Real Estate, Report for May 2009

Business is good, actually. The phone is ringing and we are showing lots of homes. Listings are coming in too, as are rentals. So given the great depression that we are in we are not complaining. Other agents we talk with say they are busy, too.

We do see sellers getting frustrated with lack of buyers and some are trying to lease their homes to generate a little cash flow and help with the monthly mortgage payment. Enough of them in fact that rental rates are following sale prices downward. The rental marketplace is becoming every bit as competitive as the selling marketplace. Renters are demanding the same things buyers are___fenced yards, wood stoves, and low rates, too.

I'm finding myself spending the same amount of time preparing to show a home for rent that I do for one that is for sale and taking a good long time interviewing the prospective tenants, too.

But buyers are calling. Having people who call regularly about homes they want to see is quite a change from say six months ago. Some are first time buyers who qualify for the new state and fed tax credits (up to $10,000 I heard). But there are veteran homeowners too looking to relocate or move up. Both groups are driving hard bargains and many sellers are having a hard time letting go of their high listing prices.

The good news is that something seems to be going on here in Lake Shastina. We have two offers on one of our listings today for example. We haven't had multiple offers since 2003. That's significant.

Prices continue to fall however and some sellers are still in denial, having been spoiled by the recent good years but it is coming back around it seems. Don't take this to the bank, I'm just reflecting on what we are experiencing. I'm no economist or guru. Things could slow down from what we see right now.

We have 15 properties that we manage right now and that market is hot, too. The point is, real estate is far from dead as the media would have it. People need homes. People need to leave their homes and move elsewhere. That doesn't change.

John Grisham, The Street Lawyer.

I want to be this guy. Every darned book he writes makes the NY Times Best Seller list and he has nearing 20 now. Some, like this one from 1998 are re-issued and become bestsellers all over again. Amazing.

The Street Lawyer follows the same David vs Goliath theme that Grisham uses in some of his other books: struggling attorney takes on mega-lawyer firm to defend, in this case, homeless people in Washington DC. Grisham does a wonderful job (and he gives credit to several homeless advocates at the end) of describing what a dreadful life it is.

And unlike The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and other best sellers, Grisham's story has a happy ending.

Golden formula.

So Grisham's white knight lawyer sells. And in "Street Lawyer" the disillusioned hero Michael Brock is funny, too. Grisham uses deadpan humor . . . a response or thought that follows some insulting remark with no laughter provoked but following nontheless.

A good read.

Deer Me

When I went googling for black tail deer most of the photos were bucks with huge antlers. And some photos were of those same bucks in the arms of the shooter. But this lady is the type we see more of here in Lake Shastina, feeding in our yards and gardens.

So here's how I armored my vegetable plot against their certain onslaught.

First we bought a seven foot tall net fence rated for deer. Hard to see as it is (black in color), I tied bright orange flagging tape randomly along the top to draw the attention of any browser who might be thinking "that's not too high, I can jump that". Kind of pretty when the wind blows but if I get tired of it I may weave small branches into it that are natural in color.

Another thing we're trying is piling brush along the outside. I'm hoping it will make it difficult for a deer to get close enough to the netting since they seem to spring upward from a standing point to get over a fence rather than taking a running start. This also helps to camouflage the posts and the box shape of the garden as a whole.

By using green six foot U-shaped metal stakes I attached 2 x 2 wooden extensions reaching upward enough to support the netting. (With green spray paint they would blend nicely with the lower metal part). The stakes have screw holes in the "U" and because of that, the 2 by 2 fit nicely when snugged in with a 2" sheetrock screw.

Hint: rent a post pounder to drive these stakes. $5.50 for 24 hours takes a lot of work out of climbing up and down a ladder using a sledgehammer to set them.

This netting came in a seven foot high roll. On one side of the garden I have an existing fence three feet tall so I ripped some junk 2 x 4's and measured off 48" from one end. That is how much that has to stick up to get the seven foot total height to attach the netting. As long as I have 18 to 24 inches left to work with it should hold so they don't have to be 8 foot studs. Even six footers will work. I use 3" self-drilling Torx head screws to get it onto the fence post.

But if I staple the whole 7 foot webbing to these from the top down, I'm wasting the lower half because my fence is already 3 feet tall and the netting just hangs unused over that part.

So I cut along the fold of the netting and now my 100 foot roll will cover 200 feet. But there's a 12" gap (36 inch tall fence minus seven foot desired height = 48 inches).

I think deer perception of barriers is mostly visual though, so if I can "fill" the opening they may not try to stick their head through.

So I'm going to weave string from the metal fence mesh below to the vinyl netting above, back and forth in a zig-zag design the whole length. I may add a horizontal string and / or flagging to draw more attention.

