Survivalist Forum banner

Bought Property near St Johns AZ

140K views 2K replies 57 participants last post by  Steve_In_29 
#1 ·
My wife and I will be retired two years the end of this month and we signed the papers on a property in AZ back at the end of May. We still have things to finish up here in CA and probably won't be totally moved for a while yet. I also need to get a shop built there to house all my stuff.

House is a 1452sqft 2bed/2bath log cabin on almost 40 vegetated acres, 9 miles east of a place called St Johns (pop:3400). The house sits at 6400' elevation and while technically still a desert it is cooler and wetter then 29 Palms and in a micro-climate that allows trees. Property cost us $160K and seller paid closing costs.

From horizon to horizon I can see (with bino's) eight other houses. Closest neighbors are almost 1000yds away with the next set of houses right at a mile. The property is on a County maintained gravel road, has electricity, well, septic and cell service (Verizon). Property is fully fenced (4 strand barb wire) which the realtor said the rule of thumb was $10K for 40acres. Still have to do something to keep goats in though.

The house is 14 years old but has never been lived in full time. First owner's wife got ill and needed to be closer to major medical before they even moved in. Second owner bought it as their future retirement place but after his wife spent the first nights there she refused to go back...saying it was, "too quiet"..."too dark"..."too isolated"...etc. They are from Los Angeles so I imagine St John's was quite a shock to her.

There aren't really any jobs there but we are retired so it doesn't matter. There is a small grocery/hardware store, a chain auto parts, a Subway and Dollar General. Two Mexican restaurants and two American (one of which doubles as the Italian place) and if I want pizza it's just a local place. The closest McD's, Walmart, Home Depot, etc is 60 miles away in Show Low. This wasn't such a change for us as Walmart is already 20 miles away here in 29 Palms, with the closest big city (Palm Springs) being 50+ miles each way.

Everyone we have met seems nice and even the teenagers were polite. We also didn't see a single person that looked like a gang banger or thug. Not to say the place is lily-white, just that we saw people and not scum. There is apparently a problem with meth in the area, as there WILL be in every poorer location, but my closest neighbor (ADOT cop) said there is rarely any issues out where we live. My house has been sitting basically unoccupied for a decade and has never been broken into.

That neighbor did come out with a gun to ask me who I was and what I was doing out there when we stopped by the property the night before the realtor took us out there...my kind of guy. We hit it off as we talked for an hour in the dark...and it is DARK!!! out there. He is former Phoenix PD that moved his family to St John's to get out of the rat race and now works commercial traffic enforcement on I40. We later met his parents (nice people) who live 4 miles closer to town on the same county road.

While the CC&Rs state "no shooting" on property, the neighbor says he shoots on his all the time with no problems. Apparently the Sheriff won't enforce the HOA shooting prohibition and the HOA has no way to do so either. HOA is really only for road maintenance. There is also BLM land a mile up the road that I can shoot on and a range in St Johns for about $60 a year membership.

We choose St John's (after over 2yrs of searching) because it is so out of the way. Though it's almost city living compared to some of the ones we were considering. Places where it was a 70 mile trip (each way) to simply buy a gallon of milk for instance. The longer we have been around people, the less we want to be. It is amazing how hard it is to actually get away from people now but not needing to worry about employment allowed us to really widen the possible locations.

We had looked for somewhere with the least chance of having or being affected by disasters. No earthquakes, floods, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, Black Lives Matter, etc. While also avoiding swarms of flying insects and high humidity. We didn't want to be in even a small city nor on the access/egress routes to one (didn't want to wake up one day to the zombie hordes).

Blue States were immediately off the list as well for obvious reasons. Though I am given pause by AZ's mere 4 point spread between Trump/Hillary and we did manage to pick one of the few blue counties in the state. Hopefully our two conservative votes can help. One benefit of the reason the county is blue (poverty) is that it is also the county with the lowest property taxes from what I am told. Mine are $500ish a year and I was informed that buying a similar property in the next county over would have tripled that.

We have been out to the property twice since closing and will be spending another 10 days there starting Sunday. With each visit we are liking it more and are looking forward to living there full time.
 
See less See more
#167 ·
Ah okay that makes sense then. I had mistakenly thought you were trenching in an entirely new line.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SSGNasty
#171 ·
Had rain off and on since early this morning and now it is pouring with high winds and some hail mixed in.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SSGNasty
#176 ·
When I was stuck in western WA state for a time, it was trendy to drive a Prius. They knew it was more expensive and no real carbon savings, so to make up for it, they'd always drive 5-10 mph under the speed limit. Especially on the cross state two lane highways where they could back up at least five to ten cars to make their statement.

The Seattle Subaru would go out and plant a tree for you for every test drive. Ever see the forests of western WA? They make the crowded ASNF look barren.
 
