We’re Moving!

Been a whirlwind around here, a longshot chance on a property actually came through! And somehow in this market we managed to get them down 30k so I could afford it, which just seems crazy considering how most of the places I’ve looked at sell instantly for cash way over asking. I still find it all a little suspicious, but somehow it all seems to be working out. I really thought we’d find something horrible with the inspection, but, no, it’s just a nice little house!

I’m kind of believing all the other roadblocks may have been so I could get this property, which is by far the nicest property I have looked at. Beautiful area, which, admittedly, is not exactly super convenient, but it certainly could be worse. 15 acres and surrounded by orchards, so no close neighbors at all. I’ll be able to build the arena and not worry about the whole annoying the neighbors situation. And, of course, no close neighbors is just nice in general – but without feeling like I’m in the middle of nowhere and people are going to come kill me.

House is a pretty well maintained 70s ranch with an addition built on, which is basically just one big room off the back of the house, which is perfect for me. With me and my seven roommates we all like to hang out together, and we need a big great room to spread out in. Covered porch, which I have learned to love in this house so much. So many lovely mature trees, which make me so happy, so many of the properties I have looked at had no trees at all – and that just didn’t feel right at all.

Then the majority of the property is field, currently being leased as a grass seed/hay field. The goal is to eventually have sheep and be able to work the dogs, which is a perfect amount of area to do so. The whole place will have to be fenced, which will be an expensive undertaking, so it’s fine with me that someone else can take care of the fields until I’m ready to take that on. Do need to fence the yard for the dogs, including a dog run which I have learned to love since I have blocked the dogs off from the yard here.

Asher is going to have SO MUCH ROOM TO RUN. I’m so excited for all of us, and I feel so good about this property, there is nothing that worries me. It’s a dated house, with a total 70s kitchen, but that works just fine for me. It will be nice to be in a house where I’m not worried about keeping things NICE, as that’s been a big project in my current house (especially for the last YEAR when I was planning on moving!).

The project that I will need to do is convert this weird tiny ‘tv room’ into a laundry room, they have the washer/dryer crammed into this closet – I don’t even know how you open and close the appliances! And if I redo the tiny little 70s bathroom in that corner too it will be a good mudroom to come into from the garage and wash the dogs off before sticking them in the dogroom (yes, they’ll have their own room with a door dog to a run). Big happy windows in the front room for the cats to hang out in, and they’ll have their own room again, of course. So, yeah, VERY easy to visualize myself in the new place, it seems just right for us. And, yes, bigger than this house, because apparently one person needs a LOT of room. I don’t have enough furniture for the new house!

The commute to teach in Sherwood will be the same as it was in Hubbard, so that makes my life much easier. I don’t know how long it will take to build an arena in this market, or how much with the price of construction materials so high. Then I hope a lot of my students can come down to the new place, but that might be too far for many, unfortunately. I can’t imagine leaving my students, some of which I’ve had for so many years, but I don’t have to cross that bridge until I get to it. I will really miss Dwight and Paula, who have been so wonderful and welcoming to having me there for, gosh, I don’t even know how long at this point.

I really feel so relieved to take control of my future though, I didn’t want to end up with no place to teach, or renting with someone that was not as kind and welcoming as the Cashes. Having this security once the new place is up and running means I am secure into the indefinite future. The new place just feels like home already, in a way this house never has. This house was a great place to land, and it’s a really nice house, but I’m ready to move on.

I moved here 4 years ago almost to the day, and, in another kind of funny coincidence, I’m almost going back to where it all began, when I made another big jump moving from Colorado to Oregon 25 years ago when I was 18. I’ll be just outside of McMinnville again, so back to where I started and what made me fall in love with Oregon in the first place.

The plan is to stay at the new place for the next 20 years playing with dogs. My dogs, other people’s dogs, I wonder if I’ll ever get tired of them. They make me happy, and teaching never gets old to me. That’s the plan, anyway, so I hope that I chose wisely! It does feel right though, and it’s nice to have that weight off my shoulders of where I was going to end up. It’s a big decision, it’s kind of nice to have it mostly taken out of my hands, I ended up where I could actually get a property! Thankfully, I really like the area and while it’s not super close to anything, It’s not ridiculously far away either.

In the meantime, after the whole unexpectedly actually finding a property and actually getting an offer accepted (I’m still in shock about that!), that meant I had to get my place on the market in 5 days. Which I had been theoretically planning for since last year, but I’ll admit I hadn’t really thought I’d find anything lately so things were not as tidy as they could have been! Still, we got everything looking really nice and like no one has ever lived here. Then with yet another statewide shut down from the virus, I took the dogs AND the cats down to stay with my parents for a week while the house was being shown. Ha! Well, that was certainly an adventure.

The cats actually did better than I thought they would. It’s not like they get out much, and then there was the 2.5 hour drive down there. When we moved from Scholls four years ago they yodeled the entire trip, but they actually were more relaxed this time. I did have all three cats in one large crate in the passenger seat (50lbs of cat in one crate!), so they could see out, see me and had each other. There was much stress panting though, I felt bad for them. And then I pretty much dropped them off and left to go back to take care of getting the house ready, so they really had culture shock.

Fizban, of course, had no issues whatsover. He just walked in like he owned the place and thought it was a great vacation. The other cats took a few days before they came out from under the bed. They were more confident when I returned with all the dogs though. Eventually all the cats came out and by the end of the 10 days had pretty much decided they lived there. Marvin did jump my parent’s cat one day (he’s such a tiny asshole), but mostly Minty just told them to push off and they respected that. I think my cats were open to being friends, but while Minty got more comfortable with them being there, she said she’s very happy being an only cat. My parent’s dog said the same thing – definitely NOT a fan of the puppy most of all, poor guy.

So, yeah, that was an adventure. And having the puppy, my three dogs and three cats in one room – good lord. Let it be said, the dogs were way better behaved than the cats, and the puppy was better behaved than Asher. He is just … a lot. The dogs had a great time, we had lovely weather so there was much running on the beach. And Fauna just made herself at home, was her normal charming self with my parents, and was remarkably easy for a pretty untrained 3 month old puppy. No accidents, slept on the bed every night – and finally learned that we don’t go up to say hi to everyone on the beach. Boy is that an annoying trait, and not one I’ve had in any of my border collies!

That Fauna is SOCIAL. As it was Thanksgiving there were a lot of people at the beach, and lots of high tides, so she got to practice staying with us and not running off to every person she saw (though she wanted to!). She started off pretty wary of the ocean, she wouldn’t go into the water at all. Then she started barking at the waves, and then she started feeling more confident running in water. Finally she kept falling into little tide pools chasing other dogs, and she got quite good at swimming! She didn’t seem to mind though. Fun to see her go from uncertain to total beach lover. Beaches really are made for dogs.

Anyway, we all survived one crazy Thanksgiving, my house sold right away and everything continues to go smoothly with the move. We close in January, so that gives me plenty of time to pack and arrange things – and I’ll be off from teaching in January, so that’s nice too.

So, yeah, 2021 is starting off with some BIG changes! I let the dogs run a little on the new property when I was there for the inspection, and, OMG, Asher NEEDS this! And it was quite clear that 5 acres would have been woefully inadequate for his needs, he was EVERYWHERE. I think the other dogs were content with the suburban lifestyle, but Asher is leading us to new adventures.

I do have a name for the new place, which will be, “Bright Farm”. I wish Bright could have seen it, she would have loved it – that was another dog that loved to run. Hopefully a bright future at Bright Farm, it’s been a heck of a year, that’s for sure, but I think this is the right decision and look forward to seeing what’s in store.