I made it to Washington

I realize it’s been forever since I’ve written here, and for that I apologize.

It’s been crazytime for the last couple of months, but I am happy to say we’ve made it to Washington, and we have mostly settled in and have most of the boxes unpacked — and can actually find stuff. mostly.

It has been a grand adventure, but it was totally worth it, and we are now settled in our new place here in Kitsap County, Washington, in the greater Silverdale area.

The new place is larger than our old one, which is nice, on two levels, with the lower level a converted basement turned granny flat the former owners built for elder family members. We’re turning the downstairs area into our offices, with enough space for a common lounging space as well. Upstairs it has a nice great room, a really nice kitchen, and a second bedroom we’ve turned into Tatiana’s sleeping room and a general storage area. She gets wheeled out into the main room every morning, and wheeled back in at bedtime.

This house is on about 2.3 acres, much woody. We’re in process of buying an adjacent undeveloped plot as well, and when that’s completed we will leave it that way and have about 4.5 acres of pine, cedar, hemlock, birch and other trees.

The cats and bird all made the transfer just fine; it’s a 13 hour drive from the old house to the new, and Laurie hauled the cats north with her, and I made a trip north with Tatiana, who much to my surprise was a total trooper, and then two days later drove back to Santa Clara and meet up with the movers to empty the house. And then drove the 13 hours again to start this new phase of life. Hint: driving 13 hours two times in about a week — I do not recommend.

Saying goodbye to Silicon Valley

It feels a bit weird and sad to be gone from Silicon Valley; I moved there in the early 1980’s and it was a huge chunk of my life. Laurie and I moved into the hosue in Santa Clara in 1994 ahd lived there until — about six weeks ago. That house, by the way, has been under renovation and should be on the market in the next week or two; we don’t expect it to be on the market long. If you know someone who might be interested in a 1956 Eichler that we kept close to the original designs (and with some original casework) have them contact me and I’ll pass them on to the agent. It is, for what it’s worth, about 4 miles from Apple’s Spaceship so you can’t get more core Silicon Valley than that.

But that said, I was ready to get out of the crazy of the valley and take a step back. I will miss the people, and the birding, and parts of the culture of the valley area, but I won’t be missing the traffic, the prices, the heat and air quality, and what seems to be the beginning of a major problem with the water supplies due to what I think is the emergence of a climate-change enhanced mega-drought.

Instead, as I sit in my office, I have this view:

I finally found time to go buy new feeders and set them up, and I get to sit here in meetings or when I’m thinking and watch the birds discover the feeder. So far, that includes a couple of Anna’s Hummingbirds, many Dark-eyed juncos, a group of Chestnut-backed chickadees, a female hairy woodpecker, and just today, I’ve seen my first Red-Breasted Nuthatches and Black-capped chickadees feeding. There’s also a bully of a large Stellar’s Jay appearing on and off. It’ll be interesting to see what appears as we head into fall migration hard. Other birds I’ve seen while sitting out on the deck include an Osprey, various swallows and Purple Martins, and, oh yeah, a Bald Eagle flew over the other day.

Beyond that, I’ve found garter snakes in the lawns, and the other night we heard the very close howling of a Coyote — who then surprised me by wandering by outside my office window. We also have many bunnies who come munch on the clover on and off.

I am loving this new situation.

We are starting to learn the area; I’m finally feeling like I can take time away from unpacking and working on things here at the house to go out and bird a bit. Even better, I found my cameras, and even my batteries and charger, and so I can start taking pictures again. With the view and the feeder, I’m keeping both binoculars and teh camera ready nearby. At some point I will think about setting up some “natural” perches but right now I’m happy documenting what lands on the feeder to feed.

It’s almost Labor Day, and we can see the days shortening and the sunlight is starting to get that “fall” look at is starts to come in more at an angle. I know we’re going to see very short days in the winter, but right now it feels close to perfect.

I’m trying to get back into writing mode, since I finally feel like I have time and energy to do so. We’re slowly starting to learn the area, and I’m looking forward to exploring the birding spots I’m starting to identify up here. So far, other than a couple of visits to Point No Point, I haven’t really done much, but that is going to change.

Now that most of the boxes are unpacked, I am starting to think about the new shop I have and how to fit it out, and what I want to accomplish over the next month or two, between finishing moving into the house and getting artwork on the walls, some serious time birding and exploring before the rains hit, and here on the site and in the newsletter.

We have closed some doors, but opened up new ones into this next phase of life, and it has me feeling strong and happy and ready to go get started on some new and interesting things.