# The downside of being a homesteader.



## BradKajukenbo (Aug 9, 2019)

I always felt that I would be more happy living in a tent. The only reason why I chose to live this way is because I had kids. I don't regret that. My two boys mean the world to me. Its been the three of us since they were a year old just about. Their grandmother is like a second mother to me. 

We got this place three years ago. My kids grandmother lives right behind us. Just outside the city limits. I have a Redding zip-code but an Anderson address. I got a Dollar General half mile one way. TA truck stop half mile the other. 90% of the time its nice a quiet and I don't like living around so many people. I have maybe 12 neighbors on my street.

Here is my downside. Neighbors and their neighborhood drama. I know 4 of my neighbors. One, we keep an eye out for each other.. One neighbor is Mr & Mrs CHP. Right after they moved in they pulled me over in my driveway as I got home. Yes my son was speeding. We were given a warning. Haven't talked to them since. Mostly because we have not ran into each other again. The other two I just try to deal with as less as possible. And almost every neighborhood has those 2 kind of neighbors who you wish would just mind their own. 

Barney Fife Neighbor. This is the one who takes Neighborhood Watch way to serious. Sheriff Dispatch is #1 on his speed dial. County Code Enforcement is #2. If you are one of those people who keeps to yourself, he finds you suspicious. Stakes out across the street from your house. Records license plates of your visitors. He has a stack of "Community Notice Slips". If you have done something he doesn't like, you get up in the morning and you got one of his slips on your door letting you know all about what you've done. My son sometimes at night likes to walk to the TA truck stop and by a soda or a snack. I think the sheriff deputy got tired of being called out just because my son walked down the street. I've been reported to the County for running a business out of my garage but they don't really care. A small martial arts dojo is the least of the counties concern. 

The Neighborhood Gazette. This is the neighbor who's house is considered Gossip Central. I was warned about her just right after I moved in. My neighbor tells me that she will come and act all friendly and ask you about yourself. However anything you tell her, she tells everyone in the neighborhood who will listen. Sure enough, one day I was out in the front yard when she walked her dog down my end of the street. "Oh hi. Welcome to the neighborhood. How old are your kids. Where did you move from." I know she was just trying to pick up all the information she could. I was ever more friendly to her. "What brings you to Redding". I just told her "Witness Protection Program". "Oh" she says. "Well nice to meet you." Then she was gone. Not long afterwards my neighbor comes over and laughs when he asked me if I really was in Witness Protection as an ex mafia. LMAO. Thats the spin she added. I never mention anything about any mafia. I think this is way Barney Fife staked out my house for months. 

I found that just keeping to myself is the key to it all. Most of the people on this street are the same. Just that there is always those few neighbors who we can all live without. Other then having neighbors, homesteading is not all that bad.


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## Deleted member 24782 (Aug 9, 2019)

Damn! Glad we didn't move to Anderson! We almost did, was also looking at property in Cottonwood. Still some of the most affordable property in California though right?

"Witness protection program" hahaha. Yeah I'm gettin to know my fair share of quirky neighbors as well...


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## Deleted member 23824 (Aug 9, 2019)

How big’s the piece of property that you’re homesteading? What are the main projects, improvements, and struggles to maintain and improve a homesteaded piece of land that you’ve had? How long have you owned your ground? Always had the dream, just never the money. Not in California, no way.


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## roughdraft (Aug 9, 2019)

¨...not long afterwards my neighbor comes over and laughs when he asked me if I really was in Witness Protection as an ex mafia....¨

damn, sounds like crack and/or meth to me cousin.....


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## BradKajukenbo (Aug 9, 2019)

Brodiesel710 said:


> Damn! Glad we didn't move to Anderson! We almost did, was also looking at property in Cottonwood. Still some of the most affordable property in California though right?
> 
> "Witness protection program" hahaha. Yeah I'm gettin to know my fair share of quirky neighbors as well...



Anderscum? Yea that place is shit. About as bad as the City of Shasta Lake. 

Up until last Oct, I worked at Speedway Gasoline in Cottonwood. Cottonwood is a cool little town. Mostly ranchers. Hick Folk. Friendly. Not sure really what the housing market is like. 

@Faceplant 





The is pretty much the Property. Me and my sons share this with their grandmother. She has her house in the back. I pay the bills such as utilities throughout the year, and she pays the property taxes. The front house is where me and my son are at. 4 years this Sept. 

