Choosing Eden the real dirt and the coming energy crisis

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 701

I'm nearly through this book:
Choosing Eden the real dirt and the coming energy crisis.
It's available at Brisbane city library.

It's about an middle aged couple who moved from Sydney to the countryside in fear of peak oil. Good reading.

It made me jealous, not because I am too afraid, because we both would prefer living in the country. I know it's a bit utopian, but I'm trying to investigate a bit further. Anyway we could do this only in two years time, maybe a time were everyone wants to have rural property.

As money is always a limiting factor: what would you suggest would be an average price for a small farm, big enough for reasonable self-sufficiency a part time income, good rainfall, reasonable soils close to a village, schools, maybe smaller town maybe a train? Would 250.000 be sufficient?

Our situation is very far from the couple in the couple in the book. They seam to not really needing a regular income as they both worked hard all their live. And their children are yet out of the house while ours are still small. We would have to pay down a mortgage.

americandream

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 701

You talk about the author of the thread or of the book? If you mean the thread it is true, we both haven't lived on the country, worse, we're not Australian.
You mean that country folks stick together and bite strange people from the city, especially with strange accents?

americandream

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 701

I finished the book and I must say that their situation is far away from what ours would be. They move on the land but we would have to live at least part time FROM the land.

As they worked both a live long they had savings and were able to hire tradespeople and contractors for renovation earthmoving etc. And they didn't have to have an income at least for the first years.

What they achieved at the end of the book was what any person could achieve in the city with a middle sized garden: vegetable gardening for themselves bread baking etc. The only difference: they planted lots of trees for a food forest this is really a thing we won't be able to do.

There is some romanticism in the wish to move to the land.
Some calculation like having more land, being safer, not living amongst decaying industrial remainings.

All in all I think it's desirable but not a real option for us, as we need a source of income and would not be mortgage free.

Sololeum

G'Day Alokin,
We live on the eastern side of Glen Innes NSW - elevation 1200 metres - in the New England...

We bought our 18 acres - 20 odd K's from town 2 years ago for $55K, and built two "American Barns".

We live in the small one and the big one up hill collects our water..

Don't be put off, I've lived in rural Oz for most of my lifegrowing up in Mudgee and Singleton - then working all over NSW and Central and Southern Queensland - always a townie though until comming out here. We don't have a lot to do with our neighbours - but hey - they don't have much to do with each other either - - a bit of a bushie trait - - Just be there for them if they want your help, and don't complain about the noise of cattle, and sheep, don't complain about smells, ...just don't complain!!!!!

Make sure you buy where there is good rainfall , and some clay in the soil - stay away from Tara and the other cheap block places... In the glen Innes Severn Shire I know of 25 acre blcoks going from $40K to $160,000 - based on closeness to town and land being cleared, and good road access considerations.

Most land for sale is the glorified town block variety so somewhere out of town is better if you plan on going peasant!!!!

Greyharp

My wife and I left the city for an isolated rural life about five years ago and have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. If employment is an issue, buy somewhere near a decent sized town to fix that problem. We live in a food producing area and there is always permanent work in town. The good thing is that although we live only 25 km from town, the townies think we're living at the "arse-end of the world" and ask "why do you live all the way out there?" This makes me laugh as back in the city I used to drive an hour to work and thought that wasn't too bad.

I disagree with americandream, the locals are very easy going and helpful. True, people are people wherever you go and there are always bad apples, but should TSHTF, I'd much rather be living out in the country with a small bunch of practical, self-reliant types, than in a city surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people who don't even know the name of the person nextdoor and wouldn't know how to feed themselves if all the shops ran out of food.

Living where we live has meant we've had to have a much simpler lifestyle (we don't have a life-time's savings under our belt as the author of the book seems to have had or a 24-7 shop just around the corner), but a simpler life is what we wanted and are aiming for anyway. I don't know that "Just being there is grief enough", the last five years have been the happiest of our lives and we wouldn't move back to the city for anything. The locals have helped us out over and over and without expecting anything in return. Post Peak Oil will be all about community. Those who don't have it will fare the worst.

Don't give up on the dream alokin, it is both realistic and achievable. We have a mortgage, but it is so cheap that we'll have it paid off in another four years (even if interest rates continue to climb), when we're 44 years old. There are plenty of places in rural Australia that are affordable and are in areas that have lots of employment (and as Sololeum says, have "good rainfall"). I shudder when I think of our friends living in Sydney with a half-million dollar mortgage and a frantic work-work-work, consumer lifestyle that we were so happy to leave behind. Look around, do your homework and keep dreaming.

Cornelian

It is also important to realise that you don't need to move out to the country to achieve at least some form of self-sufficiency. I live in inner Hobart. I have half an acre. I grow all my own vegies/pulses/legumes/herbs/fruit etc. I get eggs from a neighbour. I swap my (dare I beat my own chest here) amazing pumpkins for fish and meat. I live in an old house built for the pre-electric days. Hobart is well situated water wise. No matter what the doom-sayers desperately wish for, this community is unlikely to break down into hordes of MZB's.

Rural living is good (I am a farm girl from way back) but you can achieve a remarkable degree of self-sufficiency in a city as well - and without the isolation factor which can sometimes be a problem. I have all the services I need within walking distance - a real plus. Don't get too hung up on the idea that rural is the only way out - it can be just as much of a trap in its own way as urban living.

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 701

thanks for the answers! The bad thing is, my husband is a scientist and he would never ever get a job in a rural area - maybe as maths and physic teacher? But he has no formal teacher education.
He really worked hard for achieving a higher education, so in spite he would love to live in the country he would give up quite a lot.

I know that Hobart has a Uni, but the department of Physics and Maths is so small that he wouldn't be able to get a job there, all these guys are very specialized.

However I read y bit in the Olduvai thread and I think things might get pretty dear and we have to think giving our children a future some thing they can live off later.

Country live means a lot of driving - what I was fighting always against due to the pollution global warming etc. unless you have a train station (my husband does not drive and does not want to learn it)

We don't fear a simple live. We don't spend a lot But I imagine if you move you have to buy machinery tools trees cows vet bills ...
I imagine we would spend more than here.

I thought about having plantations, something mixed, macadamia nuts, bamboo, and other as cash crop and veggies and some milking beast for for self sufficiency and our chooks would get a rooster.

Anyway for VISA reasons we must stay here another year and hopefully the house prices stay stable meanwhile (they went up 25% last year, that's ill!), so we could sell our house with some profit, but we have still 145,000 dollars to pay. And the best thing would be being dept free, to keep expenses down.

Maybe relocating our current house would be good, it's asbestos free and very small and I think we would get nearly the same money selling the property with or without house.

Which regions with reliable rainfall, useful soil are still affordable?
Maybe something close to a railway station or in bicycle range to a small town because I think that we won't be able to drive much in future.

That was really a bit long!!