"Moving away from the city". What to expect?

Cowcatcher · Mar 30, 2021

You’re askin bout all the bad things about livin in the country and I’m wondering what’s so great about the city. I did (I look back on it as doing time) live in a subdivision down in Houston, TX from 7yrs old to 15yrs old. Damn glad I got to flee the scene on the 1st, 3rd and 5th weekend of the month during those years. I will never live amongst all them houses of people again. I like to piss off my porch if I want. I don’t like neighbors barkin dogs. I like letting my kids run free. I don’t have to worry about em riding their bike into traffic. I like the quiet darkness at night. It never gets very dark in the city. Gotta stock up on groceries out in the country but that’s why you’ve got a pile of old freezers in the front yard to hold them groceries. Out here in the country is where the folks live that know how to fix stuff or have tools to loan you. Yessir, I understand you are used to things a certain way just as I am but I bet you’d enjoy it. Moving onto a place that is just an acre probably wouldn’t be a huge change for ya. Give me country livin or give me death. I’ll never return to the concrete jungle.

SoonerP226 · Mar 30, 2021

Aries said:
You may need to subscribe to a "service" for fire department protection... that is, pay an annual fee for service vs. paying maybe several hundred dollars per truck per hour if you have a fire.

My folks live in the county, so they have to pay an annual fee to the local municipality's FD for fire coverage. It's like $50/year, so is cheap insurance.

GC7 · Mar 30, 2021

Alright so let's say I manage to get 25 acres. How much maintenance does that 25 acres require? Is it typical to fence off the entire land owned? Surely that isn't cheap.

Oklahomabassin · Mar 30, 2021

okcBob said:
with all that wind, any special precautions needed regarding fire ?

Very good question.
On 1 acre.... just keep grass short and free of cedar trees. Wouldn't hurt to try and keep a water hose handy to hook up during the dry months when grass is dormant. Short grass and free of cedar trees on the 1 acre will help keep a fire from burning big and hot enough to catch your home on fire if someone isn't around to extinguish it.

SoonerP226 · Mar 30, 2021

Aku said:
Was going to mention something like this. Outside of city limits, and probably outside Oklahoma county.

There's not much of Oklahoma county that's outside of any city limits...

GC7 · Mar 30, 2021

Cowcatcher said:
You’re askin bout all the bad things about livin in the country and I’m wondering what’s so great about the city. I did (I look back on it as doing time) live in a subdivision down in Houston, TX from 7yrs old to 15yrs old. Damn glad I got to flee the scene on the 1st, 3rd and 5th weekend of the month during those years. I will never live amongst all them houses of people again. I like to piss off my porch if I want. I don’t like neighbors barkin dogs. I like letting my kids run free. I don’t have to worry about em riding their bike into traffic. I like the quiet darkness at night. It never gets very dark in the city. Gotta stock up on groceries out in the country but that’s why you’ve got a pile of old freezers in the front yard to hold them groceries. Out here in the country is where the folks live that know how to fix stuff or have tools to loan you. Yessir, I understand you are used to things a certain way just as I am but I bet you’d enjoy it. Moving onto a place that is just an acre probably wouldn’t be a huge change for ya. Give me country livin or give me death. I’ll never return to the concrete jungle.

Well to clarify, I'm not trying to trash on "country living". I'm simply asking for all the things that someone who has lived in the city would need to take into account before making such a move. This is just me doing research so I know what to look for when I begin the process of buying.

TwoForFlinching · Mar 30, 2021

GC7 said:
Alright so let's say I manage to get 25 acres. How much maintenance does that 25 acres require? Is it typical to fence off the entire land owned? Surely that isn't cheap.

It can be 25 acres of bermuda, or an acre or two of bermuda and 23 acres of wild land. Lot of people start themselves a hobby farm with a few chickens and goats, maybe a pair of donkeys. Plenty of room for a garden, put in a small range, even have an excuse to buy a hobby tractor. Toss up a barndaminium or sears house, fence it if you want, stretching barbed wire isn't so bad... driving t-posts is a drag.

SoonerP226 · Mar 30, 2021

GC7 said:
Alright so let's say I manage to get 25 acres. How much maintenance does that 25 acres require? Is it typical to fence off the entire land owned? Surely that isn't cheap.

It depends on what's on the property and what the previous owners did with it. If it's a plat on a bigger property (i.e, someone is selling off parts of a bigger property), it depends on which parcel you buy. If you buy a parcel on the edge, it may already have an established fence line, but if it's an interior parcel, it may not even have the fence lines cleared. My dad bought 10 acres like that, so it had a fence on the frontage and one side, but we had to clear trees on the other long side.

Another concern is access. That's not a big deal if your parcel has a frontage on a county road, but if it's an interior parcel, that could get spendy. As I understand it, it's not legal to sell a land-locked parcel in Oklahoma, but that doesn't mean that the easement for access will be an easy one. F'rinstance, I know of one parcel where they had to build a private road more than 3/4 of a mile long because nobody on the other side of the section (where it would've been less than 1/4 mi to the section road) would sell an easement. And not long after my dad bought the aforementioned 10, he was forced to grant an easement for the parcel behind his, so he did...on the side with the 20 foot deep gulley going through the fence line.

In a related vein, you need to look as easements on the property itself. If there's an easement for a natural gas line that crosses the property, or for access to an interior parcel, that'll limit where you can build.

SoonerP226 · Mar 30, 2021

TwoForFlinching said:
It can be 25 acres of bermuda, or an acre or two of bermuda and 23 acres of wild land. Lot of people start themselves a hobby farm with a few chickens and goats, maybe a pair of donkeys. Plenty of room for a garden, put in a small range, even have an excuse to buy a hobby tractor. Toss up a barndaminium or sears house, fence it if you want, stretching barbed wire isn't so bad... driving t-posts is a drag.

I have more experience with the crosstimbers forests in Cleveland and Pott counties, and I don't know Oklahoma county that well, but if you buy that kind of lot, you probably won't end up fencing most of it. Clearing a fence line through scrub oaks, black locust, and briars ain't fun at all.

rickm · Mar 30, 2021

Hmmmm country living is when you have to buy a plane ticket to get to the grocery store lol

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