Not to bad here, 40 miles South not much at all 40 miles North a whole lot thicker than here. Thought the neighbors had a bale get hot and start smouldering when I walked out and saw it. They line their round bales up over there. I do a bit of consulting work on the side in the small farm bio security, general security and plant and animal problem trouble shooting. And had a consultation up around Salem this morning and another over by Fairfield. The Smoke from Canada was real thick around Fairfield. Salem was somewhere between what we had here and Fairfield. Finally found a reason to wear my Covid Mask in the truck, it was thick enough to be irritating in the throat. Then shot down to a Doc Appointment in Marion and almost nothing of the Smoke past Johnston City. The Consults were very similar in nature "MT GARDEN IS DYING AND I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHY!" I figured it was one of two things before even setting out, Herbicide Drift from bean fields being sprayed or The Heat/Drought and them not watering enough. After arriving at both it was obviously Herbicide Drift. 99% certain both got hit by Dicamba Drift. I cut a bag of samples from both and dropped them off at the lab on my way to the Doc appointment, will know for certain tomorrow or day after what herbicide gave their gardens a lethal dose. Both have Large bean field NW and West of them that were sprayed in the last 2-3 days and the Winds have been out of the West NW the last several days. And Dicamba 2-4D anytime is highly volatile in this heat and the decent breeze it is even more volatile. I am not a lawyer so I don't get involved in the compensation or give any kind of legal advice. I just root out the cause of the malfunction and give advice on how to correct it. There is a mechanism to get some compensation for drift but you have to conclusively prove that the farmer that sprayed misused the 'cide and caused the damage. A taller hill to climb than it sounds like. In most cases any compensation recovered would be a fraction of what hiring a lawyer to recover it would cost. So I can't help those folks beyond confirming what I pretty much already know via the lab results. I can dispense some advice to folks that are planning on buying their dream homestead/farmstead. This is a factor almost never considered when shopping land. If you buy one of these 1-20 acres tracts of land carved out of a larger farm with fields all around your island. You are going to get Herbicide and Pesticide Drift when the fields are sprayed. Some sprays are more volatile and worse than others and the volatile the greater the drift will be. Xtend and Enlist Soybeans that are genetically engineered to be Dicamba 2-4D tolerant arrived in 2016 and 2019 creating a whole new herbicide drift issue. It is simply best to avoid the problem of drift in careful land selection. Like putting a mile or more between your prospective land and row crop fields. If you plan on keeping bees insecticide drift will be a major concern and the bees gathering pollen from insecticide sprayed crops will be a major issue. I have seen drift wipe out folks bee hives and despite the farmer being required to advise prior to spraying very few actually will and do so. I will use myself as a bad example as usual The Yellow arrows are West wind drift patterns and the Orange Arrows are the prevailing SW wind drift patterns The Red Box if the entire property, the blue box is the Original 40 acre tract. Drift and prevailing winds were one of the major factors I looked at when shopping for the larger piece of land in 2007/2008 The original 40 gets almost no 'cide drift. My North Fields are NEVER sprayed with Volatile or Persistent anything and the water run off from them and the fields North of them flows through the West 40 acre tract, not a drop of run off comes through the Original SE 40. The only run off water flowing into the lake and ponds on the SE 40 is from the SE40. Basically theOriginal 40 has a drift buffer W, NW and North and the prevailing winds prevent any drift on my home 40 other than the very South East most corner and my neighbor to the SW is another buffer only using his SW 80 acres as pasture and hay land. If you plan on being self sufficient and not occasionally or regularly having your fruits, vegetables and honey bees wiped out by drift you should be looking for something very similar to my home 40 acres. You really don't want to be calling someone like me mid growing season and asking "Why is my garden turning yellow and dying?" Or "Why do I have piles of dead bees around my hives?" And DO YOU REALLY WANT TO have those drift chemicals in your lungs and clinging to your body? There is no magic shield or dome to prevent drift and you have little to no control over what adjacent property owners do in their fields. The cost of recovering damages is typically far greater than anything you will recover. So it is far better to avoid buying land that is subject to drift. Drift was a very important factor to me. I produce around 95-97 percent of what we consume on that SE 40 acres. Drift wiping out my food crops, orchard, vineyard, bees, and poisoning us and the livestock was just not a option. I also want to be on at least decent terms with the adjacent property owners and not in constant conflict with them. LOL and yes my property is Deer and Turkey Heaven and a Deer and Turkey Refuge I occasionally need to thin the numbers down and allow a couple of people to thin the herd down as well as taking a couple myself. Some very impressive Bucks and very large Does have been harvested here over the years. I am more into my rabbit, quail, dove and tree rat hunting than the Deer and Turkey. Hard to beat a pair roasted quail on the plate........... but I digress as usual The main factors I look at when selecting land to purchase are Water, water flow, fertility, the right mix of woods, crop, pasture/hay, my personal quirk of it must be at the