Morningside Farm

Looking back

2010-02-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

Well "We Are Here" Year number 3 on the farm. Sorry it has taken me so long to update the blog... and I am going to try to be better about it this year. Farming kind of takes it out of you.

Spring was beautiful on the farm, and we are looking forward to it arriving again. It has been in the 60's this week and we are already eating broccoli and greens from the garden.

The peaches were amazing last year, and as the last of the cans are being eaten from last year we are getting excited for a new crop of fruit from the orchard.

We started the year with a trip down I5 visiting Zachs mom in Napa

Visiting his dad in Ventura, and going to Mary's art show. Hanis family had a wonderful week long visit... and I have no photos from it.. mom please send some photos and I will update blog.

The summer brought our first season at Farmers Market....

Lots of fun wild life... a California King snake.

Lots of hikes and mtn bike rides in the surrounding wilderness areas... so much to explore

Beautiful Bike rides...

A new full suspension Bike... loving it

A fun trip to Costa Rica... visiting friends...

Beach. surf. seashells. sunsets...

Waterfalls...

more Friends in paradise...

And finally, it's good to be home.... Wishing health and happiness to all.... xoxo Z and R from Morningside farm.

Summer Heat

2009-07-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

The summer has turned on the heat and it is blazing out here.

The garden is looking beautiful. The heat has really benefited our heat loving crops, and the fruit on our trees continue to mature and grow. We are sadly having to say goodbye to our brassicas and greens, and the warm weather and mild spring has brought out our garden pests in full force.

It seems there is never a reward without a struggle. This year has been a tremendous learning experience and we are so excited to go forward with all that we have learned. When we think back on last year's garden... it's a completely different place.

Each day that we walk outside the garden is different. Even the garden visitors are different. I suppose we are different too. Armed with new ideas and knowledge. I don't think I will ever grow chard again with out a row cover... those pesky leaf miners.

We take each challenge as it comes. Enjoying the steps along the way.
Namaste

Winter

2009-04-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Winter... Well we didn't spend many days at the ski park this year, but I (Rachel) learned skate skiing, and Zach became acquainted with the back country in this area, lots of it.. see pictures for details. We basically have mountains all the way to the coast. We love it here.

So if I didn't make it clear, we are very happy here in Shasta. I think it has taken a full year, but I finally feel at home, and can't imagine living somewhere else. Every morning the sun is shining and the birds singing. It's like a fairy tale, but real.... oh yeah except for the work. That never ends, but who knew how incredibly satisfying it would be to watch plants grow. Oops I am getting ahead of myself. It's Spring by the time I am writing this and it's hard to get my head back into winter... the task at hand.
It is our second winter here at Morningside. We planted trees this winter. Apples, Cherries, Plums, Pears, Peaches, Apricots, Figs, and vines, grapes, kiwis, and raspberries, bushes of blueberries. We have also expanded our garden to double the size we had last year.
I took a 200 hour yoga teacher training. It has, as yoga always does, changed my life for the better and definately enhanced my farm experience. Any one who makes it out for a visit... free yoga lessons.

We went to Nicaragua this winter to visit our piece of dirt. Pictures above and below... So beautiful... We keep hoping the global economic woes won't keep us from our dreams. Luckily we love where we are, just in case it doesn't work out down south...

On our trip we visited some amazing farms on the Island of Ometepe. We made new friends, and continued to learn about permaculture, thanks to Chris and others that made it another wonderful adventure. So much to learn. Despite all of the many books that we have been buying to learn how to be farmers. Zach will be taking a permaculture class in Oregon this weekend.

All is well here at the farm and it is defineatly time to move into Spring. It is our intention to keep you up to date this growing season... so I had better get out the camera. Thanks for your interest in our farm.... xoxo zach and rae

Fall

2008-10-04T19:25:00.001-07:00

It's hard to believe we are just coming up on our one year anniversary here at Morningside. All the fears and anxieties of moving away from familiar and comfortable, replaced by farm life. Today Zach and I sat outside in the warm sun watching our chickens chase crickets, dogs close behind. Sid and Nica love the chickens. They learned quickly what an egg was, and occasionally the hens lay outside of the coop to the dog's delight. The air in the house has suffered, but their coats are beautiful and shiny.

