Category Archives: Maria, Rebooted

There is life after divorce. And it rocks.

Week One as a Landowner

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Getting a lot done by myself.

Here's My SignAs I blogged last week, I finally purchased that 10-acre view lot in Malaga, WA that I’ve been wanting for over a year. And I wasted no time getting started on turning that piece of land into my next home.

Utilities

One of the great things about this lot is that it already has important utilities on it. It’s just a matter of getting them set up and turned on.

  • Water
    Water was the easiest of the utilities. I have “city water” meaning that the water is provided by Malaga Water District. No well or pump to share or maintain. A water pipe comes out of the ground and has a spigot handle on top. According to the water guy, the pipe is designed for cold weather use; the pipe drains when the water is turned off so winterization isn’t necessary. When my building is constructed, the plumber will tap into this pipe below ground and run the water line in a trench to the building. Until then, I can simply fasten a hose to the pipe.
    Getting the water turned on was easy. I made one call to tell them I wanted it turned on. They sent me a contract that I received the same day — such is the benefit of living in a small town where the utility guy drops off a stamped envelope at the post office and the postmaster puts it right in your post office box. I filled out the contract, put a deposit check in the envelope, and mailed it back. Two days later, they called to tell me the water was turned on.
  • Electricity
    Electricity is a bit more involved. Because there’s no building on the property, I need temporary service set up by an electrician. He then submits an application to the Chelan Public Utility District (PUD) and when they approve it, they turn on power. Later, when my building is constructed and wired, I’ll go through another process to get electricity turned on there.
    Fortunately, there’s already a transformer on my lot so it won’t cost a thing — at least not payable to the PUD — to turn on temporary power. It will, however, cost about $500 to have a temporary power post with plugs and circuit breakers installed and left on my lot for a year. The post is a rental; I could buy one if I needed it for a longer period of time. I’ll have it set up with 2 110v outlets, a 30 amp outlet, and a 50 amp outlet. That’ll make it easy to plug in just about anything, including power tools and my RV.
    So far, I’ve had one bid on the temporary power pole. I should get another bid on Sunday. Once I choose an electrician, the power should be turned on within a week.
  • Fiber

    Not Fiber Optic Cable
    I have enough phone cable to wire the entire neighborhood.

    Fiber is the tough one. Although I thought the cable coming out of the ground near my electric transformer box was fiber optic cable, it’s really telephone cable. Who wants that?
    Fortunately, fiber optic cable already runs down my road past my lot. And a conduit for fiber optic cable has already been put in place between the source on the road and a spot near my transformer. So all I need is for the Chelan PUD to run the cable down into the conduit and the local internet service provider, LocalTel, to set up service.
    The PUD guy who checked my transformer box told me that dropping the cable is an easy job. Unfortunately, there’s backlog and it could take several months for the drop to be done. I did what I could: I got myself on the list so I’d eventually get service.
    And the service is definitely worth waiting for! 100Mbps download and upload speeds. That’s 100 times the speed I had in Wickenburg and 20 times the speed I had in Phoenix.
    LocalTel also offers television service, which I may get. It depends on what kind of DVR they’ll make available. I don’t watch much television and I certainly won’t watch live television. Life’s too short to sit through commercials.

Septic System

Septic System Plan
A good portion of the septic system design preparation work was already done.

The property’s previous owner had been preparing to build on the lot. That’s one of the reasons it has utilities as discussed above. They’d even gone so far as to begin work on a septic system. In fact, they’d already done a percolation test (or perk test) to test the suitability of the land for a septic system. That was good news for me. It meant that if I put my septic system in the same place the designer had tested for, I didn’t need to get another perk test. That would save me about $300 and at least a week.

Of course, I didn’t really want the septic system where the original owner wanted it. But I did want to save money on a perk test and I definitely wanted a gravity system. So I had the septic system designer over and we discussed it. In the end, I chose a location near where the original owner planned to put his septic system. No additional perk test would be needed. The designer could draw up plans and prepare the application for me in less than a week. Once I had the plans in hand, I could get bids. By the time the plans were approved by the county, I’d have the crew on site to dig. There was a distinct possibility the septic system would be installed by month-end.

The “Necessary” Building

Outhouse
My stepdad would call this the “necessary building.”

During the week, I also arranged for a portable toilet to be delivered to the lot. That took just a single phone call; a man with a gray plastic building showed up two hours later.

The toilet building was really a necessity. First of all, some builders require one to be onsite. And even if they didn’t, I don’t want workers pissing all over my property.

(A side note here. There’s a house under construction down the road from where I’m currently living. As I drove down into town one day, I witnessed a worker urinating on the house near the front door. Seriously? How can anyone have so little respect for someone else’s property?)

