Tag Archives: home

The Flying M Aerie on Google

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Finally!

Yesterday, I was looking up something on Google Maps and was thrilled to discover that they’d finally updated the satellite image in for my area to include my home. I can’t be sure of the exact date, but I estimate that this shot was from sometime in the spring, before things had really greened up and gardens had begun to grow.

I cropped the image to my exact property lines — on the east, north, and west, anyway. The southern boundary of my property is the road, so everything above (north) of the road is mine. It’s 10 acres.

My property, annotated
Here’s an annotated satellite view of my property; everything above (north of) the road is mine.

A few notes:

  • When giving people directions to my home, I tell them it’s two miles down the gravel road, on the left with the big green roof. Most people can’t miss it — unless they use Google Maps, which either directs them to the airport (for reasons I can’t quite understand) or to the house across the street two doors back from me. Yes, Google got the address wrong.
  • Lookout Point is where I’ve put a bench for looking out over the valley. My property drops off quite steeply just north of that. It offers sweeping views from the Mission Ridge Ski Resort southwest to the mouth of Rock Island Creek to the northeast.
  • Chicken coop is where my chickens live. I’ve just redone it for the third (and hopefully last) time. I have five hens and a rooster but hope to expand my flock in the spring.
  • I’m going to be planting a few more fruit trees near my home. So far, I have two struggling cherry trees, which were given to me by one of my clients. I think the grasshoppers took a real toll on them. I have enough room in that cleared out spot for about five fruit trees: cherry, apple, pear, and apricot. I’ll plant in the spring. Irrigation is already there.
  • The bee yard is on the far east end of my property where the property lines make it very narrow. Although they used to be much closer to my home, the east end is more convenient for road access. But the real reason I chose that spot is because it gets the most sun; with the cliffs to the south, direct sunlight is scarce in winter. The farther north you go, the more sunlight there is. This is a perfect spot.

I had an irrigation system installed earlier this month. It runs in two zones down my entire 1100 feet of road frontage. Last week, workers planted 25 Scouler’s Willow trees to the west of my driveway. This will give me privacy from the road and help keep the dust down. Because they are native willows, they require less water than the Austian willows so popular here. They’re only about 2-3 feet tall now, but they should grow to 30 feet or more, likely within 5 years.

On the east road frontage, I’ll be planting Ponderosa pine (which grow naturally in the cliffs) and aspen (which many of my neighbors have planted) in grove-like bunches. These trees, also on irrigation, will grow very tall very fast. I’m hoping they’ll help teach my black-hearted neighbors, whose house appears in the lower right of the satellite image above, how to mind their business. They should probably take lots of photos of their view now, before those native trees block it.

(On a side note, I never realized how close my neighbor’s house is to the talus basalt rocks at the base of the cliffs to the south. Hell, one good rock slide and their backyard will be full of boulders. Who would build so close to such a hazard, especially with all the talk of earthquakes possible in the Pacific Northwest? City slickers, I guess.)

One of the nice things about having so much undeveloped land is how much can be done with it. My five-year plan calls for planting either a small vineyard or orchard in the area between the bee yard and my driveway. I’m thinking of devoting 2-3 acres to it. There are a few hurdles I have to jump first, though. No rush — I have plenty of time to move forward — and it’s a hell of a lot easier to do when I don’t have to compromise with a cheap, risk-adverse “partner” every step of the way.

Old Satellite Image
Bing Maps still has an old satellite image of the area. This is the same crop shown above; you can barely see my driveway. Based on the construction status of my neighbor’s home, I think this one might be about three years old.

And on that note, isn’t it amazing to see what I’ve accomplished since buying this lot back in late July 2013? Back then, the only thing I had was a partial driveway. Now I’ve got a home. It took a lot of hard work and money to make it happen, but it’s been worth it.

A Pair of Time-Lapses

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On request.

One of my Facebook friends who seems to really like the time-lapses I do from my deck encouraged me to do more. Yesterday was a perfect day for it. It started off foggy and slowly cleared up. I set up the camera a bit late, but not too late to get plenty of images that show the clouds moving throughout the valley before dissipating up into the sky.

