Moose, Muck Boots, & Minimalism

06/03/2025

This, I figured, might just be the retirement jackpot. Plenty of open land for tomatoes and chickens—basically the building blocks of civilization—and enough deep woods to disappear without anyone asking questions. So, I made an offer: $5,000 down and another $35,000 in the spring, because nothing says "serious buyer" like partial payments and hopeful promises. It was late September, my one-week vacation was gasping its last breath, and I still had 1,350 miles to drive. There wasn’t much I could do until spring anyway, unless I wanted to build a homestead in a snowbank. The owner agreed, probably just happy I didn’t try to pay in goats. I hired a local lawyer to keep everything legal and boring, then pointed the Harley back toward Kentucky. Now all I had to do was come up with the rest of the cash and wait... and maybe not blow it all on truck stop snacks in the meantime.

05/07/2025

The next morning I met up with the guy selling land on eBay. Yes, eBay. Because where else do you go for land? Amazon was out of stock. I told him what I was looking for and how much I had to spend (spoiler alert: not much). After glancing over his measly 22,000 acres, he shrugged, pointed, and said, "Here." Just like that. Boom. He found my new home.

No pressure. 42 acres of freedom were calling me.

This video was filmed entirely on that very property—so if you see moose tracks or hear banjos, that’s just part of the charm.

Oh, and do yourself a favor: listen to the lyrics. They hit a little different when you’re standing in the middle of nowhere with spotty cell service and a dream.

Bonus vision test. Spot my Harley.

04/09/2025

So, this is Jessica and Gary. Gary is the one with the cool mountain dude hair and Jessica is the cute one. But hold that thought—we’ll circle back to them in a moment.

First, let’s talk about that initial property I looked at. On paper? Promising. In person? Less so. Now, don’t get me wrong—I love trees. Big fan. But this place? It had all the trees. Like, if someone had tried to grow a solar panel there, it would've filed a formal complaint. And since one of my big goals is to slash my expenses and go solar, that was a bit of a problem. Trees and solar power are not what you'd call besties.

Then there was the beaver lodge. Yes, that beaver lodge—the one featured in the main photo of this very page. I like beavers. They’re industrious little weirdos. But beavers like swamps. And swamps? They do not like tomatoes. And I like tomatoes more than I like beavers. So, yeah… that property went straight to the “nope” pile.

Now, back to Jessica and Gary.

As luck would have it, Jessica was the housekeeper at the motel where I was staying. And as further luck would have it, she and her husband Gary were already homesteading. Not only that—they were buying 25 acres of off-grid goodness from the same mysterious eBay land baron I’d been digitally stalking for the past year. Fate didn’t just tap me on the shoulder—it slapped me in the face with a garden trowel.

I asked if they could introduce me to this elusive land mogul.

Gary shrugged and said, “Hell, I’ll just call him.”

He handed me the phone, and by the next morning, I had an appointment to go land shopping.

03/25/2025

And here is the first official video from Moose, Muck Boots & Minimalism. Ok, ok. It's the same as the last video. BUT IT HAS A MOOSE IN IT! That makes it sooooo much better.

03/24/2025

If you're just finding this page I recommend you start with the first post. It'll make more sense that way.

Day one, Van Buren, Maine: Taking a look at a property my mysterious Ebay land owner had posted.

02/27/2025

So, why Van Buren, Maine? Well… eBay.

Like any sane person looking for cheap land, I scoured every app and website I could find—Zillow, Craigslist, even that one sketchy forum where people trade goats for used RVs. Then one day, while doomscrolling eBay, I stumbled upon a guy selling land in Northern Maine with owner financing.

Owner financing? Cheap land? This sounded way too good to be true. Was it haunted? Was there a secret government bunker underneath? Was I about to join a Stephen King novel? Plus, who in their right mind would even buy land on Ebay? You need a realtor for that. Right? Naturally, I had to investigate.

Turns out, this guy owned a timber company. His business model was brilliant—buy land, plant trees, let them grow, chop them down, then sell the land again with a 7% interest rate over 20 years. Basically, he made money off the trees and doubled the price of the land. A true capitalist masterpiece.

But surely, in the grand tradition of people profiting off nature, he must have made a few enemies along the way? Nope. The only dirt I could dig up was that he once botched a culvert and got slapped with a fine by Maine’s DNR. Scandalous.

Still, as a certified skeptic (and a sucker for a good deal), I had to meet this guy in person and uncover the real truth.

02/10/2025

I embarked on this little bike trip with all the meticulous planning of a raccoon raiding a trash can—none whatsoever. The grand idea? Pedal my way to Van Buren, Maine, scope out the area, and see if it aligned with my highly specific vision of "a place to escape" (which, in hindsight, sounds vaguely like I’m fleeing a heist gone wrong).

Now, I get it—who in their right mind chooses Van Buren, Maine, in September for a vacation? Most people go for, I don’t know, tropical beaches, bustling cities, or literally anywhere with a population over three squirrels. But not me. No, I had to aim for peak "moody New England wilderness," where the biggest attraction might be a particularly aggressive maple tree.

01/10/2025

12/27/2024

Ok. So, enough of the fluff introduction. Let's get down to the moose p**p.
Last June I decided to check off a couple of bucket list items. 1. Purchase a new vehicle, something I've never done before. And 2. Own a Harley-Davidson.
Other than the toy factor, the grand plan was to check off another bucket list item and 3. take a long bike trip. A 2700+ mile round-trip to Maine. The goal, scouting mission.

11/24/2024

Tonite I'm sleeping in Long Island City. Yea, the one in New York... in a truck... in an alley... no toilet........ and no gun.

Any more questions as to why I would look forward to being abducted?

11/24/2024

If you're just finding this page I recommend you start with the first post. It'll make more sense that way.

I narrowed my escape down to those 4 choices, the desert southwest, eastern Kentucky, Michigan's upper peninsula and Maine. All of them have good and bad points. But before I delve into why Maine, let me express why I've developed this mental aberration that keeps telling me to get the hell off this planet.

11/17/2024

Like any good digital content creator, it's good to throw out a teaser every now and then...