I needed the toilet there, too. Even though my visits to the property are usually only a few hours long, it’s nice to be able to take a leak if I need to. And if I move my RV to the lot before the septic system is done, I’ll need the building to reduce the load on my RV’s tank until it can be dumped.

Those building, by the way, aren’t gross if they have limited use and are kept clean by someone who actually cares. That’ll be me. The hose is nearby; I don’t expect that building to get or stay very dirty very long.

And in case you’re wondering, it will be serviced — i.e., pumped out — once a week. So it shouldn’t get very gross at all.

Name and Address Sign

Sign Before
You can barely see the previous owner’s name sign behind all these weeds.

Sign After
Here’s my sign after pulling most (but not all) of the weeds. The sage bushes in the foreground went, too.

This week I also took care of putting a name and address number sign on the lot near the end of my driveway. The old sign, hand painted with the name “Young,” just wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted a nicer sign so I got a piece of scrap wood from the pile where I’m living, painted it with my landlord’s exterior house paint — a nice shade of sage green — and used spray paint with a stencil to add my last name and street number. The resulting sign looked pretty decent for something I cooked up myself.

I bought a t-post and a t-post driver and some screws with nuts and washers. I drilled holes in the wood (with my new drill), pounded the post into the ground, and ran the screws through the post to hang the sign.

Seeing the sign there made me very happy. It made my ownership of the lot more real to me. (It’ll also make it a lot easier for my wasband’s “investigator” to find the correct lot if he feels a need to “investigate” or take photos of my progress over the coming weeks and months.)

My War on Weeds

War on Weeds
I attacked the kochi a with a weed whacker, a pruning saw, and a hedge trimmer. The wilted plants here show the effect of the weed killer.

The final bit of work I did this week was to begin my war on weeds.

An invasive weed was growing in a few places along my driveway and en masse along my road frontage. The weed, which is called Kochia (Kochia scoria), reminded me a lot of tumbleweed (Russian Thistle), which had pretty much taken over our Howard Mesa property’s prime building area when we failed to get it under control. With shallow roots, the bushy plant grew as tall as me in some places. Each plant would yield thousands of seeds which, fortunately, would only remain viable for a year. If the plant could be removed before it went to seed for a year or two, it would be gone.

Pruning SawI was able to pull the smaller plants out by the root. The slightly larger ones could be cut back with my weed whacker. But the larger ones were a real pain. The best way to get rid of them was with a pruning saw. It was hot, back-breaking work. I spent about 2 hours a day for three days in a row working at it. On the fourth day, I attacked them with a hedge trimmer I’d rented from Home Depot.

And I was winning.

I managed to clear them completely out of my driveway and make a dent in the ones along the roadside. I should mention here that the road association — my property is on a private road — sprayed the weeds along the road. By that fourth day, I could see that the spraying was taking effect. The weeds were beginning to die. Maybe, if I was lucky, they’d be killed by the weed poison and I wouldn’t have to deal with them.

Then, that afternoon, I sprained my foot. Doing more weed control was out of the question, at least for a few weeks. And I have to admit that that’s the only good thing about having a sprained foot — it gives me an excuse not to deal with those damn weeds.

But I know I’ll face them again in the future. And I’ll win.

Up Next

More of the same…and then some. Stay tuned.

Buying the Land for My Next Home

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It’s a done deal. I’m a land owner!

Back in the summer of 2011, I had a chat with a friend of mine from the east coast about my summer job. I told him him how much I liked the Wenatchee area of Washington where I was working. As he reminded me just the other day, he said to me “Looks like you found your next home.”

I didn’t think much of that idea then. After all, I was married and living in Arizona in a house that would soon be paid off. Although I wanted very badly to move — and even started looking for a new place to live as far back as 2005 — my husband was firmly entrenched in a 9 to 5 grind after bouncing from one dead-end job to another. His only two suggestions for a new place to live — Santa Fe or San Diego — would simply not work for me or my business. So in 2011 I was stuck there in Arizona, waiting for him to wake up and dig himself out of the rut he was living in.

But in the summer of 2012, things were different. First, my husband announced that he wanted a divorce. That got me thinking about a life without having to wait around for him to start living again. Next, I started doing a lot of winery tours, including a flight to a winery along the base of the cliffs in Malaga. The winery was on Cathedral Rock Road, a 2-1/2 mile stretch of winding gravel with 10- and 20-acre residential lots overlooking the Wenatchee Valley and Columbia River. What a nice place to build a hangar home, I thought.

I had a friend who owned land along that road and one day, on a whim, I called him to ask who his Realtor was. I told him I was interested in possibly buying a lot on that road.

“It’s funny you should call right now,” he replied. “My wife and I just decided the other day to sell our lot. Do you want to look at it?”

I did. He described which lot it was and I easily found it from the air. I landed there one day, shut down, and got out to walk around. It was amazing.

Two Helicopters
On July 5, 2012, I met my friend Don at the lot — we both flew in by helicopter. I wonder what the neighbors thought?

