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Over the past year, I have writ­ten sev­er­al posts on Bug Out Loca­tions.  They dis­cuss sim­ple things such as my thoughts, shel­ters, how stocked they should be, pur­chas­ing them, etc. If you have not read them, here they are:

• My Thoughts on a Bug Out Loca­tion
• Build a Portable Yurt for a Shel­ter at Your Bug Out Loca­tion
• How Stocked Should a Bug Out Loca­tion Be if You Have to Bug Out
• Bare Min­i­mum Gear You Should Have at Your Bug Out Loca­tion
• Think­ing About Buy­ing Rur­al Land for Your Bug Out Loca­tion

How­ev­er, I took a first look last week­end at a rur­al piece of prop­er­ty that I was con­sid­er­ing as a Bug Out Loca­tion.  The price is close to what I would want to pay, and as some or many of you know from my above post on Think­ing About Buy­ing Rur­al Land for Your Bug Out Loca­tion, I have some set cri­te­ria for the prop­er­ty.  What I noticed upon arrival was this, which helped and hurt:

Prop­er­ty Size:  It is three acres.  This is the min­i­mum I am will­ing to accept for sev­er­al rea­sons.  It is cleared in an area by the road, and it is wood­ed in oth­er areas.  This is good because I would be look­ing to cache some sup­plies on the prop­er­ty in dif­fer­ent areas, and makes dead fall fire­wood easy for col­lec­tion ini­tial­ly… Three acres is rather small, but I also know that three acres is more space than one thinks it is… That said, I am wait­ing on an ariel map from the Real­tor to see the actu­al prop­er­ty lines and con­fig­u­ra­tion of the prop­er­ty.  This also is a deter­min­ing fac­tor in the pur­chase.

Prop­er­ty Con­fig­u­ra­tion:  The prop­er­ty is rel­a­tive­ly flat.  This is impor­tant for poten­tial gar­den­ing, and for build­ing struc­tures.

Water Sources:  There is a spring on the prop­er­ty and the water feed­ing a small lake on an adjoin­ing prop­er­ty.  A spring or flow­ing water was a require­ment.  With no water, a well might need to be drilled imme­di­ate­ly.  I am going to pur­chase a water test kit to deter­mine whether or not the water is potable pri­or to any deci­sion.  I am almost sure it is, but bet­ter safe than sor­ry, and the water test kits are pret­ty inex­pen­sive.  I have a plan to fil­ter and pipe water from the spring to a large 55 gal­lon plus container(s) above or below ground as a tem­po­rary means of water, con­nect up a 12 volt water pump, and put it on the elec­tri­cal pan­el and/or keep it off grid with a solar pan­el and deep cycle bat­tery sys­tem, which would be set up any­way regard­less of the pow­er that is on the prop­er­ty.  Some of you might ask why I want elec­tric­i­ty on the prop­er­ty.  I am try­ing to be a lit­tle real­is­tic about how I am going to use the prop­er­ty.  Used as both a retreat from the city, as well as a BOL, I may put up a shed or two on prop­er­ty and pipe pow­er into it, and hook up a refrig­er­a­tor or freez­er to store food… Not every­thing can be dehy­drat­ed, and recon­sti­tut­ed with water, in my hum­ble opin­ion.  I also fig­ure a “Berkey Water Fil­ter” will suf­fice for drink­ing water and potable water in the short term pri­or to some­thing more per­ma­nent since there is a spring on prop­er­ty…  On drilling a well, this is a crap shoot.  I know this going in.  In fact, the first thing I did was look at the ground, and see what kind of dirt it was.  A lot of red shale.  That did­n’t ini­tial­ly make me hap­py.  That means to me the ground is going to be quite rocky… How­ev­er, that is sec­ondary at the moment because it costs mon­ey and will have to be put into the plan.

Pow­er:  There is already elec­tric­i­ty piped onto the prop­er­ty.  This is impor­tant for mul­ti­ple rea­sons, and I do not have an issue pay­ing a min­i­mum elec­tric bill for min­i­mal ser­vices.

Waste:  The perc test is expired on the prop­er­ty.  There is a shed on the prop­er­ty already.  When I went around to the back of the shed, the door was unlocked (the front side was locked), and when I opened it, it was an out­house with what looked like a fiber­glass toi­let.  It seemed backed up and not built cor­rect­ly, unless it is a com­post­ing toi­let.  I could not tell.  If it is a com­post­ing toi­let, it is clear­ly was not used cor­rect­ly.  Either way, it looks like “human waste” will have to be removed, and this is NOT some­thing I would be hap­py about doing.  Let alone, human waste that has been fes­ter­ing in sum­mer heat for sev­er­al months / years untouched.  I have to believe that is noth­ing but tox­ic.

Gear Thoughts:  In my post Bare Min­i­mum Gear You Should Have at Your Bug Out Loca­tion, I am going to go out on a limb and say I was naive in my thoughts on just the “per­son­al gear” not­ed in the post… What I imme­di­ate­ly noticed when walk­ing the prop­er­ty, was that shov­els, picks, axes, chain­saws, hack­saws, drills, my tool box, lawn mow­er, and much much more came to mind as tools for get­ting the job done to make the prop­er­ty liv­able.

Wildlife and Plantlife:  There was cer­tain­ly signs of wildlife.  There was bear scat, turkey prints, rab­bit scat, and I am sure there are fish in the lake.  As for plantlife, there were black­ber­ry bush­es on the prop­er­ty, which I would want to relo­cate, since they were grow­ing in the open field.  Maybe relo­cate them near where the water­line runs to the lake from the spring.  This would pro­vide ample water for them as well as sun­light to help them thrive.  I was excit­ed to see them as I can remem­ber pick­ing black­ber­ries as a child on my par­ents prop­er­ty.  Mom used to make and jar home made black­ber­ry jam with them.

Tax­es:  It fit the cri­te­ria of under 1,000.00 dol­lars a year.  That made me hap­py

Civ­i­liza­tion:  Yes, there are oth­ers around.  How­ev­er, many of the imme­di­ate neigh­bors all have trav­el trail­ers on their prop­er­ties for camp­ing… Sort of pay dirt, if  you ask me… there are homes, but they are up at the oth­er end of the road.  There is a small gen­er­al store a few miles up the road, state game lands a few miles up the road, and in any direc­tion, five or so miles it is all farm land…

With civ­i­liza­tion comes the dread­ed prop­er­ty own­ers asso­ci­a­tion.  This is some­thing I was look­ing to avoid, how­ev­er, after read­ing the prop­er­ty own­ers asso­ci­a­tion rules and reg­u­la­tions, there was noth­ing there that I could not live with, for the time being…

Build­ing On Prop­er­ty:  With three acres, I could cer­tain­ly build a small cab­in, add a cou­ple of stor­age sheds, grow a gar­den, raise rab­bits and chick­ens, etc.  This is long term and a more full time oblig­a­tion, how­ev­er.  Baby steps to the BOL, and a more per­ma­nent res­i­dence…  Just clear­ing the prop­er­ty where its not wood­ed is going to take time, effort, and is more of an under­tak­ing than I had expect­ed, at ini­tial glance.  Noth­ing worth it is easy, how­ev­er.