The big thing this extra length means is that I might also be able to enclose our rear yard that already has the 36" fence on three sides. A 100 ft. roll of this deer netting ran us $70 so it would be a meaningful savings. Sally loves to have flowers there for color but the deer regularly eat them. Sometimes I think we're just buying deer food when we buy the flowers.

I forgot to mention that these wooden uprights are great places to hang light flower pots, humming bird feeders, windchimes, etc. Easy to attach things like that. Since my garden is only about 30 feet wide we may also run baling wire from one post top to another across the expanse for more hangings although the weight of anything would have to be much less than on the sides.

We also made the area large enough so we can put a potting bench along the north edge, a compost bin, a source pile of topsoil, and storage for tools. We'll even move in one of those (painfully heavy) cast iron sitting benches that is now on our front porch. So we can sit and admire the birds and plants.

Having Fun

This is great. We have room to plant a garden and don't want to spend a month's wages to do it. Raised beds seem smart so I grabbed some useless 2 x 6 cedar T & G that we had "saved" from our home in Mt. Shasta and stacked them. No nails needed. Adding some old angle iron stakes to stabilize we filled the boxes with 1/4 native dirt, 1/4 from our compost pile, 1/4 top soil that we had hauled in, and 1/4 soil conditioner from the mill.

How good can it get? So the next issue is deer, of which we have plenty. We found a vinyl net at Ace in Mt. Shasta . . . 7 feet tall by 100 feet long. So we bought some six foot U-shaped metal stakes which we pounded in 18 inches. Then, ripping some trash 2x4's that I got free at the landfill, I screwed them into the metal stakes to achieve a seven foot tall structure for our netting.

I tied the netting onto the wood stakes with string and added orange flagging tape to the netting between the (8 foot spaced) stakes so the deer could see it more clearly.

The neat thing about this garden arena is that we can run rope or baling wire from post to post around the perimeter and across the area from which we can hang bird feeders or flowering plants. Since the upmost parts of the "fence" are wood members we can also hang things from them using brackets.

It's nice to do stuff like this without spending much money. Which is good because the lettuce will come in at $3 a head if I factor in all the parts and labor . . .

Terry's Nursery

This is an unsolicited article. Terry (Brown) does not know I'm doing this. He told me he does not do the internet. They do not even do TV so I think I'm safe writing this.

Local gardeners revere this man and that is why I am writing this expose'. His business is located a couple miles north of the northern-most Yreka exit, on Highway 273 or something. Terry and his wife have operated this nursery for gazillions of years and they know everything. He even has his own custom-made fertilizer, 9-9-11. Which is special-made for this area.

Best of all it's Terry. No clerks. No hired help. Just Terry. Ask for him. Or his wife. Can you get this kind of service at WalMart?

Sunday Movies

Netflix is becoming helpful. We work from home and, silly as it seems, have less time off than when we were in an office with what they call floor time. That means sitting at a desk answering the phone and greeting customers who walk in. The phone quit ringing and people quit buying over a year ago and "floor time" became a dinosaur. Many offices are now letting their agents work from home which is where I was headed with this in the first place.

I get up early and am far more sparky in the AM so I check email, write addendums, and other stuff hours before civilized people go to work. And that's where it started.

I thought 9 to 5 was hard but for reasons still unclear I'm working more hours and more days here at my comfy home than I ever did at the office. I jump up from dinner to grab a call instead of leaving the phone to take a message. I "pack" if I go to the backyard to mow the lawn. I'm careful to carry my cell if I drive to town.

At least the phone stays out of the bathroom.

But the reality is we're working more hours from home than we ever did at the office. I realize working from home is a trend and I thought, a liberating one. You know, cast off the shackles of 9 to 5 and just you know, loosen up.

This is not true. Maybe it's just me but the work ethic, work habit seem to pre-dominate and we are both putting in more time and anxiety than before.

Interesting.

The Great Basin Brass Quintet

On Saturday, April 18 at 7:30 pm the Red Scarf Society offers the first of 3 spring musical treats at the Yreka Community Theater.

THE GREAT BASIN BRASS QUINTET has been entertaining adult and youth audiences for more than 30 years in the Reno and northern Nevada area. At one time or another, each member has been a part of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra. From black tux to T-shirt, from concert hall to rooftop, humor and energy are as essential to their performances as are their French horns, trumpets, and tubas. In addition to their extensive repertoire, they will perform at least one of the compositions of Yreka’s own, Kevin McKee. Tickets are available at the door for $20, adults & $5, children. If you like the Tijuana Brass, this one's for you.

