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I'm moving to a small house or cabin somewhere with trees and, ideally, snow, driving distance from LA, where I can garden and keep chickens. Exact location to be determined but most likely in the San Bernadino mountains; top choice is currently Idyllwild.
I've given notice to my landlord, and will be out by December 31 and hopefully sooner. I will move into my parents' cabin for the winter, spend some time investigating possibilities, and move into my new home in the spring, in time to start a garden and raise some chicks.
I will have a flock of six hens. I don't want a noisy rooster. Six will be more than enough eggs, and a small enough flock that I can cram them all into document boxes and flee with them and the cats if/when I have to evacuate due to fire - which I intend to do if a fire gets even the slightest bit close, whether there's an evac order or not. I am taking no chances.
I still love Los Angeles, but that makes it really sad to live here right now. A vaccine is coming, but between slow distribution and refusal to take it, I think it'll probably be a year before it's safe to do most fun city things, and several more before the city economically recovers. In the meantime, everything work-related that I do is completely online, and everything I've been enjoying most lately is really difficult to do where I am. I think living in a more rural area, but close enough that I can easily drive to LA for a day or weekend whenever I feel like it, will be perfect for me.
If you have any suggestions, advice, or commentary, feel free! I welcome knowledge about Idyllwild, other places in the San Bernadino mountains, or other places you think I might want to consider. I also welcome thoughts on gardening in a shorter growing season and/or high altitude.
I require: trees, natural beauty, good internet access, not too many people, not currently on fire, no more than a five-hour drive from LA (ie, south of Yosemite), not insanely expensive, and with a reasonable number of locals who are not Nazis, fascists, or anti-maskers. (Some Trumpers are inevitable - I got a death threat from one in my own neighborhood in LA - I just don't want everyone to be a Trumper but me, or for there to be a local, active, and aggressive anti-mask or fascist contingent.)
I prefer: snow.
Not interested in: Ojai (not enough trees), Santa Barbara (too urban), Santa Clarita (too suburban AND not enough trees), Mariposa (too close to my parents - I want more of a feeling of solitude).
I've given notice to my landlord, and will be out by December 31 and hopefully sooner. I will move into my parents' cabin for the winter, spend some time investigating possibilities, and move into my new home in the spring, in time to start a garden and raise some chicks.
I will have a flock of six hens. I don't want a noisy rooster. Six will be more than enough eggs, and a small enough flock that I can cram them all into document boxes and flee with them and the cats if/when I have to evacuate due to fire - which I intend to do if a fire gets even the slightest bit close, whether there's an evac order or not. I am taking no chances.
I still love Los Angeles, but that makes it really sad to live here right now. A vaccine is coming, but between slow distribution and refusal to take it, I think it'll probably be a year before it's safe to do most fun city things, and several more before the city economically recovers. In the meantime, everything work-related that I do is completely online, and everything I've been enjoying most lately is really difficult to do where I am. I think living in a more rural area, but close enough that I can easily drive to LA for a day or weekend whenever I feel like it, will be perfect for me.
If you have any suggestions, advice, or commentary, feel free! I welcome knowledge about Idyllwild, other places in the San Bernadino mountains, or other places you think I might want to consider. I also welcome thoughts on gardening in a shorter growing season and/or high altitude.
I require: trees, natural beauty, good internet access, not too many people, not currently on fire, no more than a five-hour drive from LA (ie, south of Yosemite), not insanely expensive, and with a reasonable number of locals who are not Nazis, fascists, or anti-maskers. (Some Trumpers are inevitable - I got a death threat from one in my own neighborhood in LA - I just don't want everyone to be a Trumper but me, or for there to be a local, active, and aggressive anti-mask or fascist contingent.)
I prefer: snow.
Not interested in: Ojai (not enough trees), Santa Barbara (too urban), Santa Clarita (too suburban AND not enough trees), Mariposa (too close to my parents - I want more of a feeling of solitude).