As time flies past, we catch rare moments to rest. Appreciating that even now in October, we still have hummingbirds. I counted 4 today, 2 grey, 1 green and 1 green bird with a shiny red head. They are so spirited. One of my favorite birds, so small, so quick, flying back and forth across the yard humming loudly. Today I heard a new song, one I had never heard before. It was rockin. I couldn't help but imagine recording it and mixing it up on my mac book. But that will have to wait for another day... I am still waiting for that 8th day of the week when I do only fun stuff for me, until then I will continue to add it to the list.

Sitting outside, filtering our well water, I caught site of a new nest. A beautiful hanging basket, that I now recognize as the home to the regal bright orange bird, called the Oriole. They grace us in the fall. Even though they fight us for food, I forgive them because it's what brings them here on their migration. They just decimated our fall planting of spinach and yet, I can't help but smile when I see them in the trees.

Fall has also brought the deer back.. They are everywhere, also competing for our food. Bedding down next to the barn and helping themselves to the chinese dates that grow there. A big 4 point buck has been hanging out in our lower field with 5 does. Such graceful animals, Zach said he saw them jump our 5 foot fence from a stand still coming across them in the yard yesterday.
This week the mountain came out with her winter coat of snow. She looks so much grander dressed in white, like an exclamation or a celebration. We have been finding more time to watch the sunsets as the growing season winds to a close. The weather has been perfect. Sunny and cool, what we have been missing all summer. But every silver lining is on a dark cloud. Just as everything in the garden is at peak production, the freezes are here. Yesterday, Zach and I trudged down to the garden, coats, and gloves, on a mission to protect our plants. Tomatoes, peppers, melons, all received a blanket of straw. We are just too stubborn to let nature take it's course. Selfishly intervening for a few more weeks of peacevine tomatoes and purple bell peppers. Frantically, we can, freeze, dry, our summer harvest. Thanks mom for coming down to help.
It has been a while since I have reflected on things here on the farm, and what better time than fall to think back. What a wonderful summer. Lots of work, friends, and family, here at Morningside. Thank you to everyone who made our first year a success. The Hanis family spent a week here.

Adrienne beautiful, strong, smart little girl. Thanks sis for bringing her into the world. Zach and I had so much fun getting to know her. 2 years of energy and spunk, waking up each day running to the garden to water or pick vegetables. Not fearful of our chickens, she let them eat out of her hand. She was so content here, she would just sit on the ground and play in the dirt. Running down the road each sunset to burn off steam. She was a beautiful reminder of how simple joy can be.
Zach turned 30 this year and we celebrated with a hoe down. Under the canopy of stars we danced the night away.

Just 2 weeks ago we had some friends from Bend to visit.

Let the good times roll..... Peace and love during these troubled times, and please please please vote for Obama!

summer harvest

2008-07-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Finally all our hard work is rewarded. Tomatoes, tomatillos, sugar snap peas, bush beans, and basil.... yum

greens and carrotts, chard, collards, brussel sprouts, kale...

Can you believe how big our chicks got?

we have more summer squash than we know what to do with and zuchini, melons, cucumber...

delicious eggplant..

I don't know why I look so unhappy in this pic, I think it's more exhaustion.... maybe all the weeding, but regardless of the long face, look how tall our corn is....

Finally, the fruit trees are starting to bear fruit... these are plums, and we have pear, apple, cherry, apricots, peaches, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, figs, mulberries and bushes of currants, blueberries, gooseberries, it's starting to become more work keeping up with the harvesting, so that things don't die on the plant...

kayaking with the girls

2008-07-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

Amy, Stacia, and I spent last Sunday on the Klamath River. It was a blast, and the river was probably around 70 degrees. So, warm.

I brought my waterproof camera thinking I'd get beautiful dramatic shots along the way, but once we got started, I forgot

We saw a lot of blue herons along the river and just generally had a blast.

Castle Lake

2008-07-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

we have been having so much fun in our new mountain paradise.

This is Castle lake. In the winter this is a popular ski spot, but in the summer it is a beautiful mountain lake for swimming.