Over the following weeks, I brought other people to see it. My friend Pete. My friend Jim. My friends Don and Johnie. The day I met Don and Johnie there was the same day I flew in with the owners, Forrest and Sharon. We had two helicopters parked on the driveway. Turns out, Don had worked for Forrest’s dad when he was a kid. Small world, huh?

Forrest pointed out the boundaries of the 10-acre parcel. It sat on a shelf on the river (north) side of the road. A hill on the west side shielded it from the homesite on the next lot — which had also belonged to Forrest and Sharon. There were expansive views to the northwest to southeast — 270° — that included the city of Wenatchee, the river, the airport, and countless orchards. To the south were tall basalt cliffs. Although the land sloped down toward the river, at least 80% of it was completely buildable with a minimum amount of earthwork. Electricity, water, and even fiber-optic cable were already at the ideal homesite. Quiet and private, it was exactly the kind of place I like to live without being too far from town. And with friends living just down the road, it was a real win.

But it was the views that got me. I’ve always been a view person.

I knew before the middle of July that I had finally found the place I wanted to make my next home.

The Deal

The sellers told me what they’d planned to ask for the property and agreed to reduce that price for me since a Realtor wasn’t involved. I would, however, have to cover all the closing costs. I did some math and decided that the cost was reasonable and within my means. After all, my husband had told me he wanted a “fair and amicable divorce.” If we couldn’t patch things up when I got home in October — which I still had hopes we could do — I’d take my share of the value of our paid-for house in Wickenburg and apply it to my new home in Malaga.

Of course, this was before my husband got a lawyer and some very bad divorce advice. Before we began the year-long battle to settle. Someone’s idea of “fair” wasn’t very fair at all.

As far as the land deal was concerned, I wouldn’t be able to close until 2013 anyway. The sellers had sold another lot — the one next door — in 2012 and didn’t want two sales in the same year for tax purposes. Even though things on the divorce front looked bad, I figured that my husband would eventually get smart and take my very generous counter proposal.

I was wrong.

The Long Wait Begins

When Christmas came and went and my husband’s lawyer managed to postpone the court date from January to April, I realized I wouldn’t be closing as soon as I’d hoped. The sellers were very patient, though. We chatted once or twice on the phone during the winter. They weren’t in any kind of rush to close the deal.

In January, I flew out to Wenatchee for a week to see what the place was like during the winter months. I was a bit concerned about that big cliff on the south side of the property, knowing that the low sun angle and short winter days that far north could leave the land in complete shadows for days, weeks, or even months at a time. But in January, the lot did get some sunlight. There was snow on the ground that week but the road was passable — even in a rental car. I only got stuck twice and managed to unstick myself both times by myself. Driving up there in the winter would be fine in my Jeep or 4WD truck.

I got to experience the winter fog so many people had told me about. It hung over the river, right about the level of my lot. I went to visit a friend in Wenatchee Heights and got the pleasure of climbing above it, seeing the Wenatchee Valley as a white puffy blanket of clouds beneath the high hills.

I also talked to a builder and a septic system guy.

In late February I returned with a friend. I had to drive my truck up from Arizona to get my avgas fuel tank installed in the truck bed and move my RV down to California for a frost contract. My friend was very impressed with the land and shared my excitement about moving there.

Time moved on. There was a lot of talk on the news about property values recovering. I knew that property values in Washington were already healthier than those in Arizona. I worried that the owners would change their mind about selling or change the price. Several of my friends had already asked me if I had a contract to buy and I admitted I didn’t. I decided I needed to change that.

Fortunately, the sellers lived in Arizona in the winter, not far from my home in Wickenburg. In late March, I drove down to Sun City to meet with them, bringing along a standard real estate sales agreement I’d picked up in a stationery store in Wenatchee when I was last there. We filled out the form and I gave them a check for $5,000 in earnest money. The following week I opened escrow with Pioneer Title Company in Wenatchee. We’d agreed on a closing date on or before June 30, 2013. My birthday.

Financing Woes

Meanwhile, my divorce dragged on. My husband rejected every attempt I made to settle. He apparently thought he could get more if he let the judge decide.

The divorce put a stain on my finances. The legal fees drained my personal savings and began tapping into my business savings — the money I was setting aside for the helicopter’s costly overhaul. I had originally intended to pay cash for the land and finance the building, but now I didn’t even have enough cash for the land. I had to finance it.

And that was the challenge. Everyone told me I should get a construction loan, but no bank wanted to finance the land and building with the type of building I’d decided to build — a pole building with living space. Understand that my first priority was to get storage space for my helicopter, RV, and vehicles; I’d build temporary living quarters above the garage to live in until I could afford to build a “real” house. I did not want to live in my RV year-round. But banks wouldn’t finance that kind of building because they couldn’t get comps for it for appraisal purposes.