My house was built in 1965. I believe It was at once a doctors office. The north part of the roof where its flat, was added on. The garage was converted into a 2 bedroom apartment. I gutted it out and turned it into a Dojo/Garage. My Jeep Wrangler doesn't have a top so a night after class, the mats get stacked and the Jeep is parked in the garage. My school sign is a Banner. I would love to have it hung up 24/7 but just like the business ran out of the house next door, with Barney up the street, We don't draw attention or try giving him the thought that we both are running a business out of a residential zone. He's already called the county on me for it. I told them the truth, My classes are free, but there is a $30 mat fee each month for each student. And thats damn cheap for Self Defense class. I care about the art more then the money. I'm not getting rich off what I do. 

For both house, repairs are cheap when you spot a problem and deal with it then. I do all repairs myself. When it cools off, I'm going to repaint the house and re shingle the roof. My brother gave me the shingles. I'll spend about $300 on the paint. I don't need a landscaper. My son has that chore. 

My next project is going solar. Hopefully by new years I'll have solar panels.


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## BradKajukenbo (Aug 9, 2019)

roughdraft said:


> ¨...not long afterwards my neighbor comes over and laughs when he asked me if I really was in Witness Protection as an ex mafia....¨
> 
> damn, sounds like crack and/or meth to me cousin.....



No. Just an old lady. Gossip is her crack. To this day she has not said another word to me.


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## Hudson (Aug 9, 2019)

I would go nuts if my neighbors got up in my business like that. Had a neighbor call the cops (who are located an hour away) on me for gunshots. I was slaughtering 3 pigs that were pissing me off. 

Deputy shows up to me covered in blood holding a knife. Just waved at the neighbor and laughed my ass off.

Deputy sheriff got a little scared I could tell but quickly realized it was just a bullshit neighbor dispute.

I ended up planting trees to block his view of the house. Wish I still lived there, was a great house.


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## Fuzzypeach (Aug 9, 2019)

BradKajukenbo said:


> I always felt that I would be more happy living in a tent. The only reason why I chose to live this way is because I had kids. I don't regret that. My two boys mean the world to me. Its been the three of us since they were a year old just about. Their grandmother is like a second mother to me.
> 
> We got this place three years ago. My kids grandmother lives right behind us. Just outside the city limits. I have a Redding zip-code but an Anderson address. I got a Dollar General half mile one way. TA truck stop half mile the other. 90% of the time its nice a quiet and I don't like living around so many people. I have maybe 12 neighbors on my street.
> 
> ...


Oh I know the type. I spent 2 years of my life suing them. Same shit, they had the cop's in their pocket. Contest everything. Most of their shit got dismissed. They are targeting you because you aren't into the Babylon bullshit.


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## Deleted member 24782 (Aug 9, 2019)

Live and let live! God damn.


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## roughdraft (Aug 9, 2019)

fuckin for real, people like this have major malfunctions, it's only more evidence that seeking alternatives to the fuckery is worthwhile

just another example, my brother is a public school teacher. he has his shit together. he's a talented skateboarder, he has a pretty good lifestyle. Most of his coworkers he says are depressed, untalented and alcoholic. now if you can be 1 of the 3, not as bad, but what results in the triple threat?

he was tellin me about a coworker prying into his business and mocking him for skateboarding at 20 something years old. well he doesnt take shit so he looks the mfer in the face and asks What do you do? and then the asshat wants to get defensive, like he didn't even know he was up to fuckery in the first place.

You got a grown man mocking another grown man over a moderately healthy, physically active habit. 

Looking at that - he reminds me of this type of neighbor. For real, even if you aren't sharp enough to pick yrself up and do life better, how are you going to expose yourself as having nothing better to do than try to bring people down who are doing more well...?


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## WyldLyfe (Aug 10, 2019)

Well.. at least its the neighbours and not the people you live with, oh woah.. how optimistic of me.. The thing with the tent though, yeah that can be nice too, put the tent up next to a river some way from town, ya neighbours are ducks, birds.. and platypus's, ahh.. you guys miss out on the platypus but you prob got something else.. and these guys are normally great neighbours, ya know iv had ducks come waddling up to the river banks where I was just to check me out, they can come real close and they look at you with curiosity and innocents, its beautiful imo. Some birds do that too. 🦆🦆 

In case some of use don't know what a platypus is.. behold..


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## Older Than Dirt (Aug 10, 2019)

@WyldLyfe That is a fucking furry dinosaur, and would scare the living shit out of me if i saw i coming. Probably would be fine with it if i were used to them like you, but yikes.

Ducks i like.


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## BradKajukenbo (Aug 10, 2019)

Fuzzypeach said:


> Oh I know the type. I spent 2 years of my life suing them. Same shit, they had the cop's in their pocket. Contest everything. Most of their shit got dismissed. They are targeting you because you aren't into the Babylon bullshit.



