An update from Doc Buxin

[Doc Buxin]

Just so you all know & don't worry (as if any of you would need worry about me!) I haven't been on the nexus forum for a while due to the fact that my wife & I are moving our entire household, which is a huge conglomeration of animals & plants (plus getting our youngest daughter off into the "real world" after her high school graduation this past spring) out to the countryside onto our dream property of 30 acres.

We have been driving at this goal for a long, long time now & in the last several months have actually manifested the change we've wanted all along.

It has been filled, of course, with struggles, sweat, blood & tears...

Our karmic resonance in the universe has amplified its messages even while we take a break from all psychedelic substances for the time being.

It has been an intense, roller-coaster ride of a journey & continues to be incredibly challenging on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute, even second-by-second basis, but we are making it through.

I've been meaning to post something like this for a while now & just haven't found the right time and/or inspiration, but NOW IS THE TIME!!!!

I want to let you all know how deeply & profoundly the nexus (that means all of you!!!) has touched my life in ways that I could not have imagined nearly a year ago when I joined up with you!

I cannot begin to express my deep gratitude in such a linear, restricted language such as English (but my Mandarin is still very, very far from being perfected!) for what you all are doing here!

Thank you all for your wisdom, your patience, your guidance, your opinions, your stories & trip reports...They've all been extremely helpful to me in this relatively short period of time.

So if you all don't hear from me again for a while, don't worry...That is the point of this post...We are fulfilling some dreams & I hope to have a psychedelic orchard & garden going sooner than later, but we will see...

So much to do...

Until next time my fellow hyperspatial travelers...

May the Spice be with you!

All the peace & love in the world,

Doc

 

[Spaced Out 2]

Wow Doc, sounds great, 30 acre country side property, good for you and your family. :thumb_up:
Sounds like you've worked hard to reach them goals and deserve the fruits of your labors.
Wish you all love and happiness in your endeavors, and enjoy life for everything that it is that's what's important. We will see you later.

 

[Koornut]

No bragging without photos doc :twisted: :d

 

[Doc Buxin]

No bragging without photos doc :twisted: :d

Believe it or not, I do not, at the present moment, own a camera nor a smart phone...

And getting our 17 year old daughter to take pictures (she isn't even remotely interested in the new property) & then email them to me so I could actually post them is worse than pulling teeth!

So please be patient & I was not trying to brag (perhaps I should edit that portion of my OP )

Suffice to say, its old farm land with prunes, olives & cattle pasture. It needs so much work & TLC that it's not even funny...

We've got some seriously back-breaking work ahead of us!:surprised

 

[Koornut]

No bragging without photos doc :twisted: :d

So please be patient & I was not trying to brag (perhaps I should edit that portion of my OP )

I know doc I was kidding
I can see you are extremely proud of everything you have accomplished, it is an amazing thing you've been blessed with here.
All the best.

 

[DoingKermit]

Nice, Doc!

So great that you are making the dream move into the countryside! Wishing you all the best!

 

[TGO]

Glad to hear it Doc! Don't stay away for too long!

 

[Doc Buxin]

Ok...

I finally joined the 21st century & got myself a (so-called) smartphone.

Since I haven't had a camera nor a phone that could take pictures for a long, long time I haven't had the ability to share any pics of our new homestead.

Well, now nexus folks, here are some pics of our (now 4 month old) homestead in the middle of an old olive grove surrounded by cattle pasture & prune orchards.

It has been quite the journey so far & it has only just begun...

 

[RAM]

I see those mountains in the background! That's beautiful; it seems like you have a blessed property where you can relax and just be.

I hope you enjoy it!

 

[Spaced Out 2]

Looks very serene, and nice.

Definitely diggin the living quarters, would love to get into something like that.

Thanks for the update, and good for you, happy for ya :thumb_up:

 

[Doc Buxin]

I see those mountains in the background! That's beautiful; it seems like you have a blessed property where you can relax and just be.

I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you RAM.

The "just be" part, yes.

The "relax" part, not quite. My wife & I realized pretty much as soon as we bought into this whole idea that we had also, inadvertently or not, bought into a whole hell of a lot of seriously hard work for the remainder of our lifetimes!!!

I am grateful for the opportunity, but some days I am so worn out physically from all the work that I can barely form a coherent sentence by 5 p.m. & most days start at 6 a.m., although some days we make "sleeping in" until 7 a.m. work.

To me though, the outdoor, physical labor is much preferred over the office work I've been doing in town for the last 20 years. It just takes a little getting used to, i.e. getting back into serious shape!

This property will be the death of us for sure, but a sweeter death I cannot imagine.

 

[Doc Buxin]

Looks very serene, and nice.

