Homestead mailing list

[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Wow, if you have a fishing/swimming hole within easy walking distnce, I'd say 
you bought the perfecrt piece of property.-  No kidding, roxanne--  Just out 
of cutiousity, tell me you don't have that easy fishing/swimming hole close 
by.  That is really hard to find and also find really isolated property 
'with' utilities.  I quit lookinmg in SW MO (near you) and moved over to SE 
MO, to try and find all of those together with decent soil, it is not easy to 
match everything.  I can live with ticks and bugs and even snakes.  But, 
there are ceratin things that I required when looking.  

You bought a quarter-section, so I guess you have modern survey.  Is it a 
square quarter section?  how long does it take to walk the boundaries in that 
kind of terrain?  How did you find it?  You don't have to answer anything you 
don't want.  It just sounds almost perfect........

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


--- On Wed, 12/17/08, roxann <roxann AT ancientearthwisdom.com> wrote:

> From: roxann <roxann AT ancientearthwisdom.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Building codes
> To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com
> Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 12:05 PM
> there are no code requirements - we could have an electric
> pole just for the washer/dryer on a deck outside if we
> wanted...which is what it is over by my parents camper. no
> inspections required for telephone or elec, but the meter at
> the pole has to be wired properly. what you do with it from
> there, they don't care. they hook up to the meter box
> and you take it from there. we built according to code for
> our own purposes, not to pass inspections of any sort. 
> 
> the nearest town, pop.400 is 40 minutes away. no walmart,
> but they do have a general mercantile, antique, cafe, and
> gas station. next nearest, pop around 15000 is also around
> 45-50 minutes away and there's a small walmart and
> grocery store. that's where the nearest police station
> and all the utility offices are located.
> 
> we have no sewer services out here and no one inspects to
> see if you have a tank or if you just dump right onto the
> ground. no garbage pickup either. we're installing a
> sewer system of our own design and i'll be testing
> effluent to make adjustments as we go. plans for that
> involve a tank with effluent leading to cascading
> ferrocement ponds with nitrate/phosphate up-taking plants
> like cattails, a sand filter bed between ponds, all the
> while going down the ravine toward the dry runoff creek bed.
> it's a long distance and i'm certain the effluent
> will be much cleaner than the runoff from a cattle pasture
> by the time it reaches the bottom. 
> 
> this community only got electricity and telephone in the
> mid 60's, before that there were no services at all. 
> 
> our house is also located in the center of 160 acres, so
> that also has some bearing on the lack of sewer
> requirements. i forgot how far from the property lines you
> must be, but there is a limit to it. so there are some
> restrictions, but there's no one to enforce them either.
> 
> 
> Roxann, NW AR
> http://blog.ancientearthwisdom.com (Ozark Musings from the
> homestead)
> 
> 
>  -------Original Message-------
>  From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
>  Subject: Re: [Homestead] Building codes
>  Sent: 17 Dec '08 18:27
>  
>  Roxanne, if you don't mind me asking a couple of more
> questions.  You said youm are too far out for fire serice
> but that building codes and such  still matter.  Are you
> 15 minutes or more from a tiny or a large town ?  Are you
> required to have septic , etc?.  You have a very modern
> house, are all utilities available?  I'm picturing you
> as very rural, but if you have access to anything a person
> in town can acccess and have the same codes as a person in
> town......, well....I guess you can see my
> confusion....................
>  
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  
>  
>  --- On Wed, 12/17/08, roxann
> <roxann AT ancientearthwisdom.com> wrote:
>  
>  > From: roxann <roxann AT ancientearthwisdom.com>
>  > Subject: Re: [Homestead] Building codes
>  > To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com
>  > Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 10:40 AM
>  > we have a small pond, a creek running through the
> valley
>  > that ran all year this year (usually it goes almost
> dry
>  > except for a few deeper holes in august), and 3
> springs in
>  > use year round. one of the springs feed our
> neighbor's
>  > tanks. it's been used by their family for
> generations
>  > and they were afraid when we bought the land that
> we'd
>  > want to cut them off. that's ridiculous, we told
> them,
>  > they were welcome to make improvements to it if they
> wanted,
>  > even, and if i ever get that bench fenced off so i
> can use
>  > the pasture on it, i'll make a gate so they can
> pass
>  > through to service their spring. they drink the water
> just
>  > like it comes out of the hill. for our own household
> spring,
>  > we got someone to come in and 'develop' it.
> they dug
>  > out around it, added a layer of gravel, laid down
> some
>  > perforated pipe into the outlet, covered it with a
> layer of
>  > gravel, then a plastic liner, then replaced the soil.
> now
>  > you can't see where the water comes out except
> for the
>  > water line that leads to the silt tank. the spring
> that
>  > feeds my parents camper comes into a hand dug basin
> and goes
>  > to a silt tank then to the storage tank. we both
> double
>  > filter before drinking and lab tests show that
> it's
>  > good, except it has no minerals and is very soft
> water. so i
>  > add minerals to mine when i make coffee or drink a
> glass.
>  > the good thing about all of these springs is that
> they are
>  > above the level of the house, so it's all gravity
> feed.
>  > no electricity required to move the water to the
> house and
>  > in fact, our house needs a regulator to bring the
> pressure
>  > down by about 40 psi or it will blow the plumbing
> apart.
>  >
>  > Roxann, NW AR
>  > http://blog.ancientearthwisdom.com (Ozark Musings
> from the
>  > homestead)
>  >
>  >
>  >  -------Original Message-------
>  >  From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
>  >  Subject: Re: [Homestead] Building codes
>  >  Sent: 17 Dec '08 17:03
>  >  
>  >  interesting, roxanne; .  Do you have open water,
> like
>  > Gene, on your ozark land?.
>  
>  
>