This day was so relaxing.

crazy diving dogs

just kickin around

AHHH SUMMER!!!

for mom

2008-06-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

I painted a sign for our driveway, and my mom asked me to post a picture of it.... here it is

Wedding with bikes

2008-06-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to our friend's wedding in Bend. We had so much fun. Zach took the photos, and we wanted to post a few to share. I started with Benham because he's family and so cute. This is at the preception dinner.

The thoughtful bride and groom are thinking about the big day. Paul's happy

Erica's pensive

In typical Paul and Erica style, the guests arrived on bikes.

Beautiful Corey

Beautiful Erica

Happy bride and groom

skylar danced a beautiful hula

and their off for a life together on bikes

we all joined in the celebration

great party thanks Paul and Erica

Spring planting

2008-06-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

shadow scarecrow.
Welcome summer growing season!!! We are making the most of our new farm and loving it. We have been spending far too much time bent over the garden these days. We started a class through the local community college, organic gardening and orcharding, and we couldn't be more excited. We have identified so many mystery plants in our garden as herbs, and our teacher is a wealth of information. We have at least 6 bugs in a jar for identification for our next class, and 3 soil samples; the veggie garden, the fruit orchard, and the pistachio orchard.
greens garden
sid and nica have never been happier, tics and all
self portrait
we are growing red dragon carrots
sugar snap peas
a neighbor
self portrait with Z's creative photo light, for any photo geeks out there, this was shot into the sun in the same light conditions as previous images

News Flash: We had our first visitors from Bend!!!
John and Sarah Stafford came to stay with us this last weekend. Sarah is starting the Physician Assistant program at OHSU in a couple weeks and we were stoked to have a last hurrah with her before the big move. We were having so much fun, we forgot to take pictures, as usual. We had a blast and hope they come visit again soon. Great friends, fresh food, lots of laughs. Good times.
Other than the garden we are well. I went climbing outside of the Rock gym this last week with some friends. A beautiful place just outside of Shasta on the Sacramento River. Nica did her typical disappearing act for a while, but thankfully showed up right as we were about to leave. It was really fun.
We have started riding our bikes again. Mt. Shasta has great biking. We miss all friends and can't wait to see you all soon. Congratulations Thad and Jess!!! We are so stoked for you!! Lots of love.
Love R and Z

Cathy's birthday

2008-06-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

Zach's mom, Cathy, had a birthday on May 23rd. He and his brother have been working on building her house just down the road from our house. (We can't wait to have her closer.) Zach and Nate finished the exterior, several days before her birthday, and we used the opportunity to throw a surprise party. She didn't know the house was finished or that we, her children and friends were in the garage waiting to jump out when she turned the corner.

Cathy and Sheri.
We had a blast. unfortunately we were having so much fun, we forgot to take pictures...

the ladys... We love you Cathy,
xoxoxo z and r

Farm Life

2008-04-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy working in the garden, preparing for summer growing season. Yesterday, as we were preparing the fence for the garden, I found this lizard under leaves and debris. It is a blue tailed skink. So, cute. It's blue tail is to protect the more vulnerable parts of it's body, and it will break off as a deterrant if attacked. It will regrow, but usually not in the bright blue color.

This is a Black widow spider, also encountered yesterday, in the fence clearing process. She has a red hourglass on her underbelly, but we were unable to get a good picture of it, she wouldn't sit still for pictures. I have found that usually I will find her eggsack first and that lets me know that there is a widow near by. Their egg sacks contain 100-400 eggs, but only 30 will survive. Female black widows live up to 5 years. This one was pretty big, and I am guessing fairly old, though we cut her lifespan sharply after this picture was taken. Contrary to popular belief, females rarely if ever eat the males after mating. Their venom is extremely potent, 15 times more powerful than a rattlesnake's venom. Luckily they inject only a small amount of venom, and the bites are rarely deadly. It will be very unpleasant however. I hope to never know how unpleasant.

Since this picture was taken, we have built a small greenhouse in the garden, and have added irrigation. We keep intending to plant our root veggies, but we always get sidetracked with work to do. Soon, we will get some plants in the ground. We have started tomatoes, and other veggies indoors already.

This is our stray kitty, acquired in Bend, and moved out to Gazelle. She is adjusting nicely. She is learning bird calls. You can catch her any day, laying in the flower garden watching the songbirds. Attempting her own mimic of their calls.

