moving

Now for the fun part.

First picture on the first day in the new house. Covid hair and all.

Second day. 3 of the 4 kids (plus their boos) arrived to celebrate the move!

You knew this was coming. We have a total of 11 in the greater canine Jordan posse.

Roseburg is about 90 minutes from the coast, about an hour south of Eugene, and about 2 hours from the California state line. It’s home to the Umpqua River and Umpqua Valley. The Umpqua Valley is an agricultural, and more recently, wine-growing region.

The house itself was built in 1976, and while it’s not a “fixer-upper”, it has experienced several years of neglect and lack of maintenance.

One of the first and most exciting things we did was to remove the overgrowth of trees in front of the house.

This is what the view looked like in the morning…

And here’s video of the last tree they cleared. Exposed the beautiful valley below.

You can’t live in the cool damp pacific northwest without one of these!

And because I can’t manage without farm animals of some kind, we had baby chicks in the first week, and got baby goats in November!

Glenda holding Pennsylvania, aka Penny, and Amy holding Georgia. Born November 3. =)

Son Sam and sweet squeeze Maddy came for a visit in November, and immediately set to work fencing to contain the goats and chickens. We were starting from scratch so it was a huge project. Nary an inch of fencing on the entire 5 acres when we got here. Now we have 5 contained areas crossfenced.

Sweet Maddy, PhD candidate when she’s not fencing.

The pants and boots tell the soggy story, but Sam got us there.

Then there’s the back deck. You can see the ivy was taking over. After pics to come.

Here’s a view of the side yard in September 2020.

And here’s the view from the same spot in August 2021.

There have been some things to adjust to. One week after we moved in, in early September, the big wildfires of the 2020 fire season came. We had about a week of dangerous air quality, and wore masks outside. We even only let the dogs out briefly to potty.

Dramatic and terrifying. This was 10 days after we moved in.

Didn’t want you to forget we brought these guys along.

Visit from a precious friend in October.

Visit from precious family, because I LIVE HERE NOW.

The obligatory pic of the Grand, in his natural habitat.

We’ve blazed a trail up the hillside behind the house and have discovered our own little fairy glen. More pics of that as we work on it.

Some sad news too. We lost this old girl this year. The house is not the same without her snuffling self. We are so grateful for the 10 years we had with her.

I’m beginning to see my mistake. You can’t take a year’s break from your blog and expect to catch up in 2 posts.

I’m up to November 2020 in the telling. I’ll keep it going with more posts, until I’m caught up.

Thank you for playing along, and as always, thanks for reading.

Well, this is embarrassing.

It was my intention upon moving to write a happy blog post about the move out to Oregon, including the car ride with 2 dogs and 3 cats, and my first impressions of the house and town. That was my intention.

Now, as of Saturday, I’ve been here for one year. Yikes.

So this post will be in multiple parts: the transamerican journey will be part 1 and the year in the Oregon house will be Parts 2 and beyond.

PART 1: THE MOVE

I couldn’t have made the move without the kids’ help and support. The backstory is that I lived in Tennessee for 30 years. It’s where the kids were raised and went to primary and secondary school, and 3 of the 4 graduated from college. As they’ve grown into their professional lives, they have all opted to settle in the western US, with a preference for the PNW.

So with a fond, melancholy look back at Tennessee, with gratitude for what is behind me and what is before me, I made the decision to sell my farm and relocate to the state of Oregon.

Leaving Tennessee was both a joy and a heartbreak. I left a little piece of my heart behind.

With the cats and dogs in tow, I left my home in Tennessee in the loving hands of the new owner Jacob (freethoughtdonkeys.wordpress.com) on July 28, 2020. And headed south, to spend a couple of weeks with my parents and brothers in Georgia.

One hour condensed into 38 seconds.