Buying Land for OFF GRID or HOMESTEADING? Watch this first BUYER BEWARE!

yeah i mean look at that looks like a bomb went off uh yeah you know even local people are sickened by are this kind of devastation you see they call it ground zero so in this video here we're going to do like a buyers beware right we know a lot of you guys are out there and you're looking for homesteads and you're leaving the city life and you might roll up on some property and you have no idea what's going on you're not from the area and today we're going to just kind of show you some tall tale signs to look for if you're looking at property and we're also going to tell you i'm with my buddy dr leo remember all right so we're also going to talk to you guys about the damage that's done and you know just how you can be more responsible with your land okay so we're going to start this whole video off stay with this whole video because it's going to be a lot of talk and education and things to look for because you guys are gonna get taken advantage of if you guys get out there and you're gonna go try to buy some land you're not gonna know what to look for you're gonna buy it and then you're not gonna be able to grow anything on it you're gonna have a lot of washout you're gonna just have a lot of problems and you're not really gonna understand why and we're gonna try to fill that gap for you so you don't make that mistake okay so first off we're gonna talk a little bit about this area we're standing in right now and some of the things that these uh guys did that were not ethical and uh we're gonna just talk about that and dr leo's gonna explain some stuff he actually lives right over this hill here so here we go we're down here in the ozarks yeah and i moved to the ozarks because of the beauty of the area and the big trees but it's changing very quickly yeah so now if you buy land in the ozarks either it will be very similar to what you see around here with all the big trees removed because they are so valuable but more importantly you will be hearing the sound of bulldozers and logging crews all around the as this devastation continues yeah and one thing we were talking about in this video is going to be the ethic treatment of the land remember in the last video i did on removing those logs from the mansion i was talking to you guys that we never go in and harvest live trees we're only in for the dead trees we're only in for the downfalls some live trees have to be dealt with but for the most part we want to let those trees alone so we're going to spin this around right now we're going to talk a little bit about how they actually it's called skidding and it's how they drag the logs out of the forest okay and we're going to show you guys what's happened in just a short time since they did this and we're just trying to bring awareness to you guys so you know what to look for when you're buying your land and also what not to do when you own it yeah correct because i have a phd in forestry and i can tell you that land can be logged there carefully in such a way that a few years after logging was done you go in and you don't notice anything there is no destruction nature actually does it all the time some of the trees will be dying and some will be taking their place so there is such a way as natural forestry or called sustainable forestry where you can mimic the natural processes and you can produce timber and firewood like what dog is doing but without raping and destroying the landscape so there are a few really big issues with doing it unsustainably and as doug mentioned one is improper transport of the logs or when the tree is cut down if you drag it along the landscape uh here in the ozarks where the soil is very shallow and rocky and dry you basically create grooves and the next rainfall will wash all the soil off it will end up in the creeks but more importantly there is no more soil to reestablish the forest that you cut down we were talking about that earlier we're down here in the ozarks and uh it's very rocky down here that's one of the reasons why stacy and i moved way up north is because of the soil but it takes how long did you say for uh maybe a couple inches of soil well it it takes a very long time because uh the soil is very poor of nitrogen right so all of this death trees and their leaves take a very long time to decompose right um so you know it's basically irreplaceable within our lifetimes right or your kid's lifetime so when the soil is gone there goes your food and your biome and everything healthy for your feet to be in remember we talk about grounding and it's hard to ground on these sharp rocks all right so uh we're going to show you real quick um this how they've skidded these logs out straight up this hill they're supposed to go at an angle yeah exactly so you know it's more convenient for the loggers to be hauling logs up the hill because it's shorter but this is what's creating all of this uh erosion is when the water runs down following the ski trails and it should be done that way around so if you were wanting to take a log out of here you would want to go at an angle following the gradient just gradually climbing up the hill and this way that erosion wouldn't be here but it's just one winter they did logging six months ago in six months there is no more soil left in this particular ski trail you can see all of this erosion happening big time and it will be exacerbated uh month by month year by year