I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching this past month, temps on my mountain have been very cold and nothing newsworthy has happened at the cabin lately.  Though I’ve been offline a lot, I finally snapped outta my Xmas blues and snuck back online to wish y’all a fantastic 2012!

While it’s cozy here in the Christmas Corner, a big work push will be happening up at my compound right after I recover from my upcoming annual Jan 1 hangover.

Hopefully 2012 will see an addition to the cabin (oh yeah!), more decking, a sleeping loft (inspired by my friend Ranger X’s cabin!) and the successful online-ification of the recently completed “James P. Garzo Memorial Power Generating Facility”.

Gather ye young-’uns a-boot, pull that holiday goose outta yer oven and throw a cold glass of cheap Champagne on the fire for me!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!

e. and 2011 are o-u-t!

Thanksgiving for me has always been bittersweet. I love turkey feasts and the gathering of friends and family. At the same time, I dread the onset of shorter, darker days and the cyclical unemployment that comes when Hollywood goes on holiday. This year, it seems, will not disappoint in its consistancy. I took the above photo yesterday afternoon on my drive down the mountain. The warmth of the afternoon is at odds with the layer of cold dreary mid-day mist, sort of how I’ve been feeling lately.

I am thrilled to have met a fellow wilderness devotee and my alleged doppelgänger. He has agreed to let me blog about him if I use the pseudonym “X”.  He contacted me through the blog and we have recently met and shared war stories.

X is close to my age, size & shape, bought a similar sized parcel of remote forest land on a neighboring mountain, was a freelance creative Hollywood professional for much of his life, and has now begun the transition to the wilderness living by building a 120 sq ft off-grid cabin which he recently doubled in size. Our similarities continue on into minute details but I think y’all get the idea.

X convinced me to plant some fresh trees on my land so I decided to do just that. 10 in all.

I spent a day digging and planting and another day raking watering and mulching. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done. I’ve never been one to garden but after spending time with my hands in the earth, I was hooked. I understand why so many older women in their golden years delight in grooming their prize azaleas, rose bushes and hydrangeas. Count me in, ladies, I’ll even wear the big floppy hat!

These are some of my new babies before and after they were covered in a layer of mulch…

X tells me that they will grow a few feet every year so I planted some near the cabin for shade and ’cause they’re pretty.

The days are now get dark by 5pm so I’m glad my new outdoor fireplace is working like a charm. It’s throwing off heat in the face of my 29 degree nights, as well as illuminating the cabin when I retire indoors for bed!

One of the things I don’t read much about in other tiny house blogs is the feeling of isolation. I love the solitude, peace and quiet of my land, heck, sometimes I drive up there on a slow night just so I can wake up to the sound of quails and the smell of the mountain air. Truth be told however, after a few days it gets lonely. Ryo Chijiiwa on his “Laptop and a Rifle” blog touched on this subject early on but many other small living pioneers rarely mention it.

Is it just me or do we all get lonely out in the woods? I know many of this new “tiny” community are paired up and living with a partner but my life is complex to the point where I’ve not been able to settle in with someone who can just drop everything and run off to the woods forever. Maybe it’s just the inherited restless nature of my soul or maybe I need to commit to living in either city or on mountain. Either way, lately I seem to be driving myself up and down a familiar road,  going intentionally back into the cold but familiar mist at the bottom of my mountain.

I was sitting on my new patio set the other day when I realized I was being watched by a critter. I looked at it, it looked at me. It was kinda like a big skinny dog with HUGE ears, some kind of jackalope?? I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots but it scampered off, down the hill and into the brush.

Guess I was lucky. It looked nice and it didn’t attack, but out in the wild, you never know what danger lurks in the bushes. I definitely dodged a bullet on that!

I was visiting family in Arizona last week and did some hiking on the Salt River outside of Phoenix. It was extraordinarily beautiful!

Saguaro cactus and plenty of scampering critters kept me on my toes, weather was a perfect 85 degrees and dry. I came back to California to find wet, grey and c-c-c-cold weather.

I was able to lay a large load of gravel around my new outdoor fireplace and do some spot repairs to the trailer’s rubber roof. Looks like we’re in for a snowy winter and I want to be ready!

Not much else is going on right now. Work is slow so I’m simply enjoying the fruits of my labor, staring at the view and meeting new furry friends. I’m planning a weekend with some of my “outdoorsy” homies before it gets too cold (I think Garzo is allergic to the snow). Now that the ground is wet, it’ll be a lot of fun to finally get a fire roaring.

