The Farm
Thursday, May 20, 2004
OK, so one of the problems we'll face with moving to The Farm(tm), is the introduction of the cat to the dogs. They're good dogs, but a little, um, enthusiastic. So, I've been working with them starting last Monday to respond a little better to some basic commands. The girls know well sit, stay, come, shake hands, but are a little selective in obeying.
I don't know much about training dogs, so I did some reading. One of the tools that is recommended is the pinch or prong collar. Yowch! Are you kidding me? It turns out, though, that it's not as pad as it looks. We got a pair of them, and boy are the effective. We've been working on down-stay, where the dogs lie down on command and stay down until released. We're up to 20 min so far. More updates later.
My plan is to provide Iggy a safe place in the house by babygating the upstairs, leaving a gap for her to squeeze under. They won't have any unsupervised interaction for quite a while. Susan had the idea of putting Iggy's food on top of the fridge, where she'll be able to get to it but the dogs won't. Iggy can choose when to interact with Barley and Kenya and, hopefully, control the interaction somewhat. More as this develops.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
I have been working on broadband access. No DSL or cable, so it's satellite, ISDN, dial-up, or some sort of leased line. Dial-up is out. I thought about satellite, but nixed it because of the amount of VPN I'd have to do. The bandwidth caps might be a problem, too. I looked into microwave or relayed 802.11b, but haven't found anything there. I talked to the local community operated ISP, and they have plans to relay 802.11b, but don't have anything up yet. Leased lines would be pretty expensive ($1k/mo for a T1 down to about $435/mo for a 384k frame relay). I could try to share with the neighbors when we get a little more established, I guess. I think I'll try for dual line ISDN which should give about 256k. Another interesting thought is trying to help the local community ISP with the 802.11b relaying. It might be a nice service and would be an interesting technical challenge.
Just for the record, I feel I played no small role in triggering the below mentioned mad woman thing. Luckily, Suzie is a saint :-D
Ah yes, the inspections. Everything went swimmingly, and there are no big problems with the house. Just the above ground pool. And I guess it isn't really a problem if you don't mind that the equipment is run by an extension cord that comes from the house. That will have to be fixed. We measured the "pump house" to turn it into my tack room, and I'm all excited to get that project going. Colin has decided, after reading my "Horsekeeping on a Small Acreage" book that we must insulate my tackroom as well. Go for it, darling. I'll do the painting and setup. Oh, and that is also where he wants to keep his empty box collection - up in the rafters (well, there's only one rafter now, he'll have to make more...unless I'm totally confused about what a rafter is).
I waffle between excitement and fear about this new veture of ours. I'm totally excited and thrilled for life on the farm. Peace. Quiet. The smell of horse manure drifting through the open windows on a 100 degree afternoon. But then I'm absolutely terrified that I'll fail and do something wrong. Or that Monty (or Mango or Marvin the Martian or whatever the new horse's name will be) will not be sound enough to be a pasture horse and will be a huge vet bill in the making. Or that I will forget how to ride and ruin my horse. Or that after all this, I will not be able to afford to continue taking lessons because all my money (from an imaginary job that I don't have yet) will go to taking care of the farm and it will be more than I can handle. Or that the dogs and the cat won't get along. I think I've over-used my alloted "Ors" at this point.
But there's fun to be had right now, in addition to all the fear. Like tractor shopping. We had grandiose plans to buy a "Toolcat" by Bobcat, but those things are muy expensivo. So now we're considering a John Deere (whenever I hear John Deere, I think of what the old DJ on my radio station used to say..."nothing runs like a Deere, except a hooker on fire" which isn't a very nice thing to say, but it is stuck in my mind at this point). We'll need the basic tractor, of course, and then some attachments - a front loader and a tiller to start. We're hoping we can rent other attachments as we need them - a mower, a post-hole digger, a scooper-thing (back hoe?). Colin thinks it is going to be his tractor. I say it will be my tractor. I guess whoever uses it most, wins. Hmmm...
So back to the weekend for a minute. On Monday, after Laura (the realtor, remember?) gave us the disclosure packet, we went to a mexican restaurant in Nevada City. This mexican restaurant was better than the one in Grass Valley, but had a gringo taste to it. It was technically good, but was missing that "yo no se" (that means I don't know in spanish, in case you don't know). As we were waiting for our food, we were looking over the disclosure packet and found the most interesting disclosure of all. We will be living in a different town than we had thought we would be living in!!! Colin thinks the name of it is too cool for words, so I won't mention it.