rain by rain yeah unless you do something and just think about it this could be prevented by careful logging right there but once the damage is done recovering it is almost impossibility you would need to bring in material and basically disrupt this flow of water creating our small banks so that the water is diverted from the straight line down and it's huge amount of material huge amount of labor and they're the kind of expense that few people can't even afford as you as you was talking about you can just see how that at the top it starts it's just going to come right on down there's a big sand pile down here where the rock and everything has already started mounding up you go at the angle like he was talking about what that does is create a cross line so when the water starts coming down it'll hit that ditch you know that little cross line and it'll disperse this way in this way and this way it's just it's just i'm just remember that indian in the commercials when we were kids the one crying about all the trash on the road yeah this is probably even worse it is and you know it's just one example uh they logged out hundreds and hundreds of acres here and it's a very small amount of vlogging that's happening you know i cannot take my children on a bicycle ride in the country here without uh seeing a new section missing and the section is 640 acres so square miles are being uh raped and raised down this way and it's a shame because it's also completely uneconomical if you have a long-term approach even if you were interested in a sustainable stream of income this is the worst thing you want to do because if you remove selectively cutting trees the very expensive and high quality timber without destroying the whole ecosystem and the biome this will keep feeding you and your children and great children for hundreds of years with no damage down but here it's like one time thing and then for the rest of it it's only liability because the forest will never regrow into the bigger 40 inch diameter oak trees that they've been taking out so we're at another section of the forest and as we walk our way back up to where we came in at we're going to go through each section of the forest and we're going to explain to you the kind of do's and don'ts so hopefully you guys are going to enjoy the video and we're real passionate about this stuff if you can't tell because you know it really matters and if you guys were just coming out of the city and you would show up here and you would have no idea um you could get snookered you know so that's what we're also trying to prevent is you getting schnooker see how these uh branches and everything these are the tops of the trees they usually leave those behind because there's no value to them and see how they're all hanging up in the air and see all this stuff but that's another problem because once you remove the trees the soil is depleted of our uh of carbon right and you want to re planish carbon as fast as possible because what happens is these big trees that were here with the leaves falling on the ground every fall it was providing nutrition and food for the worms and bacteria in the soil keeping the soil alive right now that the trees are gone and they no longer produce the leaves you want to give this soil life something to subsist upon while new trees are regrowing so it's very important to take all of this carbon and the three tops and dry leaves is a very important source of carbon and return it to the soil so if only they were spending some more time chopping up these branches or even grinding them down and chopping them and putting them on the soil it would be very well it would capture moisture in the soil because now with all of the soil gone it's very important to retain moisture for the soil life so there is no soil or water retention and more importantly with all of this vegetation suspended and not touching the soil instead of rotting and the fungi and bacteria and worms are transforming it back into humans it will be dry and suspended like that for decades yeah i have seen forest that's been locked 30 years ago and the trees that don't touch the ground they're still up there because there is no contact with the soil and with their the bacteria in the soil and the worms so it will take maybe another 40 or 50 years for this to be returned to the soil whereas it's extremely important to take all of this material and do it immediately right it's like kiln drying up there so then it just gets harder and harder and then it can't break down as easy and then what happens is too like he was explaining about the leaves and these sticks breaking down two things should come to mind right one back to eden gardening right you guys are doing that that's the same thing in the forest the forest floor that's why it's always lush and beautiful and the trees grow really well and then the other thing is did you think about it no hookah culture a lot of you guys are taking the logs and the sticks and you're putting them in your raised bed gardens and then you're putting the soil on top of there and what happens is those sticks break down and they create all that nice biome for you guys same thing here in the forest and now it's being robbed of all that natural goodness uh because you know some guys came in this bacterial activity it's very important to reestablish the soil because basically the soil is built from carbon as the raw material plus nitrogen and nitrogen comes from