Could be the new place

[bbird]

We are crossing our fingers, but hopefully we have found our new place.

41 acres with a 4 bedroom/2 bath house built in 96'. Has 15 acres of river frontage which was the big draw for us. Its wooded, with flat and sloped(or maybe its called rolling) property but not on a hillside like where we are now. The land goes up and down, lol, so I guess that is rolling.

A big difference is that the house can be scene from the private road. We come from total seclusion, so that is a big difference. In some ways I like that because you can see who is driving by, ect. but it will take getting us to. I imagine I will be one of those people who jumps up and looks out the window if I hear a car, lol.
No neighbors that you can see.

The house has a huge deck...I'm talking 40 ft wide, 60 long that overlooks the river. Has a hot tub that is staying. We miss our old hot tub, so that is a added bonus after lugging boxes after we move.

Want to hear something funny? When we walked into the house the walls were covered with deer heads, and stuffed fish, bear rugs, ect. It felt like we were walking into "our" home. Silly how I felt boxing up all our animals when we put our house for sale because I didn't want to offend others but walking into this new house it made us feel comfortable.

Okay, now the big news that has our friends and relatives gasping.........We are 10 miles out of the blast zone for Mt. St. Helens! On the river that took out over 200 homes! Most people are saying they could never live there for the fear. My family is telling me I better watch the news more incase the mountain blows we can leave, lol. We have no fear though because when the mountain blew the first time, my family lived pretty close to the mountain and we got over a foot of ash. Plus, there is always warnings AND home owners insurance, lol. Our take of it is there are a lot more dangers in the world without worrying if Mother Nature is going to show us what she is capable of.

So, Wednesday evening we are meeting the listing agent so he can walk the property lines with us. If everything goes smoothly, and we don't notice a toxic dump, or iffy stuff we will be making an offer. Then I will post a bunch of pictures and you guys can help me landscape since they have no flowerbeds....which should be illegal! lol

[kyosa]

Congratulations on your find, bbird!! The place sounds really great. 41 acres and a bunch of river frontage,too! Wow. Is this a large river or a more stream-size water feature? I hope it passes inspection when you get to looking at it more in-depth. It sounds like a great place for you. Keeping fingers crossed for ya'll!

[bergere]

Man,,41 acres...thats good. So if they take your bid we want pictures!!

Hey... my Sister in law and DH's brother live in Battleground.

Kyosa...it is the river that took out a freeway bridge with the melt/water/ash/logs, homes, major forests along its banks, when St Helens blew, think in 89..or am I remembering wrong? Its not the Columbia river in size but it is not small either. Lets just say that river cause a major mess.

St Helen's tends to dance and rumble every once in awhile...throws up ash plumes.

[bbird]

It's a river, lol. I went looking on the web to see if I could find present day photo's of the river. Seems that everyone is obsessed with the damage the river did in 1980, but I did find a website that has some neat pictures of it in 2004. oregonstate.edu/groups/hydro/Field_Trips/trips/toutle/index.html

Still lots of ash on the banks of the river, but it is like sand but finer. I guess being here during the eruption and seeing the surrounding areas bounce back to life so fast it is pretty fascinating to us. For how much ash came down there were birds the next day being heard around the mountain....I think that is neat. Today the elk and deer are overpopulated in the same area that 27 years ago there was hardly any. The forestry service got busy planting right away and the area shows hardly any of the damage it had. Sometimes along the river you will see tree's down where they got blown over, and the ash that is left is pretty much the only sign.

Oh, I don't know if it is a popular thing in other parts of the US, but a lot of people bring in sandy loom (sp) for their yards, gardens because it makes a great draining and growing soil. Well, the ash works that way too so gardens grow great...just a shorter season because of the elevation.

I can't wait to raft, fish, and just play in the water anytime we want. We enjoyed our creek a lot here on the property and spent a lot of time enjoying it....it will get worse (in a good way, lol) with a river!

Thanks too for the crossed fingers, and listening to me. Like everyone else who has gone through selling and buying a house...I am stressed out big time!

[bbird]

bergere said:

Man,,41 acres...thats good. So if they take your bid we want pictures!!

Hey... my Sister in law and DH's brother live in Battleground.

Kyosa...it is the river that took out a freeway bridge with the melt/water/ash/logs, homes, major forests along its banks, when St Helens blew, think in 89..or am I remembering wrong? Its not the Columbia river in size but it is not small either. Lets just say that river cause a major mess.

St Helen's tends to dance and rumble every once in awhile...throws up ash plumes.

Yeah, I will post so many pictures you will beg me to stop, lol.

My brothers live in BG, and my mom lives North of BG towards the mountain. We will be on the other side of it from my mom. When the mountain blew in 80 (the big one) North of BG got all ash, where this side of the mountain got the ash and the flooding.

Yeah, the mountain had a big thing last summer were they thought it would send up more ash and they were watching it and closing off the base of the mountain. If you listen to the experts (lol...like why would someone listen huh? ;-)) they say it will never blow like it did in 1980. I'll be one of the first to tell you if the experts were wrong though.

[bergere]

I remember is was 80 something <LOL> Hubby was in the Navy when it blew but his brother was in Battleground when it did. His Mum & Dad were in Dallas OR.

I have a live link to St Helens...but the link is on the other computer and will post it when I can. Pretty neat watching it. Somedays there is nothing..other days it doing something.