I have a punching bag that is about 5' tall. Has a head, arms and legs. Its about 80lbs. Thought about rolling it up in some trash bags. Late at night as he is making his way down to my end, I'll have me and my son act like we are carrying a body out of the house and bury it in the yard. Maybe during the day start digging a hole in the yard to raise his curiosity knowing that night he'll be in his stakeout spot. 

I wouldn't bother wasting time with court law suits. Why do that when I can have more fun fucking with them? LOL


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## Fuzzypeach (Aug 10, 2019)

Litigation is my superpower. His attorney ended up owning his ass. Lost his house, all of it. I don't necessarily have to win the case to cost them big-time. I just make sure I have a legal basis to file, which all of them are. Love the punching bag idea though.


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## Older Than Dirt (Aug 10, 2019)

The main thing i learned in law school was to stay the fuck out of courtrooms.

That said, i am retired at 60 after suing some former colleagues for 3 years in Federal court, and sued my next-door neighbor in small-claims court last year for cutting down a small tree on the property line that concealed their ugly-ass house til they cut it down (used the money for a 6' fence).

I bought my house, an ex-small-town crackhouse, dirt-cheap just before this very ghetto small town near NYC gentrified hard into an artist/hipster hot-spot- "the coolest small town in Amerika" according to some dickhead website. At this point, i have lived on my block longer than anyone else except the folks i sued over the tree.

Everyone knows the old crazy guy with the tattoos, and asks me for garden advice since my shit is so prime, and backed me up when i went to war with this nearby restaurant's outdoor cover band ("Hotel California" on a sunny afternoon is a thing up with which i will not put) by putting the guitar amp on the porch and playing Crass "Big A, Little A" ( the most annoying song i could think of at the time) over and fucking over every time they started playing, and also when i was accused by the town cops of menacing a young man with a baseball bat just because he was beating his GF (and slapped her baby to the pavement) on my block.

Conclusion: it is better to be loved than feared, though also good if they fear you a bit.

I should also admit that everyone in our town likes my wife ,a much nicer person than me, and also my son. So maybe i just married lucky. Probably they just barely tolerate me.

*Disclaimer: i do not practice law. Nothing contained in this post is legal advice. As always, everyone should always get legal advice from a competent attorney admitted in their jurisdiction before doing, or failing to do, anything whatever.*


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## Fuzzypeach (Aug 10, 2019)

I only am pro se. But it sure comes in handy when dealing with MF's who otherwise won't leave me the fuck alone. Also handy when dealing with people who try and trample my rights because they leave gotten away with it because people don't know any better.


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## Older Than Dirt (Aug 10, 2019)

There is nothing like a beautiful wife with a deep voice and a foreign accent, who is the town's sexy librarian, and a very handsome teenage son who is the best guitar player in town and volunteers at the local bum-feed, and of course my little pitbull girl Fifi (80 lbs.), and her boss, the fearsome cockapoo known as Maud The Terror (15 lbs.), to keep an elderly skinhead* punk safe.

A funny story: When we had first moved from Brooklyn to Small-Town USA into a rental house to see if we liked it, one day ,when i was at work in the city, my son, then 10, came running into the house yelling "Mamai! There is a boy in the yard!". There had been a night time tool-burglary of the reno-ing house next door a couple days before. 

My wife sent the pit-girl into the yard, and ran to the front porch, and yelled "Hey you motherfucker!" at the kid as he climbed over the front fence to escape Fifi, and then took his picture on her phone as he turned around to yell "i was just cutting through lady!" (love my wife-raised right) which he may well have been. Didn't do it again though.

The wife had already called 911, and 2 large black town cops showed up, being as the cop-shop was like 400 yards away from that house.

My 10 year-old son, anxious to defend mom from the intruder, was on the porch with my nun-chucks when the cops showed. The serious kind, the ones with octagonal grips that swell from linked end to grip end, with chrome chain, ball-bearing connector. _Really_ well-worn, and showing obvious signs of extensive use.

"Lady, those things are a felony** to possess in New York state", the cops explained.

My Brazilian immigrant wife, gods bless her, replied: " My husband is a skinhead* from New York City, and he has these!"

For some reason, the black cops considered this a perfectly reasonable thing to say, and did not make the felony arrest, but said "Just tell your son to take those back in the house please."
_________________

* For the avoidance of confusion, as we like to say in the law biz: No, not _that_ kind, the kind that like to hit that kind you were thinking of with bats and *[redacted on attorney advice]*. The original USA NYC LES Bad Brains-worshiping type.