nitrogen fixing bacteria and some plants etc so you need these two ingredients for this landscape to recover and with the branches being left like that both ingredients are missing yeah and it just makes it terrible man you guys getting some information here we're really trying to walk you through this whole thing now we're down at the water right because that's one thing we have to worry about you can live a while without the food but you cannot live a while without the water and if you guys are getting your water tables contaminated you're getting your streams by your place and you don't know any better all this stuff is damaging your water supply exactly and now there is a the thing called repairing buffer if you do logging you're supposed to be leaving vegetation along the streams so that it protects the soil and there is no soil erosion everything washing down into the streams it's killing the fish it's it's building up sediment at the dams it's really really bad for the whole aquatic ecosystem uh but as you can tell here there was no bar for left so all the logging was done all the way down to the stream plus all of the skilling as we explained was done properly at too steep and angle so all of this soil knot is just being lost washed down down the gradient it's being washed down into the streams and into the water not only that but all of this vegetation the trees that used to be here before the logging it was retaining moisture in the soil with all of the leaves and the thick layer of humors there giving a time after the rainfall to infiltrate into the soil and replenish the water table now that this spongy soil is completely gone and will not recover for another hundreds of years all of that rainfall goes down into the creek and away from here so the water table drops for groundwater and the springs dry up uh one of the local land owners who did the logging on 500 acres of land told me that they used to be 11 permanent springs on the property after the logging was done in a few years only three springs were left so we are not just losing the trees and the health of the ecosystem and our future we are also losing right now the quality of our the water and even water availability the wells are uh need to be dug deeper now and the soil is just not there to capture this moisture and return it to us for our use but also for the use of other wildlife and other things that depend on it you can see right here it's almost choking off the creek see it's just going to keep filling down and then this will move over and over and over and then it'll either bust through it or form a new way or whatever dam up back this way so that's not good for downstream or this whole ecosystem here is now changing [Applause] if you have to transport the logs across the stream you're not supposed to be doing it here like at this very acute angle because see how they undercut the soil bank there and it will create a even more erosion there and also if there was any vegetation here along the streams everything gets busted when the bulldozers come first making these ski trails and then they keep dragging and dragging and dragging trees here if you have to cross the stream which is not recommended in the first place you need to be going straight at the right angle minimizing the amount of disturbance along the stream bed and here they were almost going to the stream i know i don't mean to laugh right but here they're supposed to go straight they go at an angle up there they're supposed to go at an angle and they go straight oh my goodness [Applause] and the loggers leave their trash behind it's a good spot to show you the difference between a healthy and disturbed slope and just a few feet away the one that's been disturbed so you can see how much difference even a little bit of disturbance makes even after six months so this is how any slope would be originally it's protected by the moss and the roots of grass and [Applause] and trees and shrubs and everything it holds everything together so that the the movement of water is very gradual it's not washing any soil away [Applause] but just a few feet down here it was disturbed so instead of the small some grass and everything covering it now all of this is being exposed and with the water rain water and the water from up the hill coming down all of this material now is exposed that will be washed down into the creek yeah i mean look at that looks like a bomb went off uh yeah you know even local people are sickened by are this kind of devastation you see they call it ground zero and it's not just something you see in size it's a science fiction movie that's happening here right now in real time and you mentioned doug about it being illegal well it might be illegal in some parts of the country but here there are no restrictions on the way you are doing logging you are supposed to be protecting the water sources and everything but there is no real enforcement so they are able to do all of that and reap the benefits short term leaving the landscape completely devastating now we're just coming off the stream and like i said we're walking you guys back around to the front and here's another logging road right here now what they do with these roads how they build them is this used to be all trees right here just like you see right here it was all right here they come down with a big bulldozer they knock them all down and then the rain comes and it washes away all that dirt right so that