Cozy Cabin: 4 Bed, 2 Bath

Everyone wanted to know about the house, well, the first week we were here I took these videos. I finally got around to uploading them, and I think it makes for a great virtual blog. Cheers!





Update: We bought the car from Billy. Actually, the deal should be finalized this week! So, that is our car! :)



Update: The fridge and pantry are a little bit more full than that now. Landon has no hair anymore! AND Derek, Landon and I did walk on that path in the backyard. We didn't see any animals, though we heard a few. It actually leads to our water tank, so anytime we need/want to check the water tank we have to venture on that path. Yay! lol!



Update: I still have yet to see a fish in that pond.



Update: I meant to add this in the video, but didn't because the camera's battery was dyeing (sorry). BUT, where the blinds are in the upstairs guest room or the "Orange Room" as we call it, there is no window. It's actually a loft and if you pulled up the blinds, and stuck your head over the ledge, you'd see down into the kitchen.



So that's all! Now you know where we spend our days and nights. I suppose it might be more comforting to be able to picture us here. It always helped me to have a visual on the place where my family lives. Now, come fill the guest rooms and VISIT!

The End. :)

"That's God's Country Up There."

The best description about the town comes from a few different emails… Let’s see what I can paste together.

What can I tell you about the town? The schools for LT are WONDERFUL. They are small and intimate. There is a "No Hat, No Play" rule for the kids, the sun is so strong here that they have to wear a hat outside.There are two on the mountain to choose from, I think we are going with the smaller of the two- about 280 Students total K-7th grade. LT's second language in school is Japanese because we are so close to Japan, and there are a lot of Japanese people who immigrate here.

The town is more crafty than artistic because it's very touristy, but there are some good artists in the area. TONS of galleries. Every winery and beer garden has one in addition to all the lone galleries. Everyone you talk to is a photographer or painter, though they all take nature photographs- pretty flowers and stuff... I haven't figured out what I want my body of work to be up here yet, but I'm staying away from flowers.



There are two markets a month on the mountain where people sell arts, crafts, jams, vegetables, and other things. I'm going to bind journals and sell them there with some other things, like my prints (eventually). I’m just waiting for all my supplies to get here via boat.

They are huge on the environment, the water we live off of is rain water, they have things like "half flush" for the toilets, they are big on gas powered utilities and no one uses microwaves, along with a dryer- I'm mostly hang drying the clothes. It's kind of cool.You have to go to the butcher, the baker and the green grocer (for fruits, vegetables, and eggs). The grocery store closes at 6 every night if you need anything else. There are two street lights in the town and no traffic lights, only roundabouts. There are about 6,000 people total in the town. These are just a few of the huge changes we've been adjusting to. Although, everyone seems to help everyone out here, and when they hear that you are new in town and from America (though everyone initially thinks we're from Canada) they are so excited.

The mountain (rain forest) has 9 national parks in it, waterfalls, hiking trails- all that fun stuff. It's dark by 5:30 the latest (because we're still in winter... we came from Summer, and it was light till 8pm.) What's the coolest is at night, you can see the Milky Way Galaxy.
There is almost no crime- I think the worst I've heard about is teenagers shutting off peoples water supply (It's a switch in the front of the house).

The people are great. In fact, Derek just got his first gift from a patient on Sunday. It was a pumpkin, a full grown, organic, fresh off their farm pumpkin. We were even given some tips on how to avoid the sobriety checkpoints, which might occur at 8 on a Sunday morning. We’ve already encountered one, Derek had to pass a Breathalyzer test- standard. Honestly, there is no way we would have made it up the mountain with the wicked curvy roads and inclines if we were the slightest bit tipsy. (Btw, it takes 20 minutes to get down the mountain.)

We are about 40 minutes from the beautiful beach. On the weekends Billy is letting us use a studio of his down on the beach in Pottsville (for free- awesome!). You can hear the ocean from it. Just walk out to and there it is!

F'ing Animals!!

There are so many animals in Australia that can kill you- 7 poisonous snakes in our area to start out with. Though, all the locals say that’s nothing because Gold Coast has 20 poisonous snakes. So, I’ve concluded that if anything is going to kill me out here it’s going to be a heart attack. I am going to scare myself to death from stepping on a twig and thinking it’s a lethal Brown snake, and oops, there goes my heart. Thank you Australia.

