Hello in Wyoming (Lander, Buffalo, Story: for sale, real estate, rentals)

[missgal]

Hello,
I visit Wyoming every summer and LOVE it. I'm a real outdoors person and really enjoy the wide open spaces and wildlife.
I have been reading on the posts the pro's and con's of relocating to Wyoming. It's my dream to someday live in Wyoming. My favorite area is around Lander. BUT I've had some "ugly" remarks from some of the people living there which surprised me as during the summer when I visit everyone is extremely friendly. Yes, I'm from Mississippi but I'm neither a racist nor worried about the weather. We have our fair share of bad weather, tornados and little storms like Katrina. Actually today it's warmer in Lander than Lake, MS!!! Also I don't go into "withdrawal" if Wal Mart isn't 5 minutes away.
I currently teach high school special education, which I love!
Positive messages are hoped for.

Thanks

[Froggie Legs]

Welcome to the Wyoming board. I too love the Lander area and am currently seeking a job at the High School in English. You can look for positions open at this site Wyoming Job Vacancies (http://www.wsba-wy.org/teach.html - broken link)
if you are interested in relocating there. The middle and high schools in Lander have openings in Special Ed right now. There are also positions in Pavillion and Ft. Washakie.

Housing might be the biggest obstacle to face when moving there. The prices are still outrageously high, and rentals are scarce.

Good luck in your search. I've not lived in Lander for 10 years but I miss it and have family there. Hopefully I will be able to move back!

[Happy in Wyoming]

Originally Posted by missgal

Hello,
I visit Wyoming every summer and LOVE it. I'm a real outdoors person and really enjoy the wide open spaces and wildlife.
I have been reading on the posts the pro's and con's of relocating to Wyoming. It's my dream to someday live in Wyoming. My favorite area is around Lander. BUT I've had some "ugly" remarks from some of the people living there which surprised me as during the summer when I visit everyone is extremely friendly.
Positive messages are hoped for.

Thanks

What do you mean by "ugly remarks"?

[Kristynwy]

I think from what I have heard teaching and medical positions are almost always available in Wyoming. So I think finding the right position may not be too hard at all.

The one difference from Miss and here is the humidity there and the dry heat here. 90's here doesn't feel like 90's do there.

My husband was born and raised in Louisiana only 5 miles from the Miss border.

Just like anywhere you will encounter a few sore heads, I have encountered my fair share. But what comes around goes around and the people I have encountered that were nasty, I find out later end up suffering in the long range.

The majority of folks in this state are very friendly though. I have found so many decent families and folks, my neighbors are great and every gets along. People are for the most part very down to earth and friendly.

Best of luck to you on finding a position and place to live

[talltales]

Hello,First, I am a Washingtonian, through and through, born and raised. Being a washingtonian I could not image my life without persistent rain and thick lush lovely vegetation, and TONs of trees. Unfortunatly and fortunatly population here is on the rise and prospect of having a simple, live off the land lifestyle here is definatly dwindling. Recently browsing cyber web I found that the cheapest and most abundant land to purchase is in Wyoming and South Dakota. But after looking into the history of Wyoming and the sparsly populated, lovely landscape I made the decsion that Wyoming would be a nice place to settle down. I plan on having sheep, cattle, horses, chickens, goats, dogs, cats, the whole works. It is crucial that I have land that I can find material to build my own barn, fences and homes. I need a realiable and safe water source and a place that can grow crops and provide enough game to live off of year round, for my kins man and me,. I'm wondering is this all obtainable in Wyoming? And also being that I am a women is it safe to live alone in Wyoming?, Yellowstone has quite the reputation for wolves and bears, I'm not too scard but would it threaten my livestock? I'd love some adivce from locals or at least the occassional visitor. Just a wonderin Thanks

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by talltales

Hello,First, I am a Washingtonian, through and through, born and raised. Being a washingtonian I could not image my life without persistent rain and thick lush lovely vegetation, and TONs of trees. Unfortunatly and fortunatly population here is on the rise and prospect of having a simple, live off the land lifestyle here is definatly dwindling. Recently browsing cyber web I found that the cheapest and most abundant land to purchase is in Wyoming and South Dakota. But after looking into the history of Wyoming and the sparsly populated, lovely landscape I made the decsion that Wyoming would be a nice place to settle down. I plan on having sheep, cattle, horses, chickens, goats, dogs, cats, the whole works. It is crucial that I have land that I can find material to build my own barn, fences and homes. I need a realiable and safe water source and a place that can grow crops and provide enough game to live off of year round, for my kins man and me,. I'm wondering is this all obtainable in Wyoming? And also being that I am a women is it safe to live alone in Wyoming?, Yellowstone has quite the reputation for wolves and bears, I'm not too scard but would it threaten my livestock? I'd love some adivce from locals or at least the occassional visitor. Just a wonderin Thanks

You're not asking for much ... if you're looking at ag and ranching land East of the Mississippi, where water and rich soils are abundant, wildlife is in plentiful supply (deer, etc), sizable trees for structural timbers and planking and fences, llivestock thrives, privacy for your domestic animals and yourself, and reliable safe water supply.

