SILICON VALLEY:   the best place on earth! If you like smog, rude people, traffic, and stupidly expensive homes on microscopically small lots. Martin and I happen to not like those things (call us unconventional). We've been trying now for about three years to find a way out of the Bay Area—first it was going to be Grant's Pass, Oregon (back in the days when we still envisioned being able to easily travel back and forth between here and there). Then we decided on a more local solution: Grass Valley, California.

ROUGH AND READY   Now, after more than a year of looking at a lot of not really suitable homes, falling out of escrow on one place because we couldn't find a buyer for the condo I had on the market for nearly a year (some people aren't stupid enough to actually want to buy a condo in the Bay Area), in November 2003 we finally closed escrow on a little five-acre ranch in "Rough and Ready," just a few miles outside of Grass Valley. The original idea was to keep working in Smellicon Valley for a year or two while we gradually built our business, The Flying Mule. Our plans changed pretty quickly, though, when Martin talked his employer into letting him telecommute full time. Now we'll be able to move to our new place before summer! Here we are, standing on the front doorstep just after close of escrow. We spent our first night in the new house sleeping on camping mats (no furniture yet!).

Here is the house from the top of the driveway. It is 1,743 square feet, three bedrooms, two baths, with a wrap-around deck. The lot is kind of rectangular, tapering a bit as you get towards the back of the property. There is so much wildlife in our yard I'm not sure I could list it all here. We've seen deer, coyotes, wild turkey, quail, jack rabbits, and our realtor said she saw a fox. We are truly in the middle of the wilderness out there; the water comes from a well and we have a septic system. We have big plans to build a barn, a shed, an arena, a round pen ... or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I have big plans to do all those things and Martin has agreed to put up with it ...

HODUNK CALIFORNIA   Rough and Ready California has a population of 1,210 (including us), and Grass Valley (about five miles away) has about 10 times as many people, which is still only roughly 12,000. Though small, Rough and Ready is famous for its odd history; during the gold rush, residents who were upset over a tax on miners voted to succeed from the Union. The succession didn't last very long, though—the residents quickly voted themselves back in to the Union when neighboring Grass Valley refused to sell alcohol to "foreigners."

Here is a photo of our house and the surrounding area. That tiny blue spec on the right is us.
The house came already fitted out with new appliances, including a very nice new refrigerator (which we actually didn't need because I already had a new refrigerator in storage), a dishwasher, and a digital gas stove. We also have about three times the cabinet space in our new kitchen as we do at our Brookmere house.

Other features: a laundy/mud room, a "glamour bathtub," huge walk-in closet, spacious living room and separate dining area.

Left: Our very spacious kitchen with island and new appliances. Right: The dining area with sliding glass door.
Left: Martin standing in the master bedroom, next to the corner windows (cool!)

Right: Looking towards the kitchen from the living room ...

OUR BACKYARD    When you walk around on our lot, you can't tell you aren't on a piece of public land or wildlife refuge. You can see a couple of houses off to the right, and there is a dirt road that comes down the hill opposite. If you turn around about halfway back you can still see the house, but most of what you can see is trees. There is a lot of oak and scrub such as buckbrush and manzinita, but we also have quite a lot of digger pine and a couple of larger pine trees.

This is the view of our house from about halfway down the property.

One of our property's most appealing features is the waterfall. There is a little creek that runs across the rear of the lot, and a 10 foot waterfall separates our land from our back neighbor's. One of our first self-appointed tasks was to clear a trail to the waterfall so we could enjoy the view, but it's a lot harder to clear brush and weeds than it is for all of that stuff to grow back. In the spring the poison oak encroached on the trail and now it's difficult to get back there. Once we've moved in permenantly, we'll be clearing the area a little more professionally so we can add a park bench and some landscaping.

On the left is a photo of the waterfall, which is still a bit tough to see through all the overgrowth.
RC PARADISE    One of Martin's dreams has always been to be able to fly his RC airplanes and helicopters in his own backyard. One of the first things he did (before we even had furniture) was fly his RC Tiger Moth from the deck. For Christmas he got a "Hummingbird" RC helicopter, which he can fly down the deer trails and inside the house (much to my dismay!). So far he's done a pretty good job avoiding trees, but he's run into the propane tank a couple of times. I won't even start to talk about all the scuff marks on the walls.

Left: Martin flies the Tiger Moth from the deck. Right: The Hummingbird is another favorite backyard gadget.

OUR NEIGHBOR TOM    We were very fortunate to end up with a house right next door to Tom and June, who are sincerely nice people and great neighbors. I'm not sure what we would have done without Tom, who showed us how to find poison oak before it gets its leaves, loaned us shovels, weed wackers, electric fences, and goats, and has offered to help us in more ways than we can count.

Here's a photo of Tom and one of his goats. Tom helped us set up our electric fence so his goats could graze on our land; goats make great weed wackers and love to eat poison oak!

BORROWED LIVESTOCK    If you can't have your own horses, you might as well borrow someone else's! Tom loaned us all three of his goats and his two horses, who have been busy mowing the lawn and pruning the bushes. Until my own horses come up from the Bay Area (sometime in June), at least I'll be able to enjoy seeing animals grazing in our backyard.

The horse is Reno, a 15-year-old Quarter Horse. Tom also has a miniature stallion called "Tommy." Tommy likes to come down to our place on his own; the goats usually follow Reno down and stick by him while they're grazing.
SO HOW MUCH WORK IS THIS GOING TO BE, ANYWAY?    We have a lot of work ahead of us if we want to make all five acres usable. The lot is really overgrown with scrub and nasty things like foxtail and thistle. In fact, just a few months into our blissful new life as country folk we exposed our city roots by accidentally gardening a patch of poison oak. Somehow I escaped undamaged (I may not be allergic to it), but poor Martin had it so bad that it looked like he'd stuck his left arm in a pot of boiling water for about three minutes.

Left: Martin coming up one of the many deer trails that crisscross the property. Right: Martin peeking through a mess of vines (probably poison oak) and scrub.