Back in Oklahoma.
The house on our acreage in Mustang has been rented to several different people over the last seven years, the most recent of whom is in the process of moving out now. He'll be out by the 20th. Now, thinking too much again, I wonder if that means he'll be gone by the end of the 19th, or will it be the 20th? Just to be safe, I believe our plan is to show up on the 21st ready to get some things done. In the meantime, we are trying to keep our hands and minds busy until then.
We have taken temporary lodging in a place called Candlewood Suites, a residential hotel.
The FAA (that's Federal Aviation Administration) has a training center in Oklahoma City, so people come from all over the country (and maybe beyond?) to attend training at FAA here in Oklahoma City. Rather than haggle with uber-expensive nightly rate hotels or long-term apartment lease requirements and whatnot, a lot of those folks stay at places like this.
It's sort of like a cross between a hotel and an apartment. Our unit has a kitchenette with a little two-burner stove, microwave (unfortunately no conventional oven, so no fresh-baked bread for a while), a decent sized 'fridge, a dishwasher, garbage disposal, a little coffeemaker (YEAH!) and two televisions - one in the living room and one in the bedroom. They allow pets, thank goodness, so Muffin and Cookie are here with us.
We expect to be here from one to three months (or longer if required) while we whip the A-frame into shape.
We've been out to the property a few times to look around, see how things are, see if we might run into the soon-to-be-former resident. We haven't met him yet.
I, Mrs. Bright-Side, am happy to report that:
* The chicken house is intact and will only require some cleaning up and a little repair.
* Apparently no one ever harvested the garlic we planted the October before we moved to Cooperstown and it has naturalized! Garlic where we planted it and beyond! So with no effort on our part, we will get to harvest garlic this summer!
On the other hand, a LOT of work will be required to bring the rest of the place up to snuff.
We'll have to bring in a load of gravel to fill in the driveway. It looks like heavy vehicles have driven over it and it is deeply rutted right now.
When we left seven years ago, some agency (I'm not sure if it was City of Mustang, Canadian County, or State of Oklahoma) had come through and cleared back from the road and cleaned out the drainage ditch. I thought they were going to put the fence back in (which they may have done) but there is no fence there now.
The house is an A-Frame, covered with cedar shake shingles. Shingles are warped and loose all over the building and completely missing along the bottom. The apex of the roof has come dismantled, unmanufactured, and without even seeing inside yet, I am as sure as I am sitting here that it leaks in the rain. We'll know more once we can get inside.
After having lived in a big house full of hardwood floors the last seven years in Cooperstown, I had already decided we would pull up the carpet in there and put down actual or facsimile of hardwood flooring.
You try to screen your residents, but people with secrets to hide ... Anyway, one of the renters SOLD the 12x24 metal building we had out there as an out-building! We see that the iron gate that used to be on the front door and one of the front windows are missing as well, we suspect cashed in as scrap metal. Turns out that guy was a fugitive, a wanted man. Apparently the government figured out where he was and he skipped. His day will come.
The central heat and air unit is missing. There are sections of garage doors all over the place, too, out by the sheds and over in the woods. The little shed buildings that we'd used to keep our tools and smaller equipment and where our first chicken house was, are now full of garbage, as if some of the renters had declined to contract with the city of Mustang for garbage pickup. Appliances all the heck over the place... I do know the current/soon-to-be-former resident has had burn-pits out there - one right outside the back door, next to the house with the cedar shake shingles - that was a disaster waiting to happen! He has since moved the burn pit away from the house, but we prefer to avoid burn pits ourselves as the fire danger is way too high.
Anyway, come Tuesday morning we will be out there in our overalls, boots and heavy gloves to triage the situation and fomulate a plan of action. I'll post pictures when I have some to post.
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