Scott Valley, Part 2

After Duzel Creek became unbearable, we moved to Etna. Although we were now living in a very small trailer (I'm not sure you could call it a mobile home) with an addition, it was okay. It was clean, there was a nice spot for a garden in the back yard, there was a barn for goats.

Sydney was homeschooled while we were up Duzel Creek because the bus didn't run on dirt roads and it would have been a fairly long drive to and from the bus each morning and afternoon. At the time, we used books and curriculum from the school. I knew homeschool was something I wanted to do but that wasn't the best time or place to begin. In Etna, she went to public school. For a time.

We were rather on the edge of Etna, so to speak, so you really don't get to see the whole town. Or city, I guess it is. You can see Etna Creek cutting across from the middle at the bottom up to the top right. Even in Yreka, we never lived far from water, even if it didn't run all year. We weren't far from Yreka Creek and although I don't see evidence of it on the map now, there was a creek running even nearer our house; it flooded once while we were there and of course we had to go watch it.

Right there, almost smack in the middle, is the house/trailer we lived in. You can see all the cars behind it and at the bottom in the middle of the left side there are some trees. The barn is just south of them. During the summer, I would walk outside, pick a handful of cherry tomatoes and eat them while walking to the barn to milk the goat. That was just before Joanna was born. Which means, since we didn't move again until after, that she was born while living here.

Not long after Joanna was born, Dan decided it was time for Sydney to do homeschool again. Never mind that I had a by-then-three-year-old as well as about a five-week-old. Never mind that we had almost no books for fifth grade at the time. We had friends who homeschooled and they were very helpful and had lots of tips and pointers, but that did not make up for everything else. I still knew I wanted to homeschool, but I was not ready at that time.

Why did we have to move so often? I don't know. Dan would get unhappy with a job and so he would quit, usually before he had another one lined up. I think he got unhappy with each place we lived, as well. Under different circumstances, each place we lived would have been fine. With a growing family, we really needed larger houses than we found. Until the next one.

Right in the middle is the cluster of buildings where we lived. You can see there was farmable land, trees, the ever present creeks, the mountains. I really liked it here.

This place was awesome. That is all I can say about it. The house is the building in the middle. The building to the south west had an apartment on the end nearest the house, a garage at the other end, and was like storage between. I guess the guy who lived there before the people we sublet it from manufactured fishing poles or some such thing. We never used the barn which is the building up at the top. Along the road are some trees at the top and it is amongst them that there was a shed that we used for the goats. We had a garden on the south side of the house.

This is the first place that I ever lived that if I could have bought it and lived there for the rest of my life, I would have. The house needed a lot of work but it would have been worth it. I like this house and the land so much that I used it for one of my stories.

Our time here was short, however, because the family we sublet it from wanted to come back so we needed to find another place to live.

One thing about the job Dan had at the time, he got to drive all over the place and got to see lots of potential places to live. I don't remember how he found out about the place at Oro Fino but, as is true of most places in Scott Valley, there is an abundance of farm land, mountains, trees, and water. And lots and lots of roads for walking and running and biking.

We did have goats here but for some reason we didn't keep them. I don't remember why without looking through my old journals and even then I might not have talked about that. We also had a turkey and two chickens. We actually had more chickens than that but we ended up with two. They would wander around and leave eggs for us and it was a pretty good thing. Then, one day, Dan decided to kill them. I really don't know the why on that one; he never would tell me. I was super annoyed, though, because they gave us eggs and he just killed them one day without even giving me the option of butchering them. I wouldn't have wanted to, but not even being allowed the option was a bone of contention.

It was while living here that Alisha was returned. What a long process that was. I won't go into detail about it here because I don't want to but it was good and I was glad.

We had a garden here, too, and my mother ended up moving to a mobile home just a quarter mile up the hill from us.  Anyway, you can see the house we lived in on the southern edge of the trees. It was in this house that Daniel was born.

This wasn't a bad place to live. The house was small, but adequate. The location was superb. However, it was an old dairy farm being used to raise cattle and hay and it was for sale. I guess. You know, because everything is for sale if the price is right. 

And that is what happened. Everything was sold, we needed to find a new place to live. Dan had quit the good job, got a better paying one but quit it as well and was having poor luck finding another. He had a roommate while at BYU for his one semester who was from Arizona. He'd visited there, I guess, and liked it so he called around and we ended up moving. To New Mexico. And that is where I'll take you next.