is not a road like if you guys know roads that's not a normal road that is erosion happening taking away all that topsoil that takes generations to restore and right here go ahead that's a shame because you know you could build a logging road properly yeah just as the logging trail there or the the skid trail it's supposed to go at an angle like the county roads are built it needs to be following the edge of the hill gradually going up following the gradient and if you don't follow the gradient just because it's quicker and less expensive to build a straight up then when the logos are gone it becomes a golly all the time and there's big ravines in here like you could probably break your ankle if you're not paying attention there's some pretty good ones in here and it's only been one winter he said yeah so just what's gonna happen in year two three four five yeah and just consider that if you wanted to restore it on your land you buy five acres and you put up your small cabin there and you think oh we're into permaculture we will spend a lifetime restoring the land well one load of gravel to bring and put here uh would cost you three hundred dollars and there there are just ten loads of gravel just on this small stretch so three thousand dollars just to stop the erosion and its tracks uh so again the once the damage is done it's super expensive to bring it back to where it would start uh coming back to life it's a multi-generational project at this point it's like grandma said that out of prevention is like a pound of a pound of cure wasn't it and once you guys use that gravel fix right you're gonna have to do that all the time gravel on your driveway gravel around the farm gravel at the homestead you always have to replace it and if you have it washing out like this all the time trucks and trucks are gravel for years and years and years very expensive so see you guys think you're saving money up front and you see this place and you think well maybe we can do it and it's just going to be like a money pit without a house on it yeah exactly because you know we think about it in terms of how much it costs if you go into store you think oh how much is it per pound of food here without how much is it per acre when but there are different kinds of acres right here you are buying not just land that's exhausted but the one that will be very expensive to even maintain and they're yeah and get results from right you guys want to get out here and you want to start growing your food like stacey and i 90 you can't do that in year one two or three on land like this you're going to need land 10 12 you're 15 and you don't have that kind of time yeah or you're going to have raised beds all over the place and that's what you don't want either right you want to be able to use your land that you buy and you also want to be a good steward of it so if you guys are owning land out there don't let these loggers come in unless you really get to know them and talk to them and make sure they're ethically sound and that's a big problem because i know that some people wanted to do responsible logging on their land and they cannot find the cruise yeah because everybody wants to take short cuts actually it's easier it's faster better that's what's so damaging to the uh remaining value of the property and there the trees and the wildlife and everything [Applause] so so another big thing is that all of this heavy logging equipment there takes a lot of hydraulic fuel and oil and everything and there may be leaks in all of this hydraulic cylinders because they're uh it's handling all of these huge logs and so to be maintained properly they need to be taking protection of the soil but look they left this bucket of hydraulic fluid and it's open on the bottom and when there was a little bit left they just flip it over maybe to see it on and the remaining fluid drained into the soil uh you cannot tell but it smells oil here because this is where they were storing their equipment while you were doing the logging so there are all of these spots saturated with their oil that was just drained on their on the ground and replenished with the fresh one and all this trash again that's with the topography we have here with the limestone and all of the caves in the ground all of this hydraulic fuel and spent oil goes straight into the ground water and in into people's wells and into their drinking water yeah and you know speaking about water sources uh when we moved to the ozarks i started having some horrible uh digestive problems something i never had before i went to the doctor and they took all kinds of tests and they said leah what's happening in your gut we've only seen in the in the developing world like india and asia where people drink water contaminated with sewage and i thought well no you know we drink water from the well it cannot be contaminated with sewage and other members in the family don't have any of the symptoms and then the neighbor upstream was there moving away and was putting the house in the market and we considered buying it and when i went to check it out i asked him about systems including the septic system and he told me oh no we don't have a septic system the spiders go straight there in that creek this is the creek that runs through my property and when we swim in the summer and he said isn't it amazing how nature purifies everything no matter what you throw at it it makes it clean oh my gosh for 10 years i was struggling