Sunday, April 26, 2015

Adventures in Puddles

Maybe almost a pond.
I had a guy come out today to drill holes for fence posts. I know some of you are thinking, post hole digger, do it yourselves, save some money. Or maybe you aren't thinking that, but anyway...we have what they call Dungeness Potatoes here.
The river (the Dungeness River) used to run all through here. It is now about 1/2 mile west of me. In its heyday, it dropped tons, and tons of river rock all through this little valley. I now live on this rock.
And when I need to dig a hole...a substantial hole, I have to call in a guy. With equipment to dig holes, cause I'm not getting past the rock.
My daughter and I mapped out where we wanted the holes dug yesterday and spray painted the spots for him. He was chugging right along until he came down to my lower land where there is still rock, but there is also dirt. Yay! Dirt. He dug one hole, then two holes, he said it was like cutting softened butter. He got about a foot into the third hole and water came out! He came over to the house and told me he had struck water, where is it coming from? I don't know, the previous owner never said anything about water over there where we dug.  I got on the phone and called him, then called again, and again. He called right back. After three calls, wouldn't you? I told him what had happened, he came right over. Conveniently, he lives right across the street.
He went straight back to the complete opposite corner of the property and shut off a valve. That stopped the water! He had shut the valve off for the irrigation for the neighbor where the water was leaking. Then he came and told me that there wasn't supposed to be anything there, and he called the neighbor who's fence is right there. That neighbor came right over. (Good thing this is an extremely friendly place)
I let the men talk. I listened. It turns out that there is a pipe there for irrigation that no one had talked about or drawn on paper or anything. By the time they had determined where the water was from, my hole digger guy cleared out some dirt and they got down to where this pipe is and found it was just  a small plastic pipe with a rubber coupler on it. The neighbor who's pipe it is told me he would fix it even though this should fall on me, I asked for the hole to be dug...but I won't argue...
I was thinking for a while there that this could be the best place for that pond I wanted! I'm not quite prepared for the pond just yet. That will be in a few months, but now I know how I can fill it!
The spot where I almost had a pond is right up against the darker fence line to the right, behind the trees.
Isn't it beautiful here? The picture below is in the western part of my property. It will be the backyard of whoever rents my mobile home. The luckys!
Well, I'm worn out. Are you? More to come...have a wonderful...


Friday, April 24, 2015



There she is. In all her glory. I do live in a barn! Yes. This adorable little house started its life as a small barn and the previous owners changed it up a bit adding a front room, master bedroom, kitchen and 2 bathrooms.  They changed the upper portion of the barn into a loft bedroom. This place is so cute! There's five acres to boot!

I have to say thank you to Nanette for stopping by, leaving a comment about how she had wanted to read about my adventures and was disappointed that I had not added anything. Her comment prompted me to get off my duff, or rather get on my duff and say something about what is going on.

Here goes...

My daughter and I moved here after a whirlwind of what we could do and what we wanted to do and then what we just did do. I received my house back in the San Francisco Bay Area as a gift from my father who had passed away the year before. I could not afford to stay in that house. Property taxes, utility costs, gas prices driving to and from a job I hated just weren't making it easy for me. She was in a dead end, go no where, boring position. I had an anxious buyer for my house. Someone who we know well, who wanted to completely gut it and make it their own. We came up here to the Pacific Northwest last December and looked at properties, found one, went back home and made all the stuff  that needs to happen, work. Our friend got the house she wanted we got the house and property we wanted, We quit our jobs, packed up and left.

My daughter is working, I am "retired". We brought three horses, six dogs, two cats, two chickens and three fish with us. Since we got here in late January, I found three of the cutest goats, four more chickens (babies), and tomorrow I am picking up four goslings. My days are filled with feeding cleaning, playing with and loving my critters. I go out in the morning just after a few sips of coffee and feed all the "livestock" make sure they have water and are comfortable. Then I either come in and go to work on putting stuff away from the move (yes, I am still doing that) or I make a list and go out and buy groceries, things we need or stuff for the animals. Some of the critters...













I have all my craft room stuff still disorganized. All my weaving things are either in my craft room or the front room. I just have so many distractions.

Then, since there is never enough to do and I have two parcels on my land I found this free mobile home and had it brought here to fix up and rent out. This is a major project, heaven only knows when I can get this done!


So far, this is it. I have a laundry list of to-dos. I'll will try to keep this up to date, so you all can join in the fun! It will be good for me to do this. I can list my plans for you to see and then come back and show you what I have accomplished! 

Thanks again Nanette!