I bought a half acre in Bonita California. I have fruit trees. My garden is producing year round. I installed Solar so I don’t pay for electricity. I’m installing a water cistern to store the cool season rains. Chickens coming next. California has its problems but the natural beauty and the weather are incomparable.
Mariposa County homesteader represented here! 🙌 Been waiting for you to make this video. My wife and I are a Real Estate Agent/Contractor combo specializing in Homesteading property. Mariposa County and Trinity County are the only unincorporated counties in the state. I can list a myriad of reasons why these are the 2 best counties to homestead, in the whole west coast! They are light years away from the rest of the state. Our clients range from permaculturists, to preppers, to Christians getting ready for the Mark of the Beast Conflict.
What is the difference between non-incorporated and un-incorporated; if any? Never heard that term before & can't find any info on that terminology. I'm in unincorporated L.A. County & they just designated a huge swath of our area, including mine, as an SEA (Sensitive Environmental Area) and you wouldn't believe the restrictions that just placed on the area. Moving more than an inch of dirt or removing any plant/animal life, requires a biological study, permits, approval and more... freaking bonkers. Luckily, my neighbors and I all hate the county equally and they don't come out this way too often. The state also confiscated all the ground water, and private wells are no longer private, in much of the area. I knew this before buying so made sure I was outside this controlled area, but it's only a matter of time or circumstance before some emergency is declared and they take it all. Buyer beware!
@@TwistedSpineFarmstead sorry, it was a typo. I meant unincorporated. And on your situation, you are still in the large metropolitan area of LA County. You need to be in an unincorporated county without a large metropolis. That’s only found in Mariposa and Trinity county. Here’s a quick explanation: Unincorporated communities, or unincorporated areas, are communities outside the jurisdictional boundaries of incorporated cities. Some benefits of unincorporated areas include: • Fewer regulations: Property in unincorporated areas has fewer regulations. • Less oversight: Property owners may be able to do more with their property without as much oversight. • Lower taxes: Property owners may pay less in taxes. • Reduced service costs: Unincorporated residents of some counties may receive services at a reduced cost. For example, unincorporated residents of St. Louis County may receive services at a reduced cost because municipalities don't have the resources to provide many of the services that residents rely on.
I’m in central California. Raise cattle and have a small business. Waaaay too expensive to live here and too many regulatory agencies. If you aren’t established here it’s far cheaper to start elsewhere, anywhere. Plus the “California “ attitude is hard to get used to. Best of luck.
It's 85% desert, it's population is well over the carrying capacity of the land. It's a net food consumer by tonnage of food, it's claim of being a net producer is #1 from pre-2018 statistics before a 4 year drought stripped the soil #2 is based on dollars not tonnage, charging more for food doesn't make a state a net producer.
@@trailblazing1776 are you talking about your wife? sometimes people lose interest and some don't. Feel free to not love it anymore. It's also okay for me too.
Homesteader from Calaveras County in California here. Gods country for sure. By the grace of God, In 2021 My Wife and I got a great deal on land previously burnt in a 2015 wildfire. The house burned but electric/septic/ and Well are still there. The property is very ecologically diverse with springs and year round creek but there are hundreds of burnt trees still standing like 150ft tall cedars. The forest is regenerating and is thick and needs to be managed. We kept our eye out for the diamonds in the rough, Kind of like Curtis’ property in that there’s a lot of work to be done which steered others away from purchasing the property, but we saw it’s potential. In 2017 we read Curtis’ book and started an urban farm in Sacramento and ran that for 5 years. We moved to Calaveras from Sacramento to escape the homeless take over of the city streets, it’s becoming so unsafe even at the farmers markets. The only homeless person I see in our county now is a guy on his horse that rides from town to town.
I'm in the same area! The homeless man on the horse got a laugh out of me the first time he rode up to me to ask for money. My family and I moved from the Bay Area so that was very different than we were used to. Beautiful area and wonderful people in our experience.
Trinity County, CA homesteader here, thank you for making this video! ❤ Hate being compared to the rest of Cali, but thankful also 🤔🤫😂 (Hidden gem of living in the less popular areas of Cali)
I use to own 150 acres with a well and a cabin outside of Fort Jones, CA. I sold it 6 years ago and GTFO of California. It's a beautiful part of the world but the people there will turn on you in a heartbeat.
I totally agree. I am in an inland valley east of San Diego, and there might be five or six sane people amongst the 3 million inhabitants here (if only I could find them!). All on imported water, too. I wanted out 25 years ago. Stuck af.
One would be remiss if they don't check average daily temperatures during the summer anywhere in the central part north of Sacramento to be sure their physiology is compatible with hell.