with all the digestive issues and parasites in myself not realizing that the water in the creek i am swimming is combinated with raw sewage from a few hundred yards upstream by the neighbor i mean come on can you believe that y'all wouldn't do that would you just run your sewage right into a little creek or something now that's some who jay boujee [Laughter] come on y'all but it takes all of us to keep this awareness up and when we find people doing like this we got to kind of put the heat on them a little bit right so it doesn't go unnoticed all the time now we're going to show you something that's kind of really important if if all this other stuff wasn't but it is and this one really is going to get you good the guy counted 123 year rings and that's another huge loss with this kind of logging what will provide seed for the next generation of forest with the proper logging practices you are supposed to leave the biggest the healthiest the most beautiful wonderful trees standing for a few more years after you do the logging so that the acres from this particular oak tree and other superior big trees can provide the seed for the next third generation of forest and saturate all of this ground with new saplings that are healthy and thriving and come from this superior genetic source but of course they don't do that all of these big trees some of the stumps here are like 30 40 inches across they're all gone and look at what's left for the seed source that's one of the reasons why this forest will never ever regrow and recover is that the superior healthy trees are taken out and the ones that inferior have their fungal infections and issues and that that are on their way out this is the seed source for the new trees and they will be as sickly as what loggers didn't care to take so the big trees like what you see here uh that's been here um since the 19th century uh will never again be seen in the orders so think about the expense of it if it was done properly and if the big trees were left to provide the seed without any additional expanse on your side after a few years there would be healthy regenerations there would be thousands and thousands of saplings coming from the soil and they're eventually growing into full-size trees but with the seed source gun the only way you can re-establish the big and healthy trees is by planting them yourself if you go to a nursery see that the quality seedling with the good clump of dirt you don't really want to buy the bare root seedlings because they have very low survivability but the one that comes in the pot with a good root system they're probably between 10 and 20 dollars at least so just to plant a thousand trees here to start reforestation would cost you twenty thousand dollars in the seedlings alone not counting your labor again it becomes prohibitively expensive to restore something that could be done at no expense whatsoever if logging was done properly in the first place whoever thought a little walk through the forest could educate you so much [Applause] seriously like you say we're just kind of passionate about it we want to see logging is not bad but it just has to be done right like it's in this necessary evil you have to go through and you have to kind of tend to the forest but this is what you don't have to do you don't have to step on it and hurt it and kill it we can share it another thing about it is that many of these big centennial oak trees are not even available to the loggers because they start developing rot in the heart wood in the middle of the log and if they cut down this huge tree and they discovered that it started rotting inside if there is a big hollow in there they will just leave it like that and it's a shame because there is a very simple way to tell whether there is a hollow in the middle of the tree and whether you can just leave it standing there and this is called coring uh it's long drill bit you drive it into the middle of the tree from the side and if it hits avoid you know that this tree has a void inside you don't need to cut it down because it won't be available piece of timber but it's quicker to take the chainsaw and chop everything down and then the trees that are not available just leave behind but the damage is already done the tree that could be left standing is taken out and all of the b trees too are being destroyed in the process one of the local loggers who was clearing 300 acres told me that they destroyed five b trees there on just 300 acres it's half a square mile with all of these square miles being locked out like that hundreds and thousands of b trees and the orders are being destroyed every year um you know my website horizontal hive.com and the book keeping these with a smile that i published well it's not it hasn't been keeping busy with a smile these recent years because i'm witnessing all of that and my swarm catching rate has dropped tremendously in the last three four years just because the big trees with the hollows inside that used to house the wild honeybee colonies are being wiped out as we speak and one of the things that some of the guys do is they move the trees they come and knock the trees down because they think they're going to run a big cattle operation and dr leonardo was talking he was saying that you could actually earn more money with bees than you can with the cattle oh you can absolutely just do the math and you will see that if you buy land like this at two or three thousand per