Opposite of meth people but just as bad.

That house from Sunlit Lane is back on the market! This was the one we thought about buying back in September 2006-I think there are some posts in this blog from then. It had the neighbor mayhem going on because of the horses and the no permits and we basically ran screaming from it. It's back on the market at $150,000 less-only $649,000, which is exactly our price range! Except that we have already run screaming from it once and don't need to do it again. Frantic and determined neighbors that speak of horses with this sort of meth addled look in their eye (except they are the opposite of meth people, they are baby owners, hemp wearers, volvo drivers) and the Flies, the Dirt, the Smells are not good neighbors. And they were everywhere. They surrounded us the second time we went out to that property. Like literally, we drove away in our own Volvo (ok, Gary's) fast.

There are no longer horses on it. It was an adorable spot-not exactly a ranch. Only 2.4 acres, with a 1 bedroom house. Small! But the house, (ok, unpermitted cabin with nice decks) was perfect and the property layout (ok, flattish 2 acres of poorly graded eroding dirt), with exception of proximity of the crystal wearing stockbrokers or whatever they were, made it frightening. You could walk right out to Fall Creek Park and trail ride amongst steep redwoody trails though. Likely full of serial killers. And, from my current barn, would be about an hour and 15 minute commute in good traffic. Let's say hour and a half plus in bad. I think that one was the rebound property from the Perfect Ranch of July 2006 in which the cocksuckers outbid us by the $200,000.

Um. Why don't we just move out of Santa Cruz? Would be hard to do in such a perfect June.

Ran the dogs yesterday morning in Watsonville. The other half of my life. Half beach, half ranch. Love having the agility field right there near the barn. Dogs were actually fantastic- fast and perfect contacts. Speedy weave poles. Only one dropped bar. Did a scientific experiment with Otterpop. Have been not taking her frisbee anywhere, it is a Special thing to Play with at Agility, hence making agility always fast because Frisbee is there? Yep. Super incredibly fast if it is in my pocket. Even trying to sneakily hide it as if it is still in the pocket or leaving it sitting with Ruby for convenient retrieval at the end of a course is not good enough. If I have that stupid, dirty piece of orange cloth, Otterpop is a speed demon. Frisbee anywhere else, she runs faithfully and cleanly around the course but not fast enough to Win. She is like an addict. I can't believe so many brain cells in my head have to think about dog frisbees. With an ugly cartoon squirrel drawn on it. Like, this is something Al Swearengen would never, ever approve of. Ever.

Chainsaw in the yurt.

I would certainly like to live in this cabin. It's in our price range, theoretically, at $740,000. It is on Mt. Madonna road, which is out near my work. Except the part of the road it is on is sort of unmapped, way up over the mountains, looking down a the other side. Hence this photo of the house, in winter.

The directions to get there are sort of unexplainable, and lead me to believe it is a long, challenging jeep road up through the mountains, likely about an hour plus drive from Santa Cruz. I have been up this road once, on an excursion to see "how long it would take to take the back way" home, having no idea there was a whole other universe up there, that is officially, in Santa Cruz. There were waterfalls and yurts tucked into canyons and unpaved sections and thank god we had a map is all I can say. It is the wilderness known as Santa Cruz Mountains and some people actually enjoy living up there. It's a little militia for my tastes, veering more towards huskies on chains secured to large trees and trucks with multiple gas cans bungeed in the back and multiple gun racks in the back window. Too many chainsaws per capita up there.

Normally, at this time, on a Thursday, I would be driving out to practice with the dogs in the morning before work. The unexplained back stabbing pains of yesterday made me think that perhaps this is not a good thing to do today. So we are having another week of no agility, no running, no contacts, no practicing. For an agility blog, this is pretty weak right now. Such is the way my agility life ends up.

The dogs did practice being well behaved and not evil to Tom the roof guy who came over at 8:00 this morning to look at the roof issue that makes most contactors run screaming. That is not getting us any Steeplechase placements though. Tom, being a roofer, has seen it all and remained calm and took photos and will call me in a few days with what will likely be the very expensive estimate. Also to his credit, he likes dogs too and they did not keep barking at him. Timmy likes all contractor guys, so that is not an issue. Ruby hates them until she comes out, sees they are not coming to chainsaw us to bits and rob the house of all the rotting taxidermy and is fine. Otterpop pretty much does what I command her to because she is under my power so if she doesn't take Ruby's lead, she is fine. Tom the roof guy even said she is cute, which is something Otterpop doesn't hear a lot.

OtterPop with Timmy, before her new collar. She is disturbed. Timmy is zen.

OtterPop with Ruby after new collar. Well behaved, like little ponies.