PROGRESSION OF BIG BANDS Sunday, April 26 at 3 pm

Coming directly from a Reno, Nevada Jazz festival, the Southern Oregon University Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of YHS graduate, Dr. Martin Behnke, will anchor this afternoon’s festival. The ensemble is a traditional eighteen piece jazz orchestra playing from the entire history of big band jazz: Duke Ellington and Count Basie to Pat Metheny and Martin Behnke. Styles played are swing, jazz waltz, Latin, ballads and funk. College of the Siskiyous Jazz Band, under the direction of Sean Abel, will contribute its special mix of big band sounds to the afternoon’s event. An additional treat (and the opening group) is Mount Shasta’s Sisson School Jazz Band under the direction of Fred Wichmann. This talented and dedicated group of fifth through eighth graders practice before school at 7:30am. Yreka Community Theater. Tickets: $10 & $5

A CELEBRATION OF TALENT Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 10, at 3 pm
Local musicians Dorothy Hester (piano), Harlowe Kittle (clarinet) and Brian McKee (trombone) will provide beautiful music to help us celebrate Mother’s Day. The program will include the use of different combinations of their instruments as well as their playing two pieces on their recorders. Selections range from the late eighteenth century to the mid- twentieth century and will include Chopin, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Debussy, Poulenc, and Gershwin. These accomplished and talented performers are well known to our local audiences for participating in YCT’s birthday events and providing wonderful music locally. Tickets are $10 for adults & $5 students/children.

After Hours Veterinary Care in Siskiyou County

Our next meeting is Wednesday April 15 at 9am in the Black Bear Diner in Mt. Shasta and given the responses I'm getting we may be making progress. Two veterinarians out of the nine I mailed responded by telephone with ideas and I'm hoping one or more will have breakfast with us and work with us to fix this problem. I'm planning to call any office that has not answered, too.
Here is what one vet said:
1. emergency care is a board-certified specialty so pets get better care if we go to Medford or Redding.
2. an on-call vet often will not be able to get staff to come in which means he or she has to do all the monitoring as well as the procedures. Result can be a lower level of care.
3. very hard on the doctor's health; blood pressure goes up every time the phone rings so they avoid being around a phone.
4. 40% didn't pay the bill compared with 1 or 2% in regular practice.

Valid points. Can any of you readers come back? For instance would any veterinarian here consider getting that emergency care certification? (but would our population support the specialty practice? That's why we don't have brain surgeons here).

More to the point would you please talk to your vet about this meeting and this issue? We need their help to fix it.

Sharing Gardens

If you see it on the news it's legit, right? The Medford channel is doing "Scott's Garden" every Tuesday at 5 with the first show on the 15th. They promise to talk about raised bed gardening, planting seeds, germination, harvesting, and my topic here: sharing.

In these hard times it seems wise to grow as much as you can. But some of us don't have the time / space / knowledge to be completely self-sustaining. So the idea is that we share.

Maybe I can do root crops like carrots or potatoes, or onions. But Frank who has more sunlight, can do corn, beans, and other tall crops.

No brainer; Frank and I share.

And it can be rotational. I can plant more than I need two or three times. Same with Frank. If there were more than two of us we could all share a communal garden almost year-round.

Sounds communist almost. But these are depression times. No room to stand on ego or social status. Being neighborly pays.

Tiffy Goes Exploring

This is a photo of our little precious. At one of the rare moments when she holds still. In this shot, taken at last summer's sheltie roundup here in Shastina she is "quiet" only because she is in the middle of a yardfull of strange people and dogs. The truth is that she is terrified and hiding here by my side (that's me in the chair).

Last night she didn't stick with me, though. I'd left a gate open as I was wheelbarrowing fill for our garden and she decided to follow our other shelties out through it. Andrew as he always does was sniffing the yard across the street and came on call. Oliver who is deaf was there too, and came because Andy did.

Not Tiffany. By the time we noticed they were out she had fled. Now most shelties are very shy and will flee from human approach. They tend to hide when afraid too, diving into culverts and under porches when being chased which makes finding them even harder. So rather than sticking with her pals Tiff decided to go it on her own and headed off.

We got a call from someone on Possum Court saying she had seen a sheltie headed up Hogan so we jumped in the car. But with a flighty breed like this it's hard to see them. Unlike the docile (and sensible) Lab, they don't just trot alongside the road. Oh no, cross country it must be.

So of course we called the LSPD. Stan Beck was on duty and promised to watch for her. In addition and unknown to us, other people had somehow heard and headed out as well . . . real estate clients, other sheltie owners, and like the lady on Possum, complete strangers.