We're now in the process of trying to get internet connection for Colin, since if he can't work up there then we can't be up there. First he thought we'd have to go sattelite, but then thought maybe we'd have to go to something that I can't remember the name of right now but is very expensive (not a T1 but something like it). Now ISDN might do the trick. We'll see how that plays out. We did get our phone numbers, though.
I'm going through all my horse-stuff catalogs, shopping like a mad woman. And yesterday, I was a mad woman. PMS is not a fun thing. Avoid it if you can.
The sellers asked if we could close escrow a few days earlier, which is fine with us. The sooner we get up there, the better.
And we keep wondering, why aren't we at The Farm yet?
Monday, May 10, 2004
More pictures:
- house from the trail on the north side
- house from the trail again
- house from the road on the south side (notice the explicit evidence in the foreground that this is a farm)
- view from the barn, facing east
- view of the NID ditch and paths, facing north
We went up to The Farm last night in order to attend some inspections today. Actually, we went back to the Swan-Levine House last night and went out to The Farm this morning. We got in last night just in time to catch a late dinner at the sushi restaurant in Grass Valley. Actually, it's a sushi restaurant only on Thursday night (that's when the fish truck comes, I guess). It was, however, a sashimi restaurant last night. Makes me wonder why they can have sashimi and not sushi. Oh, well, I won't ask - it was pretty good.
It's almost summer, right? So it should be warm there, right? Ha! Wrong! It was raining this morning, and, when I say raining, I mean pouring. And when I say pouring, I mean hail! Hail the size of hailstones! Naturally, I had my warmest pair of shorts, so the 43 degree temperatures and hail didn't bother a bit. Nope. We eventually decided that discretion is the better part of valor. We weren't the only ones, either.
Things cleared up, though. The home inspector, Scott, showed up and inspected things. Luckily, for us, at least, everything pretty much checked out ok. Big relief! Scott was disappointed, though, cause he had no opportunity to show that he got game. The biggest pest problem was some woodpecker holes in the east side of the house (sorry no pictures). We're supposed to shoot them (the woodpeckers, not the holes). We'll see, I guess. I'm hoping there're other options.
The Farm is, of course, already occupied. In fact, at times, we, the inspectors, found that we were being inspected ourselves. The surveyor showed up, to make sure that our neighbor's property lines didn't run through our kitchen, or something. He had some help with his equipment. The inspection took a while, and we had to keep ourselves busy.
There are a lot of things about moving from the city to the country that can be confusing. Luckily, the sellers thought about that, and, showing a lot of consideration, labeled some of the more complex items.
When you buy a farm, you don't just get the house. You also get a barn, some fences, a pool (careful examination of this photo will reveal the creative power supply for the pool filter), and a free horse. You don't get the goat (the little girl wouldn't sell it to us) or the tractor (they sold it to someone else; s'ok, we want this instead).
More pictures later...
Friday, May 07, 2004
We thought it might be a good idea to keep track of our menegerie as it grows.
Currently, we have: a cat (Igitur), two dogs (Kenya and Barley), and a horse.
BTW, if you think it was easy getting the girls to pose, you're wrong. Really wrong. Quite wrong. Not a bit correct. Nope, way off target, there.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Oh, BTW, here's where the farm is (roughly).
So far, we've tried:
- the Holbrook Hotel - funky little bar with patio seating in the back with a decent pub menu. This place really gets stumbling on Friday night
- Amigos & Co - mexican food that pretty much blew
- Swan-Levine House - great B&B with huge breakfasts. Try the Surgery Room.
To appreciate the beginning of our farm adventure, one must understand how we got to this point. It all started with "Francogate" on Monday, February 16, 2004. Colin and I were both living in Palo Alto, just blocks from each other. He had just moved down from the city to be closer to work, hockey, and, well, me. I had just gotten home from spending the night at his place, and I was making scones for breakfast and walking around my house in my bathrobe. The dogs started barking at someone standing in the front yard. I looked out of the living room window to see a man taking pictures of my rental house. It seemed to me that a strange man in your front yard photographing your house is Not A Good Thing. So I went outside to ask him what he was doing, feeling confident that if he was a creep or murderer, my dogs would surely leap through the plate glass window and come to my rescue.
"I'm taking pictures for the MLS", he said. Hmmm, that was the second time in two days that someone had inquired about my house being for sale. Surely there was some mistake. I told him my house was not for sale. He confirmed the address and asked if I rented the place...yup. He suggested I talk to my landlord - Franco, because this house WAS for sale, and he's to take pictures of it to post online for the MLS. Great.
