Hunkering Down

Yesterdays storm has ended winters preparations. Things frozen in the back of the pick ups will be there awhile. Yard clutter has disappeared. Firewood is a top priority. We have tons of it but most is uncovered and now buried in the snow. A wood shed is on the list of things that would be nice but hasn't made it to the top yet. Since I have discovered that the town would like you to get a building permit for a simple wood shed or the roof I would like over the sawmill, it has dampened my construction ardor. Building permits are sent to the assessors office so your taxes can be adjusted accordingly. It seems queer that you can buy a piece of land, clear it, saw up the trees into lumber, nail the lumber into buildings and for the privilege of working yourself to exhaustion for years on end, the town will charge you for your industry every year at tax time. If we did nothing, we wouldn't see a tax increase. If I improve the road at my expense, the town may reconsider the out back status and the taxes on each acre may go up. It seems the effort to improve is taxed.

Well, retirement and this realization has changed my thinking. Sitting by the fire and watching it snow is much less productive and therefore encouraged by the towns tax policy. Hunting and fishing are much less productive as well and I intend to do a lot more since this will limit my taxes by keeping me from accomplishing anything that might raise them.

If I do little enough, I may be able to get the town to give me public assistance. My complete lack of effort could pay off big. This seems backwards somehow. It would seem that your industry should be yours with no strings or increased taxes and you shouldn't get paid to do nothing. It is just odd and it gives me something to ponder as I'm sitting by the fire being careful not to accomplish too much. I don't want to upset the applecart.

We have canned over 500 jars of food from the garden and have a freezer full of wild berries. We have gallons of dried wild mushrooms. As a result, we require much less cash than you can imagine. (Now divide what you were thinking by 10) We can go weeks without spending a dime. We will be able to go months after I run wire to the well from the solar panels. The pump we just bought was a 110v soft start pump and since there is no serge as it starts it should work with the inverter we have. Right now we use gas to run the generator and pump water. The pump puts out at least 10 gallons a minute and if it runs for 10 minutes it fills the storage barrels that allow us to go a few days this time of year without pumping again. There is such a feeling of security from this it is hard to describe. We have pretty successfully phased ourselves out of the hubub and stress of trying to live in a conventional manner and gone back to an existence with a more circadian rythum (natural seasonal rythums-- save you looking it up). When something breaks it requires a trip back to the dark side. This fall I had to do a floor and some tractor work to pay for truck repairs and tires. Still, for the most part we live here and do the work of living here and to me it makes much more sense than the tax system.

If you are receiving this, you are on the list of people I thought might be interested in my blog. I intend to post daily during the winter. I did a daily journal when we started this project and it allowed us to go back and see what we had accomplished. This blog is to replace that and allow those interested to see what's going on at Missed Skeet Farm. I just got a new computer from the kids for Christmas and as soon as I get our pictures on to it I will include pictures to make this more interesting. Bart