Kerry is a college roommate of Marcia’s. Jay and Kerry now live in her mom’s old home
on 65 hilly acres of forest and meadow in Post Falls, Idaho. Their side of the street is Idaho, and the
opposite side is Washington.
But up the hill, about a half-mile away, their new
home is under construction. Soon they will be moving.
They are rightfully excited.
The front of their property has a small creek running
through a culvert. To provide access for
construction trucks, the dirt bridge over the culvert was mounded with
thousands of pounds of additional gravel, heaped in the middle, and now a little
loose on one side because of damage from a honey bucket truck.
We have our first fright of the trip as I drive across the culvert with the trailer. This involves a gentle left turn that starts on the road. The trailer’s tires, of course, want to take a shortcut and hit the loose gravel. The trailer digs in, tilts, and slides toward the creek. By now the truck fortunately is on firmer ground and I keep pulling and we come through OK. (Of course, in a couple days we will have to exit across the same culvert.)
We have our first fright of the trip as I drive across the culvert with the trailer. This involves a gentle left turn that starts on the road. The trailer’s tires, of course, want to take a shortcut and hit the loose gravel. The trailer digs in, tilts, and slides toward the creek. By now the truck fortunately is on firmer ground and I keep pulling and we come through OK. (Of course, in a couple days we will have to exit across the same culvert.)
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| An old hay storage building on their 65 acres. |
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| The falls at Post Falls. |
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| Jay and his Brittany rescue dog Pepper. |
Post Falls is near Coeur d’Alene. It is named for an old mill built by a
man named Post, at a falls on the Spokane River. The mill site is now a nice park and has
been used by Kerry in a novel she wrote (one of two, I believe) available on
Amazon. She is an interesting woman,
early-on a military lawyer, now a seller of unusual old books on E-bay, a
collector herself, an author, and a cat-lover learning to at least like Jay’s
new dog, a Brittany named Pepper.
Pepper is a rescue dog 4-5 years old, intelligent, at peace with Kerry’s
cat, and perfectly happy to harass the cats that are less
assertive.
Kerry’s son Donovan also publishes on Amazon, and lives in
Spokane.
Jay is retired from the Public Affairs office at the
University of Idaho. Although a Jersey, he is adapting happily to country life managing the house
construction, keeping their acres clear of excessive brush, separating the cats
and dog, cooking, etc. Jay looks great,
and is happy to be alive having had a couple of near-death experiences. He is now minus a few organs most of us take
for granted. He bikes a couple hundred
miles a week, walks Pepper up the hill to check on the house construction,
snowshoes in the winter, and with Kerry keeps track of at least nine types of
volunteer apples growing across the property, along with various other trees
(apricots, cherries) left from the early days.
Kerry and Jay have another shared experience – each has a
very elderly mother requiring assisted care.
The two mothers live in the same care facility in Post Falls, so visits
are easy and frequent; unfortunately, neither mom is capable at this point of knowing the other exists.
The facility and staff appear to be as good as they get.
The facility and staff appear to be as good as they get.
Kerry and Jay each write thoughtful blogs, which you might
enjoy visiting:
Jay: http://wwwmyownprivateidaho.blogspot.com
Kerry and I seem to both have blogs ending in "ca", which I thought ment Canada. I have so much to learn that isn't really worth learning. Maybe someone will just tell me why she and I ended up "ca".
Your comment on the creek and bridge were right on. That creek has paid for its beauty time and again through the years with floods and washed out culverts.
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