemental moisture or frequent irrigation of some sort. There are SO many parameters in play that it's tough for me to simply say (or believe) "yeah...that will work here and in no time, without water, you will have lush growth all around you"

Well, that video was shot in Jordan, which I'm pretty sure is ragged desert. But yeah, I wouldn't say "in no time," by any means. That sort of greening takes a decade to get a solid start, with major work up front. That said, there are people doing it in sub-Saharan Africa and the very dry parts of Spain. I do think it's plausible, but there's a definite wait.

A cistern is a possibility ... but using it for irrigation would be costly due to the hauling costs.

Let me clarify -- I'm not going into commercial agriculture. I can grow all the food I'm talking about on 1/2 acre or less, though I could make it bigger if the resources were there. You know, gardens spread when given the chance

I hadn't considered the issue of keeping the cattle out. For long term management of that, you'd probably either have to put something fairly ugly, something less obtrusive that needs constant maintenance, or some major undertaking like sinking huge posts all around. So that's something else to think about.

Again...whether an earthship/etc has a well will depend on if the land it is on has the RIGHT to drill a well.

I don't believe earthships use wells, I believe they use ambient water with extensive recycling. I could be wrong, I'll double check. But they were designed for that exact part of the country.

I'm a very big proponent of composting toilets -- it makes no sense at all to crap in potable water, especially in conditions like you're describing. In my experience poop composts faster than my kitchen scraps.

Earth ships use a different strategy than compost toilets -- they recycle the waste water through the contained vegetation without the dry composting step. I'm fairly sure I remember that correctly. Anyway I'm pretty sure the permanent drought was a big part of their design consideration, water and temperature management were key factors.

Cheap land is cheap for a reason, yes. I think that's always a good rule of thumb. Some of the places I've seen that have been very cheap, aerial maps show that they're quite close to what can only be frack sites with giant nasty yellow/red pools.

Just goes to show you how screwed we are, in a place where water is at this kind of a premium we have plenty of water to frack.

Anyway, this is all excellent information for me to get started on the research with. Things like this, the peculiarities of water, grazing rights, etc., are things you can only learn from the locals.

 

[monsoon]

It takes an amazing amount of water here to raise a crop. Evaporation rates are very high in the summer and humidity can be (will be) very very low. You'd be hard pressed to keep up with a cistern alone. My guess is that you are going to want to look for something wet.

Something else we haven't even touched on is soil quality and pH. A lot of the land in places like the San Luis Valley has so much salt content in it you can't grow anyhting. Combine that with high-alkalinity and low precip and it's a no go for anything to grow. In places in the san Luis and other areas with a lot of shales/clays you can drive down the road and see the precipitates of salt and calcium on the top of the soil. Again..it's all about the local geology.

I'm into the sustainable aspect of building and have checked out the Earthships for sale pages. You may be right. they may be all-inclusive and only use the water they can collect. What I noticed was that if there was anything growing it was inside. Outside vegetation was sparse and maybe i missed it, but I didn't see any real gardens shown in the listings I saw in the area W. of Taos. (I have seen lush gardens in listing in Arkansas/etc) I haven't looked at those listings for awhile but will go check them out again. I love the concept but to me, water is key, and it's the one thing I don't wanna be without.

So where were the nasty colored pools you saw? I'd love to see where you are talking about. FYI...most of what you will see as damage from natural gas mining is pock-marked drill sites, roads between those sites, scars from buried pipeline, and general clearing of pristine land. Most of this is BLM land...but the Indians are are selling out..and all that land they claim is sacred is now being fucked over forever. Look at Google Earth west of Rifle Colorado, South and West of Vernal, UT, around Pinedale, WY, and south east/west around Aztec/Farmington NM for just a few areas where the land never had roads crossing it before, but now looks like a checkerboard for the chuckleheads. Then when the gas is gone in these areas, they walk away and leave the mess they created and every town associated with any of it takes a huge nosedive due to the overbuiding and infrastucture they are left with from mining, and the lack of BEAUTY that was once the toruist draw for the area is also lost. You don't want to be in/around any of these places. Prices are high and moral/care for the land is low, low, low.

we are striving to get off the grid and grow our own food.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Small farmers interested in running livestock would do well to look at Managed Intensive Grazing practices.

Joel Salatin is probably one of the most famous, in the states.

This 10K altitude area used to be a HUGE wheat and hay area... 'modern' farming practices have stripped the land and it no longer holds water the way it used to. Ponds on MIG farmed lands fill from the bottom up... most ponds these days (on farmland) fill from runoff going into it.

We're looking at the 10 year plan... once we finally get a piece of property. Goats, sheep and chickens... maybe a few turkeys. Eat fat, live lean.

Stay Safe!

 

[monsoon]

We're on more of a 2-3 year plan here, though we are seriously looking for land right now. Hopefully we can make something happen and have a few years to make the transition.

I glanced at the Crestone MLS yesterday. Lots of lots for sale. Most appear to be 1/2 acre parcels but there are some larger parcels in the mix as well. Gonna guess there are some rentals available as well. That's how I'd go until I figured out what I wanted to do.

 

[DreamsofTesla]

Thanks y'all!

Joel Salatin is a big name for a good reason. Also check out Sepp Holzer and Paul Wheaton. Sepp Holzer grows citrus in the Alps! Microclimates, the way of the future. Paul Wheaton is big on "rocket stoves," which would be excellent for a mountain home.

Monsoon, agree that renting will be the way. First to make sure I like the place and it's a fit. The Mount Shasta area is also a possibility in terms of having what I'm looking for, and they don't have fracking (yet). Hopefully they'll be able to avoid it. How do we justify fracking with the water situation being what it is? Because the world is completely crazy.

So yes, I'll be looking to rent at first and make sure. Especially with the complicated water situation.

<3 Tesla

 

[MPL]

Are you sure all of you can pass the background check for a MMED badge? Figure that out before you even look at land. I have a feeling those strict requirements are here to stay for those in the cannabis industry.

We're on more of a 2-3 year plan here, though we are seriously looking for land right now. Hopefully we can make something happen and have a few years to make the transition.

I glanced at the Crestone MLS yesterday. Lots of lots for sale. Most appear to be 1/2 acre parcels but there are some larger parcels in the mix as well. Gonna guess there are some rentals available as well. That's how I'd go until I figured out what I wanted to do.

 

[Avinash.miles]

if you are just growing for yourself or as a private caregiver you dont need the badge. just your red card (doctors approval & application paperwork, sent into state w state fee, red card comes in several weeks)