I left the camera running overnight. Although the full moon illuminated the sky enough at times to see the movement of clouds, the resulting time-lapse was a bit too dull to share. But when the moon set, it drifted into the frame. It disappeared into the horizon as the sun rose and illuminated the valley. You can see it here:

This second video’s sunrise is pretty much what I see most mornings. The sun illuminates the mountains to the west first, bathing them in a golden light, that drifts down and brightens until the valley is full of light. It’s a beautiful way to start the day and a view I never get tired of.

When you watch these, try full-screen at the highest resolution available. Sorry there’s no sound.

Finally Unpacking My Heirloom Lamps

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I unpack two prized possessions and tell the story of why they’ve been in boxes for three full years.

On Wednesday, I finally unpacked two of my most prized possessions: my antique lamps.

I have two of them, a Jefferson and a Handel (no, not a “Pairpoint Puff,” whatever that is). Their style is called “reverse painted” — scenes are hand-painted on the inside of a glass lampshade. When the lightbulbs under the shades are turned on, they light up the scene. They’re absolutely gorgeous, especially when lighted in an otherwise dark room. They date back to the 1920s, when they could be had for about $20-$30. They’re worth considerably more now.

Jefferson Lamp Handel Lamp
Photos of my two lamps in my old home. These must be old shots; the coatrack behind the Handel was replaced in the mid 2000s with a lodgepole coatrack my wasband gave me for Christmas.

Note from Grandma
I took a picture of this note from my grandmother as a keepsake and it’s a good thing I did. It was evidence that I’d gotten the lamp prior to my marriage. The piece of tape with my name on it was stuck on the lamp for years; my grandmother wanted everyone to know that I should get the lamp when she died. In the end, she gave it to me four years before she died and I brought it from New Jersey to Arizona on the plane.

I got the Jefferson (the smaller blue one) from my grandmother before she died in 2002. I bought the Handel from my godfather, an antique dealer who specialized in lamps, a year or two later. The two lamps were accent pieces in the living room of my Arizona home.

Until I packed them.

When I got home from Washington in September 2012, my main concern was packing up my belongings in preparation to leave my home. You see, my husband at the time had found himself a new mommy/girlfriend online while I was gone, a desperate old whore 8 years older than him — yes, I know because everyone says it: bizarre — who would take my place in his life. (Or try to.) My now wasband had assured me that he wanted a quick settlement so we could save money on legal fees and get on with our lives. I figured I had just a few weeks to pack up my belongings and move out. The ones that meant the most to me would be packed first: the lamps and my Navajo rug.

An Update on the Divorce Book

My divorce was finally settled about a month ago — more than three years after my husband told me, on my birthday, that he wanted a divorce. It was a crazy, traumatic part of my life that I’m still in disbelief about. How can a good and reasonable man become so angry, vindictive, and delusional?

Back in 2013, I blogged about the contract I’d been offered for a book about the divorce. The book was delayed until the divorce was completely settled. For a while, I didn’t want to write it anyway — there was too much pain when I thought about how my wasband had thrown away the incredible life we were on the verge of having together. (As Adele says in this song, we could have had it all.) But as my new life got better and better and I saw how much I’d been able to achieve without him, I realized how much he’d held me back. I was truly so much better off without him. And while the pain of his betrayal will always be with me to some extent, I can now laugh with my friends over the things he and that old whore did to try to force me to settle, especially during the first year of the divorce process. And the appeal. And his attempt to get the appeals court to reconsider their decision. He’s crazy — that’s clear. And the story is incredible. It would make good reading.

A project for this winter? I think so. I think it’s time. And I have plenty of blog posts, email messages, and court documents to back up my tale. I think I might even get a chance to reveal the slutty 30-year-old lingerie photos the old whore sent him as part of her seduction routine. The playing cards I had made with those images are a real hit with friends. I wonder if he uses the two decks I left behind for him?

It’s a shame, really. As it turned out, my wasband wasn’t the least bit interested in a reasonable settlement. Not only did he want the paid-for house and everything in it, but he expected me to pay off the $30K balance on the home equity line of credit, give him another $50K in cash, and walk away with my business assets and retirement funds — most of which had been acquired before our six-year marriage. When I refused, and he refused my generous counteroffer, the lengthy (and costly) divorce battle began, made even lengthier by his repeated failure to comply with court orders and his delaying of the divorce court dates. So, as a result, I was stuck in the house until May 2013, with plenty of time to pack. I could have packed the lamps last and enjoyed them those last eight and a half months at home.

