Dear Mr. Rawles,
We relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area at the end of 2012 to southern Oregon, as I was able to find a job with [deleted for OPSEC] in Medford.
We have been spending part of each weekend looking for a retreat property, while renting a modest home in town. We were even under contract for a lot outside of Jacksonville, but the well produced just 0.16 gallon per minute and other wells surrounding were over 400 feet and were also low producers, Oregon has plenty of water not to struggle with that unknown outcome of re-drilling. So we have been looking again, and what we keep finding is, pot growers!
There was a nice seven acre parcel with an upper and lower meadow, leading to a stream and wooded back 2 acres, on our second visit the next door 10 acre farmer greeted us and proclaimed that he and many neighbors were “growers”, and they have a “great neighborhood watch, with armed guards 24/7 for 3 months a year.” Okay, no thanks to living next to the farmer with the creepy armed dudes camping out in the pot field with guns, before the collapse.
Another homestead outside Jacksonville, in Ruch, population 840 had potential we thought until Internet research revealed it was “8 seconds” by car on Google maps from a September 19, 2012 DEA raid than netted “truckloads of plants.”
So I am discouraged. I know the Lord has blessed us to be able to leave the San Francisco Bay Area, and by awakening us to the potential for societal collapse. Our preps now measure in not just pounds but tonnage thanks to a few years of Bay Area double incomes, and now my wife is able to stay home with our baby daughter, and her development is really taking off, by being with mommy and not in daycare.
But we are sure that Medford is still large enough and depressed economically to be a serious disaster when the collapse of the dollar takes full hold.
Can you offer any recommendations on areas surrounding this community which are less prone to be riddled with pot growers?
Thank you for any insight you might share. Sincerely, – C.D.
JWR Replies: Unfortunately, most of western Oregon is infested with pot growers. That is one of just many reasons why I did not include it when I delineated the American Redoubt region. (Along with factors like high property taxes, crime, welfare dependency, statist attitudes, etc.)
In any of the western counties in Oregon, the chances are fairly high that you will have pot growing neighbors if you buy land outside of city limits unless your neighbors are legitimate traditional produce farmers or stockmen. If you could find a property with mostly farms or ranches around it, then that would be your safest bet.