In that tiny kinda scary house by the woods, by the woods, by the woods…

She never let on how insane it was

in that tiny kinda scary house

by the woods, by the woods, by the woods, by the woods.

You don’t need a spaceship

they don’t know you’ve already lived

on the other side of the galaxy. ~T.Amos

I have gotten no more real interest on my house after that terrible offer I declined. Someone saw it yesterday and loved it. “But she’s scared.” my agent said.

“Scared of fires?” I asked.

“Yes. Her house burned down in the Carr Fire.”

I know everyone loves my house but the fear of fires is a legitimate concern. As I tossed and turned last night stressing over everything going on with me, I thought, ‘maybe the Park Fire is too recent.’

The Park Fire was finally 100% contained on Friday after three months and 329K acres and hundreds of homes burned. Maybe after people put some distance between them and the Park Fire, my house may get a good offer. Or maybe I just stay and send my pets to my parents’ for the next fire season. I don’t know. But I can’t spend anymore time thinking about it. And I mean, what kind of narrative would I hold on to if it wasn’t the one of living alone in the woods. The one of living in a subdivision in Redding isn’t a very exciting narrative at all.

This morning over coffee, I recorded 15 different bird species. And a first in the yard, I had a red-breasted sapsucker! It really is a treat to have a front seat to all this nature. We even had a snake incident last week. Fortunately, it was only a gopher snake. But I understand why someone would be scared to live here, it has recovered so fast from the Carr Fire. I didn’t think we’d have anything that could burn for another 10 years, yet merely six years later, here we are, and all the pines are coming back all over the hills, and at 4 feet tall, it looks like a giant Christmas tree farm because they are all growing that perfect and uniform.

I will keep the house on the market and stop thinking about it, I have too much birding and work stuff going on. I am about to make a three year commitment in the birding world. More to come on that.