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 Alright, people have been asking me to do an A/T thread for a while now. I'll start out with the basic stuff and I'll answer any questions you guys have. Last summer my fiance and I were living in a terrible apartment in Everett, WA (we were a five-minute driver from Tweaker Cam on Youtube.) There were two other people in the apartment we got along with, and together the four of us bought a 2001 New Flier city bus for $2300. The guy that sold us the bus from had gotten eight from a Pierce County auction to park in his yard and spite his neighbors, and eventually just got tired of looking at them so we got a crazy deal. We named her Helios.   We ripped the seats out of the bus the day we bought it, got the title switched to a Class A RV title, and loaded up our poo poo and Mr. Beefy to leave Everett. The four of us spent the summer camping in county parks and at local casinos. We shared my fiance's car to get to work. Moving every couple weeks was a pain in the rear end. We lost one of the roommates to some major disagreements. It wasn't easy but we had a lot of bonfires and swimming in lakes and honestly a lot of fun even with the hardships. We met an uncanny amount of old bus drivers that had driven the same model, and we even learned some handy tricks from them.  I spent all summer trying to find a plot of land to rent. Even though it was technically an RV, a lot of places flat-out freaked when we parked a bus in an RV spot. All the intentional communities in the area were either full, had no place to park a 40-foot bus, or were just starting out and hadn't bought land yet. Finally last August a woman emailed me a single sentence: "I have forty acres come see me."  It turns out that the lady, now our landlord, was trying to find renters to build an intentional community. Her husband had passed away a year before and she needed to make the farm profitable before she lost it. Living alone on a huge farm at her age is lonely and difficult. She's lived on the property for more than forty years and her family built the entire place with their own hands. It has large pastures, a large creek, a small creek, beaver dams, all sorts of wildlife, bee hives, a cliff made of clay, and tons of ancient trees. There are marks on the trees from the local tribes gathering cedar before it was a train station for logging trains.   We ended up parking Helios where an old cabin used to be. So far we haven't done a lot to our yard except take a tractor to it to flatten it out a bit. We built a composting toilet and installed a wood stove. We're working on trails to the main house from our place. I ended up adopting a Rat Jack dog named Trigger to deal with the mice we get here and there-- with the other farm dogs he was number nine. We broke three generators in really strange ways and finally bought a good one out of the back of a van from some super helpful Russians.  The other roommate that was originally on the bus, a carpenter, moved into the main house to rent a bedroom. Another friend of ours rents the third room in the main house-- he's a mechanic. A couple my fiance went to school with has settled into an apartment over the barn, and an architect moved in with his trailer. He's building a cabin, one of three we'll be renting to short-term campers. His daughter is here on the weekends, making us a community of nine with ages from 10 to 72. We make dinners together a few times a week and have a bonfire every Saturday night. In eight months we've become a very close community. It's nice having space, but also having neighbors that are friendly and helpful. Between us we have a ton of skills-- mechanics, the architect and carpenter, artists, homesteaders with experience, an electrician. If someone needs help with something, there's not a question that someone on the farm knows how to do it and will be happy to not only help but teach. None of us are particularly religious, we don't have specific diet guidelines but we do try to eat decently healthy and local.  The farm has chickens for eggs, beefalo for meat, and three old horses. One of our farmmates hunts so we always have fresh deer and elk. There's an orchard with a few kinds of apples. We have some raspberries that have been in the area for more than a hundred years, and blackberries and salmonberries are everywhere. Together we're planning a large garden and until then we buy veggies from local farms. We all put money in to get bulk supplies from Costco. Amazingly we even have Wifi that spans most of the farm thanks to some real crazy repeaters from a very awesome dude in Alaska.  To fund the farm we're building campsites that we plan to rent out by summer. We started on a community kitchen and have a working community bathroom. We do need to get some water heaters before we start the campsites because ice-cold well water sucks for showering, but we'll get there. The place has a ton of potential and not a lot of time, so we're scrambling to make it work. As stressful as it can be, it's way easier dealing with stress when you have a community to help.  poo poo that was a huge OP. I'll post pics here as I take them. Feel free to ask whatever. Local goons are welcome to PM me to come visit-- we love showing off the farm and the stuff we've accomplished so far. We're about an hour, maybe hour and a half north of Seattle depending on traffic. E: Goddamn it, I suck at thread titles. Scathach fucked around with this message at 00:41 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 21:04
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 11:15 |
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What good is living in a bus if it's stationary?
