J.B. Sommerset

"Winter of 25" (c) J.B. Sommerset 2025 Welcome back, and bring on the fall weather! There's a chill in the air today, and it feels great! Especially up here in the mountains where the air is a little cleaner. As promised, here is part 10.  To catch up, here's Part 9: The land lord pilgrimage, and 30 second showers.   And if you need more than that, here's the start of all this, Part 1: "How I wound up on this mountain..."   If you are current, below is Part 10 , the part where the advice starts dropping, good advice, on how to build in remote locations.  I'll be up front about the moral of this part of the story, it's a simple one, check the codes in your county before you sell your house to build. Especially what kinds of houses can be built, permitted, financed, and insured. Also, where they can be built and what kinds of zoning is required. This is the first step, be honest with yourself and answer the question: "What kind of house do I w...

  "The Sunflower stow away" (c) 2026 J.B. Sommerset Welcome back again, it's been a minute. So, here it is more of the story about me and the mountain.  To catch up, here's part 7: " "The toilette paper-apocalypse and the lung-butter that comes with it." " And if you need more than that, here is the start of all this, Part 1: "How I wound up on this mountain..."   If you are current, below is Part 8  of this odyssey, my journey to get away from people because most of them suck. I mentioned in the last post that one of the things that helped us build up here in this remote location was that I landed a GIS job working on "cadastral mapping", now before you say "Jesus dude, hike you glasses up a little further you fucking nerd!", let me explain... Okay, never mind that's fair. Here's the TLDR on what that means.  Cadastral mapping is the detailed recording, defining, and mapping of property boundaries, land owners...

"Boozy the Bear" (c) J.B. Sommerset If you want to get caught up on the story so far you can read part 3 here:  "Foils in the yard and meth out back" PART 3 , or if you'd like to start at the beginning you can go here: "How I wound up on this mountain..." PART 1 . Back to the story at hand. Where was I, oh yes, American-flag Speedo guy. It was that summer I discovered the depravity of people and how much they will lie to your face in order to keep a scam going. If some of these people worked as hard at an honest job, like they do at scamming people, they'd have some serious, and well earned cash. But some people just can't put their best foot forward no matter how many opportunities they are given. Their default setting, their prime disposition, just happens to be self sabotage. My wife called these dispositions "personality disorders", and she is qualified say to make such a claim. American flag speedo guy sure couldn't resist a ...

The Lonely Cougar (c) J.B. Sommerset 2026 Continued from PART 2: "Hey hon... some dude tried to stab me out in the yard, is our insurance up to date?" Over the next few weeks we talked a lot about that old dream. The one where we sell most of our things and move to the woods. A dream in which get away from it all and make a new life with the wild animals and the trees. We were still kind of joking about it, but also kind of not joking.  After the tattooed miscreant had tried to stab me, "the dream" became a standard conversation in our house. One that got more and more attention as the world became "enshittified" under the Tangerine Mussolini's first attempt at ruining the world. At the time, it wasn't going too good for his diapered ass. Congress and his own incompetence had stifled his forward momentum. But that didn't mean things were hunky-dory, all "gorsh and good times" and shit. No, they were far from that. Most people could fe...

  "Moose and calf" J.B. Sommerset (c) 2025 Continued from Part 1: "How I wound up on this mountain..." We used to live in the city, back so long ago on that proverbial Tuesday I previously referred to. This story actually starts then, in 2016. I and my wife had just sold our previous house. We got bored and decided to start over again in a smaller more manageable house with less electrical issues, newer plumbing and a bigger yard. But also, we wanted a nicer neighborhood. At first, that little place had everything we wanted.   We bought that small house on a busy street corner. When I think back to how much we paid for that house I get a little teary eyed. It was in the "before times". Our mortgage was $700.00 a month. This was pre-COVID, things were better back then. However, at the time, the mortgage on the new place was more than the place we left, mostly because it was a double lot with a detached shop in the back. For the most part we were doing alri...

"Bear in the way" (c) J.B. Sommerset 2026 This all starts with a gang member, an attempted stabbing, and the follow up fentanyl foil in our yard... Wait, wait, hold on...  What is this story about? Well, as it turns out, its about how I wound up on this mountain and why I chose to live here, in the middle of the woods, thirteen miles from town. I figure this one has several parts, so strap in and buckle up and stay locked in, there are going to be a number of these. This is going to be a longer story, so lets back up and start in the "way back then" so the context will be firm and in place before we arrive in the "here and now". Lets go back to the beginning of this and then I will walk you through the process that led us (me and the wife) to where we are.  Context is everything, so lets define that context, bare with me while I walk you from through a few years of my life. This part, or more specifically these parts, are my origin story. Everyone has that...