Definitely diggin the living quarters, would love to get into something like that.

Thanks for the update, and good for you, happy for ya :thumb_up:

Thank you S.O.2!

It is serene, that is for certain.

Be careful what you wish for though...

Living in a 288 square foot tiny home on a trailer takes some serious getting used to!!

Especially living with somebody else!

Luckily my wife & I haven't killed one another yet!!! LOL!!

Seriously, we've been together now for nearly 20 years & this is definitely one of the biggest challenges we've faced (other than raising kids obviously).

It is super-cool, don't get me wrong...but it is freaking hard work!

These days I tell people, "when you watch a show or youtube video about tiny homes or homesteading & how cool it is, they're unrealistically glamorizing it, it's effing hard as hell!!!!!"

The reason we went with that home was that we could afford to pay it off in 1-2 years & not be in debt to the banks until we were 80 or 90 years old, plain & simple.

We can certainly get into working hard on the land, we love that kind of thing, but doing that AND being in debt for decades more was not what we have in mind, so we decided to take the plunge & buy a tiny home.

It's a lot like living on a boat, train or plane; there's all these things you've got to do on a daily basis (or every other day or once a week, depending on what it is) that you just don't have to worry about with a regular home on the grid.

Anyways, I'll see if I can't find the picture of the three old Acacias that came with the property.

Peace.

 

[TGO]

Hey Doc, it is good to see you back on the forum! I am happy to hear you are doing what you love with the one you love, even if it is a lot of hard work. I'd say that's what makes it all worth it in the end, no? Anyway, much love and peace to you and your family!

 

[Doc Buxin]

Hey Doc, it is good to see you back on the forum! I am happy to hear you are doing what you love with the one you love, even if it is a lot of hard work. I'd say that's what makes it all worth it in the end, no? Anyway, much love and peace to you and your family!

Grateful, thank you...You always have a wonderful way of putting things & I appreciate it!

And yes....absolutely yes! The hard work is what makes it all worth it in the end...

Peace to you & yours!

 

[Spaced Out 2]

Luckily my wife & I haven't killed one another yet!!! LOL!!

:lol: I can definitely relate to that and see where you're coming from, especially in cramped quarters.

Myself I would be absolutely content living in a space that small, the less room I take up the better is the way I see it. Wife on the other hand is a different story, lol.

When you get some free time, explain to me exactly what you mean as it being hard work, quite curious about this, you can PM me if need be. Thanks

 

[Doc Buxin]

Luckily my wife & I haven't killed one another yet!!! LOL!!

:lol: I can definitely relate to that and see where you're coming from, especially in cramped quarters.

Myself I would be absolutely content living in a space that small, the less room I take up the better is the way I see it. Wife on the other hand is a different story, lol.

When you get some free time, explain to me exactly what you mean as it being hard work, quite curious about this, you can PM me if need be. Thanks

Our goal from the beginning was to have a living situation where we had a very small house & a large amount of land.

The situation we find ourselves in now is even a little more extreme in those regards than we originally imagined (I guess that bolsters the argument for the age-old addage, "be careful what you wish for").

Our house is 288 square feet. We originally imagined a small house approximately 500-700 square feet. That idea did not pan out due to the fact that, at least here in California, a house even that small would end up costing us about the same amount as if we had built a 2000 square foot home.

As I've previously stated, my wife & I did not want to take out a mortgage that would keep us in debt until we were 80 or 90 years old. So the whole original idea of a custom-built, little gnome house went out the window.

We toyed around with the idea of living in a travel trailer, but when we found a small tiny home business in Southern Utah that offered to build us a tiny home on a trailer for around the same price as a brand new travel trailer, we thought it was a no-brainer.

So that is the origin of our tiny home.

Then there's the land...

You ask about the hard work?

Well, have you ever had to tend to, take care of & bring into fruitful production nearly 30 acres of farm land?

It isn't easy at all.

Not only that, our house is right in the middle of it. Off grid, except for a well (thank goodness!)
Creating an entirely new homestead where none has ever existed before, especially on a very limited budget, is a huge challenge.

Each day there is more work to do than either of us has time for, but we forge on nonetheless.
We are extremely grateful for this chance at such a radical life change, one that we have dreamed of for a couple decades now.

Don't get me wrong....I knew, having grown up on a relatively large ranch in this area, just how much work it was going to be.

Working one acre is a lot of work if you want it to be productive & look good, let alone almost 30 acres!

If you have any more specific questions S.O.2, just let me know & I'll be happy to answer them as best I can when I get the chance.

Peace

 

[InLaKesh]

Nice that your dream came true !
Looks like you have a big living room when the weather is good !
I think you can always add some extra living-space by building a little cabin or a shelter in the future.

