Intro - Christine from NV

Hello, I'm Christine.  I am new to the board, I've been poking around here and there and I'm enjoying the topics here.

My husband and I currently live in the 'burbs but we are looking at buying some land in the next few months.  We are interested in straw bale and other alternative building resources, grey-water systems, solar energy and gardening.

Currently we are considering land that falls under some CC&Rs and we are wondering how we can work in what we would like to do with the land with the aesthetics of the community.  That, and how we can get around the "No Chickens" restriction. 

I'm looking forward to being part of the community here!

When someone asks, just ask in return, "What chickens?" Welcome to the site. There's plenty of good answers here, in addition to my sarcastic one. If you wanted to start with the age old chicken dilemma, you might pick one of the forums that best fits your goals in wanting the chickens in the first place. I live in a suburban neighborhood with cc&rs. The best thing to do is find a community that has rules that fit your bill, rather than trying to fit your needs into their rules. If you can't then there are plenty of people here making do without poultry. We'd love to share what we know.

Oh, I'm not dead-set on chickens.  I could be happy with ducks, quails... the cc&rs only mentioned chickens. 

One of the issues is that we are looking for affordable land in CA that we can access from our home in NV.  There isn't a lot in our price range.

Honestly, the engineering is of greater interest than the animals.  And if we decide that we need to have more freedom with our land, we can always find someplace else when we have the means.  We're still looking, but I haven't seen much land that we can afford that isn't too expensive or too far away.

your last sentence made the most sense to me...we can always find someplace else to live..

if there are too many restrictions on a place..that would be my choice..find someplace else to live.

I love where we live..although we have winter here..we have no restrictions at all as to what we can or cannot do on our property..land is good, land is cheap..water is plentiful, best water in the world they say, Michigan is a wonderful place to live..

I'd be thinking about looking elsewhere..for your little place in the country..think about some of the states that have really cheapo places repo'ed right now and you might be surprised...my niece bought a lovely home with acerage for $30,000 just last year..but before prices dropped like a rock !!! we sold a place with creek and 2 ponds brand new home and 18 acres for 1/2 of what it was worth last year..before the housing prices dropped to where they are now..cause it was MIL's house and we had to move it after she passed away.

you really should think about some place with good land, good water..no restrictions..great growing..etc..