Saturday, May 29, 2010

Spring Has Finally Arrived

It's Memorial Day weekend and spring has finally arrived! We've had close to 7 months of winter temps and the sunshine is wonderful. The poppies are in full bloom, the skies bright blue (and cloudless) and the birds are singing away.

Life is as it should be. But, you're probably wondering how on earth did we get to this point. Well, it began 2 1/2 years ago. We had bought this property and enjoyed coming up on weekends in our RV. In fact, we absolutely hated the return trip home! After about a year and a half of doing this, we made the decision to sell our house and move permanently to Tehachapi. Who would've thought the house would sell in one week and in the fall.

Gosh, that meant the 3 of us would have to live in the 5th wheel for a couple of months. Could we do it? Absolutely! We put all our belongings into those big pod thingies and had them stored up here on the land. We took aboard only essentials for winter living in the RV (that of course meant all my knitting needles and as much yarn that I could stuff into cubby holes).

We set out first thing to pick and order a manufactured home. I believe they said it would take about 8 - 10 weeks to build. Hmmmmmmmmmm Ok, that was beyond our 2 month estimate. We could do this!

Next, we'd have to have a well drilled. That was extremely fascinating to watch and rather timely, too. But, in the end we found water at about 440 feet. I wonder how many water bills it would take to pay off the cost of drilling?

Next up was the power system. We had ordered an all electric house (dumb, dumb, dumb) so that meant no propane appliances and a system that would sustain such a house. We ended up with a 3K wind turbine, 32 backup batteries and 1 very large Italian diesel generator.

October and November were entertaining while watching all this work being done. But, then came the snows and frigid temps. The ground was not workable and the snow created oodles of mud. They did manage to build the garage, but the home could not be towed up onto the moutain. December came and the night temps dropped more and more..........until..........all our water systems in the RV froze. We could no longer stay and camp on the property.

Stay tuned for more of the story.........................