I panicked. Went inside and called Colin. He came over to try to keep me calm, but I was on the verge of a panic attack and there wasn't much he could do but stand there and be patient.
Franco is a friend of my father and was kind enough to let me move into his newly purchased house when I was going through my divorce. I love this house and it has been perfect for my needs. But since he's a friend, we never wrote up a contract for renting, and I never signed a lease, and it looked like now I might get screwed. It was only 9 a.m. or so, and the only phone number I have for Franco is at his restaurant, and he was not there yet. I called every half hour for two hours. I finally spoke to his son who told me that "all of his properties are for sale, but as a unit". That didn't do much to help me right then, but it might make this process longer so I wouldn't have to move out right away.
I got to looking on Craig's List for local rentals that will take dogs (I have two big dogs, Barley a Weimaraner, and Kenya a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix) and that will cost me less than what I'm currently paying because I'm barely scraping by as it is. As luck would have it, I found something and made an appointment to see it in one hour. It was a 2 br / 1 ba in the town I used to live in - but not a nice part of town. The place was kind of dumpy, but certainly big enough for me and the girls, plus it had a garage and a private backyard. The price was right, the timing was right. But I hadn't spoken with Franco yet, so I didn't know how soon I'd have to be out or what the plan was. Colin and I told the landlady that we'd call her back at the end of the day. As we were sitting in his car with the rain starting to come down, Franco called to tell me that the house IS for sale, althought he was pretty defensive and asked how I found out about it. Hmmmm, I'm just not getting a Good Feeling about this. Colin and I sat in his car and weighed my options, pros and cons.
Here's the defining moment, which ultimately led us to The Farm.
I said "I've been thinking that after your lease runs out [on the rented place in Palo Alto], we might want to move in together." Funny, Colin was thinking the same thing. We had never discussed it, because at this point, we had been dating for only 8 months and I don't think either of us wanted to seem like we were being Too Forward. But now we have a situation, also known as Francogate, which has forced us into talking about our future and what we want from our lives. Colin helped me decide to sit tight on my current house, Franco tried to assure me that he would give me plenty of notice if I had to leave (because he's basically selling the house as a teardown and that whole process takes time, yadda yadda yadda), and I tried to go with the flow.
So now that we had decided that we want to live together, we've got to decide where. We've got to get out of Silicon Valley, that's for sure. It is way too crowded here, the quality of life isn't very good for someone who wants more out of life than working their days away for The Man. I want my dogs to have a place where they can run free and roam around, I want my horse in my back yard, and Colin and I both want a quieter, more peaceful lifestyle. As long as we are within an hour's drive from a hockey rink.
So we start looking online at the areas north of San Francisco. We think about Sonoma Coutny and Mendocino County, but decide that Sonoma County is still too expensive (everyone wants to buy a vineyard) and Mendocino County isn't close enough to hockey. And Mendocino is cold and wet and we like lots of sunshine and warm weather when it is supposed to be warm weather.
I don't know why, but Grass Valley popped into my head and it was like "A-ha! That's it!" And so we settled on Grass Valley, and areas around it, down to Placerville. We planned a trip up there, found a B&B where we could stay, and got in touch with some realtors. We picked the two realtors who had been most responsive and who had sent us the best listings for horse properties. And so we had A Plan.
On Thursday, April 29th at 7 p.m. we loaded up the fancy convertible, filled our bellies with Quizno's sandwiches, topped off the gas tank, and headed for the hills. The directions to the B&B were terrible, especially at 10 p.m. in the dark when we had absolutely no idea where we were going. Thankfully our hosts were still up and after two separate phone conversations with them trying to give directions, we found our way. They led us up to our room - The Surgery Room - and we went right to sleep. We had an appointment for 9 a.m. the next day to meet with the first realtor, who, as it turns out, has her office just blocks from the B&B. Dreams of farms filled our heads (well, maybe not - I don't really remember what I dreamt, but it sounds good).
Friday morning was upon us - I woke up at 6 a.m. and couldn't sleep so I just lay in bed (or is it lie, no, I think it is lay) wondering what we'd see and if we'd find The Farm today. We got up, took showers, and ate with our hosts who made a yummy breakfast quesadilla with mangos. It would have been even better if I liked mangos, but I was able to pick my way around it without offending them too much. Or at least, I hope so...or not...or whatever.