Thank you. Would like to see North Carolina. You're right. Northern California has beautiful, usable, and affordable land. But there are reasons, as a native Californian, that I'm not considering it. Those areas are absolutely bereft of everything....amenities, resources, and economy. All those "cities" like Ukiah and Redding along the interstate are literally just large truck stops. If you're 100% self-sufficient, then it might be ideal, but I consider upper northern California to be one of the most desolate places in the country. And if you're somehow earning an income while living there, you get to pay the same 9.3% state tax as people living in Silicon Valley.
I have two homesteads . One just up out of the central Valley (next county over is Mariposa County -in response to the other poster ) and one in Mendocino county near your ideal green circle. 20 acres on one and 50 acres on the other. This RU-vid Channel (Two Homesteads ) has been a real learning curve for me trying to learn to film and edit. I hope to get better but have been so busy trying to get things done on both places it's hard. I grew up with black telephones and 8 people on the party line (4 on the party line when I was in college.). Both places are great for homesteading., The Delta Breeze makes the just out of the Central Valley Homestead doable . The sunsets are fabulous and I can see Half Dome in Yosemite and Mt. Diablo in the Bay Area.
The desert regions of california like borrego springs, Palm Springs, Joshua tree are some of the best places to homestead, of course, if you can afford some of the very few lots on natural springs. You could have a middle eastern style food forest with date palm over story trees.
Very solid evaluation Curtis and thanks so much. Big Sur is down below Monterey, but otherwise spot on. I'm in the foothills above Sac, in Nevada Co, and boy is it hot and dry in the summer, but around that, delightful. Wells can be spotty in the fall/winter, but we have access to county irrigation water which is a savior. Fire insurance has gotten so far out of control (currently close to 1% prop value, similar to prop tax), with no end in sight. Conservative values, which holds true to pretty much for all of rural CA. I do also love those costal Nor Cal counties as well, but we need a major political uprising if we are to have any hope with being able to homestead in CA. Unless you are comfortably retired, then even if you own your property outright and produce 80% of your nourishment, you will still be very hard pressed to carve out enough income off your land to sustain. I'm still keeping the dream alive, but will not be able to absorb any additional low blows...
Living in Mendocino County. Love it here, but still lots of growers. Brings a limited bad element to the area, but most areas are beautiful. I like the mountain life. Not too far from civilization, but less population density. Oceans. Skiing. Water sports. Hiking. Gardening weather. We got it all.
Willits is in Mendocino County. Hardly inland. The coastal fog blankets the region in the mornings and nights. I worked a few season on a mountainside above Potter Valley. The plot was above the fog line but below the clouds. Like Curtis said, it is absolutely amazing. There are so many more places to homestead in NorCal, that are cheaper than Mendocino County. To the northeast of Mendo are the Trinity Alps. If you want isolation, here is a good place to be. Not much law round these parts, cuz there's just not many people around to police. There's an entire northeastern part of the state that you could have (should have) covered too. The Central Valley is super fertile because it is the bottom of what used to (and will be again) The Sea of California. Add in all of the minerals strewn by all of the volcanoes out here, and you've got rich natural soils that anything can grow in.
@JohnLee-qi9pl I guess that depends on how fragile you are. If you're going to homestead you may have to break a sweat like your ancestors did. Don't worry, it actually builds character to be uncomfortable.
@flywithjordanparagliding Thank you for your input. Having spent decades in Special Ops, I intend to stay in cool places when given a choice. I have a choice so Temecula is not my pick. Get it?
