Living A Simpler Life...

As many of you know Terry and I officially moved to Independence, CA in December of 2010. Now this is a rural town of about 575 residents located about 45 miles south of Bishop. In our quest for a more steady income in this difficult economy, the move has put us an additional 180 miles further from our kids, now over a 5 hour drive away. This, more that anything else, has been the most difficult part. Especially now that we are waiting for the birth of our first grandchild on or about the 30th of October, 2011. In addition, our daughter has re-located to San Diego, spreading us an additional 150 miles apart. Thank goodness for cell phones, text, email and now this blog.

Our daughter-in-law and daughter both have a blog that I have been enjoying for quite some time now. Since I am tech-challenged, I was reluctant to give this a try. However, with the encouragement of our daughter, here is my first attempt. I am sure that this will be a work in progress, but I also hope that it will provide my family with some personal trials and successes of "living a simpler life".

When you down-size from 1800 sq. ft. to 525 sq. ft of living space, you quickly realize what items you need and which ones were just taking up space. Interestingly enough, the previous family who occupied our current home raised SIX children in this house. I am quite sure that several bunk beds were involved! But for just the two of us, the house is just right. Having been built in the 1920's, the house has a lot of charm. However, it needs some TLC. Fortunately for us our landlords are all in favor of supporting any repairs needed and allowing it to come off the rent. This arrangement works great for us as we can fix things up the way we want over time and enjoy the benefits of the labor.

I will try to post a picture of the house that we took shortly after moving in. Some changes have already taken place in the form of yard work, but in essence it looks the same. One of the nice features of the property is the large front yard WITH GRASS. Duke and Duchess think that they have died and gone to heaven. Their last back yard was mostly brick patio. The down side for Rajah, Ta-Ta and Snickerdoodles is they have had to become indoor cats, as we are located directly on Hwy 395. They have adjusted, but let us know of their unhappiness each time the dogs get to escape outside.

This seems to be a good place to stop for now. However, when I return, I will tell you about the most amazing view from our porch, the choo-choo train across the street, the community garden and of course the newest addition to the Fenske Farm..."the girls" aka the baby chicks! Stay tuned for more adventures on Living A Simpler Life!