SHE'S GONE COUNTRY!

There’s an old saying: “Hindsight is 20-20.” Looking back on my family’s move to a fairytale-beautiful acreage in the country, I must agree that the view from four years on is not at all what we expected.

Four years ago, Chuck and I and Son 2 and his family moved onto four acres of woods and pasture thirty miles outside of Portland, Oregon. The property sits on a hillside overlooking a small valley in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. This is one of the most beautiful spots you could ever find!

The original plan was that Son 2 and his wife would finish college (both were returning students) and build a house on the property. Meanwhile they and their four kids would live with us in the big four-bedroom house. Son 2 worked for his dad in his home-based consulting business and attended classes at a nearby technical college. Our daughter-in-law commuted to PSU in downtown Portland.

Chuck was the only one of us with any livestock experience. Although he grew up in the city, as a teenager he had a horse and worked off  boarding fees cleaning stalls and doing odd jobs at the stables. He also worked in a nursery and was in Future Farmers of America in high school. Thank God for that!

I’d always wanted alpacas. Chuck bought me three for Mother’s Day. He and Son 2 built them a shed in the pasture during a week of pouring rain. (I’m sure it was an omen.) We rented a horse trailer and went to get them.

My first inkling that alpacas weren’t exactly the animals I thought they were came when the lady we bought them from put on a raincoat “because they won’t be happy about getting in the trailer, and when they’re not happy, they spit—a lot!” She wasn’t kidding! Suffice it to say it took four adults to get them into the trailer.

Alpacas look like friendly, cuddly animals. They are more like aloof cats. Sometimes crabby, seventy-pound cats that may kick or body-slam you when you least expect it!

FRONT OF OUR HOUSE

Soon we added free-range chickens and three baby goats to the livestock. The chickens were fun to watch and the eggs were wonderful, but they dug up the flowers and pooped all over the porch.

In fact, dealing with poop—alpaca, chicken and goat—occupied a lot of our time. It’s the hardest part of having livestock, in my opinion. The only thing harder for me was worrying about the livestock because to me, they were pets.

I worried about coyotes attacking the alpacas down in the pasture all the time. The only defense alpacas have is running away and bleating an alarm call. Put them in a pasture, and they can’t even run away. Luckily, the coyotes stayed away. But false “alarms” had me running down to the pasture every other day. They bleated at the neighbor using her walker to go down to her mailbox. They bleated at people walking and cycling on the main road. They bleated at the garbage truck. Never once did they bleat at anything dangerous!

I worried about the goats eating something poisonous, because the people who lived on the property before us had landscaped with trees, bushes and flowers that are poisonous to goats. At night, we kept the little goats in the barn in the woods above the house. The alpacas wouldn’t let them into their shed in the pasture. So every morning we had to walk the goats down to the pasture past all the tempting poisonous plants, and every evening we had to take them back up to the barn.

Galen’s family helped with chores, but he and his wife were gone most of the time and the kids soon tired of farm life. Before long they realized they are city folk at heart. They moved back to Portland.

VIEW DOWN TO PASTURE BY ROAD

Business took a downturn and we learned Chuck needed knee replacement surgery. Most of the livestock chores fell to me. I didn’t think we could hold onto the property financially, or that we could handle the work load. We sold the livestock and consulted a realtor. Our dream of life in the country was in tatters.

Luckily, we made it through the winter and Chuck recovered from surgery.

Then my disabled daughter and her husband and grown daughters moved out from Iowa. After a while, my daughter and her husband moved onto our property in their fifth-wheel trailer. They pay a little rent and our son-in-law helps a lot with chores. One of our granddaughters and her husband rented the basement from us for a year. We were able to refinance the house. We made it through!

Business is good again and we are even considering getting two goats to help clear out the brush in the woods. This time we will know what we are getting into! They will live and ‘work’ on the same area of the property. I true country fashion, we’ll re-purpose a playhouse to be their goat shed.

VIEW OF BARN AND TREE HOUSE 

Since “going country”, so much has happened that we never expected! We were city slickers for sure. But we have wonderful helpful neighbors, friends and family to support us as we learn to “live country.”

Have you ever moved from the city to the country, or visa-versa? What did you find most surprising?

I'm Sarah Raplee, Paranormal Romantic Suspense Author of Blindsight,Psychic Agents Book 1.

Tinkerbelle on living in the country with a writer.

My min-pin/chihuahua mix lap dog is named Tinkerbelle because she fit in my hand when I brought her home. But like all children her nickname is Tink, and she only gets called Tinkerbelle when she's in trouble. Today, Tink wanted to put her two paws on the keyboard and tell you what it's like living with a writer. Here's Tink!

