A moving moment!

Well, this post will probably be the last before we officially become Oregonians. The house is packed up and while we have about 100 things to do before we leave in a day or two, we feel like we have things in hand.  Accounts are closed, new ones are being opened up, and we're readying ourselves for a 14 hour drive with our five chickens, two doves, one pigeon, one cat and one dog. 

The house looks a little forlorn right now, as most homes do when they're getting ready to be unoccupied. No worries though, if all goes well and escrow closes as it should, there should be new people here to love it soon.

For us, it will be nice to arrive, and even nicer when our furniture arrives a day after that. And of course there's internet to be installed and satellite TV to go up, because it's the last season of "The Americans," and I can't miss a single episode. Priorities.

People have asked if I'm sad to be leaving either the area or our house, but I am not one of those people who minds moving, as long as I have plenty of notice and help and I'm going somewhere I want to go. So while it's a little bittersweet, the sweet is the prevailing flavor -- right now, anyway. 

We did have a serious hiccup yesterday though. Our packers arrived and proceeded to work much slower than our moving coordinator had estimated, leaving us holding the bag with about 50 boxes to pack ourselves, after he mistakenly told us the ladies could have us packed up in about six hours. Nope. But we're not afraid of hard work. 50 boxes later, mission accomplished. 

Nice to know I can out-pack a trio of 20-something girls though, even at my age. If homesteading gives you nothing else, it will absolutely give you endurance (and very strong arms). 

I'll post as soon as I'm able from the great Pacific Northwest! If you are the praying sort, say a prayer as we travel, and if you're a "sending positive vibes" kind of person, those would be welcome, too! 

The virtual home

View from the driveway

One of the hardest parts about this move is that, while I've visited Oregon and feel pretty confident and happy about the state we are moving to, I have never once been in the home we'll be living in. Usually when you move, part of moving out of your current place is feeling the excitement and anticipation of where you are moving into. But if you've never seen it, it's basically a big, yawning chasm looming ahead of you with a sign hanging over it which says, "I'm sure it will be just fine. Really. I hope." 

Luckily, Big Ag is in Oregon this week for some meetings, and so he went over to the house yesterday afternoon and we Skyped together, him on his phone and me here on my desktop. Together we "walked" through the entire house, looking in cupboards, seeing the view through the windows, and discussing furniture placement. It was gorgeous day with a partly cloudy sky and the sun just setting, and so of course the whole property was bathed in beautiful light and looked warm and welcoming. The inside of the house itself looked friendly and inviting, with just enough projects to keep us busy without major projects that would be a headache.

Doing this virtual walk-through lowered my anxiety levels by about 80 percent. Many of us complain about the hassle our virtually-connected world brings us, but with it come incredible advantages, like being able to tour your new home, real time, from the comfort of the one you're selling.

The home we're moving into has been empty for a couple of years, and definitely looks it. I just finished a novel where one of the characters says, "a home needs to have people living in it to be happy." Looking around at this vacant house, I can see that's true. Something goes out of a place when people no longer occupy it. It can be clean, it can be structurally sound, but it just feels lonely. 

So maybe in making a happy home, we'll also be making a home happy. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.

Big Ag met these "neighbors" walking in the road yesterday.

Breaking up is hard to do

So over the last six years, I've made one really close friend in the neighborhood. A lady who, like me, arrived here in 2012 knowing almost no one. We met through the regular block parties we have out here, two transplants in a sea of old timers, and hit it right off. We're both animal lovers, both slightly aggravated by our spouses (only on rare occasions, of course!), and both enjoy a giggle and cup of coffee.

And while nothing has transpired that would have precipitated it (that I can figure out, anyway) she has apparently dumped me. She sent me a nice note saying she'd love to have one last visit at my house before I put it on the market and when I sent her back an enthusiastic assent, with some tentative dates and times. I got back ... crickets. Radio silence. Nothing.

I've left her a couple of other messages, one asking her again if she wanted to get together, and another one to see if she wanted some eggs, and got the same resounding silence in return. So at this point, I'm backing off.

I'm 99 percent sure it's nothing I've said, so I'm wondering if maybe for some people goodbyes are just too hard and so they pull away before the moment comes. Other neighbors who have talked to her say she's in apparent good health, but I guess at our age you never really know about that.

But as we're getting closer to leaving, I am finding some friends drawing closer and some definitely starting to pull away. My neighbor is just an extreme example of the latter, I guess. You know this sort of thing happens during huge life changes, but it often surprises you which camp people end up falling into. Luckily I think in the days of Facebook and frequent travel, most friends do stay in touch in some form.