#177 ·
When I was stuck in western WA state for a time, it was trendy to drive a Prius. They knew it was more expensive and no real carbon savings, so to make up for it, they'd always drive 5-10 mph under the speed limit. Especially on the cross state two lane highways where they could back up at least five to ten cars to make their statement.

The Seattle Subaru would go out and plant a tree for you for every test drive. Ever see the forests of western WA? They make the crowded ASNF look barren.
Yep and with the "save the trees" version of what passes for forest management now days, they are all just waiting for the right spark to burn.
 
#178 ·
Well the seller decided he would come down in price so we are doing the paperwork to buy the 36 acres next to ours and should close on the 4th of Dec. This will double the size of our property to 72 acres.

We paid a bit more then it was worth but it was worth it to us to keep from having a neighbor that close. As while the property has several good places to situate a house, the cheapest route for power is to piggyback off our pole. Which means any house would most likely have been built just a few hundred feet from ours.
 
#181 ·
Paperwork is all done and the land is ours. Just need to get into town and grab the documents.

We had the first snow of the year a couple days ago but it melted in a few hours.




Got another light coating yesterday that kind of stuck around (it was COLD outside) and possibly will see a real snow storm on Friday.
 
#183 ·
40 degrees here with lots of wind and some rain. Supposedly temp will drop and it will turn to snow but weather reports suggest it won't be the heavy snow they first hinted at.

If it doesn't freeze up I feel sorry for my UPS guy who will be driving through the rain/mud to make a delivery later today.

Edit: Rain really picked up right after I posted the reply. It's pouring now.

Edit2: Snowing like crazy now.
 
#184 ·
Went from pouring rain to this in a flash as temps dropped from 40 to 32.

 
#186 ·
LOL, its Arizona, Raining out front, sunshine out back....
LOL In 29 Palms I literally had rain on my side of the road and bone dry on the other.
Heavier weather down in the Valley of the Pit, flooding, trees into houses, winds blowing stuff around...geez.
I heard they had a tornado warning down in the Valley.
 
#188 ·
Well Steve, when I woke up, the power had just went out and the snow just started. By the time the power came back on three hours later, I had between 5-7 inches of snow, and I figured it was too late for me to 'warn' you, lol.

Almost built a fire, glad I put up some wood on the porch just in case. The danged Coleman lantern stank, didn't leave it on for long.

Seems to have pretty much stopped for now @ 5:00 pm, I think we're at around 8 or so inches. Reckon we'll see if there's more to come overnight.

Making me a mean pot of chili today, perfect weather for it.
 
#190 ·
No warning was needed as we were expecting the storm. It was just a surprise as to how quick it turned to snow. Literally as if a switch had been flipped.

We only got a couple inches and it was melting fast as the sun came out and aren't supposed to get more.

No loss of power here and we already had a fire going in the wood stove for heat in any case as it's our primary source.
 
#189 ·
 
#193 ·
We had about 4 inches over here in Prescott Valley. Prescott got a lot more.

We just closed on 2 acres about 5 miles further out from where we are now. Went out there with a lawn chair and just sat in what will be our new front yard in a couple of years.
 
#191 ·
We got a further light dusting of snow overnight and awoke to 20 degrees outside.

News reports there were actual tornadoes down in the Valley.
 
#196 ·
Nope it's an old school 'Fisher', the Grandpa model (their largest).
 
  • Like
Reactions: SSGNasty
#198 · (Edited)
Mine's a bit larger and has a 20"x24" firebox.

As far as I know Fisher shut down when the EPA mandated big changes in the stove industry. Though there might be a franchise still building stoves in New Zealand. Fisher provided the plans and guidelines to multiple franchises instead of building all the stoves in one place. Thus avoiding the shipping costs.

Is your Pioneer connected to Pioneer Stoves that build stoves for the Amish in Kentucky.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SSGNasty
#200 ·
The rain started about 22:00 last night and still drizzling this morning. Suppossed to rain through Monday. My driveway turns into a slip and slide when wet, so won't be going anywhere until it dries out.

Despite feeling like hammered crap from a cold, due to the expected rain we went to Show Low to Home Depot yesterday to pick up some furniture I ordered online. They said I couldn't get the Military discount on it since it was done online but that if I bought something else they could take the $85 that would have been the amount of the discount and apply it to the other purchase.

So we had been looking at chainsaws and decided to buy the Echo CS590 Timber Wolf ($399.99). Between the $85 credit from my online purchase on top of the regular 10% military discount on what I was buying in the store I got the saw, spare chain, 5 cans of fuel, extra scrench and a couple misc non-saw things for $388 OTD.

Is there a break in procedure for chainsaws?