My New View
In April and May, my future home was covered with huge yellow flowers.

So I decided to finance the land and pay cash for the building. And I found a lender who would not only lend me the money on the land, but offer a great deal on that loan. You see, because of the size and location of the land, it qualified for farm credit. I could get a farm credit loan.

In May 2013 I finally applied for the loan. In the financial information section of the application, I listed all of my personal and business assets except my home — after all, my husband wanted it and would likely get it in the divorce. (I certainly didn’t want it.) Being completely debt-free, I look very good on paper. I was sure I’d get the loan.

But there was a snag: the lender said he could not process the loan until my divorce was finalized. I needed the divorce decree.

Once again, I found myself waiting for my husband.

The Bridge Loan

In late June, when I still didn’t have a divorce decree in hand, the owners agreed to push back the closing date to July 31. I had to cough up another $5,000 for the escrow deposit. That wasn’t a problem. I’d been working on cherry drying contracts since the end of May and had a good cash flow again.

But I was getting worried that the sellers would back out. The real estate agent who had sold the lot next door for them was nagging them about listing the lot they were selling to me. I knew that they’d be able to find another seller pretty quickly, perhaps for even more money.

Meanwhile, the lender had already told me that once they got the divorce decree and a preliminary loan approval, they still had to get an appraisal for the land. That could take three to six weeks. They refused to get the appraisal without preliminary approval, even though I offered to pay for the cost without any guarantee of the loan. The loan simply could not move forward without the decree and even when that piece of paper was produced, I could expect to wait up to two months for the loan to be finalized.

There was no way I could meet a July 31 closing deadline.

I racked my brain for options. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I’m a very resourceful person. But I was coming up empty.

Except for one option.

Early on, the sellers and I had talked about them carrying a loan on the land. I had done this with a condo I sold back in 2008 and it was one of the best deals I’d ever made. Monthly income at a good rate of return — surely two retirees would like that. Yes, they said. But their accountant advised them to not allow me to build on the land until it was paid for in full. Obviously not a workable solution for a long term loan.

But how about short term? Would they be willing to carry it until year-end? By that time I’d surely have the farm credit financing I wanted.

We spoke about it and I was frank about my concerns. They were frank about their Realtor wanting to list the land. They came up with terms I could live with. I requested that I be allowed to put a septic system on the property — the last component I needed to move my RV there — and they agreed. After all, it would increase the value of the property. We went to the title company agent and she drew up papers.

There was only one more requirement: that I get a life insurance policy for the amount of the loan naming the sellers beneficiaries. No problem, I thought.

I was wrong.

The insurance agent informed me that if I got a life insurance policy in the state of Washington I was required by law to list my husband as a beneficiary. While it was true that I could list him for just $1, I had absolutely no intention of listing him on any financial transaction I made. I was told that if I represented myself as an unmarried woman, I would be committing fraud and the policy would be invalid.

And that made me wonder about how the property would be titled if I closed before the divorce decree was filed with the court. As far as I was concerned, it had to be titled, right from the start, to me as an unmarried woman.

So I had to wait.

Closing

Meanwhile, the sellers came to the title company office and signed all the necessary papers to sell to me and set up the loan. I told the title company that I couldn’t get the insurance as quickly as I expected. (No lie there.)

Yesterday’s blog post goes into a bunch of detail about my wait for the divorce decree. It finally arrived on Tuesday, July 30, a day I now consider Freedom Day, the first day of my new life.

I spent most of Tuesday talking on the phone and exchanging email and texts. There were so many people who wanted to know the outcome, so many people I needed to talk to. It was a good day. I ran my phone battery down three times and got all kinds of good wishes from friends, family members, and even business associates.

But on Wednesday morning, I headed down to the insurance company to get that policy taken care of. It took 30 minutes and $70 to get what I needed. I decided to take it over to the title company, which was nearby, and drop it off.

Closing Papers
I’d signed half the papers before I realized I was actually closing on the land deal.

The title company agent was full of congratulations for me. We went into her office where I handed over the insurance paperwork. She pulled out a file and had me start signing papers. I’d signed about four things when I realized something with a start: I was finally closing on the property I’d been trying to acquire for the past year, the property where I planned to build my new home and life.

I voiced this realization and she confirmed it. All she needed was a certified check for my downpayment and a voided check for the automatic loan payments. I handed over the voided check without hesitation, glad that I’d brought along my checkbook, tickled that it included my new physical address as well as my P.O. box mailing address.

Purchaser
It made me very happy to see this line on the closing papers.

Afterward, I went to the bank to get the certified check. I’d already transferred the necessary funds into my personal checking account, so it only took a few minutes. I then drove back to the title company and dropped off the check.

Done.

The deal was filed with the county on Thursday. I’m now the proud owner of 10 acres of view property in Malaga, WA.