Best wishes !

For me its perfect syncronocity to have you back here , I just thought about you some days before.
I dont want to derail your thread , but i have a TCM related question
here:

Astragalus and Ayahuasca - Health & Safety - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

 

[Spaced Out 2]

Oh, didn't know you was tending to the land for production. Yes pretty aquainted with hard work especially from a young age on 15k+ acre farm + livestock. Wasn't a so called normal childhood running around playing and being a kid. It was about work and I just thought that's the way life was.
I did develop a superior work ethic due to that lifestyle at a young age as well as good knowledge on growing crops, taking care of livestock, hunting etc. I mean how many kids do you know that spend all weekend helping dad cut the nuts out of young hogs, as I got big enough moved on to calves. When most kids were learning to ride bikes I was learning to operate tractors, lol. Split wood for winter, mainly because we were just to poor for gas heat, but we always had enough. Sorry just rambling now :? Sad thing is I see a lot of kids that could use a lesson in that type of lifestyle.

So is that part of your income, whatever you get from the land?
I wasn't technically looking to do something like that, large enough plot for a good sized garden for food, chickens etc. Maybe 10acres, nothing huge. 600-700sq ft. sounds more like it for a small house, not sure county where live allows off grid situations, something I will look into.

Where do you get your power from? Good that you have well water, love well water. Been seriously considering something along those lines though, something paid off in a short amount of time, easily managed. I don't need a huge house with a huge payment just to display an image of status or whatever, never really cared about those things.

Looked into those earthship homes but decided they aren't what theyre cracked up to be. My son is on his own and my daughter will be going off to college in a couple years, if all works out. Then it will be time to look really hard at all the options at downsizing considerably and becoming more self sefficient to not worry about much later in life. Especially the way things are going.

Hey Doc, really appreciate your insight on things since you are actually doing/living it. I know it's definitely a huge leap and something that you have to get adapted to, I don't think I would have a problem but it would still require changes and each year it seems to be calling my name.

In your case I wish you and your wife the best, it may seem like work now but I bet in time it will get easier :thumb_up:

 

[Koornut]

Looks perfect doc
Have you had the chance to think about what you will cultivate?

 

[Doc Buxin]

Looks perfect doc
Have you had the chance to think about what you will cultivate?

Thank you Sphorange.

I have been contemplating that very question for a long, long time!

First off, the land came with the olive orchard we put the tiny home in. There are about 130 trees that are between 55 & 60 years old. They are Sevillano variety, which are primarily harvested for making table olives. They have a low oil yield, however the oil derived from Sevillano olives is the most expensive olive oil in the world presently. Thus, the wife & I plan to have a small, commercial olive oil press by next harvest season (Oct.- Dec. in the Northern Hemisphere) & press about one third of the harvest. Another third we plan to brine & turn into tasty table olives. The final third we will sell to a commercial outfit to be further processed into table olives also. At least that's our plan for the first season (we were actually moving in during this past 2015 olive harvest season & had no way of dealing with the labor-intesiveness at the time).

My wife is, among many other creative, cool things, a floral designer, so she's planting a ton of bouquet flowers as we speak since February here so far has been fairly mild, warm & sunny.

I plan to experiment with different Chinese medicinal herbs since that's been one of my main vocations in my life. I've already grown quite a few at different rentals over the last decade & I am very familiar with which ones will grow well here. What I'm waiting for is one of those "ah-ha" moments where I get that feeling that "I really like this plant species; it grows well here; this is what I'm going to focus on".

I've presently got about 40 bonsai trees that I have been training for anywhere from 3-15 years. One of my dearest dreams is to have a bonsai tree nursery, but I'm pretty sure that that is such a small, niche market we're going to need much more than that to make ends meet.

Next, I'd really like to eventually get a heated, lighted greenhouse set up going & grow tomatoes year round here. They are very easy to grow in the summer & fall here, but I have never seen locally grown tomatoes around these parts in say December, January, February or March. That'll be quite the investment & experiment!

Then there's this 1-2 acre patch of dry, desert-like land directly to the Northwest of our olive orchard. Barely any water gets there, so I'm considering creating a desert plant section laden with San Pedro cactus, Incense Cedar & White Sage, perhaps some other cactus species thrown in there for good measure also. We'll see.

These are just a few of the many ideas we've got. There are many more.

We also have 3 old Acacias on the property that shed the coolest-looking red-purple seed pods each fall. I'll be looking into what the species is & what, if any, part may be psychoactive. Heck, thay've got to be at lest 40 or 50 years old. I am trying to find the file on my computer where I put the downloaded pics of those. Stay tuned.