Country Living

If you read my book, you know how in love I am of wide open spaces like that I found in Alaska.  When I first moved to Alaska and folks found out that I was originally from LA, they all assumed that I was a city boy.  In actuality, I have always been blessed with lots of room to roam.

My first home was in Altadena, Calif., and was backed up to forest land so I had plenty of room there.  Even the Pasadena Mansion that my family moved to was on a acre of land in the middle of the city.  While the house in the San Fernando Valley was only on a half acre, that was pretty large by todays zero lot line standards and the Valley was more country in those days.

Today, my wife and I live on 2.3 acres in Madera County, Calif.  From our front window, we have an unobstructed view of the High Sierra Mountains to the east.  We love our home. We don’t go traveling as much as we used too because it feels like we are already at some national park.

One of the things that we had to get used too when we moved out to the country was the critters.  About every three years, we get inundated with small black beetles that come up into the house through the walls.  This occurs in the spring time, especially if the winter was a wet one.  Also, because we had so much rain this year, our neighbor, across the street grew a bumper crop of tadpoles that have now become little frogs, about a quarter of a inch in length.  They all migrated across the street and straight into our yard with many finding their way into our house.  This is good to some extent, in that they eat the bugs.

So, my first chore of the day is to go around the house and collect all the little bugs and all the little frogs that I can find and relocate them.

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