end of a dead end dirt or gravel road, at least 5 miles away from a small town with some basic services, 20 miles away from a larger town 5000-7000 population and 35-45 miles away from a couple of 15,000-30,000 population towns and the Drift patterns. Some say I am in the middle of nowhere, quite the opposite I am in the middle of Everywhere in Southern IL. and within striking distance of 3 of the larger population towns, 8 Smaller 3500-7000 pop towns and a lot of the little 100-500 population towns but at least 6 miles from the closest small town with a couple of gas stations, restaurants and a small independent grocery store. It took me all of 2007 and half of 2006 and 2008 to find this place, with sub divisions boxing me me in and squeezing me at the first small 6 acre farm 4 miles North of Springfield. I do not do well surrounded by houses owned by pricks constantly complaining about roosters crowing, and cows having sex outside their picture windows and developers constantly pestering me to sellout my little 6 acre patch. If that is your thang GO FOR IT. Over 5 years my property tax there went from $1800 per year to $13,780 per year. Being in the middle of 4 high end sub divisions with 6 acres and 3800 square foot nice brick house on a hill with a swimming pool just kept getting the accessed property value increases massively every year. I was either smart or lucky and sold out prior to housing bubble popping for $38,000 per acres on the 6 acres and a whole lot more for the house on 3/4 of a acre and retained the Cell Tower lease rights and payments from the tower on the 6 acres for duration of the 30 year lease. LOL I love Cell tower leases if you have not noticed A 70'x70' piece of land in a out of the way corner or oddball piece of land pays a lot of money And you can negotiate some free phones and regular phone upgrades, Really Unlimited Data and totally free now 5G Wireless internet into the leases. I paid $140,000 for that property and sold out for a whole lot more. I avoided the capital gains taxes by buying the 160 acres here and reinvesting it all into the farm here... On paper anyway. Can sell one farm and buy another without taking a capital gains hit. Can't sell a residential property and buy a farm and avoid capital gains unless the house and residence is a part of the the farm being sold. Stuff like that is why I have a very good Real Estate, Estate and business lawyer and a equally good accountant. Between the two of them they know all of the loop holes that apply to legally avoid taxes and save me a whole lot more than they charge. if not for them keeping my tax burden VERY LOW i would have fled Illinois long ago. When I considered relocating one last time to MO or TN back in 2020 in looking at it objectively I would have gained nothing and saved nothing it would have been a financially break even deal. So why relocate at all and go through the hassle of long moving round trips and getting reestablished. My point in all of this is that it is not really so simple to just find a rural piece of land and plop down and call it a farmstead/homestead. Well you can just do that but it is not wise. A wise person looks at every factor from every angle and avoids as many problems and future headaches as possible. Given how expensive quality rural land is now days it is critical to be wise in selection before making that very large investment in your future. I would add this. The more land you own the more self sufficient you can be. To be around 70% self sufficient you will need around 20 fertile acres with at least 5-10 acres of it being wooded. To get into the level of self sufficiency I am at you can do it with 30-40 acres. IF it is the right mix of land. 100+ acres of good mixed wooded, field, pasture, and water you have it made not easy....... because it takes a massive amount of labor to provide for your self and scratch a living out of it. Just my own opinion but you are not truly self sufficient if you are working 40 hours + per week working for someone else making them rich. No disrespect intended for those that have to work for someone else. But in my opinion there is nothing more free and fulfilling than working for yourself and living or dying by your own hand and choices. And I make a really terrible employee Oh I will run a planter, combine or grain truck or wash dishes or cook at my friends Restaurant when he needs some extra help for a fair days wage for a fair days work or more often for nothing just to get me off the farm for a week or two here and there while helping folks out that are always happy to help me out. While generally try to keep most locals at arms length and out of my business it is wise to build friendships with some where there is mutual benefit. LOL I will only sell and do business in the towns 30+ miles away and keep the general myth alive locally that a psycho pervert lives at the end of that dead end road alive and circulating LOL when you know a vehicle is coming down the road at night and you go out and stand beside the road on your property in your boots and underwear with a toilet plunger for a hat, a galil in one hand and a chainsaw in the other smiling and waving the chainsaw at the vehicle..... said vehicle beats it back up the road and word gets around
We had it BAD, REAL BAD in 2019 with the Detroit/Santiam Canyon Fires, a good month and a half of the highest levels you can get, and there was no where to go to get away from it! Basically we sat in doors with the A/C blowing 24/7 the whole time, adn then sued the power company for the power bill to keep the air inside clean enough t breath, $2000 worth of bills to run the A/C for that time! The State made them pay out $5,000 to us, as it also covered medical for Dad during that time!
Good read and agree , only 40 hrs ?? Must be Canuks metric , seems like all the time . I do take the ladies to any music thing so they get to wiggle and have some time off the Ranch/Farm Sloth