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A couple of things from our visit that might be relevant:
-When we were there (in the summer) it was pretty hot. Not as hot as LA, I imagine, but it was on the uncomfortable side without air conditioning (which we didn't have). It did get pleasantly cooler in the evenings, and there was usually a breeze which also cooled things down.
-The cellular service was really spotty and often nonexistent. Though this was several years ago, so it's very possible the cellular service is better now. Anyhow, you'd want to make sure that the place you were staying at had good reliable internet (which I imagine you were going to make sure of in any case)
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I forgot about the bad cell service! I was focused more on internet. That's a problem in a lot of mountain communities - at my parents' place, I can make and receive texts, but not phone calls unless I walk to the bottom of their driveway. Not ideal.
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Laughed at this one, too much similarity to my reasons for living where I do.
Can't advise on the locale from half a world away, but I can certainly see the logic in it - in fact I've read several stories about a shift to the country over the weekend. And now I think of it one of them is relevant to you, because it's about current issues with moving in California, specifically SF, but I would imagine it applies at least in part to LA : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/15/leaving-california-exodus-move-out-movers
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I hope some of the ex-Californians move to red states and turn them purple.
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We had to have some hard discussions about what canceling scheduled visits with me meant to my income when I was a temp with no vacation days (or when I was starting with a company and had a limited number of them) and how it was not just rude, it was literally causing me to lose my own income. Because when I was a kid, nothing came in between the family and the service business. Nothing. Not extracurriculars, not vacations, not hobbies, not a thing - because that was our income. If it didn't put food on the table, it didn't happen. ETA: It's not that we didn't have vacations, it's just that we had them in the very depths of the off-season, we got pulled out of school for two weeks (because school was less important than the business), and they got canceled if something came up for one of the businesses - we never flew and we never purchased anything in advance. Because planning? Except for one of the businesses, it didn't happen.
My parents weren't used to a corporate environment or my not being able to put their scheduling first. Things are just very different in that kind of blue collar self-employed environment.
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All of these towns get a lot of visitors on the weekends year-round.
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I'm desperately fond of the high desert - Lancaster/Palmdale - which got snow about twice a year last I was living there. You do get more joshua trees than tree trees, though, and it's very flat when it's not aggressively hilly.
Do not go to baldwin lake. It's 50% irrigation de-laked mudhole and 50% suspicious, standoffish locals who don't countenance interlopers. Plus you will be no more than two phone calls away from at least four meth cooks with the first friend you manage to make.
Anyway, your tolerance for conservative neighbors is much higher than mine. Which is useful for living in rural california.
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Mariposa is about the level of my tolerance for both Trumpers and meth labs. Two phone calls away from four meth cooks is way past my tolerance. I want to re-enact Little House in the Big Woods, not Breaking Bad
I like the high desert for visits but I want tall tree trees to live with.
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This is all so much harder when I can't just hop in my car and check places out for myself.
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The dickinson squash or "skin pumpkin"
https://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/squash/winter-squash/dickinson-pumpkin
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(Hopefully there will be no accidental roosters.)
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Definitely will supply trees and snow. Visiting up there, I didn't interact with the neighbors much but got the feeling it was pretty mixed and mostly people kept to themselves. About a 1.5 - 2.5 hour drive from L.A. in my experience, depending on which part of L.A. you wanted to reach. Several good Mexican places, a decent Italian place, and a good burger spot, at least when last I was up there (which, it's been a couple of years and who knows with Covid.)
Memory says internet was pretty reliable once they switched to cable. Cell service could be spotty, though. So check for where you are.
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As someone who loves urban life and made my most recent big move partly in order to be in a more urban area, the pandemic has been really hard. Sigh.
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Chooks sound great. No rooster also great :-) Some friends once had a rooster by accident and until they managed to pass him on, they got up at pre-dawn to put him in a box so he wouldn't crow in the midst of suburbia.
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There are so many different coloring varieties for the hens. They are so cute (and useful!).
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There may be breed differences in this. Anyway, something to look into when you're ready to get hens, in the spring.
Good luck with the move!