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May 10, 2018 02:12
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zmcnulty posted:What good is living in a bus if it's stationary? Honestly it's cheap, durable as gently caress, and cozy. It's really simple to modify and clean. Plus, if we end up hating it here it's a lot easier to move than a cabin would be.
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May 10, 2018 02:26
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Yo this owns. Can you detail the specifics of how the toilet is built? Can you go into a bit about how labor hours are divided up between people? Is it a weekly meeting or a every couple days meetup and delegation? How do you manage disparate mindsets? How is the lady who owns the property taking all this? Is she cool and thrilled to have people workin' her land and playing the elder statesman role?
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May 11, 2018 04:45
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Thank you for the thread! I had heard about intentional communities but this is the first time I've seen it described in anything other than the most general terms. Similar to MCH up there, I'd be curious about how a community like that functions on a day-to-day basis. Is the upkeep of the house/farm/campsite how you guys spend a big chunk of your time, or do other jobs dominate your daily lives? Also, what was the transition like from apartment to bus? I keep falling down YouTube rabbit holes about bus/vanlife and tiny homes, but realize that most of my fascination is on the building side and how people create relatively small spaces that are livable and efficient. So I've watched plenty about how people make these dwellings, but little about what they did to adjust to the change, what sucked, what was surprising. etc.
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May 11, 2018 05:37
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What's y'alls hygiene regimen like? Do you guys have running water and everything?
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May 11, 2018 06:32
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MC Hawking posted:How is the lady who owns the property taking all this? Is she cool and thrilled to have people workin' her land and playing the elder statesman role? Also, what arrangements are in place for keeping things running after she dies? Do you have to worry about a bunch of kids running you dirty hippies off their inheritance?
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May 11, 2018 14:36
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MC Hawking posted:Yo this owns. Alright, the toilet is basically this https://farmingmybackyard.com/diy-composting-toilet/ but we used a camp toilet so it's a bucket contained in a larger bucket with a lid to deter critters. It's a bit smaller but easier to move. Right now it's in a too-small outhouse that we plan to replace with something larger/nicer asap. Our composting bins are 50-gal drums. When work needs to be done we do have specific jobs each of us does. It's expected that normal farm maintenance we've been assigned is done when it should be, how it should be, and without being asked. We spend most evenings at the main house to make dinner and hang out, so we usually discuss the plans for the next day at that time. Labor is divided by skill set-- if someone needs any farm or personal vehicles repaired, they go to our mechanics, see who can help, and pick a time that works for everyone involved. Same goes for all specialized jobs. So far we haven't had anyone not want to do a something they're asked, mostly it's just a matter of having time to do it. Obviously if someone is going to be out at work on that day they're exempt from doing farm stuff, and for the most part there are at least two people capable of each job. If someone did disagree with a job we'd just move on to someone else that can do it-- but so far everyone is so damned eager to help that it hasn't been a problem. The landlady loves it. She has a ton of extra useful hands all over, and there's always someone to talk to or cook with. Before we moved in she was doing most things by herself. She still does stuff like walking acres of electric fences when she gets up at 3AM every day and she even went sledding with beer when we got snowed in a couple months ago. She really is tough and capable as hell, but now she has company doing it. She's lived in the town her whole life so she gets to share a ton of knowledge with all of us.
