Just as we were giving up on ever finding a house to rent in the countryside (and had turned in an application for a condo in town) Steve found a house for rent on Zillow. Who knew that they also listed rentals in addition to houses for sale? At any rate I called and made an appointment for that evening. We loved it and said we wanted it. The very next day the landlord called and said that we could rent it. Yay!
Here's a picture of the house:
Yes, that is indeed a dirt driveway. We also have a small private unpaved road, a named unpaved road and yet another named unpaved road before we get back to pavement. Our heat is provided by propane, thus the propane tank to the right in the picture.
The view from the front door - notice no houses in sight:
And the view from the french doors in the living room - that house off to the left in the distance belongs to our landlord. He took his forty acres and subdivided it so that he could build this rental house on the very far corner of his land. Our address is officially on the street that his house is near but you can only access it from the private unpaved street (which is really like an extended driveway since there are no other houses off it) off of another side street. It's a bit confusing for deliveries but so far no major problems.
There's no fenced area so we'll go to Lowe's and get some fence parts and put up a small area for the dogs. So far I'm still leashing them for potty breaks. The first thing we did last week was to drive my car over and park it in the garage because a storm was headed our way. That Monday the furniture arrived (just the basics, bed, 2 recliners for living room and a dining table with chairs) and then I hurried around and bought a credenza and side table for the tv and Steve's lap top. Don't you just love craigslist?! When the weather clears up again I'll scout for more used furniture.
I didn't have everything moved into the house that Monday so I decided to stay in the RV for the blizzard. Hmm, that perhaps wasn't the best idea. It was soooo cold even with all the heaters blasting away. Finally I was able to get a bit warm after two layers of clothing, three blankets and a very warm dog on my lap. We all slept most of that Tuesday except for quick potty breaks. I then needed to get to the house Wednesday morning for the Dish installer. This is what I saw when I got to the house:
All I can say is thank goodness for the used Yukon that we bought in February with its AWD. There was too much snow piled up in the driveway for me to make it to the garage. So I walked to it and traveled back and forth in my footprints unloading the car, including the dogs in their crates:
After I was unloaded a neighbor came by and plowed the private road and my driveway. Wasn't that nice? Steve brought back some See's Candies from California so that we can thank him as soon as the weather is better this weekend.
So far we're loving it. In between the snowstorms we've walked along the dirt roads. We met another neighbor on her horse, Bailey. She just got her pro rodeo license and does barrel races, etc. The dogs weren't too keen on the horse but they'll have to get used to it since almost everyone has horses in their pastures here. And when the weather cleared for a few days I saw a few dozen chickens too. It's not far from Steve's work, maybe 15 minutes or so and not too much farther from town. We're very glad that we found exactly what we were looking for in a rental house.