One nice thing about being retired, this is only the second time I have been sick in the last 4 years. Caught the first off one of the neighbor's kids a couple years ago and pretty sure I picked this up from a lady in the laundrymat last Monday. When I was working a cold would work its way through the shop at least once a year. After all no one wastes sick leave on being sick right, just go to work and spread the joy.
 
#201 ·
Despite feeling like hammered crap from a cold, due to the expected rain we went to Show Low to Home Depot yesterday to pick up some furniture I ordered online. They said I couldn't get the Military discount on it since it was done online but that if I bought something else they could take the $85 it would have been and apply it to that.
Send them an email. They will respond.

Remember "herd" from the old Arizona Shooting dot com? He sent them an email because of the way their veteran discount policy was written and posted in the store. It implied you have to be wounded in order to qualify for the discount.
 
#203 ·
My UPS guy got smart. After his last 4wheeling adventure from the snow, he called me today to see if my driveway was passable after the rains.
 
#205 ·
Agreed, as both him and the FedEx guy go the extra step to deliver to my house instead of dropping packages off at our gate on the county road. Which can't be seen from the house.

Our dogs have learned that neither of them are a chew toy.
 
#207 ·
Hit 2 degrees overnight...now warmed up to 8 and looking at a high of low 30s. Just a light breeze and sunny.

How was it for you guys in Show Low and Concho?

St Johns is looking at rain for Christmas but with my higher elevation it will hopefully be snow at the house.
 
#208 ·
In my retro house, even though the furnace was set at and temps were showing about 68F, I could certainly feel how dang cold it was outside last night. It was just cold all day yesterday. This morning, I think it was around 10 or so, not quite single digits. My weatherbug is showing slight snow on the 23rd and 26th, but rain only for Christmas. Of course it is always set to location so that is what it says sitting at my desk in Taylor.
 
#209 ·
I used to work for Verizon, developing the cell system in that area. I liked it because it is so wild. North of there, around Witch Wells, good luck on any utilities. I made friends with the guy who owns some cattle there, and the tavern, which has no electric or phone lines. He only ran the generator at night, so using his restroom was tough. Verizon was going to bring power to the area, but I retired before that happened. As remote as you can get in AZ. I loved working there. Incidentally, I went four or five years in AZ without getting a mosquito bite, then got bit by the big ones in St Johns. Lots of standing water in the area then. Your nearest gun shop is probably ten times closer than your nearest Walmart. When we moved to Safford, we gave up Target, Trader Joes, but we have two major grocery chain stores and a Walmart. You will be getting used to Wilbur's IGA and the Dollar store. Even here, we do our big shopping 150 miles away in Phoenix. But the mountain views in all directions and being next to the most prominent Mt in Az makes it all worth while. But don't kid yourself about drugs and thugs in rural AZ. Lots of problems with meth and heroin. We have it worse here. You are in a largely Mormon area. We are too, but being near the mines brings drugs, drunks and thugs that you don't discover until you live in rural AZ. St Johns is also a mining town. The freedom of the Arizona deserts makes it still a great place to be.
 
#212 ·
I wouldn't call St Johns a "mining town" as it's just a small rock quarry. We are aware of the bad elements but they mostly stay confined to town and the west side towards Concho.

Mosquitoes aren't really an issue out where I'm at as we don't have standing water in cattle ponds to breed them and the Little Colorado is too far away.

Closest gun store is in Springerville (40 miles) which is roughly half the distance to the Walmart in Show Low (80miles). There is an FFL in St Johns that I use for mail order stuff.

Yeah the IGA sucks because the (out of town) owner doesn't really care about stocking it properly and jacks the prices up. The Dollar Store is where we get most of the things we need in between monthly or so trips to a bigger town.

You can shoot with a backstop like those hills, as you have no occupied dwelling with a quarter mile. If your HOA is like mine, they have no power to enforce any CC&Rs. Like they say: if you can't pee off your back porch your neighbors are too close. My nearest neighbor building in that direction is 600 meters (a cell tower and a tavern).
The hills in my picture are actually on the property to the north of us which is on the other side of the country road. So not using them for backstop. Closest neighbor (500+yds as the crow flies) is looking at buying that property to graze his horses on though.

Yeah as I mentioned in a previous post the HOA has already told those who complained that there is nothing they can do to stop a person from shooting on their property in a safe manner. I have the 72 acres I own and the roughly 120 acres of County land that abutts mine to shoot on. Along with a shooting area on the neighbor's land that we set up some steel on and get together to blast away at.

Witch Wells makes my location look like downtown. LOL
 
  • Like
Reactions: SSGNasty
#211 ·
Merry Christmas to all, we had a white one....just barely.



Supposed to get a real snow on Friday when my son and grandson will be here for a visit from TX.
 
Top