Where in Wyoming.... (Cheyenne, Laramie, Basin: sales, real estate, how much)

[RamblinRoseRanch]

I posted before, many moons ago, about the need to move away from Tennessee. Since then, i've become more educated on the water issue in states west.
A move to a less humid climate, that still has enough water to support a small family garden and a few horses without becoming an act of congress (I understand some states outlaw rainwater catchment), low humidity, some snow and wind without being blizzard central and near enough to a city that has either a Cricket, Verizon or US Cellular store for my husband's transfer.... does this place exist in Wyoming ?

We're currently looking at NM due to the low humidity (and will be taking a trip there starting the 20th of this month) but my husband is concerned all the BROWN will be an issue. Not to sound flip, but we LIKE trees and grass. I just need to find a place it grows with a lower humidity than TN.

Any ideas? And thanks in advance.

[sunsprit]

A very big factor in your potential choices would be your anticipated income.

I can think of a lot of places in Wyoming ... for the most part ... meet your requirements, but are outrageously expensive to live in unless you come in with a lot of money and/or a large income.

Places that you might consider as a compromise would be in SE Wyoming, such as Laramie or Cheyenne. There's the wind to consider, storms in the winter, a short gardening season in Laramie .....

[StealthRabbit]

OR and WA have plenty of Green terrain and very little 'muggy' humidity. Just plenty of liquid humidity. (9 months / yr) Nights are cool. winters mild, but long. Plenty of cellular stores. some areas have both green and decent weather, but these are few, basically in the Olympic Rain Shadow (Sequim / Port Townsend WA) WA has ZERO income tax, like WY, but a heavy property tax... Best of both living in and working in WA along the Columbia river and shopping in OR (no sales tax)

Having moved from NE Colo and SE WY to WA, it is pretty brown when we return there, and the trees and buildings are short. But I prefer tumble weeds for Christmas Trees, so I'll be back some day....

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by RamblinRoseRanch

I posted before, many moons ago, about the need to move away from Tennessee. Since then, i've become more educated on the water issue in states west.
A move to a less humid climate, that still has enough water to support a small family garden and a few horses without becoming an act of congress (I understand some states outlaw rainwater catchment), low humidity, some snow and wind without being blizzard central and near enough to a city that has either a Cricket, Verizon or US Cellular store for my husband's transfer.... does this place exist in Wyoming ?

We're currently looking at NM due to the low humidity (and will be taking a trip there starting the 20th of this month) but my husband is concerned all the BROWN will be an issue. Not to sound flip, but we LIKE trees and grass. I just need to find a place it grows with a lower humidity than TN.

Any ideas? And thanks in advance.

There are two factors that cause "brown" in the Rocky Mountain West--lack of precipitation and short growing seasons. That pretty much describes most of Wyoming. The areas in Wyoming that tend to be green in the summer (because they get more precipitation) also tend to be at higher altitudes where the growing season is shorter. So, it may be green, but for all of three or four months at most. The lower elevations generally have longer growing seasons, but are drier, too. June is usually the "greenest" month in Wyoming. In dry years, it is often the only green month for native grass. In wet years, it may be green from May until late August, but usually by mid- to late-July the grass will be turning brown.

New Mexico is sort of the opposite. June and early July are often very dry, with late July and August being the wettest and "greenest" time. While the growing season is longer in most of New Mexico compared with Wyoming, there is still a lot of the year that is brown from lack of precipitation. Like Wyoming, New Mexico's high country can be green and lush in summer, but the growing season is often 100 days or less.

Sorry to say, but the lower humidities you seek are found in areas that are much more arid. In most all of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions' lower elevations, evapotransporation of moisture exceeds precipitation that falls during most of the year. That makes for "brown."

[Sockeye]

A side note - late spring is coincidentally when real estate agents are pretty busy.The not yet learned assume the green lushness lasts all summer.

[RamblinRoseRanch]

Thanks for the information, guys. So much to take in and think about....I suspect brown will be a way of life if I am to breathe.

[xcoastie]

Originally Posted by RamblinRoseRanch

Thanks for the information, guys. So much to take in and think about....I suspect brown will be a way of life if I am to breathe.

Not all of NM is brown, I lived in Alamogordo and loved it. It is set in the desert but you can be in mountains in a half hour. The winters were mild, the summers were hot but dry. The housing was cheap as was the property tax.
Good luck

[NVDave]

Originally Posted by RamblinRoseRanch

We're currently looking at NM due to the low humidity (and will be taking a trip there starting the 20th of this month) but my husband is concerned all the BROWN will be an issue. Not to sound flip, but we LIKE trees and grass. I just need to find a place it grows with a lower humidity than TN.

