One Week In

On the road, near Mt. Shasta

It's been a week since we moved to Oregon and it was a crazy week filled with plenty of upheaval.

Let's start with packing out. As kind of a present to ourselves, we hired a local company to do our packing for us. The packers showed up for their six hour stint, and worked vveerrry slowwly. Packing. Each. Item. Extremely. Perhaps. Overly. Carefully. And occasionally checking their phones. One had two inch long fingernails, which made it impossible for her to work efficiently. So a big thumbs down on hiring packers. I could have done it myself, for much less time and a LOT less money. Which we did anyway, since we ended up having to pack about 50 boxes ourselves at the last minute, because they didn't get done what their estimator thought they would.

There were about 10 boxes labeled like this. Not helpful. Mixing bowls? Serving platters? Plates? Who knows.

But moving day was a breeze. The way I figured it, I was in labor with my son for 26 hours and the drive was 14 hours, so if I could do the first I was obviously capable of doing the second. Even with five chickens, two doves, one pigeon, one sedated cat and a dog it was a pleasant, easy drive. I highly recommend it over labor. Less mess and you can stop if you need to.

The arrival, however, was anything but pleasant. The house was supposed to be made ready for us since it is a place belonging to Big Ag's employer, however, it was not. When we arrived at 11 pm after our long drive, we found the windowsills covered with dead insects, rodent droppings everywhere, and the whole place was filthy. Honestly, the first few days after that I don't even want to remember how awful it was. But once Merry Maids and the exterminators started to do their work, improvements started to happen quickly and continue to happen. We may even have a working garbage disposal and range by the end of the day!

So all that has made things better. And you know what made it even better still? Oregon itself. It's really hard to be depressed amidst this kind of incredible beauty and abundant water and life. And people have been so welcoming and friendly, it's been a pleasure anytime we've gone into town on business or had people here to the house.

The view from the front yard.

"You're in Oregon now," they say to us. It's part comforting, and part reminder (to me, anyway) that it's our job to fit in -- to become Oregonians and not bring California with us as we come into a new place and learn to be a part of it. 

We're in Oregon now. And that makes all the difference in the world.