You’d have to know Tommy, which you probably don’t, but when he says “Dude, I’ve got a truck out in the parking lot I’m trying to get rid of,” you should not be expecting to see some Datsun mini on the tarmac. Tommy is the king of boy-toys, and he’s earned every front-end loader, grader, boom-truck, D6-dozer parked out on his John Day ranch. (Plus he and his gorgeous wife hike the entire Compostela de Santiago every other other month or so. I’m just sayin’) No, you should be expecting a monster crew-cab Chev diesel, ’02 or ’03, doesn’t know for sure, a hundred seventy-seven thousand on the odometer. Can’t give it away to his kids. Does Larry want to buy it?

OMG. Does Larry want to buy it? Should be able to haul a lot of oak in a behemoth like that. Should command a little respect next time we pull into a equipment store and say we want to look at a weed-whacker.

So Larry has all the patience in the world when I want to go shopping for kitchen sinks. Rod (the architect, in case you’ve forgotten) says it will be helpful to his planning the interior if he has details which will indicate our thinking. And sure enough, I do find a sink I like. It is, of course, ridiculously expensive, so new that it doesn’t yet appear on the manufacturer’s web site, so details are hard to come by. But they have it in stock! The problem I’m finding, though, is locating fixtures for said sink that aren’t farm-housey, homey-cutsey, Vermont Country Store-esque.

Good news: our neighbor-to-be, Kristin, says sure! Of course we can extend the power easement from the box on their property to our property. Really, really nice. So we can check that box on the important-stuff-to-do list.

Haven’t heard from the water quality test folks re our well, so that box remains unchecked.

And the cows are coming back! Did I write that last time? Nope, just checked. Well, Mark, Cow Guy, wants to meet with us the first week in January to outline the areas he will fence. I wanted to be on site when the animals are unloaded, but I’m afraid we’ll have to miss the event, as we’ll be in San Diego at Band Camp on the proposed date. Dang! Gordon suggested that maybe we could Skype the arrival. Sure. Mark should be happy to oblige.

Last time down, I got the idea that I’d like to consider the organ which is rotting away in the old house. Maybe it’s a wonderful instrument that just needs to be cleaned up a bit. Hmm. What do you think?

So I’m missing the land. Shopping for sinks just isn’t that much fun. But I got a bad cold and a stupid case of bursitis or whatever, so we didn’t go to Black Butte as planned, with a stop-over at the farm. Going up to Seattle for New Years, and there I’m going to revisit the country- home books I’ve stockpiled with, I hope, more focussed attention on details like kitchen sink faucets. I wish I could show you the adorable return address labels from Allison with a little farm house and a barrel of peaches. See, it’s really going to happen. Christmas, 2015. The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.