Storms, outages, Valentine's Day and a Road trip

Rain storms, power outages, holidays, a road trip - whew, it’s been a month! I’m always surprised to realize that the couple of weeks I didn’t write my blog has turned into a month. At the beginning of January I found myself fairly busy with all things real estate and I didn’t really have anything in particular to write about. Then we had a lot of rain and power outages and I, like many of you probably, hunkered down for a bit. And now we’re past Valentine’s Day!

I enjoyed the brief uptick in business in the first part of January. I even had someone who wanted to look at property on New Year’s Day! I scheduled them for the following day, naturally. I had several showings, lots of calls and emails and it felt like 2024 was starting out with a bang. As we approached mid-month and the latter part of January, things dropped off considerably. I found myself with a bit of time on my hands and while not great for the pocketbook, I decided to enjoy the respite and dig into some jigsaw puzzles and my crochet projects.

The end of January and the beginning of February also saw more rain and some big storms and wind. The power was out all over the place and while some had it back on in a day or so, others lingered for five or more days. We were lucky in getting it back on the faster timeline, only to have a small section of our neighborhood go out again the next day. We had it back on fairly quickly at least, unlike some of the neighbors up the road who were in the five day + category. We have a generator and it helps a lot, but it doesn’t run everything and it doesn’t come on automatically, so there’s always that bit of time where we wait to see if the power will come back quickly or not. The roads remain a mess; yes, they are open, but there are trees laying alongside them and there is plenty of duff on the ground. I drove to the coast a few days ago and was amazed to see all of the damage the storm left behind.

This past weekend we took a road trip up to see my husband’s folks. It was his and his mom’s birthdays and we have been trying to get together for that for a couple of years now. It was a fun trip and one with a new aspect for us. We decided to take all four of our dogs along. I would not consider it when we had five; poor Lucy was too much, with her kidney disease and subsequent “accidents” plus she was a shedder. I had my reservations about taking all four along but I am happy to report that they all traveled quite well. It was a lucky thing that my in-laws have a fully fenced yard and so we could let them all out without fear of their getting onto the very busy road my in-laws live on. They are not used to leashes and taking them out on walks with leashes is a challenge, especially with the blind one, as we found when we made stops along the way. Still, it opens up more chances to take road trips with Cookie, the motor home and not have to get someone to watch the dogs.

I want to mention what a wonderful meal we had last night at the Boonville Hotel. They put on a lovely and very delicious Valentine’s Day dinner and we were lucky to get a table. The place was very busy, with folks local and from away and it was fun to see everyone - another of those occasions post-Covid where you see someone you haven’t seen in, literally, a couple of years, even though they live just down the road. The food was amazing, from the crab to the trout to the quail. And the chocolate cake! It was a lovely way to spend the evening.

The real estate market continues to be cool. The storms definitely had an impact, but I’m noticing a bit of an uptick again this week, with more calls and showings. People are beginning to think about spring and so I think there’s some hope, even if interest and insurance rates remain high.