Hello World!

In this, the inaugural post of the Gimpy Dog Ranch project blog, I shall attempt to give everyone some idea of how we are making out after our very first week living on the property. I’m writing this post from the dinette table of our rented trailer: this is where we will be living, parked on the property, for the duration of the project.

The 38ft 5th Wheel with 3 slide-outs that we call home:

This pic looks much more lovely! It is all about the perspective (and compression of the z-axis).

It is definitely a good thing that we came to the trailer via our short term rental in North Beach, because we had already downsized considerably – so this is not nearly as dramatic of a change as it might have been.  We are still figuring out how to function with two adults and two cats in 400 sq ft of living space – we’re not set up to cook much, and I’m still not sleeping that well – but the good news is that the weather is great right now and we have tons of space outside, and soon enough, we’ll have some living space converted in the barn.

Sinbad and the Duke peering out from the trailer.

We have been enjoying our time so far in lovely Bennett Valley.  As I type this, late in the evening, its 68 degrees outside and I can hear a cacophony of crickets chirping through the window. If I were to step outside, I’d see stars in the sky, because there’s no fog, and no city lights to diminish the view.  I think I’m seeing more distinct trees than people and cars combined!

We have found great restaurants, places to shop for our various household and construction needs, and really nice people everywhere we go.  I joined a co-working space downtown, so I have a place to go and get work done beyond the trailer – very handy since I am working remotely most of the time, especially given that we’ve got some challenges with our home internet service.

One quick story for this week:  Since our property is outside the city limits of Santa Rosa, in a fairly rural area, we have more than crickets and stars to contend with – we’ve also been learning about where our water comes from (a community well) and goes to (a septic system).  It so happened that the annual meeting and member picnic for the 82 households served by the mutual water company was held the day we moved in, so we were able to stop by.  We met some of our neighbors, viewed the well field, and talked to a couple of the board members. Everyone there made us feel so welcome!  It was a great start to our first week.