Next up: getting a septic system installed, power turned on, water turned on, and bids for my building. You can bet I’ll be pretty darn busy over the next few months.

News I Could Use

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I’m finally free.

Regular readers of this blog know that since the end of June 2012, I have been going through an extremely ugly divorce.

I won’t summarize the outrageous chain of events again here. If you want to get an idea of the crap I’d been dealing with for more than a year, read “The Divorce Book” post and follow some of the links in it. Then read any post tagged divorce that was posted afterwards. Give yourself about eight hours — there’s a lot of material to wade through.

Our case went in front of a judge in May. The second of two half-day court dates was May 31. As I left the court with my lawyer, family, and friends, we were happy, in a weird sort of way — more relieved, I guess — that it was finally over.

But it wasn’t. They dished out some more crap, like fish that had flopped themselves out of water, thrashing a few more times in a futile attempt to — well, I really don’t know exactly what they expected to accomplish with that final bit of harassment.

The Wait

The judge told us on May 31 that it would take 2 to 3 weeks for a decision. I waited anxiously, completely unsure of my financial future.

In the meantime, I was chomping at the bit, eager to get on with my life. I’d been in escrow for 10 acres of view property since late March. I couldn’t get financing without a divorce decree. I couldn’t put in a septic system or enter into a contract with a builder until I owned the land. I was living in a fifth wheel travel trailer on a friend’s land. That was fine during the summer months, but what would I do later in the year if I couldn’t get my home completed before it got cold and the snow came?

My anxiousness over the waiting was a strange thing. At first, my attitude was hopeful, sure that my future would be decided any day now and prepared for the worst.

Then, when the third week rolled along, I started getting worried. It would be this week. What would he decide? Could I really deal with the worst? Would that be what I faced?

When the third week passed without the judge’s decision, I felt sort of relieved. And even though I expected the decision any day, I continued to feel sort of relieved every day it didn’t come.

But time was not my friend. No matter what the judge decided about the division of assets, I needed that piece of paper to get on with my life.

The Deadline Approaches

The law gave the judge 60 days to make a decision. As we got closer and closer to that deadline, I started to stress out again. Had the judge forgotten us? Why did he need so much time? I called my lawyer and he had his assistant follow up. That was on Friday. That’s when I did the math on timing. The 60th day would be Tuesday.

By Tuesday morning, I was a nervous wreck.

I had a charter on Tuesday morning. I had to be at the local airport with the helicopter at 9:30 AM to fuel and wait for my passengers. They had a meeting at 11:00 AM 60 miles south. I was trying very hard not to think about what I should learn that day. I was trying to stay focused on the charter flight before me, thinking about the TFR we’d have to avoid on our way south, thinking about my fuel load with four people on board on a warm, humid day.

My phone rang at 9:17 AM, just as I was heading out to the helicopter. It was my lawyer’s assistant.

“I got the judgement,” she said. “Do you want to hear it?”

I immediately began to cry. It was finally over, but did I want to hear what the judge had decided?

“Is it good?” I asked through sobs.

“Yes,” she replied. And she began to read.

The Result

It was good. The judge had done the right thing, the fair thing, the thing we expect judges to do.

Throughout this entire ordeal, I had been plagued by unfairness, dishonesty, and a complete lack of ethics and morals from a man I’d loved and trusted for more than half of my life. As I prepared to turn my fate over to a judge, I feared that the legal system would fail me, too. I knew the law, and I knew what was fair. How would the judge interpret the law in our case? Would he allow my husband’s lawyer to wield the law as a weapon against me, forcing me to give up so much that I’ve worked hard for my entire life? That was my fear.

But the answer was no, he would not allow it. He made a decision based on the reality of the situation. He did what was right and fair.

As my lawyer’s assistant read each paragraph of the divorce decree, I sobbed. I cried for joy, mostly — at least I think it was joy. I cried to release the anxiety that had been building up for the past few weeks. I cried because I knew that my year-long ordeal was finally over and that I could get on with my life.

And I cried from sadness. I cried for the man who had been tormenting me for the past year, the man I still loved, knowing full well that he would have been so much better off financially if he’d simply accepted my very generous counterproposal back in October. I cried knowing that if he’d just sat down with me in October with our lawyers and we’d hashed this out then, we could have gotten on with our lives — perhaps even as friends — without the heartache and financial burden he’d forced on both of us. I cried knowing that the man I’d spent 29 years with had a sense of morals and ethics that would have prevented any of this from happening — and that that man had been smothered out of existence by the greedy and vindictive old woman he’d chosen to replace me. I cried because she’d made his bed — by running his side of the divorce for him — and he’d slept in it — by letting her have complete control — and now he was paying the price. I cried because I knew he hated me for reasons they had cooked up to justify his treatment of me — delusions that had taken over his mind. I cried because I felt so sorry for him.