We went for a litle stroll in the downtown of Grass Valley and found that even at 9 a.m. this is a hoppin' place. I don't think I've ever seen a bar open, with drinking customers, mind you, at 9 a.m. And there wasn't just one bar open with drinking customers - I think we saw three. Interesting.
We met Laura, our realtor, at her office at 9 a.m. and went through our propects for the day. We discarded about 8 houses, and had about 8 to see. One already had an offer on it, but there was a 72-hour clause because the buyer's have to sell their house before they can buy and the sellers had 72 hours to accept the offer. We know we could make a stronger offer if we really liked the property, so we kept that in the list. There was one other property on the list that I really wanted to see (Laura had emailed me the MLS listing), and to me it sounded like the most promising. The others were just a wait-and-see kind of thing.
The main thing that I was looking for in a property was an established farm. I want a barn, pastures, an arena, and trail access would be an added bonus. Colin wants a newer house with a nice kitchen. That shouldn't be too much to ask for, right?
Off we went! Property #1 - no. The land wasn't very usable as horse property, and there were no horse features already set up. Plus, it was farther away than the acceptable one-hour-from-hockey-rink rule.
Property #2 - no. I liked the land in that it was flat, and since there's no arena, there's still plenty of usable space for riding (like, umm, the front yard). But the house was dark, the "barn" really wasn't, and the neighborhood wasn't that great. I think they were asking $585, but as I was sitting on the toilet there, I thought "I wouldn't pay more than $500k for this place."
We were driving to see property #3, but Laura said maybe she wouldn't show it to us based on our comments about the other two places. The land isn't very flat, the pastures aren't very established, and she thought we might not like it. I said I wanted to see it because that was the one I saw online and was very interested in it. So we proceeded to property #3. Good thing I said I wanted to see it, because we liked it very much! It has EVERYTHING we wanted! It is 5 acres, has a barn, two fenced (with 3-board white vinyl fencing) pastures, a pond in one pasture, a 100x200 riding arena (with sprinklers!), and trail access from the backyard! The house is new, built in 2002, and it was very well designed. The floorplan is great and very liveable, the quality of construction and materials seems very high, and of course it has a great kitchen for Colin. We made two tours around, decided we liked it, then moved on.
We stopped for lunch, and I realized that Laura "gets" Colin's sense of humour, which is a greatly appreciated trait in someone we are house-shopping with. We stopped at a local diner and got some lunch, and ate on our way to the next house.
Property #4 was the one that had the 72-hour clause on it. We actually liked the house very much, although it didn't have a lot of personality like the last one did. It had gorgeous views, a fabulous kitchen, but the horse-living part of it pretty much sucked. It did have an arena, but it wasn't big enough to do anything with. I guess you could call it fenced, but I think it was more like tape wrapped around steel poles in the ground. You had to go through the "pastures" (dirt) to get to the barn...oh, I could just imagine the mud in the winter!, and overall it just didn't seem as useable as the last place. We decided we didn't like it.
The rest of the properties aren't even worth mentioning, and I can barely remember them after having seen property #3. Our day ended back at Laura's office with us telling her we'll be in touch tomorrow, as we have appointments in another county with another realtor on Saturday morning. We walked back to the B&B, dropped off all our paperwork, then headed out to a bar to sit and think about the day.
In talking about it, we both realized that we didn't want to keep the other realtor appointment the next day, we wanted to make an offer on property #3. So we walked back to Laura's office, asked her if we could meet with her on Saturday to make an offer, and went back to the B&B to rest up for the next day. There was a horse trials at Rancho Murieta on Saturday, and we were planning to go watch a friend, so we tucked in early.
Saturday morning we called Laura to see if we could make an appointment to view the house again before we made the offer. She told us there was an open house, so we could go anytime to see it. She was in another town, writing an offer on a different property, and would be able to meet up with us around 12:30 or 1 p.m. Once we heard there was an open house, Colin and I were in panic mode...what if someone else saw it and made an offer and we didn't get the house?! The day was filled with tension and anxiety about how this would play out.
(ok, I'm taking a lunch break now)
Back from lunch, lost my train of thought...where could it be?
On our drive back from Rancho Murieta, we decided that we would go to the open house regardless of whether or not Laura could join us. We'd at least be able to hopefully get some questions answered by the seller's agent, and we'd get another look at the place to see if we liked it as much as the day before. We stopped at Taco Bell, where they put some weird sauce on my chicken soft tacos, AND they put on pico de gallo, which all the Bay Area Taco Bells are not doing anymore. I hate tomatoes. I thought the idea of fast food restaurants was that the food was the same wherever you went? Anyways, I digress...
