Field notes

Land, plainly explained Page 5

Guides and honest answers about buying raw land, living on it, and making the most of your acreage. No jargon, no pressure, just what we would tell a friend.

Bare red sandy ground with scattered mesquite and grass clumps under a cloudy sky.

Living on Your Land

Soil Testing for Land Buyers: The Test That Gates Your Build

Two different things are called a soil test and confusing them costs real money. One tells you what to put on the garden. The other decides whether you can ever legally live on the parcel. Here is how to tell them apart and which to pay for first.

Jan 25, 202511 min read

A plowed field running to a flat horizon under a wide blue sky, a dirt track curving along its near edge.

Buying Raw Land

Finding Property with No Address: Your Complete Guide

Land without an address is not land without a record. How to identify any parcel from a map, a coordinate or a neighbor, what the county actually holds on it, and why the unclaimed property database everyone recommends will never find you land.

Jan 25, 20259 min read

Open sage and bunchgrass plain running to a broad snow-streaked peak, high wispy cloud across a wide blue sky.

Land Guides by Location

Why Is Land So Cheap in Costilla County, Colorado?

Six reasons the price is what it is, from 2.9 people per square mile to Colorado's 35-acre well rule and a county code that caps camping at 14 days a quarter. All of it verifiable before you buy.

Dec 30, 202413 min read

A narrow irrigation ditch carrying water across a dry brown hillside with patches of snow, bunchgrass and yucca on both banks.

Buying Raw Land

Understanding Water Rights: What Are They and Do You Need Them?

Most articles on this explain two legal doctrines and never answer the question you actually have: can you drill a well on this parcel. Here is the exempt well rule for all ten states we sell in, the two acreage thresholds that decide it, and how to check before you buy.

Dec 29, 202412 min read

An angler in a canvas jacket working a reel at the edge of a wide river, gravel bar and snowy peaks beyond.

Hunting & Fishing

Fishing in Klamath County: An Honest Guide to the Water

Every water worth your time in Klamath County, what actually lives in it, and the ODFW rules other guides get wrong. Steelhead is closed, Upper Klamath is flies-only right now, and Crater Lake has no access until 2029.

Nov 10, 202410 min read

Open grass and low scrub running out to a distant tree-lined ridge under a pale sky.

Land Investment

Investing in Land: What the Numbers Actually Show

Every land site tells you the same three things and most of them are selling something. Here is what USDA, the FDIC and four Federal Reserve banks actually publish about rural land values, including the year one region went negative and the decade values fell by a third.

Oct 14, 20248 min read

Sagebrush plain under a wide dusk sky streaked with lavender cloud, low hills on the far horizon.

Buying Raw Land

50 Surprisingly Creative Uses for Vacant Land

Fifty things to do with raw land, split by what works while you are still making payments and what waits for the deed. Including an honest accounting of which income ideas are real on forty acres and which ones are not.

Sep 30, 202423 min read

A dirt farm road running beside a long wooden rail fence under a wide bank of evening cloud.

Owner Financing

Buying Land on a Budget: A Realistic Timeline

Two numbers decide whether a land purchase works, and neither is the price. Here is the honest version of both, including a correction to what this article used to say about using owner-financed land before it is paid off.

Sep 15, 20249 min read

Living on Your Land

Growing Food on Arid Land: The Well Permit Decides Before the Soil Does

Three things decide whether you can grow food on western ground, and the first is the well permit. On a Colorado parcel under 35 acres it does not cover a garden.

Aug 31, 202410 min read

Rows of solar panels covering a desert valley floor beneath a bare brown mountain under a clear sky

Living on Your Land

Is Solar Power Worth It on Off-Grid Land?

On land with no power line nearby, solar is not competing with a utility bill. It is competing with what a cooperative charges by the foot to build a line out to you. Start with that number.

Aug 9, 20246 min read

Rows of leafy crop running to a vanishing point across an irrigated field, with green coastal hills behind.

Living on Your Land

How Much Land Do You Need For A Small Farm?

The honest answer is that there is no national number. Published stocking rates run from 1.5 acres per animal unit in North Carolina to over 200 in West Texas. Here is how to get the real figure for the parcel in front of you, free, from the federal soil survey.

Jul 29, 20249 min read

A wire fence corner post with a red cap in open desert scrub, a dark volcanic peak rising behind.

Buying Raw Land

Zoning: What is it and How to Find the Rules and Regulations

On a lot of rural ground there is no zoning at all, and that is not the same as no rules. What actually governs your parcel, how to find it in an afternoon, and the four traps we have walked into ourselves.

Jul 18, 20246 min read

While you are here

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Off-Grid

CHECKOUT TEST - Earthsure Equity 2 - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

CHECKOUT TEST - EPeterson EV Roth - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

CHECKOUT TEST - Earthsure Equity 1 - DO NOT PURCHASE

Synthetic property for verifying live checkout and payment routing. Not a real parcel.

The Buyers List

See new land before it goes public.

New parcels come in all the time, and the good ones move fast. Join the Buyers List and we will send you a note when land that fits hits the site. A short welcome series, then new land as it comes in. Unsubscribe anytime.

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