Yes, I cried for the inconsiderate bastard who had asked for a divorce on my birthday, the man who’d locked me out of my only home, the man who had been harassing me for the past year, the man who had dragged me through a costly legal battle to protect what was rightfully mine.

Love is strange.

When my lawyer’s assistant was finished and I hung up the phone, I cried a little more. Then I pulled myself back together, dried my eyes, and headed out to the helicopter. I needed to put the past behind me. I needed to stop thinking and worrying about a person who didn’t give a damn about me and get back to the business at hand: making my new life.

Ball and ChainAt 9:45 AM, I was on the ramp at the airport, waiting with my helicopter for my passengers. It was the first day of my new life as a free woman.

Bees, Please

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I consider, reconsider, and prep for a new hobby.

I started my beekeeping hobby in June 2013 and have been blogging about it periodically. If you’re interested in reading the other posts in this series, follow the Adventures in Beekeeping tag. Keep in mind that the most recent posts always appear first on this blog.

I don’t know exactly when I started thinking seriously about keeping bees as a hobby. I know it was within the past few months, but if I had to give you an exact date, I’d come up empty.

I think it started as a tiny germ of an idea, like a speck of pollen clinging to a bee’s wing as it buzzes around, going about its business. Somewhere along the line it was noticed and moved to a place where it could be closely examined and considered. I immediately realized that I needed more information to make a decision one way or the other and I got to work gathering that information.

Doing My Homework

I started by querying my friend Tom, who has been keeping bees for some time now in Vermont. He has nothing but good things to say about beekeeping and I was very encouraged. He gave me a few details, but it all went over my head. I didn’t know enough. Yet.

Beekeeping BookI bought a book — as I usually do when I want to learn something. I chose The Complete Step-by-Step Book of Beekeeping by David Cramp. It’s a nicely illustrated, hardcover book that covers all the basics of beekeeping, written in a way that folks who know nothing about it can quickly grasp. It was published in the U.K., so it has more information about beekeeping in Europe than I’d find in a U.S. published book. It didn’t go into much depth on any topic, however. This might be because of constraints related to the spread-based presentation of the material — each topic had to be covered on one 2-page book spread. (This is something you notice when you’ve worked in publishing long enough.) But, in general, I highly recommend it to anyone who is clueless and curious about beekeeping — as I was.

Tales from the HiveI also rented NOVA: Bees – Tales from the Hive from Netflix. This video offers some amazing footage that clearly shows some of the more interesting aspects of bee life. I admit that I fell asleep halfway through it — I really can’t watch TV late in the evening anymore — but I fired it back up early the next day and watched the part I’d missed. I recommend this, even if just for the quality of the footage. NOVA documentaries are usually very good and this was no exception.

Natural BeekeepingIf that wasn’t enough, I bought and sat through (in two sessions again) Natural Beekeeping with Ross Conrad on DVD. This is an incredibly long video that isn’t particularly well-produced. It jumps from video footage of Mr. Conrad lecturing in a classroom about bees with very few visual aids to video footage of Mr. Conrad talking to the camera out in the field while showing off a few things. I wouldn’t recommend this video at all if it weren’t for the fact that it is jam-packed with detailed beginner, intermediate, and advanced information about keeping bees. If he could redo this video to show more than tell — and organize it into real chapters or segments on the DVD — he’d have a real winner.

Storey's Keeping BeesBecause I liked the Storey Guide series book about raising chickens, I figured I’d try Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees. I bought the Kindle edition so I could read it on my iPad and annotate it. I admit I was a bit disappointed. The book didn’t translate well to the Kindle format; illustrations and tables simply did not appear right. Sometimes paper really is better.

Beekeeper BibleBy this point, I’d pretty much decided that I wanted to move forward and give beekeeping a try. So I bought one more book, this one to use for general reference: The Beekeeper’s Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes & Other Home Uses by Richard A Jones and Sharon Sweeney-Lynch. This 416-page hardcover book covers pretty much every aspect of bees and beekeeping. I’m certain I’ll turn to it again and again to learn as I work with my bees.

Join the Club

Of course, homework wasn’t limited to books and videos. I also wanted to meet with other local beekeepers — if I could find them.

So I asked all-knowing Google and, of course, Google gave me an answer: The North Central Washington Beekeepers Association (NCWBA) on Facebook. I “Liked” the page so I’d get updates.

I also posted a comment introducing myself and asking other members if I could see their beehives:

I am very interested in getting started with this as a hobby soon. Is anyone in the Quincy or Wenatchee area interested in showing a complete newbie their setup and giving her some pointers? I’ll buy lunch afterward. Let me know.