Any ideas? And thanks in advance.

OK, I'm speaking with my farmer hat on here.

As a broad generalization, once you move west of the 100th parallel in the US, things get brown unless you're in a riperian area. That's just the way it is going to be. The west gets its water from snowpack in the mountains. Farming in the west is done by irrigation.

You simply won't find the amount of precipitation you have in TN west of the 100th parallel unless you're in the Pacific Northwest, the upper panhandle of Idaho, perhaps northwest Montana. If you're from the MT/WY border down to Mexico, and east of the Sierra Nevada or Cascade mountains, you're going to be dry.

Now, there is "dry" and there is "dry." Nevada is dry - with as little as 5 to 8" of precip per year. That includes snow, BTW. The only way things grow in the "Great Basin" (which includes northern NV, western UT, southern ID, the east slope of the Sierras, southeast OR) is by irrigation. Southwest WY, most of Utah, and much of Arizona and New Mexico are dry, but not quite as dry as Nevada.

I like to say that "lush growth (what we westerners call 'lush') in the west begins at 18 inches of water." And that's pretty much what you need to maintain native trees, shrubs, forbs and grasses. If you can get 16 to 18" reliably, you can have native landscaping without much irrigation, if you plan things right and you're not trying to maintain a lush green appearance when the plants want to go dormant. Below about 14", and your plant diversity drops like a rock and pretty soon you're down to nothing but sagebrush, rabbit brush and the most hardy of grasses.

When you're looking around at property, look at the undeveloped lands. Look for what type of trees you see, and what type of grasses and forbs. If you see stunted sagebrush, rabbit brush, etc that are less than 1 foot high, you're somewhere where it is really, really dry. You probably won't see any trees at all outside of a wash or streambed in these areas.

If you see nothing but conifer trees, you're likely in an area that gets no more than 18 to 20" of precip per year. This is enough to get native plants and grasses to grow, but they're going to brown off and go dormant in the late summer to preserve themselves.

If you see some deciduous trees, and they're not irrigated... well, you might be in an area that gets enough rainfall to do something, or you're in an area where there is a perched water table.

If you really, really want to see lush, green foliage around you all year long, you're going to have to move to where the property is ferociously expensive (a riperian zone) or you're going to have to move to the northwest. West of the 100th, you simply will never, ever have as much rain as you have in TN, and unless you're going to irrigate, you won't have lush green growth all year 'round. That is just a fact of life in the west.

I've had these discussion with people in Nevada before. As an odd coincidence, two of the parties I had this discussion with were also from Tennessee. One of them tried to re-create Tennessee by essentially stealing a whole lot of irrigation water to which he had no rights - like six acre feet per year over 20 acres. I used to grow three crops of hay on less than half that much water. This guy irrigated his little farm until it was wet like a swamp. I had to finally ask him why he didn't live in Tennessee, 'cuz he was fighting the mother of all uphill battles trying to turn Nevada into Tennessee. He didn't know quite why, but he moved back to Tennessee within two more years.

ps -- I should tell you that a lawn in the west is going to need varying amounts of water - to grow things like bluegrass, you need to plan on about 5 feet of water per year if you have a 120 day growing season. A mature deciduous tree can transpire about 150 gallons (or more) of water per day. A conifer tree (eg, like a pinyon pine) can transpire about 30 to 45 gallons of water per day. These are just assuming about 10 to 20% humidity and not a whole lot of wind. Put a 10 to 20% humidity ambient atmosphere, with bright sunshine and a bit of a breeze - and let's kick in a bit of altitude as well - and you can be flinging huge amounts of water at landscaping trying to keep it green. As a relative indication, let me give you this: where we farmed in Nevada, we had 5 to 10% humidity, 90 degree days (or a tad hotter) at 6,000 feet elevation, and winds up to 30MPH on most days. During the summer, it takes about 0.35" of water just to replace what is lost during the day on a hay field. That's nearly 2.5" of water per week, and our growing season was about 100 to 110 days long, from the last week of May to the second week of September; call it 16 weeks, times 2" (average) and you're putting down 32" to 36" of water.

Now, look at your lawn and think about how much it would cost you to turn on the hose and fill an imaginary container that covers your lawn 3 feet deep. If you're at a lower elevation or have a longer growing season, imagine the container being 4 feet deep...