# Anyone want a small farm friendly place far away from winter?



## Dusky Beauty (Jan 4, 2012)

I was browsing on Zillow today and glanced this short sale place listed in my general neighborhood at 29.5k. http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1424-N-381st-Ave-Tonopah-AZ-85354/60051057_zpid/
_I have not inquired on my own to see if it is still available_
but it's not a bad little home. 
It would be great maybe for someone who needs to get out of the cold or bad winter for health reasons and downsize? 2 acres here is plenty of space for a garden, poultry, a goat or three and whatever else. A lot of people have mini farms out here and commute to Phoenix. 

Anyway, this place looks like a smokin deal and I wanted to share. Even if you pay 30k or 40k in improvements when all is said and done , I bet a lot of people would live quite well off of selling elsewhere. 
We can always use more 'steaders in the neighborhood! :bandwagon:


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## tarbe (Apr 7, 2007)

That's crazy. Is it on a hazardous landfill?


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## Dusky Beauty (Jan 4, 2012)

Nope. It's actually quite nice out here--- quiet. Good water. The soil varies a little from one mile to another but if you put water to it it goes nuts with productivity. 
RE: water, We have a series of underground lakes the out of towners don't know about. 
If you can get water out of the ground, you're good. 
Best kind of market for selling farm products--- you've got high end consumers in the city, and not saturated with competition. 

The bad points:
-The heat. The scorching dry 115 degree heat for 3 months. (You don't leave the AC. Ever.) 
-The nuclear power plant, Palo Verde. Yes it's nuclear. It runs on it's own isolated aquafur and recycles it's water. The neighborhood is probably pretty safe though since all the big wigs live here too. 
-Distance to town--- I don't think 20 miles is far, but some might. Real city slicking is had at about 50 miles. 
-This is the most reliable hay land in the country and it's still not cheap. 3 strand bales of good alfalfa are still about 10 bucks a bale.


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## Tinker (Apr 5, 2004)

The house is in great shape, and plenty of sq. feet. That is an awesome deal! Bet it won't last long.


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## pcwerk (Sep 2, 2003)

i would love to have this place! seems ideal but maybe a tad to dry


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## Dusky Beauty (Jan 4, 2012)

if you have water (and this place seems to) you can landscape it up to suit your taste. I hate the zeroscaping so many people use and if you're on your own well here it's not nessesary, just lazy. 

This place is about 3 miles east of the place I linked and I used to live right down the street-- I think he is asking WAY too much but it's a good example of what you can do with water and a little homesteading ingenuity. The guy also has a grape arbor with vines as thick as a man's arm (They had a garage sale once before they listed it, I ogled the place and pretended to be interested in the wares) http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/806-S-339th-Ave-Tonopah-AZ-85354/8312924_zpid/


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## grannygardner (May 4, 2005)

I love that area. The heat doesn't bother me as long as the a/c works. Thanks for listing this.


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## TJN66 (Aug 29, 2004)

That is a great deal! Now...how do I find one like that in North Carolina? I have been looking and looking...no luck!


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## pcwerk (Sep 2, 2003)

TJN66 said:


> That is a great deal! Now...how do I find one like that in North Carolina? I have been looking and looking...no luck!


got to go where the deals are


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## Dusky Beauty (Jan 4, 2012)

pcwerk said:


> got to go where the deals are


Truth!! :trollface


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## Mulegirl (Oct 6, 2010)

TJN66 said:


> That is a great deal! Now...how do I find one like that in North Carolina? I have been looking and looking...no luck!


It's greener out here, so I'm guessing it may not happen.  You can do a lot more on 2 acres on the east coast than on 2 acres in Arizona, no offense to those who live in the southwest. I love visiting the desert, but I could not imagine living there and having to deal with the water fights--they seem to crop up when you least expect it.


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

I just noticed this thread and would say the place's proximity to Palo Verde nuke plant, the largest in the US, would be a major reason for rather low price ( a somewhat similar but smaller lot with mobile home adjacent to this one sold a month or two ago at $25K...). This isn't like 30 miles away, it's not much over five miles north of the plant complex including an 80-acre lake of treated sewage water used for cooling. That also makes it a general area that comes under considerable attention from homeland security.