In central coast California Arroyo Grande has great properties with wells in the oak forest. And up by Lake Lopez. Ironically we are going off grid on the Mesa, nearly in town, because our multimillionaire neighbor on the adjacent street refused to sign some sort of agreement with PG&E to build a 4 foot easement so they would not be at fire risk, after we put in manufactured homes because we & our best friend needed to hook up at the power pole, & the company would have to put in a bigger pole to accommodate 3 more homes. So she strung us along over & over saying she wanted the wording of the contract changed, again & again, 5 different times & never signed, and yelling about how we were inconveniencing her and she would go on vacation for months while our creditors started coming after us and we still couldn’t move in & sell our old home to pay off our debts because we had no electricity & without an electric line run (though we had paid for the piping for it) the gas company wouldn’t turn on the gas line. Though we were able to beg the water company to turn on water. Our friend who built next to us, went into default on her short term loan because the inspector wouldn’t sign off without electricity that the neighbor clearly would never sign off on, and our friend was planning before this to get a long term loan on the finished house, a loan they wouldn’t give her until the house was fully signed off with electricity. She nearly lost her home. We had finally borrowed on our old property we still occupy to make the new property off grid solar so we can finally move in & pay off the contractor with our last payment with the sale of our old house (he has been more than patient over 3/4 of a year!), but we decided to give the loan money to our friend first so she wouldn’t lose her house because with the months of short term loan default fines & still no resolution, the bank was going to foreclose on her. Once she gets her off grid solar in next month, she can get the long term home loan, pay off her defaulted loan & then hand the money back to us. We will then off grid electric one of our two houses on the property & will have to wait & make more money to fully off grid the other over time because the game the neighbor put us through ran us out of money. So, we are a bit short, but California weather is pleasant & I have a lot of big windows for light during the day, so I don’t technically need full electric and I dare the county to come after me for squatting in my OWN home that isn’t fully signed off. I am proud that we didn’t let that rich piece of crap win! She just retired from a very high placed California judicial position. How do you sue someone like that? Even if you have a case, every judge is their buddy. That bitch tried to bankrupt & ruin us just because she could. Probably wanted to pick up a couple of foreclosed new homes as rent houses.
Beware your neighbors. Don’t get in a position where they have to share anything with you, especially if they are rich. The more someone has, the more selfish they are likely to be. The easement was even for their benefit not ours, to get the old transformer canister out of the trees that grew up around it so their property wouldn’t burn if it breaks down & sparks.
I live here in the foothills of the Central Valley and have for 43 years. This state is beyond horrible now and the vast majority of us that are still stuck here are trying to leave. The amount of reasons I can give to back that should negate any and all positives in this video. The ridiculous government, taxes, population, fires, fires and did I say fires? I've lived here my hole life and unfortunately, for anyone that has a choice- AVOID ALL OF CALIFORNIA AT ALL COSTS.
I’ve been debating between NorCal and north east Tennessee. In San Diego now. My concern with NorCal is the government; Sonoma county just outlawed having chickens and Oregon seems to be trying to eliminate market gardens as well. What do you think? Is it a realistic concern that California government might make things difficult for homesteaders in NorCal?
Yes. They will designate your area as an SEA (Sensitive Environmental Area) and you will need a permit if you sneeze too hard and move some dust around. They will also claim ownership over your "private" well and limit/tax what you can do with it. The precedence has been established and no matter where you go (Ca or any state), it'll have the possibility of catching up. Best place is where you and your neighbors don't give two sh#@ts about regulation and go about their business... but, there's always the chance of: "We're the government, and we're here to help." Act accordingly.
Sooo, Butte county resident and we are having one of the worst summer heat waves I can ever remember, makes me want to move to East Washington state. But my son and I went camping near Gold Beach OR, and went through the redwoods on 199, and that was breathtaking.
Spokane County resident here. We get very hot and dry in the summer. We've been high 90s to 100+ for about two weeks so far. This Sunday we're expecting 107!!! And the winters are very long and almost always overcast. Land is only cheap towards the center of the state. We have also sadly elected a liberal mayor for our county since all the folks from Seattle moved here over the last 4 years. He did do a video if you haven't seen it yet. Just FYI.
@@sonjamccart1269 my point about the mayor and all the folks moving over from Seattle is that the laws are getting worse. Pend Oreille County just north of us is definitely better. But it's also colder in the winter and just all around difficult to grow much with such a short season. I moved up here 20 yeas ago from Escondido California, it was a huge seasonal shock with the short winter days and long summer days. My wife and I are planning to move somewhere with more sunny days as soon as we can. Just wanted to give you some more info.
@@suburbancommando3878 Appreciate that! I just moved from Idaho (for personal reasons) and enjoyed the cooler weather but the growing season is short (from frost to frost)
I spent the first 26 years of my life living in Fresno, CA under the tyranny of the sun. Every summer was 95F-110F. It was just sweltering and electricity was expensive. With that context the weather in the San Francisco bay area is fantastic. The range year round is 50F-75F. If you hate burning heat or freezing cold, San Francisco is hard to beat. My rent is insane but worth it.
If you have the $, there are plenty of 1+ acre homesteads in So Cal with a gorgeous year 'round climate. Pasadena, San Marino, Sierra Madre and much more. Money buys seclusion, safety and privacy.
As you said, broad strokes. A 2009 bike ride is a limited reference 15 years later. The politics are ruining quality of life and rural government to meet the expenses the state now puts on them while taking more property tax away from counties. The Far North of Calif offers the most peace and quiet. 15 years later the hot summers are longer and higher temps. If ideologues have their way, autonomy is on the way out, including water generated on one's land.
