We just competed our first house-sit through TrustedHousesitters.com .  It was a complete success. We loved the experience and the homeowners, Dwight and Donna, were happy to have trustworthy folks looking after their place. It was a win, win, win all-around with happy homeowners, happy pets and happy sitters.

Remember the noisy rooster I wrote about in my last post? He continued to crow day and night but fell down on his most important job…protecting the hens. One early evening when Stephen and I were finishing the chores and checking the animals we discovered a hen was missing. With a flashlight we walked the yard and found a pile of feathers. Yikes..a sneaky fox or coyote must have snatched the hen. I was a bit traumatized by the event but the following week another hen died…for unknown reasons. It was disappointing to lose yet another one, but this time I tossed the dead hen over the back fence and moved on…such is the cycle of life on a farm.

Directly after our house sit we steered the Vistabule south and headed for Redwood National Park. It is only a hundred miles from Grants Pass and a nice place to stop for one night. We were one of three campers in the park so it was easy to find a prime site along the Smith River with a lovely view of the redwoods.  It was Stephen’s birthday so we celebrated under the stars surrounded by giant sequoias.

After the Redwoods, it took us two more days of driving and navigating through Los Angeles (and the fires) to arrive at our present location in the mountains near San Diego. Originally we planned to spend a month in Palm Springs but an unexpected house-sit opportunity starting in mid January has turned our original plans upside down.  We have put the Vistabule in storage near San Diego and will retrieve it in a few months.

We’ve got a lot on our plate as we prepare for this unexpected but exciting house-sit. I can tell you that our plans involve plane tickets and passports but no poultry.

Stay tuned for news about Perth!