Here’s to a very pleasant and restful Autumn!

e.

I don’t know why, but I am endlessly fascinated by the herds of free-range cows that roam my mountain. They’re awfully cute, timid but curious, very gentle and quite friendly.

I awoke the other day to a herd chomping on the dry grass around my cabin. Free lawn mowing, I say!

One adventurous cow tried to get into the tool shed but thankfully, she has no opposable thumbs and the door was locked.

It looked as though Ms. Cow had rubbed up against a newly painted green wall, fortunately not mine!

One teenager was fascinated by my new Pier 1 patio set…

In my spare time, I built a small diversion wall to direct the upcoming seasonal rains away from the cabin.

Next week I’ll buy some railroad ties and make a garden bed behind the wall. If you look closely you can see the 2 small baby oak trees that have sprung up there!

I LOVE all the oaks on my land and hope these 2 grow happily and healthily in their new garden bed.

I also stopped at Lowe’s and bought an outdoor fireplace for the c-c-cold upcoming winter nights. I’ll add some gravel and decorative paving stones around the area so my friends and I can hang out around the deck once the weather turns cold and wet.

When you are inside the cabin and a fire is blazing, it’ll almost seem like the fireplace is indoors!

quick note…look at the gorgeous view in the glass reflection, you can see why the cabin is facing North!

A shout out to all the new blog subscribers that were referred by the Westways Magazine article! My blog traffic has increased quite a bit since last month’s story ran. There are a few cool things on the horizon that have come as a result of the article but I’m gonna keep quiet so as not to jinx anything!

Now that my latest tv job is done, I have plenty of free time to chase cattle, work on the land and think up clever twists on old children’s jokes…

btw, “to get to the other side”

DUH!

It’s been a hot summer up on the mountain. I’ve been busy working, going back and forth to Los Angeles so I’ve not had much free time to get any “interesting” work done on the homestead.  This has led to a lack of posts since I reeeeally doubt y’all wanna hear about brush clearance and fence repair!

AAA’s member magazine, Westways, just published a story in their September issue called “This Small House” and included me in a section called “Pint Sized Abode”  and I’ve noticed a sudden rise in my blog traffic. I wanted to officially welcome any readers that have been referred by my mention in the magazine!

If anyone is curious how I built the cabin (or survived it, LOL), all my posts are all listed by month, from the beginning, in the sidebar to the right —>

Please feel free to email me at theurbanrancher@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas on how I can improve our small house community!

Now I need to get back to my brush clearance, fence repair and beer testing!

e.

Well May certainly has slipped by quickly! It’s been a busy work season for me in LA so my mountain time has been reserved only for rest and play, not much cabin work going on. The cows have been out in force lately too, lots of cute baby ones running around. With so many roaming through my land,  I really don’t need a lawn mower, I just watch and let ‘em graze. They’re all so cute, so friendly and so delicious!

I did manage to put up the stained siding on the power shed. I’m not wild about the color but re-staining will have to wait for another day, May has been all about R&R.

I also put a fresh coat of paint on the mini-deck. After a harsh winter it had started weathering…I just can’t have my friends sitting on peeling paint now can I?!

All in all it has been  a glorious spring and I’m looking forward to another spectacular summer. Heck, I may even get the solar panels and wind turbine installed!

Hope everyone is having a safe and glorious Memorial Day Weekend.  I also want to send a big shout out to all our military brethren and their families…thank you for your service!

Now go grill a big steak!

e.

The weather report was for sunny skies and weather in the 60′s so last week, I ran up to the mountain to do my spring chores. Fences need to be mended, posts replaced, brush clearance needs to begin, front siding still not done on the power shed, repainting winter-worn wood, solar panels and wind turbine to be installed, the list goes on!

Day one went as planned with a 40 foot length of rotting wood fence torn down and 2 new fence posts set into concrete, a new mailbox post installed, and gate posts were repainted. All in all a productive work day mixed with a few naps and tree-gazing sessions.

Day two was not so fun. Rain started at 10am and continued all day, temps dropped into the low 40′s and I retreated into the cabin to stay warm, drink hot cocoa and read. The rain was not letting up so I headed into town to buy comfort food and more beer. Driving back up the mountain I noticed a light snow falling and the temperature gauge on the truck was flashing “ICE/32 degrees!”.

