Moving: Post Falls/Sandpoint vs. West Montana (Missoula, Kalispell)

[NW Crow]

Inkom is just south of Pocatello and adjacent to forest and near 7-9,000 foot mountains. There are other such spots nearby to east and south including around Soda Springs.


The long list of other places was for you if interested or other readers looking for options to consider.

[banjomike]

This year is going to be another seriously dry hot year.
The 20th year of drought. The first time one has lasted so long in 1200 years on the North American continent.

All I know is there are several springs I know of that have never dried up, even in other droughts, that have dried up now completely.
In the past, some of those springs did go to just a trickle when a drought was really bad, but they never went stone dry before.

That says to me that when this drought does break, it will take as long as it took to recharge all that groundwater that's been lost to the drought as it took to lose it.

I hope I'm wrong about that, as if that thought is true, I honestly don't know what's going to happen through the west in the next 20 years.
We have millions of people living in places that are nothing but hot-sand deserts and always were before people lived in them.
They all still depend on ground water, and now, it appears it's almost gone.

[ejisme]

OP: You didn't mention what you do for work, just that you commute 1 1/2 hours to do it. Do you need to be near a city like CO Springs for work?

With what you want to grow I'd suggest a couple areas that might work better for you. As mentioned by others: Outside of Walla Walla, WA. As an example, the property below is south of Dayton, WA, which is a nice small town close to the mountains. It appears to be in your price range and pretty well setup. I'd guess there are some wild huckleberries and mushrooms in the mountains south of this property too.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...08178724_zpid/

The Grande Ronde Valley and foothills of the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon. The main town is La Grande, but there are several smaller satellite towns in and around the valley. Cove, OR has an annual cherry festival, so fruit tree do grow in the valley. Haines, OR would be another tiny town between La Grande and Baker City, OR on the Powder River. That would meet all your requirements too. The folks of Eastern Oregon are much more conservative that the Willamette Valley where the decisions are made, so mostly we hear people complain about Portland and Salem, and people making decisions for Eastern Oregon when they have never even visited the area. Anyway, from your original message generally you'd probably fit in with the people of Eastern Oregon.