Week Four: The Little House On the Hilltop Project

HIGHLIGHTS: Rural Living in Wasco County: Who to Call. Time to Get Serious: To Do List.

COUNTDOWN: 39 WEEKS

Almost back on a Sunday posting schedule and now into Week Four of The Little House On the Hilltop (TLHOTH) project, let me share what’s happened.

I know, I know, there’s only been like what, four days since my last update? So what possibly could get done? A lot, if one wasn’t still recovering from a l-o-n-g flight back from Hawaii with a very mama-clingy little boy, and then his sleeping readjustment back to this time zone and what seems to be loads of cognitive growth happening, leaps and bounds taking place before my eyes. My head hurts.

But I’m finally going through a Wasco County publication, one that on first glance pretty much warns the bright-eyed (semi-)city slicker like myself about even thinking about a move into the country out there, let alone doing the actual move. Given our initial chilly reception with many of the local farmers, it’s no wonder I’m sensitive to a “don’t move here!” message. Like I’ve told you, we’re not out there yet, we have to keep Scott’s day job here in Portland to keep this endeavor afloat, and this publication doesn’t help matters psychologically speaking. But it’s where we will live and it’s best to know the ins and outs, right? All this is what makes it even harder, dear Readers, the toil! The toil!

I also realized a month has already gone by and it’s time to start crossing things off a list instead of simply willy-nillying my way through this thing. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Wasco County Rural Living Handbook: Help Me!

The Wasco County Rural Living Handbook is created by the Wasco County Soil and Water Conservation District, its main purpose to acquaint the reader with their responsibilities regarding land management/stewardship (like keeping your weeds down), how best to be neighborly in the country (seems there are different rules, or at least how they put it, “rules are as different as the perception behind them.” My translation: we do what we want out here.), recommendations on not moving too quickly (there’s a line in there saying “sudden and drastic changes are ingredients for conflict”), etc. all the stuff you may not think about when your dreams are simply blue sky, open ground and quiet. From what I can tell, it is a very informative if not in some instances a rather amusing read. Having put together publications laden with info like this, I know the effort that goes into such an endeavor, and there are some very useful sections.

“Not knowing about certain things can get a person into trouble.” Page 1. One of its first pages is a resource directory, with phone numbers for all the State and Federal and County Agencies, Emergency contacts, Irrigation and Water Districts, Recreational Info and Utilities. We have already called a number of them:

Department of Fish and Wildlife. We’ve had deer now twice on our land: once when they inadvertently became enclosed within our deer-fenced property while the fence was being constructed, and sometime later, when some thoughtless individual left the back gate open and they just wandered in. The first time I pretty much single-handedly drove them out. Who knows how long they had been enclosed, but when they saw me coming two of them essentially climbed up over the fence, one got stuck in the fence a few times before making it over, and then the last one simply bok-springed it. They were ready to go. And wasn’t I thankful it went so easily. My biggest fear was that one would get caught up in the fence and die from exertion. Or that we couldn’t get them out before we planted and we’d have to take drastic measures to remove them. That’s what we thought for the second round, so Scott called the Fish and Game Department to find out what our options were. Luckily these deer, too, were fairly easy driven out. Whew.

The Watermaster. This guy’s job (I wonder, if it were a woman, would she be called a Watermistress?) is to keep tabs on all the water use going on in Wasco County. We had a number of calls to him regarding the well we dug and our First Priority Water Rights that were part of the deal of us digging the well in the first place on someone else’s property: as long as we maintained First Priority we’d dig a well on our dime that would benefit both parties. Thankfully we had this all captured on paper, because we would need it later on in a tidy dispute with that same neighbor. So lots of calls to the Watermaster.

Farm Services Agency. This federal agency “Equitably [serves] all farmers, ranchers, and agricultural partners through the delivery of effective, efficient agricultural programs for all Americans” (From the FSA website). We’ve had to call them so they could update their records, telling them what crops we’re growing, and to find out if we qualified for any of those massive subsidies of which 100s of thousands of dollars go to individuals who grow the “right” crops (wheat and barley from what I can tell out in Wasco County). Nope. Grapes don’t cut it.

Wasco County Clerk. While still in Ireland and looking from a distance for just the right spot for our vineyard, Scott called this office to get the names of the property owners whose land he had identified as possibilities on Google Earth. For a small fee they faxed him the names and we finally found our land.

Wasco County Weedmaster. (Again, would a gal be a Weedmistress?) Had to call this fella to request no county spraying along our stretch of the road; what they use could harm our vineyard considerably.

Wasco County Oregon State University Extension Service. Nationwide county Extension Service offices “are staffed by one or more experts who provide useful, practical, and research-based information to agricultural producers, small business owners, youth, consumers, and others in rural areas and communities of all sizes.” (from the Cooperative Extension Services website). We had to call them very early on to help us facilitate a meeting with our wheat-growing neighbors and the issue of chemical drift, theirs, not ours, coming into our vineyard and killing the plants. Touch touchy. We also were trying to find out the best way, one with the most impact but with the least environmental degradation, to control our weeds; you would not believe the monsters we inherited on that ground we bought. Thankfully our neighbors know what we’re up against and have been pretty quiet about it, as far as we know. Four years into it and we’re still working on it. Yeah.

911. Always a good number. Scott had to call it when our worker’s tumbleweed burn pile got out of hand and turned very quickly into a grass fire spreading across the landscape. It’s all volunteer firefighting out there. I look forward to the day we’re out there to return the good will.

Wasco Electric Cooperative. We had to bring in 3-phase power for the well pump. Crazy expensive. I still don’t believe we not only had to pay to bring it onto our land, we still have to pay for the electricity. I’m joking. Sort of. I guess I feel shafted somehow. Because to me it’s like going to the only food place in town and them saying, “We’ll cook our food for you to buy (i.e. sell you our service) if you set us up with a kitchen and pay for that, too. Don’t want to? Then, go hungry.” I don’t know, I’m probably just being a big whine head and that’s a ridiculous analogy. Why should they have to pay for where we want to set up shop, right? I suppose I need to just be happy to have electricity, WHICH one day we’d like to generate from our land. Wind. Wind. Sun. Sun. Good. Good.

And that’s who we’ve called so far. And we’re not even living there.

Pull It Together, LaMonica.

Here’s my TLHOTH Project To Do list for the week:

–       Make voice contact with my Portland State University contact. If this project could happen with them, wow.

–       Call Wasco County Planning to start the conversation.

–       Start collecting pricing for building scenarios.

–       Buy a lottery ticket.