How it Started
Maybe it was foresight or premonition, or maybe it was just Randy missing his Eastern Washington roots and me being sick of the grinding Seattle commute. Whatever the reason, in 2008 we decided to purchase a little piece of land away from it all. We started with a 10 acre lot up on Little Vulcan Mountain near the bustling town of Curlew, population 108 (insert sarcasm). Over time we were able to obtain more of the 10 acre lots until we landed on 40 acres.
We went to look at the property in mid-July, a very hot time of the year in the Eastern Washington hood. We had my daughters, Eden and Mia, 14 and 12 respectively, and our granddaughter, Kaede who was 7. Our real estate agent advised us not to drive across the dry meadow for fear of fire danger so Randy and I set off with Ric leaving the girls back at the car.
One of the downsides of our area is cheat grass, a wee with a pokey broom shaped sticker that embeds in everything it comes in contact with. By the time we had made the walk through the waist high grass up to the property, we were all in agony from the little needles that had invaded our socks. Ric found one of the corners to give us somewhat of an idea about how the property was situated and we called it good.
We returned to the car to find Kaede pants-less with her jacket around her waist. Eden explained that she had tried to teach Kaede how to pee in the bushes but she wasn’t quite getting the squat position down and peed on herself.
Later at the Tonasket campground we had made our temporary home for this trip, Randy and I talked about the different properties we had looked at. Although I was sure the mountain piece was the right one, he was hesitant. He had really wanted more than just 10 acres. “Listen” I told him, “we have looked at dozens of pieces of land. We need to make a decision.” I pointed out that with the property bordering national forest to the North and state land to the West, it will seem like more than 40 acres. He agreed the end of the road feature was pretty nice and we bought our first piece of paradise up on a mountain.
