Introduction post. Greetings from PNW!

Hello! I wanted to introduce myself and give some background before I started posting.
My long term boyfriend (9 years!) and I are working towards saving up for land to settle into. We both grew up in Oregon around PDX, I grew up in Hillsboro before the tech boom (Intel happened when I was in 4th grade) when all of Hillsboro was mostly still wheat fields. For decades I have watched the most beautiful and fertile part of this state get paved over inch by inch for another stupid Wallgreens, Starbucks, terribly planned gentrified neighborhood, cheap housing developments with no yards with houses positioned only a few feet from the other houses, etc. The traffic has become nearly unbearable and we both want to get out of here before it's LA.

I'm pretty disabled with Crohns I developed when I was 11, side affects from the surgeries, fibromyalgia, and high functioning autism. I do very well puttering around the house taking care of all my succulents, various other houseplants, and animals. My diseases are managable with quiet isolation and paleo diet. Public is often literally painful, I'm highly sensitive to my environment, and we had to move 3 months ago to a new apartment because the neighbors barking beagle was stressing me out so terribly I learned I have TMJ (didnt know before) and that endless stress will cause my masseter muscle to have a charley horse that develops whether I try and stay calm or not. (I always try and talk or rationalize my body out of physical reactions, sometimes it works) It was so bad I couldn't open my mouth to talk.

He used to work on his parents little 5 acre farm, but they never really did anything with it. He is finally at a point where his job, while it pays enough to support us pretty comfortably, is showing to be a negative on his mental and emotional quality of life and he's less fond of soceity than ever. We have other income streams to build, luckily.

We are going to buy land in eastern Oregon, because that's where it's affordable. It's also not everyone's first choice to swarm to when migrating over to Oregon.
Luckily I love rock collecting and have enjoyed regular camping trips to the Oregon desert. In the valley you can find small parcels of a few acres for around 500,000 to over 1,000,000. It is gross. No one will be able to buy those plots except for rich out of state developers...and oh hey...perfect for another stupid Holliday Inn or crappy apartments.(an old oak grove I loved as a child was leveled for one last year. Still bitter)

We both have some experience with plants and animal care. I've slaughtered and butchered chickens and have grown plenty of vegetables and fruit. Theres some adjustments to be made gardening and farming in the desert, yes, but I am absolutely fascinated by Geoff Lawton and Brad Lancasters' work.

Planning soothes my anxiety, so at this point there's lots of research going on and I'm going to work on some code to practice putting together some tree guild models and see how it goes.

Thank you for stopping by and saying "Hello".

Welcome to permies, Christiana! My mom's side of the family live down in Forest Grove, and so every year when we drive down to visit, I also have gotten to see that beautiful country paved into housing developments and strip malls. It's crazy! There's actually almost 5 acres for sale (it was my cousin's house) out there for $399,000, which is a crazy amount for the age of the house and how far out it is!

I also understand about Crohn's--my husband was diagnosed last summer. It is a dreadful disease! Have you tried the Specific Carbohydrate Diet? It seems to help my husband stay in remission.

And, there's a lot of people here--undiagnosed and diagnosed--with autism. We even have a thread about it, if you haven't already stumbled across it: http://permies.com/t/32991/permaculture-projects/Permaculture-Autism-Autism-Spectrum-Disorder. And, yeah, I find planning really soothing, too. Before we bought our property, I would literally fall asleep to dreaming and planning our homestead.

Anyway, welcome to permies!!!

Welcome Christina.  With your "sensitivities" you should fit right in here

Nicole Alderman wrote:
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Anyway, welcome to permies!!!

Thank you! The thread you shared on autism was wonderful. I never expect accommodation, but it's nice to see people being considerate.
I have tried the SCD diet before I started eating paleo, and it just didnt give me the same quick and noticable results. My metabolism is broken from fibro and grains tend to make me gain weight. The SCD and paleo diet have a lot of overlap and I've seen a lot of success for crohns with it. I'm really sorry about your husband having it. I would watch the MAP vaccine being developed in the UK and the SSI vaccine being developed in Vancouver BC.

Forest Grove and west of there is beautiful and I initially was hoping to find some green rainy land there, but again, the prices. Oof.

I'm about to leave to pick up a lithops I ordered off of Etsy but has to respond before I got distracted with plants all day.
Take care.

Todd Parr wrote:Welcome Christina.  With your "sensitivities" you should fit right in here

Thank you. Thank you.
I'm not completely surprised there are others here with similar sensitivites, autism or not. XD

Hi Christina!  I am new here, I'm actually only a couple of hours old.    My husband and I just recently purchased some rural acreage in Ferry County, WA north of Kettle Falls.  We did so for a lot of the same reasons you and your boyfriend are looking to do so.  My husband has a rare discorder called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.  His symptoms closely resemble those of crohns and ciliac diseases, it attackes his entire digestive tract.  He has been on the Paleo diet since we started noticing his symptoms about 7 years ago.  After a year and a half of being used as a pin cushion by doctors and several "exploratory" surgeries, an allergist is the one who found the problem.  Go figure!  Anyway...  because of this debilitating disorder he has to take a boatload of drugs, which in turn has made him manic.  He's now on anti-psychotic meds too.  He no longer will leave our yard.  I am hoping (almost desparately) moving out to the middle of nowhere on some rural land will help him mentally.  He loves camping, gardening and woodworking.  I think giving him the space to do all these things all the time will help, at least I hope it will.  

Me on the other hand feels the same about watching beautiful land in Spokane County being paved for all those unnecessary luxuries and new residential areas.  I too want to get away from crowded roadways, stores and people in general.  

I hope you find what you are looking for.  Lets keep in touch!