Spring Finally?

Spring might have finally sprung here in the high Rockies.

Because of poor planning and an early storm last fall I didn’t get my plow mounted on the truck. I wasn’t too concerned seeing as how we would be spending the winter in town. I figured based on the prior two years snowfall, access wouldn’t be a big concern this spring when I was ready to start construction again. Wrong, we finally had a “good” winter and we had snow 8 days out of the last 10.

There is still 3+ feet of snow in some places in The Gulch. Over the past month myself and some of the guys have been trying to break trail up the hill. During this process the ol’ Willy’s of mine, and T’s old Ford both lost a brake line from a broken chain link, and D’s K5 had the tranny go out.

Saturday night the guys and I made another run up with a 3/4 Chev, a chained up 3/4 Ford, a Griz four wheeler, a snowmobile, three 18 packs of beer, a bottle of jack, elk steaks, potatoes, a couple of gallons of water, 5 firearms, sleeping bags, and all the other items necessary for a guy adventure of this scale. We finally made it all the way, busting through 2.5 feet of snow in places. Right in time, the last two days have been BEAUTIFUL. I got up there yesterday and shoveled off 1/3 of the pad, if the weather today stays like it is now, the pad should be fully melted today or tomorrow, and I can start building again.

Why I Shrugged

For those completely lacking in any literary experience, the act of shrugging comes from Ayn Rand’s Magnum opus Atlas Shrugged.

“The main conflicts of the book surrounds the decision of the “individuals of the mind” to go on strike, refusing to contribute their inventions, art, business leadership, scientific research, or new ideas of any kind to the rest of the world. Society, they believe, hampers them by interfering with their work and underpays them by confiscating the profits and dignity they have rightfully earned.”

Like John Galt of Rand’s book I was once a “productive” member of society. If by productive your definition includes quietly bending over and taking it from the government via taxes. Also like John Galt I reached my breaking point.
We had our own business and one year we got a large contract that required me to work 6 days a week 10 hours a day and commute to the site 3.5 hours each day. Before this contract I had kept a normal 40hr/week work schedule, we were relatively poor for the area, but were making it work. This big contract was in my capitalist’s mind a gold strike. Good bye trailer house and older vehicles, hello good living.
The dear old IRS had other ideas though. At the end of the year I netted about 20% more income after taxes than the prior year, even though I had worked 100% more hours. The difference barely paid the commuting expenses.
This wake up call got me really thinking about taxes. I paid personal income taxes, business taxes, FICA and SS taxes twice (self-employed), property taxes on the house, property taxes on the business building, sales taxes, vehicles license plates (really just a tax), business license, hunting license, state park pass, extra taxes on my beer and smokes. I attempted to figure the percentage and came it came out at over 50% of my gross income. I realized that these taxes I paid had to be compensated for in the cost of the services I provided, just as EVERY single thing I bought had the cost of the producers taxes included, just as their materials needed for their products had the prior producers taxes included. Ad infinitum.

Debut entry

Bowing to the pressure from bunny foo foo, and Mistress K. I’ve decide to give this a try. If nothing else I’m promised it should help me to get my brilliant ideas (their words) taken more seriously, since in theory this will improve my grammar and punctuation.

A little history. I ran the whole freedom gauntlet starting with being a Libertarian county contact, then a small “l” libertarian, and finally ending up as a Market-Anarchist/ Anarcho-capitalist.

About three years ago we sold our lake front home (at the peak of the market) got completely out of debt, and moved to Southwest Montana to build our off the grid homestead. This has been a life long dream of mine, the uber-regulatory BS of our prior location (I’ll rant more about this in the future I’m sure) was the final straw that sent us upon this path.

A word of warning: when the spring melt finally comes along, my entries will probably make Jacques’ blog look very active. But, for now here are some pictures of Goat’s Gulch.

This is a couple of the now 10 and rising reasons it’s called Goat’s Gulch.