The Saga: Finding Land
Available land in Southern Oregon has become more scarce in the last 10 years. As a result, land in this area has become significantly more expensive.
When we arrived in Oregon, we rented for six months in a small city called
Talent. The city is incorporated, and we lived in a subdivision not unlike
any other one in any city in the US. Each house was fairly new and the
inhabitants were one couple, 2.3 children, one dog, etc., etc. Yet right
next door to our rental was a parcel whose owners had refused to be annexed
by the city, so they were in the unincorporated part of the county. They
insisted on maintaining their rural lifestyle in spite of their surroundings.
They had a tiny house, an old barn, and the requisite collection of rusty
old equipment in all corners of their lot.
Our place in Talent was, well, let's just say that it was a base camp, a place to sleep and store our stuff while we looked for a place to buy.
So we looked and looked, and drove nearly every road in Jackson County looking for a place to buy. We wanted 3-5 acres, but, with property values soaring in this area, we had to modify that desire.
A major factor in finding a place was Internet connectivity. Not being wealthy enough to retire, work is a necessity. And since I had been working out of the house for some 16 years, I was not about to change that part. Therefore, a high-speed Internet connection was a "must."
We quickly learned that rural and high-speed Internet connectivity were, for the most part, mutually exclusive. Most rural areas only had dial-up connections. Yes, a smattering of people used satellite connectivity, but that was not an option for someone working professionally on the Internet. There was a microwave provider, but he was a single operator with no business continuity plan, so that was out.
Searching and searching, we discovered Ruch, (it's between two Burma Shave signs) located in the beautiful Applegate Valley and in the midst of the Klamath-Siskiyou region. We fell in love with the area. Then we found out that years ago, an excavation contractor with an entrepreneurial spirit set up a cable TV operation in Ruch. Everyone laughed at him. When Charter Communications bought him out, no one laughed!
We found the only one-acre parcel (couldn't
afford more) in 
the
area and bought it. (Here's the original listing that
was on the web. To the right is a photo of the house when it was being
installed.) The parcel had an older double-wide mobile home on it. Because
of my allergies, I could not last more than 30 seconds inside of it, even
wearing my respirator. So we bought the parcel with the intent of selling
the mobile home and starting with a "blank
canvas."
Oh, yes, we have high-speed cable Internet access. Check out this speed test.
Strangely, in spite of all that technology, party line phones are in the recent memory of many people. Even our phone switch is fairly primitive. There's no "busy call forwarding" or DSL. And they tell me that there are no plans to upgrade the switch. After all how is the phone company going to recoup their investment? Cows don't make phone calls!