Soon, Stan got a call and had her spotted on Big Springs Road by the police department. We were stunned that she would go so far (we live on Muskrat in Unit 7-3) and by the time I got there she was on Lake Shore near Gallop. Even when I called her name and got out of the car she was too frightened to come at first but eventually I got her leash on and started home.

I thanked Stan and he pointed to a walker who he said was looking too, so I stopped and thanked her. She was the one who had called earlier.

The moral of the story is how nice it is to live in a place like this. Where neighbors and even complete strangers notice who you are and look out for you.

Significant Household Cleaning Discovery

I have recently discovered a revolutionary floor care system which, until I patent the concept, I will call "Shuffle Cleaning". I stumbled upon this marvelous concept when, after injuring my knee in an embarrassing athletic maneuver which will go unexplained, I was unable to get down on my knees to clean the floor in the traditional way. ("getting down" as used here bears no resemblance to the use of this phrase during the disco 70's).

Anyway, happily bearing the husbandly duty of sharing the burden of maintaining our home I had previously been granted the tasks of vacuuming and mopping. These of course are relative terms. Rather than "vacuuming" for instance I favor bending over and picking up the offending object (strand of hair, dust mote, etc.). This is green thinking in the purest sense. Why waste coal-fired electricity by turning on a polluting vacuum cleaner when you can just dib and dab up those offensive motes?

But I digress. The revelation of "shuffling" came when, as I said, my knee prevented the regular application of traditional floor cleaning techniques. I probably should hire an agent and go global with this but hey, I'm not after money here so here's the secret ..... don't tell, okay?

Wet two facecloth-size rags with cleaner and shuffle across the floor. One under each foot. Most men can do this easily because we spend significant amounts of time looking at our feet. But the advantage is that it appears to others as if we are intent on staring down those nasty spots on the laminate and thus we accumulate praise for our perspicacity. Win-win.

I can do our entire home in under ten minutes. Sure, I might miss a splat or two but I can always put that off to my bad eyes.

Editor.

Animal Volunteer(s) Needed

Many of us are pet owners and sometimes we need medical care for our charges. As they age the need for care increases, sometimes just to end their suffering. This of course is very hard on human owners but it can be even harder when treatment cannot be found in time.

I'm referring to what one has to do when a pet has a serious medical condition after normal working hours. The only solution if you can call it that is Redding or Medford where veterinary service is on call 24 hours a day. That's an hour and a half away, not enough time to treat a serious injury or a poisoning. Most animals would suffer and perhaps die before ever reaching either city.

At some time in the past there was a cooperative effort among vets here to provide after hours care. Evidently it was a rotating on-call schedule split between north and south county. It must have worked for a time since people in animal care remember it, but something went awry. Perhaps someone did not pay a bill. Maybe somebody complained. Some vet got upset at another vet perhaps. Egos may have gotten bruised. Who knows. But today we are back to the Redding - Medford choice. Again.

Some of us are taking another look at this, though. People who work in shelters, animal control, and other pet environments share a growing concern with this lack of care. Too often they see injured or diseased animals suffer in their arms and sometimes perish before an office opens the following day.

So we have been meeting and gathering ideas. This week we wrote every veterinary office in the county to solicit their input. We also invited them to our next breakfast meeting at the Black Bear Diner in Mt. Shasta on April 15. (We also welcome any concerned pet owner to the gathering, it is not a closed setting.)

The title for this article is one idea being tossed around. Some people with veterinary experience in different areas of our huge county who would agree to be on call for emergencies. And there are other ideas that could be layered on top of this one to not only make coverage better but make it easy on those who provide it.

Please call or write me with your suggestions. April 15 is not that far away and I would very much like to have new ideas to put on the table. You can email me at batchelder@gotsky.com, call me at 938-0385, or just write to 5225 Muskrat Rd., Weed, CA 96094.

This situation has "humane" written all over it and while veterinary care is a business like any other it's inconceivable to me that they don't care or don't see the suffering that can go on after hours. Surely that's why the vets organized themselves to try and address it in the past. Perhaps with our help and volunteers we can urge them to try again. Even though pet owners spend good money at the local vet offices this really isn't about money. It's about compassion, and the dedicated will to prevent suffering in helpless animals.

We need all the help we can get. There has to be an answer.

A Garden "Network" Here in Lake Shastina?

What if those of us who have fruit and vegetable gardens linked up to share? Many times we have too much of something but need something else. If we knew eachother and posted our needs and surpluses we could share, right?

The Victory Garden idea is coming back now that "depression" is a politically correct word. And the concept still works. A variant is having a community garden in any of our future park sites where neighbors plant, weed, and water in a joint effort. In one place. These are wildly successful in urban areas and could be combined with the doggie park idea that I proposed in another article.

Your input is needed.

Bruce