I was at an emergency liquidation auction (granny had a stroke and needed to move to a nursing home, the only way to fund this was to sell her property) just last week for a rural home and farm/ranch property 40 minutes out of Wooster, OH. The place was 65 acres, and was surrounded mostly by Amish neighbors. 4bd/3ba ranch-style home, two outbuildings, workshop, attached 3 car garage, heavily wooded by the creek and the pond, with a 1/2 acre lawn in the front yard. Easily accessible year-around by a well maintained 2-lane paved road that wound up into the hills where it was located. Selling Price: $265,000. The auctioneer told me that the place would have brought $500,000 if it had been sold a year or so ago through a normal real estate agency ... but, due to the family emergency, they needed to raise money immediately. From the day of the stroke and hospitalization until the auction was 30 days.

The auctioneer specialized in rural property auctions and real estate sales in Ohio. I asked him what $5-600,000 would buy there today, and he had a in-house listing for a 260 acre working farm that also had full cattle and equine facilities in addition to a spectacular two-story brick house. You've seen them in the area ... 5bd/3ba, garages, outbuildings, granary, barns, portico'ed front porch, huge kitchen and dining area, lots of fine woodwork, well insulated, and heated with propane as well as two woodstoves. Huge dense stands of trees between the ag fields, loaded with deer. They'd just completed their first cutting of alfalfa (on dryland!) and ran 40-50 head of cattle on the place, as well as their horses and sheep flock. The place has been on the market for six months and hasn't had a qualified buyer yet look at it for a showing. Located within 15 minutes of Kidron, OH.

But to find this combination on your own property in WY will be a challenge unless you have enough money to spend to buy serious acreage. Typically, you need over 100 acres per cow/calf unit here for grazing, and it's not easy to run livestock year-around without supplemental feeding. IF you're going to be completely independent, then you'll need a large dryland ag field production in an area of Wyoming where you can get a hay cutting for that purpose (which means lots of natural water ... Buffalo or Story area comes to mind, among many possibles), or have senior ag water rights in much of the rest of the state for your irrigation. Having wooded stands on your own place with the ranch and ag productivity would then be another issue.

I know of ranches/ag properties in Wyoming that will meet all of your requirements if you've got at least a few $mil to spend. You're not going to find this combination on properties less than a section, and more generally ... several sections. Even if they're priced at a nominal $1,000 per acre ... that's a lot of dirt you'll be buying. Add in a nice house and infrastructure and outbuildings and you may need to be spending a lot more money.

It's highly unlikely that you're going to find a Wyoming raw land parcel such as you describe that will allow you to be independent and self-sufficient and building your own place from materials on the property just waiting for you to buy for rock-bottom dollar. This is simply a very high profile and desirable type of property here ... and the areas where they exist are a bit pricey, generally far in excess of the land's productive value. If you'll look at McGowdog's post/pictures of the Horse Creek property ... it's pretty much what you've described as wanting ... but don't think that such a place will be inexpensive or justifiable from it's productive standpoint.

We are located in SE Wyoming, and raise sheep, goats, (finsh) hogs, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, cats, dogs, horses, a few cows, alfalfa hay, sometimes a grain crop, and now have sizable outdoor vegetable gardens and two (herbs, peas, tomatoes, onions, leeks) greenhouses. But outside of our shelter belts around the house, and a few decorative or fruit trees we've planted, there's no trees except some cottonwoods along the creek going through our place. Water ... in abundant supply for our irrigated fields and our pastures ... is in very limited supply and must be carefully conserved. With the drought of the last 7 years, it's a matter of choosing what will get watered and what may not for the year, and it is by no means reliable and assured that we'll have enough water for everything ... let alone most of our production. We do get a few antelope and mulies through here, but not enough to count on a reliable supply each year for hunting and stocking the freezer come hunting season. In my view, our situation is pretty typical for a lot of Wyoming ... and better than much of the raw land I see offered for sale in the state.

Coming from the background of WA, unless you're used to Yakima and points East ... I suspect that you don't realize that most of Wyoming is a high altitude desert. It doesn't have the forest canopy and undergrowth that has created and deposited a lot of topsoil. It does have a lot of wind which carries away topsoils, and it has a very low survival rate of trees in the open spaces ... especially if there's little water. Trees and plants freeze here in the brutual cold winds.