Hi,
I just wanted to bring up something after reading article about hiding gardens and animals in rural areas, recently linked in SurvivalBlog. Something that people might want to consider, that we have done. We chose to build a barn rather than a house. And I know you can quite often find properties that already have a barn or large outbuilding. We have a 46′ x 60′ pole barn. Within that we framed in about 900+ square feet for our home. The rest is divided up between stalls, a run in area for large animals, and a shop. One of the 12′ X 12′ stalls houses our chickens and our rabbits. There is a back door right out of the kitchen area and into the aisle of the barn portion. We only have two windows, one next to the front door. And that door and window also has a regular big sliding barn door that we can slide closed, so that there is no sign of either. And it can be latched closed from the inside. The other window is the bathroom/utility room, which has a dutch door covering it and when closed looks like another stall door.
We can care for the animals without ever leaving the cover of the building, if we need to.
The garden is placed in a small sub irrigated valley slightly above the grade of the barn. And we have large open pastures all around everything for good sight of anyone approaching. No one can see you if your in the garden area unless they come from the top of our property and we will have someone on watch from that highest point at all times, if it comes to that.
Anyway, I just wanted to give folks some ideas of alternative housing that they might not of considered. And because barns always have large lofts or “attic type areas” you have more room to expand if more room is need.
Take care, – T.T. in the Northwest
JWR Adds: It is noteworthy that Charles “Pa” Ingalls of the mostly factual 19th Century Little House on the Prairie book series kept a padlock on his barn, to help prevent Indians stealing his horses at night. Some things never change. There’s just a new cast of characters.