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May 11, 2018 17:01
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Trabant posted:Thank you for the thread! I had heard about intentional communities but this is the first time I've seen it described in anything other than the most general terms. Honestly a lot of time lately has been getting the farm equipment back to working order and dealing with the community bathroom/kitchen area. We're in a race to be renting spots by summer. When the landlord's daughter is in town she's been heading the making of campsites. We have one working tractor that we had to install a bunch of new stuff in (and that probably hasn't been touched by a mechanic since 1975) and two of our main vehicles including my personal truck need major service. Some of us, including me, have full-time jobs so that takes up more of our time than anything. Since we're the ones paying more on rent/repairs we have more free time on our hands on our days off and can do the fun jobs or take care of our personal spaces and whatnot. We don't often get asked to help run into town or anything since we already do a lot for the farm. While I'm at work, my fiance usually takes that 11hr day and works on vehicles, makes trash runs, helps feed the critters, does small jobs for the local Tribe I work for, etc. Once I get home we mostly have free time to hang out and focus on fun stuff. We do have a lot more free time than I ever had with a conventional job and suburban home-- overall we spend less on rent/living than we would if it was just the two of us rather than a group working together. Being a mostly single-income couple works well for situations like this. The first thing that sucks about the bus is that if you have more than one bed going in, space will be difficult. We started out with four people and a dog, so we had two beds and a hammock. That took an incredible amount of space and we didn't have frames. Everyone wants their own personal space and no one really gets it. Privacy goes out the window. If you have more than two people prepare to be nudged around. You also quickly realize you lose just as many things in 240sf as you do in 1500sf. You have no idea how many things we lost in just the first few months and found later. About 95% of our stuff is in storage and we still carried lot of poo poo with us. After a while you learn that you need a lot less things to survive comfortably than you thought you did. Now that it's just two of us and two dogs the space seems huge. I can't imagine living in a big house anymore. Cleaning is so easy these days. Cooking was way easier than I thought it would be too. With a Coleman camp stove, a wood stove, and some iron cookware you can make just about anything on the bus. Eventually when we have time we'll finish installing a proper counter and cooktop; right now it's just not at the top of the list. E: the worst part about cooking is learning to buy smaller amounts of perishables you'll use by the end of the day. Until you have constant electric you can't really store milk/cheese/meat/etc. It also took us a long time to have enough space for a counter and cutting board and everything. I can't imagine living out of something smaller than the bus, cooking would be terribly difficult. Scathach fucked around with this message at 20:58 on May 12, 2018 |
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May 11, 2018 17:56
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:What's y'alls hygiene regimen like? Do you guys have running water and everything? We have water from the well that we drive in big containers to use at the bus. We can wash hands and small stuff with that. We shower and wash dishes at the main house right now. Our plan is to use a well drive point and a pump with a tank so we don't have to haul water. That's the next project after fixing up the community cars. A visitor noted that we "don't smell like dirty hippies but everything smells like cedar." I'm cool with that. Straight White Shark posted:Also, what arrangements are in place for keeping things running after she dies? Do you have to worry about a bunch of kids running you dirty hippies off their inheritance? Her kids want the farm to stay and become self-sustaining and even eventually generate money, with us as the caretakers. The daughter that is helping build the campsites is in charge of everything. My fiance and I have talked to the landlord about possibly buying plot of the land in the near future so we don't have to move if something bad does happen. Scathach fucked around with this message at 18:44 on May 12, 2018 |
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May 11, 2018 18:02
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What’s there to do for entertainment?
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May 14, 2018 17:57
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Vegetable posted:What’s there to do for entertainment? Besides hiking, swimming in the creek, bonfire parties, etc. we still have internet and everything that goes with it. There are game systems and DVDs. Some days we go shooting and the kid rides the horses. I read a lot and do my artwork.
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May 14, 2018 20:49
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I’m hoping to start something similar when and if my divorce is ever finalized.
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May 28, 2018 01:37
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mombot posted:I’m hoping to start something similar when and if my divorce is ever finalized. It's worth it. I'm not going to say it's easy, because it's really not. But it is fun as hell and rewarding, and it's been nice to not have to work a full time job and have my sig. other at home full time.
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May 28, 2018 01:59
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This is awesome. How long are you planning on staying? And what's your ideal size for the place -- are you looking to hold at about 10 plus the campsites for visitors, or to expand to something larger?
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May 28, 2018 13:27
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I've been talking to the landlord about buying a chunk of the place to keep, 5 acres or so, so my fiance and I don't have to worry about stability if something lovely happens. We wouldn't fence it off from the main area and it would still be accessable for everyone, trails and all, but if the farm needed to be sold or anything else happened we'd have a safe spot. Ideally the farm will stay a community for a very long time, and my fiance and I are hoping to make this a permanent home. We love the town, the people, the landscape, it's just a stellar place to live. This is my current view. I really can't imagine living anywhere else.  I'm reasonably sure we'll live here for a long time, and from what the landlord's kids have said they want to keep the place for their own kids to visit and grow up with. The family likes having us take care of the place for them, so I think most of us will be here for a few years if not more. They want to keep the farm bad enough that they're doing everything they can, and they're very thankful they have us to watch it when they can't. We think less than ten people is pretty ideal for the place. We might end up getting up to ten when the campsites get going, so we have enough hands for the extra stuff and enough eyes to watch a bunch of campers on this much land, but who knows. That will probably be a group decision down the road. Scathach fucked around with this message at 18:02 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 17:58
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