This is the orchard, next to the barn. I have no idea what kind of tree this is. In fact we don't know what any of them are. It's kind of exciting. As we wait for them to, hopefully, fruit, they are all a mystery.

If it is said that there is a shortage of bees, not here. On a warm sunny day, there is buzzing throughout the garden. The fruit trees almost appear to be in motion with the swarm of bees around it, pollinating the trees. A neighbor has bee boxes, and they've positioned them right at the edge of their property facing ours, so we get the benefits of all of their bees, and they get the benefits of our garden's pollen. If you look closely at the picture you might be able to see the pollen sacs on their back legs, where they collect the pollen that they will take to the hive. This would be a female worker bee, all the worker bees are females.

Ah, now on to the baby chicks. We got these last week. They are growing so fast. They already have tail feathers, and their wings can spread now. We have 6 baby chicks, Auracana's, Rhode Island reds and Bard Rocks. Two of the chickens will lay green eggs. They are super cute and one of our favorite projects. We have been trying to introduce the dogs to them, so they won't eat them, but it's not going well. Sid has put them in his mouth twice, as if to carry them away to play with them, not to the chicks benefit I'm sure... So, he is no longer allowed to see them. We are told that they will start to lay eggs in 3 months, and during laying season, they will lay an egg a day.

Lastly, we found this toad while weeding the flower beds. Soon we will post pics of hummingbirds. We have a feeder outside the kitchen window, and even in the colder weather we have seen at least 2 a day. They are either green or red.

Bend, "ORYGUN"

2008-04-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

We went to Bend last weekend (I'm a little late getting this up) We were supposed to go rafting with Sarah, above, and Michael, below, but the weather decided against it. It snowed and was super windy and cold.
So, instead we made the rounds about town and had a great visit with friends. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring our camera with us most of the time so we are limited with pics, but it was a blast. Thank you to all our friends who opened their homes to us while we were there visiting.
This is our first night in town with Sarah and Michael Jo, lamenting the rafting trip that wouldn't come to be....

We were surprised how big Bend had gotten, or maybe just how big it seemed after living in the stix for a while. Not only are we remote here, but there really isn't a town bigger than 3000 people unless you drive an hour, which we never do... So, it was a fun trip to the big city.
We had dinner with our good friends Sarah and John at Toomies our favorite restaurant in Bend, caught up on all the gossip around town. Sarah just got into OHSU's Physician Assistant program, "Congratulations Sarah" She will leave John, in Bend while she goes to Portland to be a student for 2 years. Luckily John, is looking forward to "getting his fort back" and seeing her on the weekends.

Next stop, Kyle and Corey's house, where they built a chill pad for us to sleep in. Luxury at it's finest. The new guest house features all a guest could want, including a comfortable bed. We were ready to move back. They also have the cutest "sucker" baby ever (a sucker baby is one that is so perfect, it sucker's you into having a child, only to discover your child is not of same temperment), in photo above... Big Ben is maybe the sweetest child ever, excluding sister's child Addrienne. We went cross country skiing, more appropriate than the slated rafting trip, in the snow, it was cold. We had a super fun time. Kyle and Zach, not pictured, had a great time, and I'm sure will have even more fun when they see each other next time, do to the involvement of bikes. Zach has missed Kyle, they are both super active, and spend alot of time climbing hills together.
Also not pictured, Zach hung with his good buddy Tim, formerly of the well known band Rodentula... Who have played at the famous, Shang Hai Jos. They rocked out.

We had a great time, thanks to everyone who made it a great visit, and to those we missed, next time.... We'll be back for Erica and Paul's Wedding. It's going to be a blast. Until then, come visit.
Oh and a posting wouldn't be a posting with out a beautiful picture of Mount Shasta....

Home on the range

2008-03-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad Hanis came to visit this week. It was great to see them. We had a great visit, hanging out.

