Well, it's been over a year and a half since I sold my farm in Arkansas, and  year since I bought my property up in N. Idaho. My "3 month" visit with my dad in Ohio stretched into a little over a year and a half of helping him with some health issues culminating in gall bladder surgery last week. He's on the mend and already looks 10 years younger so I am getting all my ducks in a row to get out to my property and to get my cabin built before winter sets in! While in Ohio I worked at a trucking company 4pm-4am 6-7 days a week stockpiling cash to make this possible. I was going to continue over the winter hear but the trucking company I worked for sold out and the new owners are changing everything so the time has come to make the bold/"stupid" move.

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The property is 20 acres with with a Forest service road bisecting the middle of it. the parcel to the left of the road is approximately 9 acres and is represented by the pictures shown with rolling terrain, mixed trees and grass....the right side of the road goes up the mountain side and a fairly steep mix of old timber and scrub. I will most likely document the progress on YouTube when I get access to the internet......

My plan is to be off grid with solar, but I also have 12 KW propane generator that will be used for running tools etc..... I will not be digging a well and will be focusing on rain water collection and a series of to be built ponds for water catchment. So it should be an interesting ride and I will do my best to document it hear as I go.

At first my goal is to get a temporary shop/ storage unit put up and then my cabin (16x20) roughed in, insulated, and the thermal mass heater built. After that it will most likely be a winter of felling a lot of trees to make room for the rest of my infrastructure over the next couple of years to include a full shop, lumber mill, outdoor kitchen, root cellar, smoke house, ice house, green house, garden, dairy goats, hogs, chickens, ducks, guineas, rabbits.....


As I said I plan on updating as often as I can and plan on leaving for ID with in 2 weeks. So it should be an interesting ride as I will be turning 50 hear shortly, and will be doing this by myself.


EDIT!   I took down all of my YouTube videos, well because....... YouTube

Looks like quite an adventure, best wishes and keep us posted.

Very nice. I will be watching this thread.

That's great. Wife and I are headed this morning to Knox from Clarksville Tn(new duty station). Meeting a realtor and looking at property/home to purchase.

Good for you! And glad your Dad is doing better! It tells the tale of who you are that you put your plans on hold to help him as you should. Good on 'ya!

Sounds like a fine adventure! Use your "headbone" and work as safely as you can, enjoy EVERY minute, and keep us posted!

Which county will your new digs be in? Cheers...   Jim

Living the dream.

For real.

Good luck to you OP. I hope it all works out as you have planned! 😀

Living the dream, and good luck to you!   But you better get going quick, you have a lot of work to do and fall is around the corner and "winter" behind it.

Living. The. Dream.
OP is cool and makes good choices.

This sounds so great, I bought my place last November and can't wait to move in the next 6-8months. It is so hard to keep going here but I have to stick to the plan.

I'll certainly be less hardcore than what you're doing. Good luck.

Good Luck OP, I will save this thread and look forward to updates.

Good luck Idaho looks pretty good.

Good luck,,,, and  remember, winter comes on a lot sooner and faster there than it does where ya come from!

Rain water is polluted. I would go with a well.

Accountant

Benewah County

Very neat. Look forward to future posts.

What will you be doing for an income?

Awesome!  
I wish I had the stones to make a move like that!

Subscribed for updates!

Well, I only have three years left to pay the land off. I have a decent amount of savings so I will be paying cash as I go. From there I will be devoting a fair amount of extra time in putting this up on You Tube to see if I can generate a small income stream. Also, as I get my gardens up and running I will probably look into getting a booth at the area farmer's market. I also have the opportunity to work for an acquaintance in the area who is a general contractor as needed.

Being that I am single and have no children my income does not have to be that high......

Here is a good place to get ideas on small cabins and making/ living in them

Small Cabin.com

Thought it looked local.  You on or off the Rez?

I'm bordering it

Better thin out ALOT of those doghair thick woods. Lots of fire hazard & fuels to feed one there.

Use rainwater for irrigation, but I'd sure get a well put in for drinking.

A fire with a wind behind it will rip right thru all that, and whatever you build.  Google up "Defendable space from wildfires".

My .02

I'm not saying this is an OST but by golly it might just be an OST.

Congrats OP! Look forward to updates.

Just curious regarding the recommendations for well water, what's polluting the rainwater in that area?

Nothing different then anywhere else, some people are just overly cautious.  Any rainwater isn't the best, but a simple filtration system would be more then enough.

Nothing that I am aware of which is why I am planning on collecting it for all of my uses.......A well is beyond my budget as well as having power run to the property which is why I decided to do it without either. Guess I'll find out if it's a good plan or not! LOL

THIS, north Idaho wild fires are CRAZY, folks almost lost their house just north of Moscow back in mid 90's. id definitely think metal roof for your place and solid permiiter around it with no trees, shrubs and anything isn't totally green(meaning water your grass if you have it, else gravel)

This is basically what I will be building as my "temporary" cabin for the foreseeable future.......don't pay attention to the plastic front wall. Mine will be fully insulated with whatever remnant windows and doors I can locate in the area......



It will be a 16 x 20 re-enforced / insulated 'yurt'. I will be building a 16 x 20 insulated deck for it to sit on with 9 ft 2x4 insulated stud walls and a sleeping loft above. I chose this design because I have the tent lined up and this will be the quickest, most affordable way to get a livable cabin built in the shortest amount of time. The total estimated cost for my build is $6500 at the moment. And that is everything 'finished' to a bare walls on the inside.