Upon return, my land has a sweet dusting of snow, it is adorable but work is over for the day. I retreat, close the curtains, crank up the Lil’ Buddy Heater and fall asleep watching a movie on the laptop.

7am my eyes pop open and the cabin is ccccold inside! I stumble to get the heater back on and lift the blinds on the side window. This is what I see…

Apparently it snowed all night, dumping a full 8″ on the ground! Winter f-ing wonderland!

I bundled up, grabbed the camera and ran outside…

Needless to say, I had coffee NOT on the outside bench. The thermometer said 30 degrees outside and I couldn’t have been happier!

Although I cancelled my chores for the week and headed home early, a week later I’m still thrilled to have been completely surprised by the snow.  I guess this is one of those little things that only happen on one’s own mountain, all alone, when you least expect it.

as does so much of life!

e.

In the past week I’ve received several emails asking me about how I found my land. Last year I wrote a guest article for the Small Living Journal called  ”Finding Land For Living”.

With all the recent questions coming in, I decided to re-post the article here to hopefully answer some basic questions and issues that will come up on a land hunt.

FINDING LAND FOR LIVING

(or “How I Learned to Grow a Beard, Read a Parcel Map and Write a Manifesto in Ten Easy Steps”)

If the question is “How do I find land to live on?” then the answer would simply be “well Einstein… look!”

So in 2003, while sitting on a pile of cash from the (lucrative, LOL) sale of my house… I looked.

I quickly learned that the question SHOULD have been “How do I find land to live on that I can actually afford, have permission to build on, get onto with my vehicle, have potable water, electric power, a phone line, not get shot by crazy drug-addicted neighbors and, make sure I actually own what it appears I’m buying.”

Prologue. Start your engines.

While on a camping trip in the mountains outside of LA with my buddies, I found myself in a local watering hole, chatting it up with a commercial ranch broker. I just came into some cash and was looking to buy a piece of land in some remote Valhalla where I could eventually grow old, free of the rat race (and my annoying common-wall neighbors). His advice was to start with a local agent but to do all the research myself. He confided that many realtors often don’t put the same time and effort into selling vacant land that they put into houses. True dat.

Next day, I walked into the nearest mountain-town real estate office (the one festooned with the largest flags and loudest bunting) and announced I would be buying some land. I was assigned to the agent on duty, a lovely older woman with very little experience selling land. My meeting with “June” convinced me that indeed I would have to drive this land bus by myself.

The driving part was not so simple. This is what I learned.

Lesson One. Decide where you want to buy.

This is obvious but often taken for granted. “I’ll see what I can afford” is usually the first step but I say re-think step one. Take into consideration that while you’re building, you’ll be commuting from your home base. Friends will be more apt to visit if it’s closer to home. You’ll spend more time there if getting there is easier. I bought my land about 120 miles from my home in LA. Without too much traffic it takes 2 hours travel time if I hustle, 2 1/2 hours on average (with a gas, burger and a pee stop).

The Internet is great for finding parcels of land but you’ll really need “boots on the ground” to show you what Google Earth and Microsoft Bird’s Eye cannot. Once you have your general location picked out, a local agent can send you listings that fit your needs.  One factoid…with vacant land, an agent’s commission is typically 10% but it’s usually paid by the seller.

The further away from a city your land is, the cheaper it is.  There are many factors that determine the price of land and for me, “getting to it regularly” was near the top. I scheduled viewings on weekends and would hit several lots per day. It’s good to see them back-to back to compare how they feel.

Lesson Two. The better it is, the pricier it is.

Trees cost more, water costs more, paved road access costs more, a view costs more, privacy costs more. Large plots do get cheaper by the acre though. I bought 20 remote acres for the same price as a 60’x100’ lot in the local mountain town. I needed trees, privacy, road access and ground water. I got it all. I looked at 30 properties over 6 months and sat down with my list of pros and cons before making my choice.  It’s a balancing act. Fortunately the property I chose was heading to a tax auction. I bought it for a very reduced price just 2 days before it would have sold to county insiders on the courthouse steps.

Lesson Three. Where IS the property line?

Most realtors will not know where the boundaries are. Have your agent get you the parcel maps on properties. They can usually just print ‘em out at their desks. These maps will give measurements and notes on where the boundaries are. The listing sheet will often have landmark notes, “North boundary is below the fork in the road and the big oak tree”.