I almost immediately got a response that included an invitation to see a member’s apiary in North Wenatchee. The next day, I was pulling up to a complete stranger’s house on the edge of town and knocking on their door. I met Kriss and Jim, who escorted me out to their incredibly huge backyard to see Jim’s two hives. We chatted for a while about bees, took a walk in their yard, and checked out Jim’s honey extractor. They suggested I go to YouTube and watch videos by FatBeeMan. I left feeling glad that such nice people shared the same hobby so close to where I’d soon be living.

The NCWBA meets twice a month: once for an informal “chat” at an area restaurant and once for a formal association meeting in a hotel conference room. I was unable to attend the next chat, but I was able to go to the formal meeting. I met a bunch of great people and told them about my situation — that I wanted to get started with bees but didn’t have a place to put my hives yet. Soon, I told them, I’d close on a 10-acre parcel in Malaga. They talked about hive conditions now and what each beekeeper should be expecting. They talked about needing a webmaster for their website. (No, I didn’t volunteer. I have enough on my plate right now.) They talked about their involvement in the Chelan County Fair in September. (Can anyone lend them a mannequin with a head so they can dress it in a bee suit, hat, and veil?) And they talked about swarm season; I gave out my phone number and asked to be called if they went after a swarm so I could watch and/or help.

At the end of the meeting, Kriss and Jim offered to let me put my hive in their backyard so I could get started with my bees before the season is too far gone. We’d move the hive when I closed on my land. I accepted their very generous offer and started thinking about ordering my hive.

Another Friend with Bees

The following Tuesday, I was in Auburn, WA, picking up my sad little jet boat, which was in storage at my friend Don’s house. Don offered to take me to late breakfast at the Puyallap Airport. That meant flying over in his helicopter. He pulled it out of his hangar and preflighted it and we climbed aboard. While it was warming up, I told him I’d decided to keep bees. I then immediately suggested he and his wife might like to do the same — they’d make a good match for their goats and llama and chickens.

“We already have bees,” he replied.

I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know he had bees. We talked about them at breakfast. He told me that there was a woman nearby who did seminars and sold beekeeping equipment. Her place was closed just one day a week: Tuesday. Just my luck.

When we got back to his house, he showed me his two bee hives. He told me that they’d had one hive the previous year and that the bees had been killed by mites over the winter. He showed me the mite screen they’d just installed.

Two white molded plastic chairs were positioned in front of the hives, about five feet away, facing them. “Do you sit here?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “It’s kind of fun to watch them come and go.”

I told him I was going to pick his brain about bees when I had questions. He didn’t seem to mind at all.

Prepped with Information

That was on May 21, less than a month after receiving that first bee book in the mail from Amazon.com.

At that point, I fully understood about 90% of what my beekeeping friends — both old and new — were talking about. Only a month before, I didn’t know much about bees other than that they lived in hives, had a queen, and made honey. Within a month, I’d learned the terminology and understood more than just the basics. I could communicate with others to ask questions and understand the answers. My homework — with books — had really jump-started my knowledge base.

It was time to make equipment purchase decisions. But I’ll save that for another post.

The Maiden Voyage of the Yellow Kayak

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An afternoon out with some friends and my dog.

I can’t remember exactly when I decided I wanted to try calm water kayaking. It may have been last fall, after losing all that weight, when I realized that I needed some upper body exercise to build muscle tone in my upper arms. It could have been in December, when I realized that a kayak would be an excellent way to explore the Intracoastal Waterway that wound past my mom’s house in Florida. I know it was before I moved my RV to the Sacramento area in late February to begin a frost contract. In fact, I was so sure I wanted a kayak back then that I brought along Penny’s life jacket and a floatation cushion when I headed south from Auburn.

My New Kayak
My new kayak.

But it wasn’t until last Monday when I actually bought a kayak.

It wasn’t anything special. It’s an Equinox 10.4. I think that means it’s 10.4 feet long. It’s yellow molded plastic. It has a comfortable seat — unlike the only other kayak I was ever in, back in my old life — and adjustable foot rests so I can keep my knees bent. There’s a watertight-ish compartment on the back and a smaller one on the front. There’s a cupholder on the seat between my legs. And lots of elastic straps to tie things down. It came with a standard kayak paddle and a 12-page instruction book.

I bought it at Costco.

A few of my friends here in Washington have kayaks. There are plenty of places to use them. In Quincy, there’s a place called Quincy Lakes that has at least 10 lakes carved out of the basalt desert in a coulee formed by ice age floods. This is about 5 miles from where my RV is parked for the beginning of cherry season. A little farther away is Crescent Bar on the Columbia River, which offers a sheltered cove and access to the river. There’s Moses Lake and the Potholes Reservoir to the southeast. And then other lakes, ponds, and rivers all within a 30-60 minute drive.

This isn’t Arizona. This desert has water.