It will be heated with a rocket mass heater that I will be building as well. This is an example of the RMH. ( not quite that long).....

To the west in WA state is a massive agricultural area (plus the farming that's on the ID side of the Palouse) the whole way to the Columbia River and a bit beyond. That results in wind-blown dust (prevailing winds are west to east) when the fields are fallow or before the crops green up. Also some famers burn fields to kill off plant diseases and burn off stubble, which they like to do when rainy weather is coming in off the coast. Add in some potential ag chemical drift also so the Palouse Country can have some dirty rain water.  Summers are typically hot and dry so relying on rainfall for a water supply can be problematic then, but winters can be wet, chilly-cold and snowy so you'll get plenty of moisture then.

Plus drinking out of a dirty frog pond with the same rain water is likely not a good idea. Plan on hauling potable water if you want to be safe than sorry without a well.

Tag. This is in my area of interest and I have been thinking of doing something similar in a few years.

The only option is satellite internet and Hughes Net sucks!!! My realtor uses Viasat so I will see how it compares...When I was there looking at the property I actually had cell service so I hope to be able to do small updates with my phone from time to time. I also plan on creating a YouTube channel and uploading a video a week at first when I go into town.

In for the dream. Congrats.

OP, I don't know your sources for info on cabin/woods living. But if I could make a suggestion, My Self Reliance and TA Outdoors are 2 Youtube channrls with a ton of info on them.
Some of their ideas I will use on my property in the future.

I've been following Shawn since he first started posting on YT....I'll check out TA.....

OP, I'm curious what you like about Idaho better that Arkansas? Was there anything wrong with Arkansas? I only ask because I'm always looking for a place to relocate to and both of those states are on my radar.

There was nothing wrong with Northern Arkansas but it just wasn't Idaho. Arkansas was a compromise made with my now ex when we were looking to move from West TX before the oilfield crashed in '15. I had a nice little homestead but it just wasn't what I truly wanted so I sold it after the divorce.

Arkansas has a lot of nice places up in the NW quarter of the state. However, it gets REAL hot and humid for a good part of the year. And it has a larger population density than ID. I really have nothing bad to say about AR, but ID is where I always wanted to settle.

Congratulations! I've just moved to Idaho, near the border with Ontario, OR. So we get the best of Idaho living with Oregon zero-sales-tax!

We got an acre in a small town, zoned residential agricultural; we have 1 more truckload  before it's finished.

The front part of the land is buildings; the back half-acre is currently weeds. Wife wants to kill weeds by mowing, then planting alfalfa, THEN putting in a couple head of cows for butchering. (We have a large freezer the previous owner left behind.)

OP, the difference here is... almost surreal. The people here are friendly, almost Stepford Wives friendly! Our first visit here, people came up to us out of nowhere, shook our hands and started talking! We finally figured out that our first visit (in March-April) was just after the first weekend of spring weather, and everyone just felt good!

OP, about the best advice I can give you is this: Everyone I've known who has done what you are doing has said to live on the land for a year before building. That way you can figure out where the wind blows, what areas get soaked in a rain, where it's hot during the summer, etc.

Best of luck to you!

That's more or less what I plan on doing.....My initial cabin is temporary (1-3 yrs) as I build up all the infrastructure for my homestead. In that time I will figure the best spot for my permanent place. I am probably going to build a small place for my mom, she's 70 now, and move her out next year so she has a place where she can do whatever she wants in her twilight years.......

Just be prepared because winters can come at any time, in any strength.  We always laughed about how if you didn't like the weather just wait a few minutes and it will change for you in that area.

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Hitting the road in the morning. Gonna take my time and enjoy the ride.

Will update as I can.

Be safe, Hombre-

You have a grand adventure ahead of you! I've been hauling a lot of trailer loads across country this year. Yours looks better packed than mine sometimes do!

I have learned quite a bit from both of those channels. When I make my escape from civilisation I will be putting some of that knowledge to work.
Another YT channel I recently came across was North Country Off Grid. They are in Idaho, albeit a little bit north of your neck of the woods.

Drive safe, and enjoy your adventure!

After 780 miles.... it’s time to relax! Then do it all again in the morning.
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Drive safe!

OP, I'm jealous...I'm also too old now to manage all the work homesteading takes. That wasn't always the case.

You might check with the Forest Service and see what 'houselog stumpage fees' are these days. You could get by a lot cheaper by building a log cabin and saving your money for other stuff.

I build this cabin in Montana years ago all by myself. 2 rooms and a loft over 1/2 of it.

I fell the houselogs, skidded them in with my horse, peeled them with a drawknife, 2 sided them on a chainsaw mill, and set the logs using a tripod with a block & tackle.

The only expense I had was for tongue & groove boards for the roof and floor, tarpaper, and shingles. Oh, I did buy some piers, pier forms, and sackcrete. I think I had about $700 bucks in it including the chainsaw.

Most of my photographs burned up when a forest fire ate my cabin so these are the only pics I have left. The only reason I have these as they were taken when my folks came out to visit and my Dad took the film to have it developed. Circa '85.

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To the OP.....You aren't in your 20s any more. Don't try to work at that pace. Work at a sustainable pace. The last thing you need to do is to hurt yourself while building your place.

Well I arrived Friday and got my ‘base camp’ setup.... Attached File
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Over the last couple days, in between the rain it got the ground action for my cabin started...
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If the weather holds I will be getting the risers for the deck done and then, hopefully have the deck itself framed in by this weekend.....

I have no signal on the property so I can only update when I make my supply runs. So I will put updates up as I can.