(And if you’re wondering how it all turned out, my wasband lost. And he lost his appeal, too. And he wound up paying me more than I’d asked for in my counteroffer back in December 2012. So much for saving money on legal fees. It cost him more than $200K than it could have to end the marriage, and he didn’t even get to keep the house. What an idiot. I swear he wasn’t this stupid — or greedy — when I married him. He must have picked up those traits from the old whore.)

Anyway, my lamps and rug were packed first. I packed them carefully, with plenty of packing paper and bubble wrap in a huge box. I nestled the two shades, one inside the other, with bubble wrap between them. The lamp bases went below them with their tops boxed up and cardboard separating their part of the big packing box from the glass shades. The rug went on top. I also packed the wooden “building” that goes with my Hummel nativity set — another heirloom item — along one side of the same box. (The figurines were also packed early on, but in a separate box better suited for their size.)

Boxes in Hangar
I stored my possessions in my old hangar until they could be moved to Washington. This shot was taken the day I moved out of my Wickenburg home: May 30, 2013.

The box with the lamps went right from the house to the hangar I rented at Wickenburg Airport. They sat there, on a pallet in case of flooding, for a full year.

Moving Day
The movers to my Wickenburg hangar in September 2013.

In September (no, not June) of 2013, movers transported everything in the hangar from Wickenburg Airport to Wenatchee Airport, where I was renting another hangar. The boxes remained stacked up in the new hangar.

Wenatchee Hangar
Most of my worldly possessions were stored in a hangar I rented in Wenatchee from September 2013 through June 2014. Boxes, vehicles, cargo trailer, and boat on right, furniture on left, helicopter with ATV in center for easy access to door.

Items Stored In Building
Here’s a shot from above after my friends helped me move everything into my building in June 2014. What a mess!

In June 2014, my friends helped me move everything from that hangar into my new building at my new home. The boxes were stacked haphazardly all over the back of the building. I moved them into the middle of the building and later, when I needed to get the RV in, moved them to the shop area. Sometime during the winter, I organized them by room so I could find things I needed to get at.

With all of these moves, the lamps’ box had been somewhat crushed by having other boxes stacked on top of it. I became a bit afraid to open it up. I was worried that the lamp shades — remember, they’re made of glass — had been damaged.

But this week, I decided that it was time. I had some friends coming from Auburn for a visit to see my new home. I’d already had custom end tables made and they’d been in my living room, looking bare, for about a month. There were only three things the living room needed to be finished: windowsills, a coffee table, and the lamps. The room would look more finished with the lamps. I wanted the room to look as finished as possible before my friends arrived so I had to get the lamps in place.

I unpacked the lamps on Wednesday. I still can’t believe how much paper was in that box. I certainly do know how to pack! And I’d worried for no reason: they were in perfect condition.

It took me four trips to bring them up from the garage: one each for the lamp bases and one each for the shades. I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d carry each one carefully.

I put the Handel on the table closest to the kitchen and the Jefferson on the table closest to the deck door and my desk. (Another heirloom lamp, my monkey lamp, is already on my desk.)

They looked beautiful in my nearly finished room. I took a picture. On Friday, I shot a video of the room and shared it here on Saturday.

Lamps in Living Room
The lamps, one on either end of the nine-foot sofa, almost complete the living room.

Reverse Painted Lamps at Night
My lamps look best at night, when they provide the only illumination in a room.

Last night, I settled down for an hour or so on the sofa in front of the TV. I remembered the lamps. I killed all the lights in the room and turned on both lamps. They cast the perfect amount of light for an evening of relaxation in my new living room.

After three years in a box, I finally get to really enjoy them.

The ironic part about all this: I’ll get more use and enjoyment out of them here, in a room I use every day, than I got during the 10+ years they were in my Arizona living room, a room I only used when I had guests. And every time I light them up, I’ll think about the people I got them from: my grandmother and godfather, both now gone.

Thanks Grandma and Jackie! I’m taking good care of them.

Creating Defensible Space

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Fire season is serious business in the west.

Every fire season seems to get a little worse in the west — particularly in the Pacific Northwest where I now live. For the past four summers, we’ve had widespread wildfires, most of which were started by lightning strikes. Fires have been particularly threatening, if not downright damaging, near my new home:

  • In September 2012, lightning strikes started over 100 wildfires from Blewett Pass to Lake Chelan. Visibility dropped down to less than 1/2 mile in smoke and mandatory evacuations affected the Wenatchee Heights area that was my temporary home not long after I left for Arizona.

