Living In The Woods

Every now and then the thought of quitting my job and living in the woods will come up.

Why? To be able to do what I want to do more often and stop using up a lot of my time working for a corporation. I thank God for blessing me with employment but I want more for my life than a Monday-Friday obligation for the next forty years.

Living in Alabama I'm not worried about snow but every few years, so that isn't a huge concern. Plus I have plenty of snivel gear to keep me warm.

God has blessed me with ten acres of land so finding a place to bed down isn't an issue. My land also has a running branch, so some of my water would come from there.

My plan would be to save up enough money to buy two storage sheds, one for living in and one for storage. Then save up until I have at least $20,000-30,000 in savings. After I'm all set up and have everything ready to go I'd find a part-time job. Once I found new employment I'd quit my full-time job and start homesteading.

My question is, have any of you attempted this/are currently doing this and what did/didn't work and what obstacles did you have to go through? Also, is this a sustainable option?

I'm talking no power, no water, no Internet, so my bills would just include a phone payment, gym membership, property payment and truck insurance.

 

If your going to make the jump....the younger the better. I wanted to but the wife didn't when I was young. Now she would like to be off grid and I unfortunately don't have the health to make it happen.

Good luck!

Dale

 

Unfortunately, you need to keep on working.

Use as much of your income as feasible for prepping your 10 acres of land. God did indeed bless you with this land of yours.

What is the slope on this land or is the land flat? I ask this because you could start a fish farm on this land if the slope provided you the ability to dam part of a section of the land's creek. You just contributed to the thread "Ancient Fishing Skill".

Building structures on the land makes the land more valuable both economically-speaking and prepper-wise.

E.Marksman, the collapse of the U.S. economy is coming at us at a faster and faster rate. This current administration is printing money at a rate that dooms the dollar in just a short while. You need not worry about taking too many years before heading into survival mode. Young man, survival mode is heading towards you! So go to work with a mission outside of work.

Pool your money to build on and develop the land. You may think about pooling the water on your land to grow fish. Fish eat the cheapest of dried dog food. You can also develop a worm farm to feed the fish. Worms are great for composting material for your garden.

I bet you already have a garden. Being in your youth, you have the energy to expand a garden. Should the garden get large enough, think about buying a small used tractor for the busting of sod and for transporting heavy supplies on your land. With your income, make sure you buy all the gardening needs this land will require. Even as an old man, a crippled old man, I broke down and bought a brand new rototiller less than 5 years ago. My old rototiller was just too far gone. Keeping an income flow will benefit you in the long run. And as I said, your survival days are NOT that far away no matter what -- like it or not, you're gonna soon be in survival mode. We all are!

There is at least one thread on this site dedicated to fish farming. Go find that thread if you think your land has the capability of sustaining a pond dedicated to this purpose and you yourself find the idea appealing. I knew an older couple, WELL into their retirement, who maintained a camp ground with a big fish pond. Throwing a fistful of dog food into that pond stirred the BIG fish to the degree that it looked like a scene out of some Killer Piranha movie. The water would churn with furious activity -- kind'a scary, actually.

Good luck in Alabama!

Tell us old farts more about your land/circumstances if you want more suggestions. Me, I'm going to stop writing and go find that fish farm thread.
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Ok, so I found two threads on this site that apply to building a fish farm. They are:

"Fish pond?"
and
"Insect Farming: The Overlooked Sustenance"

You can grow insects to feed the fish. You must aerate water for the fish if there is no splashing stream. When water splashes, it provides O2 for fish. In a fish pond, all you have to do is put a do-it-yourself fountain that continually sprays a bit of the pond's water into the air to gather oxygen. It doesn't take much.

For your land, think about building a windmill with numerous car batteries to store the generated electricity -- there are inverter kits and all manner of electrical kits for this purpose. The windmill could provide power for your water pump. If you don't already have a well on this land, think about having one drilled.

See why I say that you gotta tough it out in keeping your current job! Preparing a prepper's retreat is no small task with no small expenses. Once you have these survival devices, buildings, well, energy source, ..., all of these things in place, you become less and less dependent on having an outside job. Use the income from the current situation to build for your future situation. Think of it as an ongoing process of transition.

If you already have a wife/girlfriend, this can be a joint project. Finding a mate who is also made happy by living off the land will bring you happiness. My wife and I have been together 45 years. Fighting life's travails bonds people. You are her backup. She is your backup. No one person has all skills. We need people to compliment our skill-set. If there is plenty of work to do, tasks to accomplish, there is little time to fight. My wife and I have perpetually been fighting the world and thus have had little time to argue. Life can weld a man and woman together. Infatuation is but a spring breeze, pleasant but fleeting.

Here are some links to links:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fish+farming+methods&atb=v140-1&ia=web

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=building+a+pond+to+farm+fish&atb=v140-1&iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=windmill+for+well+pump&atb=v140-1&iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos

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Yeah I'm single too.

 

I appreciate that response. It is mostly sloped with a little flat ground next to the branch. I do not live very far from the lake, so would you still consider a fish farm? Either way that sounds like a fun thing to try.

Worm farm sounds like a pretty good idea.

Yes, this is my second year owning a garden and my land would definitely allow me for a much bigger one. Right now I have an 8x8 raised bed.

The land is mostly wooded with maybe a quarter acre of open space that I planned on putting my living quarters on. If I were to put my place in the open part, I would have five acres of woods behind me. Roughly a hundred or so yards behind me in the woods is the branch and there's nothing but more woods behind that. My property line butts up to a hunting club, so there's more woods behind that. In front of me would be the private road, and across the road I own five more acres that goes straight up a hill and down into a ravine.

 

Well it's just me right now with no bachelorettes in sight or mind. I do highly appreciate all that info about the windmill and the links.

 

"OG, Are you referring to Aquaculture or Aquaponics? The first is just the commercial growing of fish and/or aquatic species. the second is the combined growing of fish/aquatic species and using there effluent to grow vegetables/crops." -- Dalewick

No.

Basically, I'm just talking about growing fish in a big pond fed by a mountain stream. Tap-off a bit of water from a stream, feed that water to a pond, and grow fish therein. Aerate the water if it needs more oxygen. Feed the fish with as cheap of food as you can buy or grow ... to include insects & worms.

We ain't talkin' no high-tech nothin'. This hyar ain't no engineerin' project. We iz just'a growing fish, don't'cha'know. I'm'a guessin's this iz what you izza callin' "aquaculture". I guess whut you sed is fancy-talk fer a fish pond.
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I'm way too tired to respond to you now. Been a rough day at work. Found some solutions to some nasty problems (one in particular); so, this day's crap has royally taken the wind out of my sails. I'm old and my arthritis/inflammatory-problems are over-the-top. So it's get cleaned up and hit the sack. Sorry. When I get my energies back I'll try to answer your questions. I can do quick answers, but I want to write something that could be of help to you. Right now, I couldn't pull a greased string out of a cat's @$$. I'll write later.
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