@@rschroeder6460 Hmm, S.Indiana. I agree as a CA resident that I am sick of the way this state is going politically, tax wise, etc., etc. but I never would have thought of your area to move. It seems from your words that you may have found your place in Indiana. If you have time to reply, what do you like about it. I do plan in the future to travel the country to see what is out there as far as resettling.
@@JB-pd3ir i loved California when I was young. Huntington Beach was my hangout in summer, Big Bear in winter and everything in between. When kids were small we realized we had to make move. It was to Indiana because we have family here. I was not happy first few years, mostly due to weather differences. Over years I've grown to love the seasons, still not snow though lol. Crime is still relatively low, except for Indianapolis. I visit California as often as I can, still have family there. Always happy to be back home. Not much excitement in Indiana but I will gladly take that to have all of my Rights
I was born and raised in San Diego and spent my whole life up and down the state. You can homestead in the eastern parts of San Diego like Alpine or Julian/Cuyamaca areas. the problems being the incredibly high cost of property, lack of rain, and an open border that is currently creating a security issue. But it is incredibly beautiful, you get light snow in the winter, you can grow herbs and fruits no problem, and you still have access to city amenities. A big mention about California in general is the lack of bugs! No mosquitos, no chiggers, ticks are very rare, also no humidity, no tornadoes or hurricanes.. that is all apart of the high cost of living, in addition to the impeccable weather. I have always idealized Northern California though; a good friend of mine lived on a cannabis farm in Mendocino and spending time on his property was a dream, laying on a hot rock by the river, hiking through the redwoods, so slow and quiet. You can not swim in the ocean up there but you can swim in the forest rivers which are abundant. However, wild fires are a huge threat in northern cali that needs to be mentioned.
@@GoodDogXanto the coastlines are extremely rocky and dangerous with floating debris such as tree branches and rocks that could kill you. the water is also extremely cold. In California you can swim in the ocean from Santa Cruz to San Diego, keeping in mind that any coast line between Santa Cruz and Big Sur area has some dangerous spots that are not swimmable, and those areas the water is so cold that most people wear wetsuits to swim. Anything from San Luis Obispo to San Diego is where the water is warm and safe and you can swim like a tourist in your speedo lol!
When it comes to identifying threats to homesteaders in California we should emphasize wildfires just as much as you're emphasizing tornadoes in other states. In terms of the danger to life and property they're as or more dangerous than the F5 tornadoes of the plains. For every huge fire that makes national news there are probably 10 mid sized ones and 50 "small" ones. In a decade of living in the foothills I've had to evacuate twice and nearly had to a half dozen more times, most recently two weeks ago. Only reason we're still here is that Cal Fire is so dang good but it's always hanging over us for 8-9 months every year.
People are in California for the weather and brisk business. Hard to get both in rest of country. Property tax very low for long time residents. I pay $1200 for a $500,000 house
Yep… you don’t want to live in those big ag areas… I was looking all around Cali, I’m from there, know a guy who was involved in the early years of crop dusting there and then ended up in Africa… and wanted to write a book… I encouraged him. But, I lived in an ag area… crop dusting all around and it seems so wholesome! Horrific.
Uh. What you are calling the Big Sur region is the north coast. You are on the wrong side of the bay. The whole coast range is hard to find a couple acres that are flat.
Technicality, California and Canada are about equal in population, Canada is at 40 million, California at 39 million. SoCal is a bit over half the population of California, ~23 million. Before this year, California had more people than Canada. But since California is losing population that is no longer the case.
Im from Cali,,,,, it is a crap hole... do not move there... I moved out of that mess a few years ago... homesteading there is impossible because of rules and expenses. I have been to 48 sates and I absolutely hate Cali.
50 degrees Celsius?! . whoa. you could live in North Africa with less temp than that and still not wanna live! seriously, 50 in California. I had no idea!
The coastal areas do not get that hot. That level of heat is in the desert and the desert often cools off considerably at night unless it’s a heatwave. Palm springs just hit its highest ever at 124F.
Hey @user-mc3tp5sd2z, you know, I didn't realize California could get this hot! Thinking about heading there, but I'm not quite sure where to start. I'm drawn to places with easy access to vibrant cities and good markets-small towns where life feels positively buzzing, yet not overly big or hectic, and definitely not overrun with issues like homelessness and drugs. I've been chatting with some Mexican friends who've been there for generations, and they say it's not quite the same as back in the 80s when I visited. They even feel a bit embarrassed about how things have changed and worry about hosting me now. So, I wonder if it's tougher these days to find those California oases that used to have that old charm and a more peaceful, almost old-Western vibe lingering around.