I was looking forward to going kayaking, but the weather simply wasn’t cooperating. It’s been wicked windy since my return, with winds gusting to 40, 50, and even 60 miles per hour, depending on the day. Not the kind of weather I wanted to experiment with my new kayak. The only nice day was Thursday and I had a charter flight that day. I’m not complaining.

Today would be my last chance for a few hours out on the lake for at least a week and a half. I had to go back to Arizona, possibly for the last time, and expected to be gone for at least 10 days. But the forecast called for more of the same.

I was messing around on my computer, trying to design a new kitchen for the home I hope to build this summer, when I got a text from my friend Katie at about 10:30 AM:

Did you get a kayak? If so are you available today to go for a couple of hours to H lake. Tyson wants to go and fish and Cody might go too. (H lake is the smallest of the Quincy lakes.)

Tyson and Cody were her sons. I knew H Lake pretty well. I’d hiked around that area quite a few times. I wanted to go, but it was windy. I replied:

Funny you should ask. I would like to go, but it’s it too windy? I don’t want to be a burden to you with my lack of experience.

She assured me that she was new to kayaking, too. She suggested about 1 PM but said we’d see what the wind was doing before we decided.

I checked the forecast again. Wind gusts up to 28 miles per hour didn’t sound good.

She called around 1 PM. It looked too windy. But she’d keep watching the weather. I shouldn’t put my day on hold for her.

At about 1:30, I realized I was wasting the day. I decided to take a hike down around H Lake to check conditions and maybe get a few photos. There was a chance that there were some wildflowers blooming. I changed into shorts and a tank top, put on my hiking shoes, grabbed my camera, and headed out in the truck with Penny.

H Lake
H Lake. You can see my truck parked in the parking area.

The first lake we reached, Stan Coffin Lake, was rough. Definitely not something I wanted to take a maiden voyage on in a new kayak. I turned down the road toward H Lake and parked in the small parking area. We got out. The lake had some ripples, but also some smooth areas. I took a photo and attempted to send it via text to Katie. But there wasn’t a good enough signal and the message failed. I figured I’d send it later. Penny and I went hiking.

I didn’t get a chance to take many photos. Penny and I had just reached the lake’s outlet on its northwest end when my phone rang. It was Katie. She wanted to know if I could be ready in 15 minutes. I told her I was at the lake and that I could run home and get my kayak. But the signal was bad. All she got was that I was at the lakes before the signal dropped.

Penny and I hurried back to the truck. We were just leaving the area — where the cell signal was good again — when Katie called back. She’d meet me at my trailer and we’d throw my kayak in back of her truck with hers and Tyson’s.

Tyson Fishing
Tyson’s kayak was rigged for fishing.

A while later, we were heading back to the lake in Katie’s Ford truck: Katie, Tyson, me, and Penny. We got down to the lake and parked. Soon all three kayaks were in the water. Tyson’s was rigged with fishing rod holders and two rods. While Katie and I paddled around the lake, he’d cast out his fly rod, pulling in one tiny bluegill after another.

Katie and I did pretty well. There was just enough wind to make us need to put a little extra effort into paddling when we wanted to move against it, but not enough to really make us struggle. We paddled around the edge of the odd-shaped lake, looking at the weeds and fish in the water, admiring the rocks and the desert terrain, and watching the occasional startled duck dart out from the weeds and glide away. We chatted about so many things that were interesting but not important. It was nice to clear my mind.

Penny the Kayaking DogPenny the Kayaking Dog.

Penny sat on the floor of the kayak between my legs. She was wearing her life jacket, which fitted considerably more snugly than the last time she’d worn it back in August. Although she seemed nervous at first, she was soon standing on her hind legs with her front feet on the edge of the kayak, taking in the view. I swear, this dog can get used to anything.

We circled the entire lake once, then just paddled around. Tyson kept pulling in fish and throwing them back. Two men showed up with rubber boats that they inflated and headed out on the lake with their fishing poles. One of them asked Tyson what he was using to catch all those fish. Katie took off to do another lap around the lake. I experimented with paddling the boat up to land, mostly to see if Penny would get out if given the opportunity. She did, but only to try to eat the weeds along the surface by the shore. She hopped back in when I told her to.

The temperature was perfect — in the high 70s — and the sun was bright and warm. The wind kept me from getting hot. I sipped ice cold bottled water. Penny lapped up the water droplets that got into the kayak when I paddled.

I tried some speed paddling and did pretty well. I really felt it in my upper arms and shoulders. I knew I’d be sore the next day and it made me happy.

In all, we were out on the lake for about two hours. I decided that on my next outing, I’d try a larger lake and I’d bring along a picnic lunch and possibly an umbrella for shade while I was eating. I figured I could also use it as a sail if the wind kicked up.

We came back into shore and stacked the kayaks back up in the truck bed with mine on top so it would be easy to remove. Katie drove us home. It was nearly 5 PM.

I considered my first kayaking trip a success. I’m really looking forward to the next one.