Alder Burns

The other critical thing to remember about this is that rural sites dependent on wells for water....the well pump won't run without power!  In California at least, the power company would preemptively shut the power off in any high wind event, since the likelihood of a fire start due to the power lines etc. and wind is a proven deadly likelihood....this was responsible for the disastrous Camp Fire which ate the town of Paradise.  So a generator or other backup system capable of running the well pump is practically essential in many such situations, especially if that water is being relied on for fire suppression practices.

The heartwood of certain species, cedar and black locust come first to mind, is rot resistant, approaching the performance of pressure treated wood.  You might improve it still more by charring the portion that would be below and near ground level.  
Another wild idea, which I put into practice at a former homestead in Georgia, is using living trees!  I made a shed by attaching a ridge pole between two living pine saplings, using chains and some heavy bolts, and then stretching a heavy truck tarp over this.  Kept stuff dry the whole five years we were there.  I made a goat shelter a similar way by cutting off the tops of four convenient hardwood (oak and sweetgum) saplings and tying more tarp to these, and carpet scraps for the walls.  I would cut back the sprouts from these every couple of years and feed them to the goats.  The only thing is you need saplings growing in the right locations....but the beauty of it is that the "posts" will never rot!

For termites and other wood pests, as well as mold and rot, borax based solutions are one option. Common laundry borax and the boric acid sold as roach powder will work, larger amounts are sold as fertilizer since boron is a micronutrient.  Simply dissolve either or both into boiling water to saturation and paint on or dip wood into it.  The solution will soak in and the borax will crystallize into and onto it.  You can wipe off the excess and paint over it.  Putting some cooled solution into a spray bottle is a way to get it onto hard-to reach spots.  There are stronger mixtures and recipes out there, involving dissolving the borax etc. into ethylene glycol antifreeze, but this is much more toxic both to make (fumes) and apply.  Just borax is bitter taste so animals won't go after it.
The thing to remember is that because borax is water soluble, it won't last anywhere that wood is continuously wet....i.e. you can't treat fence posts with it, for example.

I recall doing a research project on the closely related naranjilla (S. quitoense) while in college.  Naranjilla is also uncommon outside of its native range.  It is also extremely sensitive to nematodes, and cultivating it is one of the things that accelerates slash-and-burn or swidden farming since the naranjilla is the first thing planted on newly cleared land, partly to avoid the nematodes that build up.  My project was grafting the naranjilla onto other nightshades more tolerant of nematodes (Fun fact....almost any nightshade will graft onto any other!)  I found that naranjillas grafted onto eggplant rootstock grew as fast as those on their own roots.  This might be an idea to save if you have nematode problems on your plants.

I guess one question is how able to travel are you, even to make one jump from where you are now to a promising opportunity. there are also threads on this forum about people offering opportunities for work-based land-share.  You will have to go through them one by one to see if any will work out.  Sorry about the dude you're staying with! I've known more than one woman on line who ended up basically stuck in an abusive situation in a remote area this way....they ended up fundraising from on line friends to make an escape. Ugh!  You might keep an eye out for land managed by a couple, a woman, or a group as an attempt to avoid this.  

I would recommend the site ic.org  It's the premier website for intentional communities worldwide, and it's searchable both by keyword and location.  Many communities, especially the newer or forming ones, are always looking for willing workers, and being willing to camp is a plus.

this idea has puzzled me too through much of my gardening life, and it's bolstered by considering the preoccupation with short-handled farm and garden tools in much of the rest of the world.  When I lived and traveled in South Asia years ago, the most common implement was a kind of broad, heavy-bladed, and short-handled grub hoe....many small farmers would turn over entire fields with this, back bent over the whole time!  I was simply astonished that nobody ever seemed to think of putting a long handle on a tool, and when I was settled in one place for a while I had a shovel commissioned for myself, with detailed instructions, since nobody in the village had ever seen or heard of such a thing.  Since then I've found myself making longer handles on a lot of things, which is easy for me since I'm always saving good sticks and making my own handles anyway.  My favorite shovel is taller than me, and a foot or more longer than commonly available.  It really makes a difference for the back on a long day's digging, and especially so when doing deep holes for tree planting etc.  Ditto with the hoe and the pitchfork.  The only way I would ever use a short, D-handled tool would be in a very tight space, like a crawlspace or down in a trench.

Are you settled in one location?  In that case it might do to try to find and control where the mosquitoes are breeding....it's usually in human trash of some kind within a few hundred feet.  Usually for heat I rely on as little clothes as possible, combined with frequent hosings/dunkings in water if needed.  Wet hair is a big plus. Sometimes in intense mosquitoes I have gardened with a smoke pot beside me...

My biggest adjustments come when I change locations and climates....quite a few "rules" that applied in the previous location didn't fly in the new one.  For instance in California, most mulch was a hard no, especially using paper or cardboard.  It never breaks down....readable type on stuff after three years, it's a fire hazard, and it becomes a habitat for huge numbers of pests like earwigs, millipedes, and snails.  I learned to put my organic matter into, or under, the soil.  And of course when I lived in Bangladesh, you make a plastic cover over a seedbed not to keep the cold out, but to keep the rain from washing them away! Drainage and raised beds are essential for most ordinary veggies.

When we lived in fire-prone California, we ran a few sheep in any part of the property that was not kept irrigated, especially in the spring when grass etc. grow vigorously.  Additional grass from a further distance would be scythed and piled for hay, kept in covered piles far away from the buildings. In retrospect this hay was probably the biggest danger, since a fire could loft it up and drop it out, smoldering, over the entire site.  Most homes are actually lost to ember fallout, sometimes miles in front of an advancing fire line.   I was learning to make barrel silage the last couple of years...this may have been a better way to have off-season feed for the sheep.  Anyway they kept all the grass munched down very short, and made quick work of any garden stuff I took them.  
    I learned early on to put most organic matter under and into the soil, not on top of it as mulch.  Most mulch is just a fire hazard, and it doesn't do much to conserve moisture through a six-month drought....unless maybe it was woodchips two or three feet deep, which I didn't often have.
     We had sprinklers permanently on the roof, with designated hoses to the well pump.  Generator that could run this pump....since power outages often happen in wildfires.  In retrospect these water lines should have been copper pipe or something fireproof like that, but $.
     I spent a lot of time raking, picking up sticks, and scything weeds along the fences and roadside.  Much more than in a wetter climate.  None of the stuff went to waste....it went either to sheep, chickens, or composts and eventually all ended up in the gardens....dug in.
     Another observation I made which I never got a chance to put into practice, though I envisioned it for the worst fire sector...the roadside....was a hedgerow of succulents.  I once saw a homestead where a thick hedgerow of agave and tall prickly pear stopped a windblown grass fire dead....those plants hold water and all that water has to boil before it will burn.
     It is quite difficult for people native to moist climates to believe how easily it is to spark a fire when everything is tinder dry.  A trailer dragging a chain.  A vehicle with a hot muffler parked in the grass.  A chainsaw hitting a nail or a rock or again that hot muffler in the grass.  A bottle or a jar sitting out in the sun.  Hitting a rock with a shovel.  And, oh yeah, any pile of moist organic matter over five feet high or so.  Mowing grass short is often recommended....and it's a good way to spark one if the grass is already dry (I  put weedeater string in my mower in place of the blade every summer).