If one is inclined to "walk the walk" part of concluding nuke plants are reasonably safe to live that close to, this does look like a nice value. It did fetch $78K back nine years ago and certainly looks well-maintained in the photos. From Wikipedia:


> Safety concerns
> 
> In an Arizona Republic article dated February 22, 2007, it was announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had decided to place Palo Verde into Category 4, making it one of the most closely monitored nuclear power plants in the United States. The decision was made after the NRC discovered that electrical relays in a diesel generator did not function during tests in July and September 2006.
> 
> ...


Of course, one would want to make certain nobody had been cooking meth at the place, either.


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## cnsper (Sep 6, 2012)

Are you kidding? No Winter? LOL When I was in Phoenix I saw people in parkas when it hit 40 degrees.... LOL

There is a lot of water in AZ, it is just not on the surface.


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## Dusky Beauty (Jan 4, 2012)

cnsper said:


> Are you kidding? No Winter? LOL When I was in Phoenix I saw people in parkas when it hit 40 degrees.... LOL
> 
> There is a lot of water in AZ, it is just not on the surface.


Please... if you're coming from anywhere that gets snow on the ground you wouldn't call anything seen here "winter" :bash:-- and I'm a Pac NW winter wimp. 

I haven't used heat of any kind in 2 years. Sweaters, socks and comforters and we're good 

As for Palo Verde? I think it's been here for about 30 years--- no 2 headed chickens yet. :teehee: And yes--- LOTS of water, I just think you need wind or solar to get it out of the ground without the grid to be considered sustainable-- there isn't really anything you can't grow here as long as you can get your water to the surface.


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## sunflower-n-ks (Aug 7, 2006)

cnsper said:


> Are you kidding? No Winter? LOL When I was in Phoenix I saw people in parkas when it hit 40 degrees.... LOL
> 
> There is a lot of water in AZ, it is just not on the surface.


Isn't it interesting how people adjust to their environment? When I was in the Phoenix valley and in the fall it got cool enough I was comfortable enough to be out side in shorts and the "natives" were bundled up in parkas. I never wore anything heavier than an unlined poplin jacket. But, I don't remember water freezing outside. There was ice on the critters water pans this morning here. I hate the freezing weather.

I agree, the proximity to Palo Verde needs to be recognized. Might not bother some people, might be a deal breaker for others. Get close to the nuke plant in Ks and there are military vehicles all over.


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

> I just think you need wind or solar to get it out of the ground without the grid to be considered sustainable


I'd say that would make researching how close the source aquifer is to the surface really important if you were thinking along the lines of having your own little mini-oasis where you could sunshade and irrigate constantly to get serious yields from either in-ground or containerized crops. Around us, the water source has been dropping constantly and is now some 300' down, enough that citrus groves have given up pumping it and been abandoned to become suburbs. You'd have to look at the trendline locally, too, if it's dropping five feet a year due to Phoenix's expansion westward then you might be approaching a tipping point on what a windmill could raise to the surface, much less practical use of solar cell electricity. If you're above a stable aquifer that isn't drawn on by nearby suburbs or agriculture (unlikely I'd think in AZ), then you could be good to go with sustainability. Be aware, the extreme low humidity plus sunlight intensity creates a challenge for veggies that requires more water (plus shading) than you might anticipate. Having to pull a certain volume of water from a given depth might be practical then become not so with a few years' time and another twenty or thirty feet depth required.

We've stayed a couple times with some folks running a B&B elsewhere who in the 90s grew enough in-ground produce in the eastern Phoenix area to do well selling it to the local organic market. However, they were in an area where water was available for agriculture from the surface irrigation system of the Salt River canal project. If you're looking for sustainability into some widespread collapse scenario, I don't know that you could count on an extensive surface-flow system like that to continue functioning. However, given access to a surface-flow irrigation setup, one could certainly do very well growing produce and raising livestock in a small-farm desert environment.


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