** When i was in law school, and we went though the NY Penal Law sections on forbidden weapons, i was like a kid with baseball cards- "Need it it, got it, got it, got it, doubles, need it, got it, doubles, ...". My classmates were like "Oh, the Marxist is _armed_...'

*Disclaimer: i do not practice law. Nothing contained in this post is legal advice. As always, everyone should always get legal advice from a competent attorney admitted in their jurisdiction before doing, or failing to do, anything whatever.*


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## BradKajukenbo (Aug 10, 2019)

@Older Than Dirt



> My 10 year-old son, anxious to defend mom from the intruder, was on the porch with my nun-chucks when the cops showed. The serious kind, the ones with octagonal grips that swell from linked end to grip end, with chrome chain, ball-bearing connector. _Really_ well-worn, and showing obvious signs of extensive use.
> 
> "Lady, those things are a felony** to possess in New York state", the cops explained.
> 
> ...



Years ago I got pulled over. In my back seat I had my gear bag. Strapped on top of the bag I had my Sai set. The cop was hella chill. He did tell me that here in California, those are a felony to possess unless you use them in a sort of training. Then again he said it was up to the officers. He told me that if that is my case then I would need to have them in a case inside my bag and when an officer ever asks if I have a weapon in the car, to inform them where they are at. He did tell me to take the monkey fist off my key chain and leave it at home.

Most martial arts weapons it seems are illegal to have. You can do just about the same amount of damage with a Escrima sticks as you can with Nunchucks(Nunchaku) but the sticks are still Legal to possess.

[Fun Fact: The Sai was invented as a Wooden tool for planting rice. During the era of the Samurai, farmers made them of steel and put a point on them for protection against a Samurai attack.]


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## roughdraft (Aug 10, 2019)

Older Than Dirt said:


> My Brazilian immigrant wife, gods bless her, replied: " My husband is a skinhead* from New York City, and he has these!"



hahahahaha

my guy have you considered writing a book? this is some prime content


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## Older Than Dirt (Aug 10, 2019)

roughdraft said:


> have you considered writing a book? this is some prime content



i probably _am_ dude as i decompensate here, but thanx for the suggestion; you are not the first to make it.

Here is a valuable tip for daily life for all, young and old alike: Me and the wife and dogs were just on the porch listening to some old western swing on the radio, and having a refreshing beverage or two.

Dude on the radio cuts shit-hot lick on guitar; singer says "Take your _gloves_ off, son."

I intend to start saying this to everyone, in all contexts , tomorrow, and every day, and so should everyone.

@roughdraft - aka "careca de suburbio", actually wife initially described me to her Br punk-rock pals (that we are visting a couple of in Portugual in 2 weeks) as "Quasi parece como careca de suburbio, mais uma lixio de verdade como nos." [For every one else: "Almost like a real skinhead, but real trash like us."] Right up there with a person (many years earlier) that i later became best friends with who said on meeting me "Oh, you're not a _regular_ skinhead, are you?" [due to being in full-on attire at the time ( maybe '82-3): cherry-red DMs, #2 haircut, button-down collar short-sleeved gingham shirt immaculately pressed, high-water rolled Levis, the whole deal- oh, and forgot Ka-Bar Marine Combat Knife on belt. Never liked "braces" til i got fat when older, and that was before Mayor Koch's "No openly-carried knives" law (later followed by his "No knife larger than a cop's penis " (ie the current 4" max (not that there is anything wrong with a civilian having a penis the size of a policeman's, or the size of a policewoman's penis either, i hasten to add, BTW- no dick-size-shaming, merely cop-shaming intended. Oh jesus double fuck, what have i gotten myself _into_ here? never mind.)))].

[Can we please bring back that platypus, so i can dip out discreetly while folks are distracted, thanx, sorry.]

*Disclaimer: i do not practice law. Nothing contained in this post is legal advice. As always, everyone should always get legal advice from a competent attorney admitted in their jurisdiction before doing, or failing to do, anything whatever.*


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## Fuzzypeach (Aug 11, 2019)

Isn't 4" a little generous? Ha ha ha


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## WyldLyfe (Aug 11, 2019)

Older Than Dirt said:


> [Can we please bring back that platypus, so i can dip out discreetly while folks are distracted, thanx, sorry.]



Lol. Check out this video (if it works) just saw it, we also got these guys in the rivers, up north though. Now this looks more like a Dinosaur!



Edit: Sorry OP won't post anymore off topicness btw.


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## Deleted member 25988 (Aug 13, 2019)

great read, thanks for sharing


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