I suggest buying a handheld GPS hiking device and use it to walk out the property. I set waypoints at the known corners and hiked the perimeters following the parcel maps. It was pretty simple to do and VERY enlightening. The GPS will tell you how many feet you’re walking in any given direction. The parcel map should have those feet measurements. Many counties now put their parcel maps online, overlaid onto Google Earth satellite photos.

Lesson Four. Easements.

Make sure you can gain access to your land. If there is no road in, the land will be cheap. If there is no road in, how will you get in? Permission to bulldoze a road over your neighbor’s land is legal but usually VERY hard to get and will involve years in court.

The out-of-pocket cost of bulldozing into your land depends on the terrain but it can get pretty expensive.

Make sure no one will be suing YOU for permission to bulldoze through your land to access THEIR parcel. I passed on 2 glorious parcels for these kind of easement issues. (As a note, 6 years later neither of them have resolved their access issues and one is still tied up in court)

Lesson Five. What do you mean I can’t camp on my own land?

I cannot stress this enough…Check the local county ordinances, zoning and building codes!!! Many counties will not allow you to camp on your vacant land or even park an RV or trailer without a house in place. Many counties have zoning laws that won’t allow mobile homes or manufactured homes to be put up at all. You MUST check the zoning. It’s often easy to do this research online through the county’s web page.

My land is zoned “A-1” agricultural. I cannot camp on it. Many counties will demand that you determine the use of a vacant parcel by putting up a structure. A home (residential use), a barn (agricultural use), a business (commercial use), crops, or something that will establish what KIND of use. In my case I can live there ONLY if I build a minimum 440 square foot house that is NOT a mobile or manufactured home. If I was zoned R-1 (residential) or MH (mobile home) I could live in a double-wide!

There are pages and pages of restrictions on what, where and how I can build my house, EVEN THOUGH it’s quite remote and nowhere near Los Angeles. If any of my neighbors were to complain, the building department would make a total pain-in-the-ass of themselves, even in the middle of nowhere (they have already done this to my next door neighbors because of their live-in trailer).

Lesson Six. What, no mortgage?

It is virtually impossible to get a mortgage on vacant land. You must pay 100% in cash at escrow OR try and get the owner to carry a loan for you (usually with 50% cash down & 5 or 10 years of payments).  Real Estate companies will often package land parcels with a low down payment and monthly terms but double-check the details. They’re often used on undesirable parcels and you could end up over-paying based on the local comps.

In 2003 when I bought my land, Bank of America WAS writing mortgages on some vacant land IF there was a working water system in place. I’m not sure if this is still the case. Which brings me to…

Lesson Seven. Water.

You gotta have it. It’s availability will alter your purchase price dramatically but,

You gotta have it.

If you have city water pipes already in place, you’ll pay for it up-front in the purchase price (and you should check on the monthly fees). If there’s an existing well on the parcel, you’re in luck. If there’s a well shared with neighbors, that’s good too. If you need to drill one, take a deep breath.

Ask the adjacent neighbors how deep they drilled and who did it. It’s a good shot that your well will tap into the same water table. My well went down 260 feet through decomposed granite (easy to drill through) and in 2003 it cost me $10,000 (original estimate was $7,000). This is just for the damn pipe in the ground. A 3500 gallon (minimum) storage tank is required by my county (for the fire dept). This will cost me another $5,000 and the pump, pressure system and piping will be another $5,000.

Lesson Seven A. Utilities.

I’m not sure how important electricity and a phone are to you but I found that I REALLY needed phone access. Power poles are often located near a property line but many parcels are beyond the reach of the grid. This can be a plus to many, especially with the advances in solar and wind power. The close availability of the grid will “up” the price of land but power is a whole other issue. I just need a phone.

I found it extremely difficult to coordinate with realtors, surveyors, contractors, friends, work and more without a phone. Many remote parcels are beyond the cell grid so communication is tough. Access to a land line was important since I’ve no cell service for 10 miles in any direction.  I will eventually need to work from my mountain so this was on my checklist as a “must-have”.

If you’ll eventually need access to the Internet, DSL’s are rare in the wild and you can forget about cable modems, LOL. Dial-up has become my demon.

2011 UPDATE: Satellite Internet seems to be gaining ground, HughesNet and Wild Blue are 2 services that some of my fellow rural-ites use. Both will require 120V electric power.