So we drove straight to the house, and Colin's comment was that he liked it even better than the day before. Me, too, it is perfect. We got out of the car and were greeted by three people. Oh, and a dog. But we met the dog yesterday. We didn't quite know how to play it - cool?, like we've seen the house?, like we haven't seen the house? We didn't want to step out of bounds with our realtor, so we just made some idle chit-chat. It turns out the people were the seller's agent and the sellers themselves. I've never seen that done before, but I must admit I appreciated being able to ask them questions directly vs. going back and forth between two agents. So we went on a tour of the property. We had our questions ready and tried to insert them into the appropriate tour stops. At the barn we talked about the horses and it turns out that they want to leave their retired horse, which could work out perfectly since Miles (my horse) will need a companion. They won't leave the goat, though. That is one cute goat. Oh well. We tour the outside of the property first and find out that what we hoped were trails for riding, really are trails for riding! The neighbor has more trails out her backyard and you can ride all the way to idon'trememberwherebecauseiwassoexcitedthatistoppedlistening.
Then we went inside and had a peek around and inserted more well-timed questions that we had. We were brilliant. As we're upstairs, Laura called us to say she's on her way back from writing the other offer. I let her know we're at the house and so we agreed to meet at her office in one hour. As I met back up with Colin and the seller, we found nooks and crannies of storage that we didn't see before. Perfect for Colin's empty box collection. I was afraid we'd have to build a special shed just for his empty boxes. When we get back downstairs again, the seller casually mentioned his computer problems and inability to print, and Colin offered to help since he is such a genious. I spent time in the little girl's room, talking to her new fish, Fred, and Colin saved the day. The seller asked if we visited the house yesterday. Gulp. Tough call - to lie or not to lie? I chose to be honest and said that yes we did visit briefly, but wanted to see it again so we came back and we are so glad we were able to meet them and learn more about the property. Whew. We made a few more pleasantries, and then left, knowing we were going to Laura's to make an offer. While we were there, two other parties came to look at the house, and we were hoping and praying that they were not going to make an offer. We strategized on the way to Laura's about how to make the strongest offer in case someone else came to the table as well.
Blah, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring...we wrote up the offer, and it was strong, and we thought there was no way they could refuse it. Laura called them to present it right away, and we waited by the phone. Or rather, the phone waited with us since it was my cell phone.
We went to a mexican restaurant which wasn't very good, but we were so nervous, I doubt we really tasted anything anyways. We had a beer with dinner, then decided to go back to the bar where we were yesterday to play cards and wait it out. We had another beer and played cards. We'd pick up the phone and stare at it, willing it to ring. We kept checking the bars on the phone to see how much service we had, then we'd move the phone and put it down once we got the most bars. Finally we stole someone's table as we were leaving so we could sit outside and get the best cell reception. The beer was filling me up so I kept having to go pee. The third time I walked down the stairs to pee, I got this feeling - they signed the papers. When I got upstairs, Colin was on the phone with Laura - they accepted the offer!!!! They just made a couple minor changes to our offer, so we had to go back to Laura's office to sign again. Then we went out for a bottle of champagne and dessert!!! Oh happy, happy, joy, joy!!!
We stumbled back to the B&B and met up with our hosts, who were having a glass of wine with some other guests. Of course we had to share the good news and sit down to have some more booze...I mean wine...and had a lovely end to our evening. I couldn't take it anymore, though, I was so tired so we went upstairs and passed out.
I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't sleep, thinking of all the things I wanted to do at the farm. I couldn't believe that we found a place with EVERYTHING that we wanted! I tossed and turned, and couldn't even cuddle with Colin because the bed was like an extra-large California King and he was nowhere to be found! Finally, I nodded of around 6:30 a.m. for a little more sleep. I was awakened by the gentlest kiss on the cheek, followed by the words "we bought a farm." Ah, yes. How fabulous! We ate breakfast with our kind hosts, made one more trip out to The Farm to take pictures, and then left to go home.
So that is the story of the beginning of The Farm. The pictures we have so far are actually from the MLS - one is facing the house at an odd angle, and was taken from the top of the driveway. The other was taken from the same spot, but facing the other direction. There is a large pasture on the left of the driveway, then the barn is in the smaller pasture to the right of the driveway. It is heaven and we can't wait to go back.
Now we need a name...