Honestly, who can blame me with all the animal interactions I’ve had in the first 3 weeks of living here. Seriously. Let’s start with the 7 foot (or ~2.2 meters as they would say here) snake that was just chilling one night on our front patio area when I got home. If you tell anyone in town that there was a python just chillin’ on your doorstep they make the funniest faces. Turns out that most of them have lived here and never seen a snake, or have lived here for a good 25 years and have only seen 2. Well, good, I’ve seen my share (and I won’t call it fair). So now I don’t need to see anymore for as long as I live here! Luckily, the python was more afraid of our car and slithered back into the bushes. That’s right snake! Run! Yeah right, I wouldn’t even get out of the car. In fact, as Landon was unbuckling his seat belt to see the snake I was yelling at him to put it back on as if I was going to speed out of the driveway doing 80km/h. What if that thing decided to come for us?!? Yes, I know, I could have run it over with the car if it came to that. Whatever.

In the last week I’ve come to come to terms with that snake because he ran from me, unlike some of the other animals. First there was that mouse that had set up camp in our vacuum and decided to high tail it out of there when I turned it on. Only, it decided to go when I lifted the vacuum head off the floor- I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t lie flat on the ground. Well, it was because there was a mouse holding it up! All right, a mouse is a mouse, they are everywhere in the world, but I’ve never seen one before. I blamed it on Australia, and we bought a mousetrap. As Derek put it Us: 1, Mouse: 0.

Then we have the occasional bird fly into the roof of the house, okay who am I kidding. They do it ALL THE TIME. So often now that we have all gotten used to it. While I was downstairs, Landon was upstairs playing and I heard a huge crash.
“Landon? Are you okay Baby?”
“Yeah. I think it was just a bird crashing into the roof.”
Yeah, that is how used to it we all are. I have no idea what is wrong with them, it’s a big TIN roof! I don’t know… But hey the birds aren’t the only things that we know that hang out on the roof. The other night around 3AM Derek and I heard something wrestling on the roof right above our heads. Then we heard what Derek describes best as, wait for it… “a baby being killed by a cat.” Just take a moment and try to imagine the sound. Derek and I clung to each other out of fear and I kept thinking, “Dear God, please don’t let what ever that is fall through the roof onto the bed.” The next morning Derek and I looked for blood. We didn’t find any in that area, but we did find some from those stupid birds flying into the roof. We later came to the conclusion that it was most likely our two opossum residents – either fighting or mating. Last night, actually, a similar event happened. Only we heard the opossum slide down the side of the roof, and fall off while trying to dig it's nails into the tin roof. It was clearly a failed attempt. This time we both laughed.

We’ve seen other animals. Our fair share of spiders, two big lizards, rabbits the size of Landon, some smaller opossums with big (cute) eyes, a rat, and there are wild turkeys everywhere. I think the most horrific experience for me was being attacked by a Magpie. Oh man, seriously. I took Landon to this park across the street from Derek’s office to swing and hang out while Billy and Derek talked business. Landon ran down to the swings while I very slowly strolled, one foot in front of the other, down a fairly steep hill when Landon started yelling at me, pointing. “MOMMY! BIRD!!”
The next 30 seconds were the longest of my life. I ran a little thinking the bird would just go away, but it followed me, dive-bombed me and then hovered over me. I threw my car keys at it thinking it would freak it out, but NO. It just made it more aggressive. After running into the parking lot, under the swing set, being pecked on the head and slapped in the face by it’s wing (it actually broke skin on my forehead) I started to scream. And all the skater boys at the park started to laugh along with Landon. After a good 30 seconds it flew off to a tree and watched me for the next 20 minutes while Landon played on the playground. When I told Derek and Billy about the terrifying experience Billy said, “Yeah, that will happen, it’s happened to me twice.” Great. Those were his words of comfort?

Many of you have heard these stories already, but I figure that the stories are good enough to be told again. It’s always good to laugh in the face of fear. Well, in my case, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, and laugh later. Like now. Lately I’ve come to terms with nature, after all, I am the one entering their territory. Hey, tonight, you’d be proud, I even went to go investigate a weird noise our backyard. I figure I’ve had my fair share of scary things, so bring on the good stuff!