acre and that's what they're asking for it and the cattle production from this ruined soil will not be enough to pay even interest on your mortgage let alone the principle itself and we feed in halo yeah but if it was left like it was wild and if nature will be keeping was your source of livelihood then even without cutting down the trees you could do as well and even better as the ranchers or the loggers by creating all of this destruction um for example one acre of understory with all the red bars now going into bloom and then wild plums and sumacs in the summer and all of the biodiversity we have here in the wilderness create this amazing unpolluted honey produced away from agricultural crops that's super valuable so i keep telling my neighbors that there if you have acreage put a few hives there because there are some areas where cattle arranging can be very profitable but ozarks with the soil that you've seen is not one of them yeah and you should knock down all the trees just to do that you should work with the environment you know you can make a patch for them but not the whole place you know so i hope you guys got some good stuff from this video we talked about a lot of nature a lot of what each thing in nature is dependent on the other right so when you start taking away parts of the equation it's going to mess up this whole symbiotic relationship we have going on there so we want to be good stewards of our land you know we want to pass it on to the next generation better than we found it yes thank you doug and also um i have a request because the reason all of this happening is that there is now a demand for land in the country if you're consider even having a few acres in the country as a back up realize that if you refuse to buy land that's been raped and destroyed then less of what you've seen will be happening right even five years ago people were doing logging more carefully because they knew nobody will buy land in this state but now when so many people want to run away from the city and start homesteading actually it's a very hot market for rural properties and the way the owner of this land puts for me people from california have no idea and they don't care they will just go ahead and pay me 3 000 per acre for the land in this condition because they do not know any better you should know any better and if more people were very discerning when making land purchases it would put the pressure on land owners who even consider doing the timber harvest and selling the land to do it more responsibly yeah and if you're inheriting land from your family think about this video and don't just be after the buck and let them go in there and rip up your heritage land and then you're going to sell it off you know at least be responsible on that end of it you know i know a lot of people aren't into the family farm and they're moving on but at least you know treat it with love remember your parents were there building that up all that time and they would just be broken-hearted to see you treat it like that so buyer beware if you guys are moving down into the ozarks make sure you're looking at the land watching the trees making sure it hasn't been you know stripped and neglected and taken advantage of and make sure you get some good property because it's a beautiful place to live first you know it's so easy i see it all the time locals call people dreamers yeah the ones who want to have a homestead on the land and to be self-sufficient so they come and they dump all the equity they got from selling their place in town and they discovered this hard truth down the years that it's not life in paradise if you move to the land that's are basically sick and dying through our own neglect it's a multi-generational project to try even to restore it and there it's certainly not something that will be economically viable and sustainable so what you see with this what local call dreamers is people have a dream of working and living on the land but before you know it you need to go and get a job in town and to be commuting from here an hour and a half to the nearest economic or right um air you don't have a you're you're already behind the eight ball you're at a disadvantage and in your mind you see it all happening and then you're wondering why it's not happening and if you don't have this information you'll never really know so all right make sure you guys smash that subscribe button make sure you hit the thumbs up for dr leo and us giving you guys a walk around the forest so we can educate you guys on proper land buying and what to look for and so you guys don't get taken advantage of and we're gonna go set some swarm traps so you guys watch that on the next video and we're gonna show you guys how you can save a ton of money coming up on the b season and all that information will be in the next video so we'll see you guys on the next one

Channel: OFF GRID with DOUG & STACY

Views: 287,613

Keywords: Off Grid with Doug and Stacy, Doug and Stacy, Doug, Stacy, Off Grid, off the grid, off the grid living, off the grid homes, off grid living, off grid cabin, off grid with Doug and Stacy, off grid solar power system, off grid house, off grid homestead, off grid solar, homestead, homesteading, homesteading for beginners, homesteading off the grid, cooking from scrtch, self sufficient, growing food, how to grow food

Id: PsnawHCLWOg

Length: 34min 38sec (2078 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 10 2022