The only day I had to go to work on the visit, the men decided to walk the wheel line on the lower 40, where Sid and Nica made an exciting new discovery.... Zach and dad couldn't figure out what the dogs were chasing, and then decided it was probably a paper bag that had was blowing in the wind, as all they could see was this flitting white and black. When blam the dogs hit the ground as if they had been shot, and started rolling in the grass. Wimpering and rolling. The men ran to the dogs to make sure they were ok, but could only get within 50 ft of them when they smelled it.... SKUNKS!! Nica and sid got to see the bottom of the watering trough, dad and zach got a bonding experience, and I got a pass... one day I was glad to be at work. Turns out the remedy is, 1 bottle of peroxide, 3 tbs baking soda, 1 tbs dr. bronners soap, avoid the eyes, rinse thoroughly.

It's looking like a nasty storm is on the way, they are calling for snow this week, and so many of our plants are already in bloom... I will be busy putting buckets over my favorite flowers today.
We are planning a ho-down for Z Scott's 30th birthday on August the 23rd... a Saturday... Hope to see you here.
love Z and R

Sunday River Maine

2008-03-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

Zach just got back from Sunday River Maine, where he took 2 of the students he had been coaching all season to compete in Nationals. They had a great time. The college put them up in a pimpy hotel by night and by day they terrorized the ski slopes of Maine... You can see how frightening these 3 Cali kids must have been to an unsuspecting east coast. See them at the base of the abominable snow-woman? We're told it's the worlds largest.

John Villani getting ready for the big race.

Becca racing down the slopes

Victory, they came home with 2 medals. John Villani took 3rd place in Giant Slalom and Becca took first place in Giant Slalom. Not bad for a little unknown Northern California College from the town of Weed.
It was a great way to end the season, and it went off without a hitch, except for the flat tire in the rental car that eventually led to missing their plane, which led to the great race from Maine to Boston, to Salt Lake City, to Sacramento. Which ended in Mt. Shasta early in the morning, completing one of the longest days of Zach's life. We are headed up to Bend in 2 weeks, hope to see all our Oregonian homeys...
lots of love, ZandR

these are a few of my favorite things....

2008-03-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

The first flowers from our garden.

My new friend Dawn and her boyfriend John, are introducing me to climbing.

my first 5.9, yeah

March Madness

2008-02-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,
Here we are, in March. We have been great. Zach has been doing a lot of back country riding and these are pictures from an undisclosed location here in NorCal. They had a great day. Just the 4 of them, fresh tracks all day. I on the other hand was at work...

Zach is currently in Sunday River Maine with a couple of his highest ranking students, for Nationals. He will be there all week. I talked to him today and it sounds like he is having a blast. We will have more pics to post when he gets back.
I have been gardening a ton, we rototilled our lower garden, veggies for days... I have been snowboarding, climbing, which is new for me... super fun... working, working... miss everyone... love Z and R

gg

dirt don't hurt

2008-02-16T17:21:00.000-08:00

So, here I am again with my hands all day in the dirt. So, much work. My back is sore, my arms ache from pulling the weeds... the never ending weeds. The sun is out again, with warmth I haven't felt since fall. Sweat and dirt, in a t-shirt. Dogs running laps around the garden. Iris' are starting to pop up. Little white flowers that look like bells are the first to grace our garden. Next I think will be daffodils, they are just on the verge of opening up. One more sunny day.
On the hills around our house, still blankets of snow, but here only warm dirt, and birds. So many birds. We filled the birdbath with water, and we have not been disappointed. They sit on the fence beside it and take turns. Splashing so much water, it's hard to believe there is enough water left to bathe. They jump in and hop up and down. Bright yellow little birds mostly, and some mountain bluebirds, which are electric blue. They chirp and sing, and sit in the tree tops surrounding me.
Today while I was trimming the butterfly trees back I heard a high pitched scream. Looking up there were 3 Red tailed Hawks circling above. Circling round and round, legs stretched down, as if to hold something while in flight, but nothing in their claws. I looked around, for a moment wondering if they were coming for me. Beautiful, big, powerful birds.
Thinking of powerful birds... 2 days ago Zach and I saw a bald eagle circling a field near the house. Those are big... they sit 3 feet tall, wing spans of 6 feet.
It's getting dark and I am getting increasingly tired. I am sitting on the porch watching the sun cast a familiar alpen glow over mount shasta. We are west of the mountain. So, in the evening it casts a glow on the mountain as the sun drops behind the coastal mountains. The air is getting an icy chill, a sharp contrast from the warm day. Reminding me that it is not yet Spring. I will soon go inside and make a fire to keep warm.