But for others, that's not the case. I guess breaking up is hard to do even if you're just friends or neighbors.

Guns and Rabbits

This morning when I woke up there was a turkey buzzard sitting on one of our fenceposts with a dead rabbit in its feet. We've had the pleasure of seeing a few little cottontails around these last several weeks (they are very cute in small numbers), which is unusual. In the six years since we moved here, we've only seen an occasional jackrabbit as far as the species leporidae is concerned. The gully-washing rains of last year resulted in increased fecundity in a lot of smaller rodents, however, and so this year we're seeing more of everything -- more gophers, field mice, and of course rabbits.

But seeing the dead rabbit got me thinking about rabbits in general, who are predators to nothing except grass (and occasionally, irrigation lines), but prey to almost everything else.  And it's just a fact of life that the better predator you are, the less likely you are to be prey. Bears and mountain lions need fear nothing except man. Rabbits need to fear everything, up to and including man.

So then it occurred to me ... what if the 2nd Amendment extremists -- the assault rifle collectors, bump stock advocates, and guys who hold fast to their ability to kill 300 people in less than five minutes -- are merely responding to some primitive instinct that tells them that the better predators they are, the less likely they are to be prey? In other words, for those of us who favor sensible gun control, what if we're not fighting a constitutional interpretation as much as a primitive survival instinct?

I mean, obviously, if cottontails could arm themselves, they probably would, as would any prey animal. You are less likely to be killed if you are capable of killing your predator. Strikes are mitigated on the ability to preemptively strike and/or counterstrike against your opponent, whether in the wild, on the battlefield, or in the business world. It's how the planet works.

My point is that if we're arguing against survival instinct, however much exaggerated and extreme it is, we're going to be in for an uphill battle all the way and even beyond that. It doesn't make me hopeful for the long-term progress of taking AR-15's out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. And the angry, vitriolic response we get when we try and push this agenda forward is coming from people who are fearful above anything else..."if I don't have this, I will be the prey and not the predator." This from a group of people who already feel (justly or not) that there is a mandate to eliminate their way of life. 

How do you argue against survival instinct, however irrational and misplaced it is? Because let's face it, the odds are far greater that your AR-15 will be stolen from you in a burglary, or lifted by a family member who hears voices in their heads than it will be used to successfully defend yourself. The statistics on that one don't lie.

But in some mindsets, people see themselves as cottontails, rather than the bears we actually are in the world of predator and prey. 

One month!

My old, beloved "Elvis" the Subaru has headed north. As it's my second set of wheels, I can live without it for a month.

It is now 30 days and counting until we leave the state of California for the Pacific Northwest! Our current home is in escrow, our future home is getting some maintenance done before we move in, and one of my cars has already been shipped up there and is in our new barn.

As we're getting packed up by the moving company a couple of days before the actual move, there is not much to do right now except get business in order. Utilities need to be notified. Things need to either be cancelled or forwarded. All this while the clock ticks down.

These pieces will become the wood frame for our Oregon chicken run.

Yesterday I had an afternoon where I was able to do absolutely nothing, and it felt wonderful. No showings, inspections, or paperwork to wrangle. I took a nap, sat in the sun and read. No apologies. It's 86 degrees here right now, which feels horribly early to break out the sleeveless shirts, but soon enough we'll be in a colder clime where we can wait for summer to arrive at a more appropriate date.

Perhaps someday I'll miss the seven month summers....or not. I have had fun recently buying up some cute spring raincoats for our new and colder life up there, but I sure can't wear them here right now!

Say yes to flourless chocolate wine cake when stress eating is advised.

Another day, another drunk, another drill

The star of the show this morning.

The stars of the show last night.

So last night yet another drunk hit yet another power pole in our neighborhood. That's one thing that's predictable about wine country: When you live in an area that produces something alcoholic as its primary crop, you will attract people who like to consume alcohol as their primary nutritional crop. With expected results: Knock down a power pole. Flee the scene. Rinse and repeat.

But these 10 - 14 hour power outages provide a great opportunity to see how my disaster relief skills work, especially if I'm on my own. Big Ag was on a business trip yesterday in Oregon, so when the drunk hit the power pole, it was about 7:30 pm and I was here by myself. 

And I soon realized that I did not have enough familiarity with 1) manually opening the automatic garage door while also (more importantly) re-engaging it so it was locked afterwards, so I could 2) drag the generator out and start it with no light and no one to hold a flashlight for me so I could see.  And let's not even start with trying to find all the flashlights, candles, hurricane lamps and lighters after the power had already left me in darkness. 