Lesson Eight. Do I even own it?

Vacant land can often have title problems.

“Pops said he won the land in a card game in 1931 but he’s in a nursing home in Omaha with Alzheimer’s, we can’t find any paperwork”,

“My Father left this parcel to us 7 kids but it’s in probate til we find Crazy Sally”,

“Winnie said the papers burned up in the trailer fire”,

“When they cleaned out the cabin, all we could find was his manifesto”.

Yes, 3 of these are actual quotes I heard from people with land for sale. Make sure the title is clean and your escrow company does due diligence. I have an ongoing border dispute with my neighbor Hal about an alleged easement that was hand-written on note paper in the 1930’s. Hal’s bulldozing a road and heading straight for my property line. The county won’t get involved and neighbor Hal carries a shotgun so my surveyor is afraid to go near that border. I figure Hal’s really old and has been pretty sick lately, he’ll probably die before his bulldozer makes it to my property. Problem solved.  But ohhh, the title issues his kids will face when they try to sell!

Check the title.

Lesson Nine. No Fear.

Ask lots of questions, even if you feel like a total dumb-ass. I’d bought and sold homes in the past but with vacant land, there were so many issues I’d never seen before (dig for my water, wtf?!). The folks I dealt with were always more than happy to explain the smallest detail when asked and they eagerly referred me to their vendors and resources.

Lesson Ten. Git ‘er done.

Don’t let my gas-bag bloviating deter you. The entire land-finding process was WAY fun. I learned new stuff every day and as I moved forward, I felt smarter and more in control of my own destiny. Now that I’m actually building MY cabin on MY land, I feel like I’m on top of the world and I guess, I really am.

Good Luck!

elroy

I was corresponding to a fact-checker from Westways Magazine yesterday, they’re including my cabin and this blog in an upcoming article on tiny houses. I told my good friend Garzo about it and Garzo brought up a great point.

Westways Magazine is circulated and read by pretty much anyone in California with a AAA membership and that’s a heck of a lot of people! When I started this blog, it was more of a cathartic experience, a “real-world hard-copy” record of my cabin construction.  It would serve to keep me motivated and on track. Heck, if I opened my big yap and told the Internet that I’d do something, I sure better get it done!

In the past year or so, my regular readership has grown into the thousands. I get a decent amount of email and so far, ALL of it has been kind and supportive. Now, with the exposure to potentially hundreds of thousands of new readers I want to ask a favor…

Will you all please keep my location secret? My master plan relies on the discretion of everyone involved. While everything I’m doing is intentionally “street-legal” I’d really prefer to stay well below the radar. I’m an extremely private person with a career in the entertainment biz (go figure) and I’d love this whole cabin thing to stay on the down low. My mountain is my refuge from the world and I’d hate to lose my one small piece of serenity.

It was a big decision for me to open up and share my project with the magazine and I’m a little jittery about it. The writer was extremely kind and I trust her to be discrete.

Ultimately as I build more, I’ll reveal more details. For now though, I’m good with anonymous.

thanks guys, I know you all understand.

e.

(hiding under the couch with the cat and a bottle of Cuervo)

Happy 2011 All!

The new year brought with it a very unexpected job for me in New York City. I’m going to be here until mid February so my mountain and all its critters, vermin and predators will have to survive without me.

New York is my hometown and it is also the town I left behind….with good reason

there are magnificent spaces and absolute squalor, all within a few feet.

Legendary, grand spaces and just plain garbage…

really NY, an 8′ pile of garbage on Wall Street?

The iPhone 4 takes a mean picture, no?

there is even a Home Depot on West 23rd Street, complete with a skylight. Sadly, everything in it is 3 times more expensive than in LA!

yes Virginia, that’s a Home Depot.

They are housing me in a grand apartment in a magnificent neighborhood, complete with doorman, view, and 100 feet from the best cupcake shop in the world.

This is the urban part of UrbanRancher. It’s a part of me I left a long time ago

gladly,

willingly,

gleefully.

Still, I miss my mountain desperately.  I know that even with a covering of snow the local wildlife (and even that damn lion) will see to it that all remains well at the compound. The pipes are drained and the tiny cabin is sealed up tight, what could go wrong?

Stay warm everyone and “chin up” Ryo, it’ll all work out just fine!

e.