Zach went snowmobiling today with friends. They were going to ride the Eddy's, a mountain range to the South-west of us.
We are both great. Zach will go back to mammoth mountain this weekend with the snowboard team.
We hope to make it up to Bend for a visit soon. The temperature gets cold fast in the evening... I am heading inside.

Caught in the Vortex.

2008-01-23T17:55:00.000-08:00

where do I start.... so much has happened since my last posting.

My job continues to challenge me and keep me busy. Very happy.

Zach landed a job as a freestyle snowboard coach for College of the Siskiyous. so perfect. He has been having so much fun. He started the job in December and ran a 2 week snowboard clinic. Since then he's spent 4 days riding squaw, last week he rode mammoth 4 days, this week he is going to sugarbowl, and then in another week somewhere else in Tahoe. All else aside, he gets paid. So jealous....

Pictures from Squaw and Mammoth.

Well we survived what the 'Shasta Herald', called the storm of the century. The mountain received 60 inches in 2 days. It also closed for several days due to power outages and high winds, but when it opened it was epic. It was a great introduction to Mt. Shasta ski park. The park currently has 164". The peak of the storm for us was a Thursday, we woke up in the middle of the night to the windows in the house rattling. We looked outside to see our large pine trees blowing side ways in the wind. No one slept. We layed in bed, waiting for either the windows to explode from the high winds, or a tree to come through the wall. It made us both feel very small and insignificant. I couldn't wait for the sun to rise. The night seemed to last for ever, but when it ended the air smelled a little fresher, the sky brighter. When it was all said and done we lost 4 trees, part of our roof, part of our barn's roof, and our neighbor lost her barn. We later found out that the winds reached over 100 miles an hour.

I am amazed how many birds are out in the middle of winter. Lots of birds of prey.... we saw a bald eagle circling the crags behind our house the other day. My mom just came to visit last week and when I took her out to the barn there was the great horned owl, sitting on the lowest beam in the barn close to us, almost as if it was posing for her... I have watched hawks grab mice from the tall grass, and more days than I can remember, they sit on the fence posts as I drive up and down the dirt driveway, with the smaller songbirds chasing the car. Some nights when I come home from work, jack rabbits try to race me home, bouncing in my car's headlights.

It feels like spring is just around the corner. We spent the day today cleaning up the storm damage. Mother nature did a good job pruning all of our trees for us. We are looking at the garden getting excited for summer. We planted 2 trees today, pluotts.... a hybrid of a plum and apricot, a gift from our brother Nate. He has been awesome helping us get this place together. He also gave us a purple peach tree last summer, Thanks Nate.

Hope everyone is having a great new year!!!

Hanis holiday

2007-12-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

We went home for the holidays, Ptown visit with all the Hanis Kids. Chris came from Seattle, Jenny from Chicago and we drove up. We had our Christmas early to avoid the holiday traffic. While we were there we went to Zoo lights, a blazer game, and lots of hanging out with the most beautiful little girl I know, ADRIENNE....

We have Internet!

2007-11-26T10:57:00.000-08:00

Who knew we would miss our internet so much. After much waiting and anticipation, they came and connected us to satellites in outerspace. It was really expensive to get connected. When I asked the sales rep why it was going to cost so much to set it up, he replied, "hey lady this is some Nasa #@$%" Well, there you have it, we have our own little Cape Canaveral in our back yard. So, we can surf the web again.

We found our camera, and lots of other stuff. It was a secret before, but now that we have new pictures to post, the truth is, all the previous pictures were from last year when we visited. I was affraid if I was honest, you might not believe that we lived here, or something. The new pics are of the brand new deck that Zach built, for the hot tub. OK the focal point may not be the deck, but if you look close, you'll see it in the picture. The white spot up in the corner isn't dust either, it's the moon rising. (More impressive in person.) So, we have the deck ready for the hot tub, now we just need to find 5 strong guys to help us move it.... HELP!!

