It’s only expensive if you Gambia all your money away.

I'm in Danville and I've got an RV that sleeps two and a tent that sleeps one if you're really looking for something cheap. It's 13 miles uphill from St. J though, and at the moment there's two feet of snow on the ground.

Virtually none. Property taxes and upkeep guarantee that that's a losing strategy in the long term. Despite the covid-era spikes in real estate prices, house prices here aren't going up fast enough to justify buying houses and keeping them empty in the hopes of selling them for a profit later. Empty houses here are empty because their owners only live in them for two months a year, or because they're in bad condition and are more or less abandoned.

Back in 2005 people in some real estate markets like Arizona and Florida were buying houses and keeping them empty because prices were skyrocketing, they knew they could sell the house in a year for a big profit and the good times were going to last forever. Of course, once the bubble popped in 2006-2008 they all got caught by the recession and those empty houses got foreclosed on. The market conditions and easy financing that made that kind of speculation possible haven't been repeated yet.

I would be willing to drive about two or three hours in any direction to try to find good weather if necessary. I saw the last one and it was worth traveling for.

I didn't have the glasses for the last one, so I made myself a pinhole eclipse viewer the night before. Everyone I was with wanted to try it out even though they had the glasses.

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/build-a-solar-eclipse-viewer/

If my pump starts running constantly I'd know it. I have an indoor pump that I can hear every time it kicks on.. Actually, the water in my well frequently comes out under pressure even without the pump. I suppose that's a good feature if the power goes out, but it sure was a problem when the main shutoff valve from the well broke. The only way to replace it was to take a very strong, very cold shower for a couple minutes while I took the old valve off and got the new one on. You are correct about the cost of filters though. I have to use carbon filters to take out the sulfur, and they're over $30 each.

My well in Walden is full of sulfur. There's no iron and not much calcium, but every time the filters stop working it smells like I'm taking a shower in rotten eggs.

If they're both quality I'd prefer the well. That way water is almost free, it's easy to shut off if you need to work on the plumbing, and I know nothing's being added to it. In practice though, my well water smells like a chicken laid a batch of rotten eggs in the middle of a hot spring. Filters take out most of the sulfur smell and taste, but I have to change the filters frequently and I still need a RO system to really make the water drinkable.

No, but then, I don't have thirty people drinking beer and playing pool in my home either.

While I’m all for inclusiveness, bar bathroom signs really should be clear enough to be understood while drunk.

I’m at ReSource in Williston right now, and they have enough 3cm granite for a full kitchen in stock, as long as you don’t mind that it’s two different colors and you’ll have to piece it together.

Also ReSource, which has locations in Burlington, Williston and Barre. They're basically the same as ReStore.

I just did epoxy counters in my house and I'm really happy with them. They look just like a slab of really amazing high-end granite, only they cost about $800 for 60 square feet instead of $6,000. I'm definitely going to keep doing them in all the low to medium end houses that I rebuild. You can make them in any color you want, and they really do look stunning. They do take a lot of prep work to make sure everything is ready for the epoxy, but pouring the epoxy is a ton of fun. Look at Stone Coat Countertops' series of Youtube videos for instructions.

Another cheaper option that I've used with great success is MSI's big granite tiles, available at Home Depot. The tiles plus the plywood underlayment also cost roughly $800 for 60 feet. If you're willing to overlook the grout lines between tiles, you get all the durability and good looks of granite for a fraction of the price. You will need to know how to set tiles yourself though. If you have to hire someone it will probably cost about the same as real granite.

If I was doing a kitchen for myself and wanted an even cheaper option, I'd go with polished porcelain tiles at about $3/foot, plus the plywood underlayment. They look plenty good enough, they're going to be reasonably durable, and if I break one I can replace it. Again, this is only a cheap option because I can do it myself.

If you're going to insist on something locally sourced, you can sometimes find people selling used granite countertops on FB Marketplace or Craigslist. You'll need to cut and rearrange the granite yourself to make it fit your kitchen. You can also find used laminate counters for free if you're really desperate to save money.

First and foremost, there was accurate (more or less) news of the war. Newspapers in occupied Europe were either banned to conserve paper or were heavily censored by the Germans, who only allowed news of German victories to be published. Radio ownership was forbidden under the occupation, but most people wealthy enough to afford a set were able to keep one hidden, even if it was just a simple homemade crystal receiver. Besides the news there was other programming intended to lift the spirits of people under occupation, including patriotic music and jokes like this one. Radio programs included helpful instructions on how to resist against the occupiers, both passively and through direct action. The BBC also sent coded messages to communicate instructions to resistance groups.

Here's another joke that was popular during the war:

At 9:30 last night, a Jew in Poland killed an SS officer, cut out his heart and ate it. Why is this story untrue?

For three reasons. An SS officer has no heart, Jews do not eat pork, and at 9:30 at night everyone in Poland is listening to the BBC anyway.

But I’ve never done a month’s manual labor.

They’re devoted members of the Vermont First Crystal Methodist church.

Sheesh, I just left Wasilla (the home of Alaska’s finest gravel pits and meth labs) and moved ten miles north of Peacham just to get away from neighbors like them.

I used to work as a delivery driver for a propane company. Ice is no problem. Tire chains made from hardened steel with V-grips welded to the chains will get you over any ice. What IS a problem is thick hard-packed snow. If you don't ever plow your driveway and just keep driving over it and tramping the snow down, that's fine for a car. However, a truck loaded with five tons of propane will push through the packed snow and will get bogged down. It doesn't help that the packed part is always the width of a car, not of a propane truck. If you want to be sure you can get propane or oil delivered all winter, keep your driveway plowed, and plowed nice and wide.

Besides the other drawbacks that have already been mentioned, most notably the phenomenal cost, once you arrive at your destination, there's no usable public transportation anywhere except in Burlington and Montpelier. How are people who live more than a mile or two from the train stations in Lyndonville, Newport, Hillsboro and all the other dots on your map going to get from their houses to the train and back, especially with everything they bought in their shopping trip to Burlington? There's no buses, Uber or Lyft where I live. There is an unreliable local taxi company, which is an old geezer and his minivan, but I can drive all the way to Burlington for way less than the taxi fare between my house and the nearest train station on your map. Sorry, but if this extensive of a passenger train network to serve a state with this low of a population density was a good idea, someone would already be making a profit doing it.

Where's your shop located? I've had a hard time finding anywhere that sells #2 oil by the gallon.

I can’t think of any; not off the top of my head.

That's way too much work. With a compass, a stopwatch and a really good road map, you don't actually need to bother removing snow from the windshield at all.

In a front wheel drive you’ll want the sandbags in the front passenger seat footwell, and they’re more for emergency traction than for ballast , but otherwise this is good advice.

I do almost all the work on my houses myself, so for me, a 50% increase in the cost of materials means almost a 50% increase in all expenses after property taxes, realtor's fees and closing costs. If you want to buy a house with a quality remodel job I'll be selling one in a few months, or I'm sure Texas will welcome you back.