Hello everyone,
I will be flying out to Spokane to look at mostly raw
land in Stevens county in a couple days, and will be meeting with a realtor that deals in land sales. I've made a list of properties that interest me, and wanted to ask for any last minute suggestions for things to consider while I'm there. Fortunately this trip isn't my one and only chance to buy something, so there's not an immediate pressure beyond the realtor wanting to make a sale while this bird is in the hand I guess. My plan is to retire in about 5 years, so I wanted to find land now and plant
trees so they have time to grow. Some of the things I've been considering include:
Physical access to the property: this area has some serious mountains, so several feet of snow is probably the norm in winter. Many properties will have access by dirt or gravel road, so not only will the vehicle need to handle those conditions, I'll have to consider how to plow snow, and grade the road to keep a proper crown to avoid ruts and pot holes. So either a truck that can have a plow attached, or perhaps a tractor/excavator with said attachment. So that is an extra cost to consider for steep access.
Access to water: some properties have a well, some a year round or seasonal spring, and most have neither. Especially on property that is higher up a slope, drilling a well that may or may not hit good water could be very pricey. So a property that has a good well already will score many bonus points. I'd also hope to have a storage tank at a high/the highest point on the property so that I could
pump water into that, and then gravity
feed water to the tap. That way a pump could run less often but for longer to improve lifespan (is that a correct assumption?), and if the power goes out then I would still have a good supply of water available. I already own a Berkey water filter, so I would hope to filter all my drinking/cooking water through that. Well logs for nearby properties are available, but I think that's just an educated guess relative to a new well.
Rainfall also appears to vary greatly between the west half of the county which is
dryer, and the east half as it gets into the mountains and is much wetter. It seems a few miles can go from 20" a year of rain and 25" of snow, to 50" of rain and 45" of snow or more. Depending on the property, I hope to install several ponds and swales that will feed the ponds with rain. The higher up I go into the mountains, the more precipitation I can get but also the steeper the properties and the tougher the access. Terracing could be an option if I got that
tractor to help move the dirt, or renting an excavator now and then. But I'm certainly no
Sepp Holzer, so a slight slope is fine but I'll pass on the Alps.
South or southeast facing slope: some properties I have marked off as no good due to being on a fairly steep, north facing slope. I definitely plan to plant a bunch of trees and shrubs for food,
firewood, and to probably make a hedge around the property to keep out
deer and elk that would have at my tastier plants. There would also be a veggy garden to
boot, so if all of that were in shade I don't think I would have a good time. Terracing and
hugel beds that help provide some more south-facing surfaces could help, but then I'm fighting hard just to try and break even. Then there's the cold factor, it's already cold
enough there without eliminating most options for
solar gain on a north-facing slope.
Neighbors: there are 2-3 nice pieces of land just 3 miles east of Colville for good prices, with good road access... but they are sharing a property line with either the
local outdoor gun range or the
city landfill. Likewise I expect I will find some properties are too close to the neighbors, like some lots are thin, long rectangles. You end up being within 100 feet of your property line no matter where you are, so privacy is minimal. If I build a wofati/Oehler type structure, I'd prefer not having nosy neighbors watching from the porch and calling up code enforcement to give me a hard time. 8) On the other hand, having neighbors close enough to hear me yelling "ouch! it really hurts when this
bear bites my head!" could be handy, assuming they like me enough to help! Of
course building
berms and thick evergreen hedges can help create privacy, and if I find a property in the next few months I'll have 5 years to grow those hedges up. Having lived in both rural areas and in the urban sardine can, I definitely hope to have a couple hundred yards between me and the neighbor as they work on their ATV.
Trees: to build a
wofati or
Oehler house, I'll need some decently sized trees to use as posts and beams. Most of the trees in the area are Douglas Fir and farmed by the timber industry, so while it's not a total monoculture I'd have to assume that is my starting point. So I hope to find land that has enough decently sized trees that I could harvest and dry out a year in advance to use. I don't know if hybrid poplar would be structurally sound to use or grow in zone 5b. That might be an option to plant some of those and they could grow say 25-30 feet in 5 years. But I'd much rather have trees that are already there versus hoping seedlings survive and mature when I'm over 1000 miles away and visiting 2-3 times a year. I would hope to create a hedge using Osage Orange (Hedge
Apple) and
honey locust as the base, and include other support plants like rugosa
rose, holley, or siberian
pea shrub to provide habitat and food for animals. The locust and osage would be woven together to create a living
fence, and hopefully each year the new shoots are also woven in to increase the height. Once it reaches my head height at 6'6", I could let the new shoots just do their thing and not need to worry about deer jumping over it. It
should be pretty wide as well as tall and I would add more plantings to widen it over time.
I would also want to add a mix of
wood that can coppice well for firewood, including
black locust, maple, maybe hazel? So while a decent amount of existing trees would
be nice, I also need enough room to plant more and have enough light for them to grow. Being able to "observe, observe, observe" all in a few minutes per property visit isn't likely, especially without knowing if I plant things in a spot where I later want to put something else. If the property doesn't already have a building (a few have cabins) I can plant a camper or yurt and spend more time learning about the property such as summer and winter sunlight exposure for gardens and passive
solar design. I hope to visit at different times of year to document this as well, and if I put my firewood grove in the wrong spot, I can plant a second grove in a better spot and when I clear out the first area I can prevent new shoots from coming up.
Soil Quality: With lots of mountains, there can be lots of rocks and with lots of clear cut timber farms can come a lot of soil erosion. I haven't had much luck using the GIS web sites that provide sample readings of soil composition, and unless the sample was recently from the exact plot it would only be a guess. I'm less concerned about this area (perhaps that's a big mistake?) as I figure that if I can't dig down much to build then I could have some fill dirt dumped to use to berm the house? And I would start composting everything I have into hugel beds for
gardening and to build up soil quality with heavy mulching as materials become available. I'm not really sure what I can check, outside of verifying that property which is upstream isn't a super fund site, or a CAFO dumping pollution into the ground water.
Does anyone have other thoughts/suggestions, or corrections to my assumptions above? I really appreciate any insight! And if any of the local folks know of a good property for sale, maybe not in the MLS, I'd love to hear about that too! I've been filtering properties to be at least 15 acres, most are 20-40.
Thanks!