Gasshō,
It’s a fast life here in little Sequim, and we’ve realized the blogs are not keeping up. We’ll attempt to get them out a bit more often so we can all stay current.
We closed on the four acres on August 4 with great excitement and little fanfare. It’s funny that with so much going on even getting to purchase a dream property is sort of just one more thing needing doing. However, that said, the thrill is continuing and growing.
Now that the property is completely cleaned up, it’s more wonderful than we could see before. Four acres doesn’t sound large, but it’s plenty big enough for what we want to do, and certainly pretty enough!
There are so many things that need to happen all at once: fencing, gutting and re-doing the garage, moving the portable buildings into place, and starting work on the temporary bathhouse we’ll use for the initial stages of “making it our own.”
As that operation is coming together, we’re continuing to care for the 25 acres—thank you hardworking meditators—and getting it ready for sale. While walking around the new four-acre place with one of our service-providing people, a conversation started about beautiful properties. I mentioned that we have a gorgeous 25-acre place we’re getting ready to put on the market. After a brief description his comment was, “That sounds exactly like what we’re looking for. Could we see it before it goes on the market?” Sure enough…. Of course, this first foray may go nowhere, but it is encouraging. Everyone who has seen the 25 acres and heard about a two-story, five-bedroom, three-bathroom house says, “You won’t have any trouble selling that.” We hope that’s true.
I think I’ve mentioned that we’re dialed into a network of lovely people here. Whatever we need, someone knows just the right person for that. There are some huge, old fruit trees on Four Acres (the current designation) that have never had any attention. Tristan, creator of our adorable hermitages, knows an arborist who is not only a dab hand with trees, he’s likely a meditator.
As for the 25-acre place, Danni, our realtor, knows Justin who will mow the area around the house. Justin brought along his friend Eric who is haying the other 23 acres. And, in just that way we have access to every kind of help we need.
As you may recall, when the fellows arrived with the U-Haul trucks from the Monastery, they were able to fit everything into the two giant garages at the 25 acres. But now we’re trying to get that place cleaned up for a sale. Blessedly, we were able to find a place in town with a massive, empty storage space that can accommodate all from both garages. The space was a bit of a disaster, having been left unattended to for years, but, again, thanks to those intrepid practitioners, it’s now cleaned up and ready to receive the goods. (A sweaty, muscle-building, muscle-exhausting afternoon was spent organizing said earthly possessions in preparation for their next move.)
A few shots of our current situation:
Four Acres:
The giant Sequoia—
The garage that is scheduled to be gutted and transformed into the first community building
25 Acres
Mowing—before and after
Haying 25 acres!
An organized garage waiting transport
Guardian of the
Monastery’s possessions.