Life on the farm has been lots of work. We started to clean the garage on thanksgiving. It sits under miles of dust that span decades. I shop vac'd countless pounds of rat poo and black widow's webs. It was gnarley. Covered head to toe, including mask, we spent the day, only to have scratched the surface. We did find 2 beautiful antique glass knobs, a cool handblown glass light fixture, and some really old handmade metal hand tools. We also found pounds and pounds of junk. We have a dumpster outside that they dump everyweek and we are never have a problem filling it. Zach has insulated the house so we are toasty. We cut out some bushes, so we can see the mountain out the window from our bed. It's so nice to wake up to. There are so many birds outside the windows, I can't wait to become the birding geek with books to look them up and learn their songs. We already have a set of cheap binoculars next to the front door. The other day on our drive down the driveway we passed a hawk on the fencepost that must have sat 2 feet tall, not even 5 feet from us. Ignored us totally as we gawked at it's size. 2 more circling in the sky above. I found out that the big owl in the barn is a great horned owl, although it's fickle, just like nature. It's never there when I make my special trips out to say hello, and then when I just happen to be in there for something else, there it is. So pretty.

There is finally snow on the hills around our house, but not enough to snowboard yet, though it is finally getting cold. It's not cold like Bend though. We are still planning on having a big party for Zach's 30th this year. Keep us posted on what is a good weekend for everyone. Our friend Sol, who lives in the valley near us is a Reggae DJ, with PA's and everything, so we have our first act booked. He bring's us green eggs from his chickens. They are so pretty, and yummy. We are getting our chicken coop together so we can have some of his chicks.

We miss all of our friends, it is pretty quiet out here, but at the same time, birds make a lot of noise. Here are some pics from the sunrise the other day. Oh yeah, Come Visit!!!

We've arrived!!!

2007-11-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

After a long journey we arrived. The night we left Bend for the final time.... was a Sunday. Our house finally rented, we began our drive at an early 9:30 PM. The two of us, two cars, three dogs, and sailboat in tow. We had finally reached the halfway mark, when the road got really bumpy. I decided to just ignore it and hope that it would smooth out, but it didn't, it got worse. Then out of my periphery I see what looks like my tire roll past me on the road, as the car screeches to a halt. OOPS, It was my tire, or rather, I had sheared the tire off of the rim. So, in the dark barely off the road, Zach put the spare tire on for the remainder of our journey. The directions said not to drive over 45, but I drove on that donut for the next 2 hours at 70mph. Home 2:30am, off to sleep.
The next morning I called my new employer, Fairchild Medical Center, in Yreka, CA. "Can you come in tomorrow for orientation?" My new life had begun. I worked the next 4 days in a row. 12hour shifts. Talk about into the fire, I barely had my toothbrush unpacked. At Fairchild you do a little of everything. I work Med-Surg, ICU, and Recovery room. The best news of all is that they offered me a day shift position. The week before I arrived a long time ICU nurse, retired early and somewhat unexpectedly. Wow, funny how things work out.
Zach has been really busy weather proofing our turn of the century farm house. He has also been building a deck in front for the hot tub. It has been fun, but a lot of work. We have some orchards that need a lot of TLC that we have been unable to attend to, and the list goes on and on... We are still waiting to get satellite internet hooked up, so our internet access is limited. It has been a big change, living out in the country.

So.... I could go on and on, but I'll try to wrap it up. The weather has been beautiful. Walking out onto the porch and seeing the mountain right there in our front yard, I still laugh a little each time unable to believe I live here. We have a huge owl living in our barn. There is a family of deer (around 30) that hang out on the lower 40 acres. When they lay in the grass all you see are their big ears. The dogs think they have died and gone to heaven. It's so quiet here. We are on top of a hill, at the end of a dirt road. Right now all I can hear are the wind chimes on the porch. (Thanks Kyle and Corey) The water has no chlorine, so my skin feels so good after a shower. We have a wood stove that keeps the house so warm. The ceilings are vaulted, with oak floors, and marble door knobs. The house was built in 1909, and according to neighbors and friends. In it's history, it has housed a coven of witches, a bootlegger and a Buddhist. The Buddhist was the most recent inhabitant and the property has been balanced with crystals. There is a Buddha surrounded by crystals up on the hill that watches over the property.
We are happy. We miss a lot of different things about Bend, and living in a town, but we miss our friends the most. Come visit.