It turns out, the battery-operated candles I keep next to my bathtub for ambient lighting were my best friend in the first few minutes after the outage, since they just needed just the flick of a switch to light up and were out in the open and easy to find. They allowed me to search for and find all my other emergency equipment. 

And did I mention they are vanilla scented candles? No reason to ride out the apocalypse without aromatherapy.

So looking back on the 14 hours with no power, I got some things right and some things definitely need improving.

First, props to me for:

1) having enough oil in the hurricane lamps, and having them in an easy-to-locate space, plus knowing exactly where the battery-operated candles were.

2) I had all the wax candles in one area.

3)  I easily found the lighters.

4)  I knew enough about the generator that I could at least start it once daylight came around.

5) I was also able to bring in numerous solar lights from outside, as well as having tea lights, to light up the less important areas of the home.

So all that was good. But a scowl and wag of the finger at me for:

1) not being familiar enough with the generator to start it in the darkness.

2) not knowing how to re-secure the automatic garage door after opening it manually.

3)  not having candles, lighters, lamps and oil in ONE place, so there was only one place I needed to go in the house to find everything I needed. And also for not having lighters with the candles, and another with the hurricane lamps.

4) not knowing where the gas can was for the generator (luckily it had a fair amount of fuel already in it so I did not need to add more).

5) not keeping my devices fully charged. A 100 percent charge on my phone and Kindle would have been nice, not just for emergency calls and messages, but also for entertainment while I waited for the power to come back on. I DID have a mobile charger, which was great, but instead of having to use it on 50 percent charged devices it would have saved power on that to have everything on a full charge to begin with.

6) not having other things I'd need in a real emergency, like tools, conveniently located and close by. A true disaster is no time to have to head to the barn to look for the right wrench to shut the gas off.

On sale at Walmart, this looks like a good idea....

But these might be symbolically more correct. Wine Light, anyone?

My biggest plan for the future going forward is to invest in things that will light up the house immediately -- namely, battery-operated, "flick of a switch" lighting like small lamps, plus more good, LED flashlights, placed in EVERY ROOM of the house, including spare bedrooms and bathrooms.  And better organization so that all those things are close to each other and easy to find. But the lighting especially needs to be present and easily located in the first few minutes of any emergency so you can then see what you're doing, whether it's placing candles around the house, shutting off water or gas (in a true emergency) or starting the generator! 

Obviously, if disaster hits in the daytime, you hopefully have several hours before darkness comes. But I've noticed that disasters, like drunks, tend to want to show up at night, so it's best to be ready for that probability.

I learned a lot from this little preparatory drill and will be making some improvements in the next few days. 

How ready are you for a real disaster?

Postcards from the edge

So here we are, our last full month here in California, and there's so much going on it makes the head spin.

As we are getting ready to move, we're enjoying some last amazing salad greens from the garden, the end of the crops we'll be growing here. It feels strange to not be planting anything right now. But I am conscious of the raised beds at our new place and how weedy they are probably getting since spring has also sprung in the Pacific Northwest!

Big Ag's job up there is also not as stable as we'd like, the company is going through a huge transition at this time, so there is some element of risk in pulling up stakes and moving. However, we've committed to leaving this area, so we'll deal with whatever comes from a vantage point closer to where we want to be spending the rest of our lives. Plus, renting a place has definite advantages over owning if you're not sure what's going on, so we'll be mobile in case something falls through and we need to relocate again (which hopefully will not happen, but which we need to be prepared for in case it does). But relocating twice in a year? With a bunch of chickens, other birds, a cat and a dog? Yup, makes the head spin.

Our eldest son just started a new full-time, career job (his first since graduating college) and simultaneously went through a break-up with his long-time girlfriend, so that's been difficult for everyone, since we were fairly sure she was going to be "the one" for him. Head continuing to spin, as I know his is as well. It's funny, but when you're young you don't think about the impact your breakups have on your family; parents get attached to their kids' significant others, and it's more difficult to say goodbye than you'd think (although we try not to put that on our kids; their lives are their own and I never want them to feel any pressure from us in regards to their relationships). 

It's funny, but most days I'm very content to sit in one place and read or putter around the house, getting it ready for showings, which is very unlike me, as I generally tend to enjoy being busy. But stress does that; you need extra time for sleep as well as just sitting in one place and absorbing change. So I'm granting myself that little privilege for now.

From a quiet and well-rested place, hope your spring is going well, too and your changes are all good ones!