  • August Fire
    I was at a party at the airport on the evening of August 10 while Jumpoff Ridge was burning.

    In August 2013, lightning strikes started a handful of fires on Jumpoff Ridge, the cliffs that tower behind my current home. Although I’d just purchased the land and didn’t have anything on it, I was as alarmed as my neighbors when my road was put on mandatory evacuation, mostly because firefighters feared that burning debris would tumble down the cliffs and start new fires on our level. (Fortunately, that didn’t happen.)

  • In July 2014, more than 300 homes were destroyed when a fire hit the community of Pateros, about 45 miles upriver from Wenatchee. Other fires up the Methow River near there destroyed forests, orchards, and a few more homes.

  • Sleepy Hollow Fire at Night
    I shot this photo of the Sleepy Hollow Fire on the night of June 28, 2015 from my deck using a 300 mm lens. It isn’t cropped. Although the fire was more than 8 miles from my home, I found it terrifying and could not sleep that night. A pair of heavy rainstorms the next day put the fire out — and started the Wolverine Fire up near Lake Chelan that’s still burning today.

    In June 2015, the Sleepy Hollow fire destroyed more than 20 homes in a Wenatchee subdivision overlooking the town. Burning embers from the fire traveled on the wind and touched off fires a half mile away, destroying 3 warehouses and fruit packing and storage facilities.

As I write this, there are dozens of fires all over Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. These fires are growing at alarming rates. The Okanogan Complex Fire, for example, started on Saturday, August 15 — that’s just 8 days ago — and has already grown to 227,206 acres. That’s 355 square miles — larger than the entire city of New York (all five boroughs).

Can you imagine all of New York City burning in a week?

And that’s just one of the monster fires. Chelan Complex has burned 87,412 acres in the Chelan area, North Star has burned 132,000 acres on the Colville Indian Reservation, and Grizzly Bear Complex has burned 59,150 acres in the Umatilla National Forest. The Interagency Inciweb website is currently tracking 26 fires in Washington State alone. The President has declared Washington a disaster area. This is some serious shit.

Although the closest fire is at least 20 miles from here, a wind shift has brought smoke into the valley. Visibility is less than 3 miles — I can’t even see the airport from my home. The smell of smoke is in the air. I spent much of yesterday outdoors doing light work and wound up with a sore throat from breathing smoke.

Visibility.jpg
On Friday, the air was very clear, although I could see the smoke cloud coming our way. This morning, the air is thick with smoke. I can barely see the buildings at the airport just 3 miles away.

The scariest part of fire season for those of us who live on the outskirts of town, surrounded by natural vegetation, is the fact that it doesn’t take much to start one of these crazy fires. Lightning is the most common cause, but fires have also been started by cigarette ash, sparks from chainsaws or mowers or ATVs, and even cars with hot engines parking on tall, dry grass. If Mother Nature doesn’t start a fire, some careless idiot might.

As you might imagine, the idea of “defensible space” is on many people’s minds. In theory, it means keeping enough clear area around your home so that firefighters can defend it from wildfire. That usually means cutting down trees and bushes and trimming long grass, surrounding your home with heavily irrigated vegetation such as green lawns or orchard trees, and removing any firewood or scrap wood piles near your home. If your home does not have defensible space, not only is it more likely to burn in a wildfire, but firefighters may not even try to defend it because of the danger it could put them in.

I did much of this over a month ago when I used my string mower to cut back the tall, dry grass on the side and back of my home. I debated cutting a few of the small sagebrush in the area — they burn hot and fast when ignited — but left them. The other two sides of my house have concrete and gravel and a small lawn.

Of course, some of us take it the next step by installing sprinkler systems that can be turned on, when needed, to soak the area. I did that the other day. I drove two 6-foot T-posts into the ground, one at each corner on the road side of my home. Then I fixed 50-foot sprinkler heads to the top of each one. I ran hose from my shed — which has extremely high water pressure — to the first sprinkler and another hose from that one to the second one. When I turned them on, they provided coverage along the entire road-side of the building, as well as about 50 feet down the front and back.

Sprinklers
Here’s my sprinkler setup on the road side of my home. I do need to move some of the scrap wood there, or cover it with some of the metal panels I have.