Hi! Hi! Hi! I get excited(Paty says hyper) when I meet new humans or family comes to visit. She thinks the high pitched barks are because I'm overly excited, but I've learned the only way to get her attention away from that clicking black thing is to make it unbearable for her to think. 

Oh cat, she's taking a picture.

Right after she gets breakfast for me and Boots(the old dog who sheds everywhere and gets better food than me), she feeds the fun guy who overfeeds me when Paty is away and forgets he already gave me treats and gives me more. Yumm. I REALLY like him! But once she feeds all of us, she takes her hot chocolate, phone, and reading glasses up the stairs to the loft and forgets I'm around. Which I like because I can sneak in and sleep on the pretty rose quilt in the guest bedroom and she doesn't know until she sees the indent in the pillow. (shhh...don't tell her it's me) Or if I don't want to sleep in the sun streaming through the bedroom window, I stretch out on the pillow on the cane wicker couch in the loft. There I can keep one eye on her when she does get up and make her breakfast. I do have Speedy Gonzalez genes and can swoop in and pick up anything that falls on the floor in a flash. 

I don't mind getting my feet wet when it's hot.

My favorite part of the morning, other than breakfast, is when we do chores. While Paty feeds the giant four-hooved beasts hay, I look for fresh round horse apples. They are quite tasty and nice dessert after my kibble. The best time of year is when there are baby calves We walk all through the tall grass looking for newborns. I like how the grass scratches my belly and it hides me when I find a nice fresh pile of calf poop. It's so tasty because of the milk the calves get from their mothers. This part of the day makes for a nice long walk. When we return, I jump up in the chair to bask in the sunshine and sleep until Paty comes down from the loft for lunch.

Lunch requires the TV be turned on and I don't know how she can stand it, but every day, Paty watches an episode of Castle while preparing and eating lunch. I'm bored with that show and would rather sit next to her staring at her lunch. Once in a while a crumb will fall. But she's a greedy thing and sometimes gets to the crumbs before I do. If she didn't catch every crumb she might be able to lose that weight she complains about. 

The afternoons, I make sure Paty works off those crumbs she stole from me. I ask to go in and out of the house about four times making her climb up and down the stairs and interrupting her train of thought. At least that's what she tells me as she's climbing the stairs and glaring at me. About three, I go upstairs and pounce at her leg to remind her it's time for my snack. If I don't pounce her and break her concentration, I'd never get an afternoon treat. But with persistence, I eventually wear her down, and I dance down the stairs and into the laundry room with her behind me. I get my mini treats and settle in for a nap in the sunshine.

When Paty starts banging around in the kitchen, I wake up and investigate. If she isn't making anything that looks like it might land on the floor, I perch on the back of the couch waiting for the man who gives me treats to get home. If I cry and yip loud enough and he hears me from outside, I get extra treats because he thinks I'm that excited to see him. He doesn't know I've figured out he's a big softy. 

When the humans eat dinner, Boots and I get fed again. Then this time of year we go out and change sprinkler pipes. I don't like to get all wet and stay to the edge of the wet grass and watch out for deer. They like to come at me with stomping feet. We also have to check for baby calves in the evening and the humans sometimes catch the calves and lay them on the ground while they do things to them. I don't always stay back like I'm told. But I do watch out for those angry mother cows! The calves always follow me. I don't know why they think I'm so interesting!

Back at the house, I stretch out on the couch while the humans take showers, then we all watch television. Well, I mostly sleep, but keep one eye open. That softy guy while he gives out lots of treats, he thinks I should play with him in the evening. Sometimes I do want to chase a ball or play tug of war with my stuffed animal, but there are some nights I just want to sleep. Those nights when he pesters me, I wish I had the meanness to bite him hard. 

The best nights are the ones when one of the humans is gone. Then I get to sleep on the bed. But when they are both home, I have to go to my kennel. It gets lonely in there in the dark. Some nights if I cry loud enough, one of them will come let me out and I get on the bed. Those are my favorite nights. When I can sleep between my humans.

My favorite thing to do is ride on tractors. When I hear one start up I yip to get out and go for a ride. The softy even put boxes in and on all the tractors so I can ride.

I've been helping Paty with the latest book she's writing. It has sled dogs in it and I've been giving her my thoughts on pulling three heavy sleds with five other dogs...isn't going to happen! I don't like other dogs, and I sure don't like doing anything that could hurt me. I hope she doesn't decide Boots would make a better writing partner!