About three weeks ago CC, my current housemate, asked me if I would consider moving to a different place over rebuilding on site. I had considered that, but last year home prices were too high. When I started looking again at home prices this past May, I found several nice places in the $200-$300K price range.
I sent in a question about one home nearby and was matched with an agent, Derrick. We worked together for three weeks before I found something I liked and whose offer was accepted.
I should be moving in late July, right around the same time the old house gets demolished.
This was a big move I should have done sooner, like in the summer of 2022. I have two years to catch up on giving the dogs and me a united home again.
June is always our most miserable month, with temperatures rising and the ground drying up. I used the hottest part of the day to look at homes, driving to the addresses I'd get from Zillow --or realtordotcom. Most of the homes were not nearly as nice as the photos made them out to be, with dumpy yards, or next-door trash sites, or badly ungraded, narrow dirt roads. Some homes I had to avoid because of horses or other dogs. Home Owners Associations were a no-go to me, as well as small lots kvetched right next to another lot with little yards I knew I had to look more in the rural area southeast of Sierra Vista where my dogs' barking wouldn't piss off the local curmudgeons.
My years of living frugally have paid off. I only hope now the dogs don't destroy anything. The new home I have will need a taller fence, a doggie door, a two-car carport and more desert landscaping.
I miss gardening. I haven't done much gardening since the 2021 house fire, knowing that some of the flora will need to be removed for the demolition. I want a cactus garden I can look out my window from to admire, something that will attract birds and other wildlife The two kennels I have right now for Fritz and Gretchen can be turned into a gated vegetable garden so that rabbits stay away.
I have many plans for the new lot. I'm not getting rid of the old lot (just yet) as I will use plants from the front yard to re-seed my new lot. My Palo Verde and mesquite and mimosa trees, rosemary, Cleveland sage, lavender and birds-of-paradise and the many cacti all will help regrow my new home's yard.
Early this morning I got up before sunrise to walk Fritz. It was the third sunrise walk in a new neighborhood. This was my way of seeing the prospective new home at the start of the day, when people and animals wake up. All three homes I considered bidding on were surrounded by dirt roads, hidden drainages, and nearby farm animals.
One thing I noticed two years ago when walking Gretchen around the Garden Valley neighborhood in the summers, was the fascination with posing skeletons in yards, as a form of creative yard art. I find the bony people amusing and may create my own skeleton once I'm settled in.
The one good thing about living off a dirt road is having less vehicular traffic. This will hopefully calm the dogs down.
TBC