I want to add a third sprinkler to the roof of my shed, which would protect the shed and chicken coop. A fourth sprinkler head can be mounted on my deck in the other back corner of the building to provide some protection there.

My friends have been asking me whether I have a generator for the water pump. They assume I have a well. I don’t. I have city water which should keep flowing as long as the water company keeps it coming. I guess I should hope that they have generators.

Yes, I know it isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

The good thing is, my building is made of metal. So flying embers landing on the roof or against a wall should not be able to start a fire. There are some exposed wood beams, however, and I’m not fooling myself into thinking the building is fireproof. As too many folks around here have learned over the past few years, even metal buildings can burn if they’re subjected to enough heat. My goal is to prevent that heat from getting close enough.

I’m not the only one thinking about fire. Kirk has moved his vehicles into his orchard, which is far less likely to catch fire if fires come through the canyon where he lives.

Anyone who lives in an area prone to wildfire damage who doesn’t create defensible space around their home is an idiot, plain and simple. As we’ve seen this year, even homes in subdivisions that are normally safe from wildfire danger can be completely and utterly destroyed. Why would anyone fail to take steps to protect their home before such protection was absolutely necessary?

When the fires come, you often don’t have time to act before evacuation. I feel a bit of comfort knowing that I can get my sprinklers going in a matter of minutes now because they’re already in place. This might mean the difference between keeping my home standing and losing everything I own.

Naked on the Deck

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And other benefits of a home with privacy.

Lately, I’ve taken to relaxing on my deck after a shower or soak in the tub. Naked.

Naked on the Deck
This chair outside my bedroom door to the deck is a perfect place to relax after a shower or soak in the tub.

I can do that where I live. My north-facing deck is covered and blocked from the road by my home. There’s a hill to the west that separates me from my closest neighbor. To the north and east, the land drops away, leaving me with a clear view down to the Columbia River Valley with more than a quarter mile between me and the closest home or orchard.

I have a comfortable chair out there where I can relax, letting a warm summer breeze tickle my skin and dry water droplets my towel missed. I listen to the birds or the crickets or the orchard sprayers while looking out over miles of orchards, scattered homes, a small lake, the winding Columbia River, basalt cliffs, and the city of Wenatchee off in the distance.

It’s one of the perks of living someplace with privacy.

My home in Arizona had nearly as much privacy and I admit I occasionally lounged on my upstairs patio there after a shower or bath — mostly on a warm winter afternoon when the sun flooded the covered area. But I was far more likely to drop my towel at night than during the day; my neighbors were a lot closer and more likely to spot me out there. I’m shy.

My vacation home in northern Arizona was the ultimate in privacy. No one was ever around up there. That place also had a deep silence broken only occasionally by the sound of the flapping of a raven’s wings or a car wandering onto the rumble strip along the closest paved road two air miles away. Or a jet, 30,000 feet up, flying on the jet route over the Grand Canyon.

I value privacy — real privacy. That’s one of the reasons I live on ten acres two miles down a gravel road on the edge of town. Yeah, it’s a long drive — 10 miles to the nearest supermarket — but it’s so worth it.

People complain about loss of privacy from big data collection by social media or portable devices or government agencies like the TSA. Yet these same people live in homes 20 feet from their neighbors’ and rely on association-approved fences to keep those same neighbors from watching their backyard barbecues. Or they share walls with neighbors in apartments or condos and can hear their neighbors sneeze or argue or have sex. Or their windows look out into community spaces, thus requiring them to close the blinds if they don’t want their neighbors to watch them eating dinner or watching television.

I lived like that for a while: in a fishbowl condo that reminded me so much of a movie that I named the network Rear Window. I hated having to use blinds to block out prying eyes — and light. I hated the thought that I had to change the way I lived my life just because I lived so close to other people.

But here in my new home, I don’t have curtains or blinds on any of my windows. I don’t need them. No one is going to look in — no one can. And no one wants to — most of the people out here have their own lives and don’t need to poke their noses into their neighbors’ business. (Sadly, not all of them have learned what living in the country is all about, but I suspect they’ll learn that lesson soon. Seriously: some people who live in metro areas really should stay there. They’re not welcome here.)

So I’ll relax naked on my deck whenever I like, basking in the privacy that my semi-remote home gives me, glad that I made the decision to rebuild my life here, in a place I love, on my terms.